Mike Sheerin, consulting chef at Three Floyds Brewpub and chef-owner of the yet-to-open restaurant the Trencherman, challenged his brother Patrick Sheerin, executive chef at the Signature Room at the 95th, to come up with a recipe using hop pellets for this installment of our weekly feature.
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In keeping with his beer theme, Sheerin used malted barley, another core ingredient in brewing (the sweetness of the malt balances the bitter hops), to make a risotto. He chose caramel malt, one of the sweeter kinds, and used all three citrusy varieties of hops in his dish. “Especially after tasting the caramel malt, it was kind of in my head to use this chocolate sauce and I was like, chocolate-caramel-citrus seemed to go really well together, so that’s kind of the path we went down. And I had beer on the brain, and beer and citrus is not too far off as a pairing.”
Sheerin ended up using hops in four variations: hop-dusted sweetbreads with a malt and hop risotto, chocolate hop sauce, and mandarinquat-hop marmalade. Still “thinking along the lines of beer and bar food,” he decided to chicken-fry the sweetbreads in a pretzel crust, reasoning that pretzels pair well with citrus and chocolate.
But despite incorporating two of the main ingredients of beer, “it doesn’t taste like beer in the least bit.”
Chicken-Fried Sweetbreads With Hops, Chocolate, and Citrus
1 Egg
Brine the sweetbreads overnight in large pieces. Cold smoke for 30 minutes and then poach at 130 degrees for 45 minutes, chill, clean, and separate into smaller pieces. Pour flour into a large, shallow bowl and beat the egg and buttermilk together in another one. Run the pretzels through smallest hole on a food mill and then put in another bowl. Gently season the sweetbreads with salt before dredging them in flour, then egg, finishing with the pretzel meal. Let the crust set up for at least 45 minutes before frying. Deep-fry at 325 degrees until golden brown and hot through the center, approximately 1<0x00BD> minutes. Drain and toss with some of the hop dust love. The sugar will melt and help the flavor stick to the sweetbread.
