Cod loin in a light cream sauce with Spaten Munchner Hell

"Cod is the king of the cold water fish" we are told and it does have a great deal to recommend it. I'm more of a haddock guy but I do appreciate a nice piece of the flaky sweet flesh that cod offers.

This is quite a classic way to treat cod and, as asparagus and new potatoes are bang in season, this dish came together quite simply. The largest risk in this is overcooking the fish, if there is such a thing as a culinary crime the overcooking fish is that crime. 

• 2 medium sized cod fillets
• 1 small bunch of asparagus
• Two handfuls of new potatoes (jersey royals if you can get them).
• Two glugs of dry sherry (one for the fish, one for the sauce) 
• 150ml double cream
• 200ml of fish stock (perfectly fine to use a cube)
• 2 tsp lumpfish caviar
• Tiny glug of oil.
• 10gms butter

Pre heat the oven to 160 ish degrees. Spread a tiny bit of oil on a sheet of aluminium foil, place the fish on the foil and wrap the foil upwards around the fish, leaving a hole in the top. Pour the first glug of sherry in the hole and seal it up. (You can pop a slice or two of lemon in if you like as well),

Put this on a baking sheet and into the fridge. Put the potatoes on to boil. And pop another pan of salted water on to boil ready for the asparagus.

In a third pan reduce the stock with the second glug of sherry until it is half its volume.

When the asparagus water is boiling add you trimmed asparagus (see tip) and boil until just starting to turn tender. Remove them from the boiling water and run them under the tap to make them quite cold.

When the potatoes are starting to soften, pop the fish in the oven.

Add the cream to the stock and reduce a little (it doesn't need to be very thick). Pop a frying pan on the heat and melt the butter in it until foaming but not browned.

By now your potatoes should be ready. You have to move quite fast from here on. Take the fish out of the oven and allow the steam to come out of the foil. Add the caviar to the sauce and stir, taking it off the heat. Pop the cool asparagus in the butter and warm through. Drain the potatoes from their water and allow them to steam for a minute.

Now to plate up: place a few asparagus spears on the plate and pop the cod on top. pour the sauce wherever you think looks good and place the spuds around the plate. Breathe and serve.

Tip. When you are preparing asparagus and want to get rid of the woody ends, hols the top and bottom of the spear in separate hands and bend, it will always break where it becomes tender. Keep the woody ends in a box in the freezer and then when you have enough, make cream of asparagus soup with them. 

The match

The Spaten brewery can trace its origins back to 1397. It is one of the original six, Munich Oktoberfest breweries. As with a lot of the breweries in Germany they are owned by big brewing interests but manage to maintain a sense of identity and history in their beer. It is light bodied,malty and smooth, with a hint of sweetness and a dry, clean finish. Now in food matching terms this sort of dish would be matched with a dry white wine, maybe a Sancerre or a Poully Fume. I think that this beer was every bit as good as classic Loire white would be. I will add that a traditional English Best Bitter works really well with battered cod for the same reasons; just with more malt to work with the batter!

Marinated lamb leg steaks and Hacker Pschorr Weissbier

 Primarily, please allow me to apologise for the long time since I have written this blog. This has been caused by a health scare that meant that I was not in a place to write about food and especially drink for a while. However, all is now well and I am back at my keyboard. I am going to continue to write about the matching of beer with food until I run out of beers or ideas.

It has been a beautiful Spring in the UK. Much warmer and drier than usual and there has been plenty of sun. This means that all over the country men (and it is mainly men) are getting out their rusty BBQ grills and filling them with charcoal. I am no exception to this norm! I have a tiny little grill which folds up on itself for storage this is plenty enough for two people though I would probably get one far larger if I was feeding a gang.

Below is a recipe for a marinated lamb leg steak cooked over charcoal. It made enough for 3 in reality but certainly enough for 2 greedy Brits.

• 2 lamb steaks
• 2 tbsp pomegranate molasses
• 3 minced garlic cloves
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• Juice of half a lemon
• pinch of salt
• 1 handful of fresh mint (shredded)
• Salad leaves
• 50 gms pomegranate seeds
• a few parmesan shavings 
• a smear of humous
• 2 tbsp vinaigrette 
• 1 large ciabatta loaf

Mix the molasses with the oil , lemon juice, garlic, salt and mint in a shallow dish. Add the lamb and coat all over. Pop in the fridge for, at least, a couple of hours.

Light your grill and give it plenty of time for it to come up to heat. Slice the ciabatta in half along its length and toast the open sides on the grill. Smear the humous over the bottom side of the loaf. 

Get the steaks on the grill and cook to your liking (probably medium to medium rare for lamb). Then, and this is really important, allow your lamb to rest for quite a bit longer than you imagine - about the same length of time as they took to cook.

Add the salad leaves to the vinaigrette (you could even add one or two mint leaves here). Throw in the pomegranate seeds. Then pile the salad on the bread. Slice up the lamb and pop it on top. 

A few parmesan shavings over it all, then put the lid on your sandwich and take a short minute to enjoy how beautiful it looks and what a genius you are and then slice it and serve.

