Disclaimer: Here Comes the Food Boozeday Toozeday posts are intended for responsible adults of the legal drinking age. If you are under the legal drinking age please cover your eyes and scroll down until all the ‘bad stuff’ has gone from your screen. We DO NOT smile upon underage drinking, drinking and driving and alcohol abuse unlike our mascot (but he smiles at anything -__-). Please drink in moderation and with caution and most importantly, enjoy ^^!

Hello… my name is Richard and… and… I am not an alcoholic but I do love my beers. I have decided to start a series of Boozeday Toozeday where I will review a new drink (yeah.. I know, foodblogging is such a hard hobby ) and hopefully spread the word about interesting and tasty beers. My passion for beers was revived by the Beef & Beer Masterclass where I was introduced to many exciting beers which I had not tried before. I also had a unofficial first post with Hoegaarden but this shall be the first official post of the series As with the Hoegaarden post, I shall try and include a recipe as food matches so beautifully with beer hee hee. If you have any recommendations please let me know, thanks! Without further adieu Here Comes the Booze!

Helga from American Gladiators (http://www.teleport-city.com/jst/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/hellga.jpg)

If someone mentioned to me ‘Big Helga’ a few days ago, I would immediately imagine a big and strong German lady like Helga from American Gladiators. But now, thanks to Ben Barren, I now think of a smooth and refreshing beer by Matilda Bay.

Check out her 6-pack O_O

Big Helga by Matilda Bay

I was quite interested to try this as Matilda Bay had brought us Beez Neez (which I really like) and Fat Yak (which is also pretty decent), and now they have introduced this Munich style lager into the Aussie beerflow. Big Helga made her debut across some of the Aussie bars last year in October and now she is making a comeback in bottle-form as of Feburary.

Liquid gold… get your mind out of the gutter

This beer was actually quite the opposite of what I expected. I expected the big and strong Helga of American Gladiators to tackle me with each sip and pack a big oomph but it was quite the contrary. However we should do this properly starting with the colour. It is a pleasant golden brown, like a deep amber and with a nice white head she is definitely pretty. It is a clear beer due to the filtration and has a moderate carbonation. It gives off an grainy aroma so probably not the best fragrance of the lot but not unpleasant.  The taste and feel of this beer is pretty smooth and goes down very easy. There is a noticeable malt flavour and a very very subtle bitter aftertaste from the hops. Overall the beer is clean and slightly bland which makes it one of the easier ones to drink but will get boring quite quickly.

I do not fully judge a beer just from a bottle and would like to try it on tap but from my observations so far I would prefer the other Matilda Bay beers over Big Helga but she was definitely worth trying.

Here Comes the Food

Nothing like caramelizing bacon mmmmmmm

This recipe is adapted from Candied Bacon Green Salad (Serves 4) of Jamie’s America because in my normal fashion, I wing it as I go replacing ingredients with this and that and not using measuring equipment haha. I still kept with the salad (:P), candied bacon, croutons but instead of pomegranate I added a soft boiled egg.

For the creamy French Dressing

6 tbsp good quality extra-virgin olive oil

3 tbsp white wine vinegar (I used red wine vinegar)

1 heaped tsp Dijon mustard

1 heaped tbsp natural yogurt

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Put all the ingredients into a large serving bowl, whisk together and season to taste. You want it slightly too acidic, so add another splash of vinegar if you need to.

For the salad

12 rasher of smoked streaky bacon, the best quality you can afford

1 clove garlic, peeled

3 slices of fresh white bread

olive oil

freshly ground black pepper

2 heaped teaspoons of demerara sugar (I used honey)

3 clementines (I used oranges)

5 large handfuls of mixed salad leaves, washed and spun dry

1 pomegranate (I replaced with soft boiled egg)

a small bunch of fresh mint, leaves picked

To create you candied bacon (mmmmmm… bacon) heat large frying pan to medium heat, add bacon and cook until lightly brown (but not really crispy). Remove bacon to plate. Squash garlic and add to pan, turn up heat and tear up bread into medium-sized chunks. Let the bread suck up all the flavours (aka bacon fat) and become crispy. If the bacon did not release enough flavour add some lugs of olive oil. Add a pinch of black pepper and shake the bread around until it is crispy and golden.

Wipe clean the pan with kitchen paper. Put bacon back on with sugar or honey and the juice of 1 clementine. Concentrate on what you are doing as you don’t want it to burn also do NOT taste anything as it will just burn you at this point. When the bacon is syrupy and caramelized, remove to an oiled plate with tongs to cool down. It will set in whatever shape you let it to cool down in so you can make some funky-shaped bacon rashers if you wish. Peel and slice the remaining clementines into rounds.

Dress the salad with the dressing along with the fresh mint. Halve the pomegranate and use spoon to knock the seeds onto the leaves or be like me and soft boil an egg instead. Add the croutons, clementines and bacon rashers. Pop open the egg to ooze the yolk out and hooray, enjoy!

PS. Candied bacon is sooooo awesome

FFichiban

1. Katherine Says:
   March 8th, 2010 at 11:02 pm

   Candied bacon wow. Its almost as good as bacon jam. Helga is one scary chick. I would want to cross her.

2. billy@ATFT Says:
   March 8th, 2010 at 11:09 pm

   bwhahahaha hthat pic is hwang nee!!! I was totally wasted on Big Helga and didnt even take a photo! hahaahah

3. D Says:
   March 9th, 2010 at 8:55 am

   Helga’s pigtails are hawt. That gooey egg looks yum

4. Steph Says:
   March 9th, 2010 at 9:20 am

   Hahaha here comes the booze, love it! That bacon is making my mouth water mmm…Helga not so much. LOL

5. Jacq Says:
   March 9th, 2010 at 1:30 pm

   candied bacon omg! sounds like it would make an awesome brekky with that runny egg as well =D I love gladiators but I never got to watch the US version, was it any good? Helga looks scary =S

6. chocolatesuze Says:
   March 9th, 2010 at 4:16 pm

   omg that looks so good! dammit i only have 1 bottle left hmm the effort.. come and cook for me richard!

7. mademoiselle délicieuse Says:
   March 9th, 2010 at 6:06 pm

   Mmmm…candied bacon!

8. FFichiban Says:
   March 10th, 2010 at 6:42 pm

   Katherine – I rkn candied bacon is better than bacon jam! And you want to take on Helga ?
   Billy – Haha good work man!
   D – Haha you know you wanna hit that… egg
   Steph – Hee hee thanks!
   Jacq – I haven’t seen that many but it seemed like the same thing
   Chocolatesuze – Haha maybe! Cooking is le fun but messy
   Mademoiselle Délicieuse – Mmmmm indeed!

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