The Foodpairing impossible challenge arrived at our bar in the old centre of Ghent — Jiggers — last week. The Old fashioned bar passed us on the mission to combine ketchup and coffee in a cocktail. We’ve created our own version of a Michelada cocktail and matching blood orange appetizer.
A Michelada is a Mexican ‘cerveza preparada’ made with beer, lime juice and assorted sauces, spices and peppers. It comes chilled in a salt-rimmed glass. There are numerous variations of this drink throughout Mexico and Latin America. Additional sauces such as Worcestershire sauce, serrano peppers, soy sauce, tomato juice or chile sauces are used to spiced up this beer cocktail. Be warned, when in Mexico it is best to ask how your Michelada is prepared before ordering!
Foodpairing challenges us to think outside the box, so in order to use coffee we are using an espresso stout to get the coffee flavour. This coffee beer is a deep and complex ale with dark roasted malts and a jolt of espresso. Apart from some ketchup and and umami-rich liquids, we’ve used our homemade mix of red cabbage juice, blood orange juice, beetroot kvass, verjus and a little bit of sugar. The sourness of lime juice in the classic recipe is replaced by the verjus, juice of unripened sour grapes.
“This Jigger’s Michelada is made according to the philosophy of our bar. At Jigger’s we try to work with local vegetables and fruits such as beetroot, capsicum and cabbage, instead of tropical, sweet ingredients. Also bartenders have the duty to approach their creations with an ecological mindset. Foodpairing is a great support in being creative with local foods.”
The extra spicy touch is added through spicy essences, a tincture of diffferent kinds of peppers on alcohol. This can also be replaced by tabasco or chipotle. Depends on how much spiciness you can handle! Enjoy!
Jigger’s Michelada (1 serve)
Ingredients
- 1 bottle of Espresso stout beer
- bar spoon of homemade ketchup
- spicy sauces according to taste: cherry tomato juice with salt, spicy essence
- 4cl homemade mix (red cabbage juice, blood orange juice, beetroot kvass, verjus, sugar)
- dried beetroot
- salt
Preparations
Making the homemade mix will be most of the work. Our mixture contains red cabbage juice (2), blood orange juice (1), beetroot kvass (1) (you can find many recipes of this Russian beverage on the web), verjus (1) and some sugar to balance out the sourness.
Fill your glass with ice cubes. Poor in the homemade mix. Add sauces and spicy essence according to you own taste. Fill up the glass with Espresso stout. Spice up with some pepper.
A classic Michelada comes with a salt-rimmed glass. We’ve added mixed dried beetroot (good way to use your leftovers) for extra crunch, color and flavour.
Blood orange appetizer
This cocktail comes with a slice of blood orange which was marinated in a vinegar of fermented red cabbage. You can finish it off with some dried kapers and dill.