The Match

Hacker-Pschorr is one of the great breweries of Munich. It is, however, difficult to truly say when it was founded: maybe in 1417, the first records of the Hacker brewery or 1813 when Joseph Pschorr bought the brewery from his father in law having married into the Hacker family or even 1972 when they became a single company in law! They are now owned by massive beer corporations but maintain their brewing independence and produce some cracking beers. 

I make no secret of my abiding love of German wheat beers and this is one of the classics. Golden honey to look at, it has banana, clove and vanilla on the nose. Then comes a rich, soft mouth feel with more banana and spice. It finishes long and demands that you take another gulp.

It matched beautifully with the lamb adding spice and depth whilst being strong enough to work with some pretty powerful flavours. (Then again, I would say that, wouldn't I?)

Lamb loin dinner with Animal Brewery Hop kitty

 This is a posh dinner. Trimmed lamb loin (or cannon of lamb) is not a cheap cut of meat. However, treated simply and with a little care it more than pays back the expense of the initial purchase. With this recipe I have added some dinner party favourites alongside the meat. A loin of lamb should serve two or three people depending on the time of year and hence the age of the beast.

• 1 trimmed lamb loin
• Lamb stock
• Fruity red wine
• Redcurrant jelly

Dauphinoise potatoes

• 500gms maincrop potatoes (sliced quite thin)
• Large knob of butter
• 300ml double cream
• Full fat milk to top up
• 3 plump cloves of garlic (crushed)

Crushed peas

• 400gms peas (fresh or frozen)
• Large sprig of mint (leaves only)
• Dash of double cream

Its always best to start with the spuds. Dauphinoise is one of those dishes of which everyone thinks they have the perfect recipe. Many trace their recipe's history back to the great chefs of French classical cooking or to an ageing French great aunt. I have developed mine over time and there is nothing very clever about it, I promise there will be no rubbing of cut garlic on the roasting dish as I have never found this in any way effective. Put the cream and garlic in a small pan and slowly bring to a simmer. Allow this to barely disturb the surface for 5 minutes then turn off the hob and allow it to stand for over an hour. Add a pinch of salt.

Rub the inside of a baking dish with the butter to ensure an even coating. Place the potatoes in any order and push down a little to minimise the gaps. pour over the cream whilst stirring it to ensure the bits of garlic are evenly distributed. Top up with the milk if necessary so that the level of liquid is just below the top spuds.

cover loosely with foil and place (on a baking try) in a medium hot oven. After about 40 minutes take the foil off to crisp up the top.

Add a little oil to a frying pan and bring up the heat until it is almost smoking. pop in the entire loin turning to ensure all sides and edges are sealed and taking on some crust. Then place the lamb in a small roasting dish and into the oven (you could add a clove of garlic and maybe a sprig of rosemary if you wanted to be flash). It should take 10 to 15 minutes depending on how pink you like your lamb.

Return the frying pan to the heat and add a large glass of the red wine, reduce this by half then add a similar amount of the stock and reduce by a third. Add two big teaspoons of the redcurrant jelly to the sauce and stir to dissolve. slowly reduce this by just a little. 

Boil a little water in a small saucepan and add your peas, boil the peas for 4 or 5 minutes then place them in a mini blender with the mint, a little bit of butter and a dash of double cream. Blend just briefly so you are left with a lumpy, bright green mash. 

Allow the meat to rest for a good ten minutes after cooking, then carve. Serve with a little tower of the dauphinoisse, a spoonful of the pea mash another seasonable vegetable (I used slim asparagus). Pour the the sauce around the meat and enjoy.

The match

Animal Brewery is the slightly more experimental, alter ego of XT brewery based in Long Crendon, in the shadows of the Chiltern Hills near Thame. Animal produce beers named after or around animals such as Squid Ink Black IPA, Jack Rabbit |American Amber and Hop Kitty. Many of their beers are only available as limited editiomns or at certain times of the year. Hop Kitty describes itself as a Citra Pale. And the Citra hop presence is very clear on both the nose and the palate though it is firmly grounded in an English malt base. The hop power was perfect for cutting through the obvious richness of this dish. The citrus and resiny high notes also lent a bit of balance to the dish. Overall a beautiful match that had me reaching for a second bottle.     

 

Langoustine on a bed of pureed cauliflower and samphire with langoustine bisque and Blue Moon

When I was first trying to teach myself to cook I read every recipe I could. It didn't matter if it was from a cookbook, a Sunday newspaper supplement, or on a scrap of paper; if someone had taken the time to write it down then I felt it should be read. After all, how else was I supposed to become the culinary genius that I wanted to be! It will come as no surprise that I have never attained the status of "culinary genius", there are no Michelin stars in my history and no restaurant critic has ever hailed me as the "next great thing" in a kitchen. There are many reasons why this didn't happen and one of the minor ones is that so many food items have too many names. Langoustine, Norwegian lobster, Dublin bay prawn and Scampi all sound delicious but they are also all the same thing! The sad thing about this delicious seafood is the fact that the vast majority of these crustaceans that are caught in UK waters are exported to the continent where they are properly appreciated. 

This dish is based on a classic sauce/soup, the bisque. This means that you get to use the shells of the beast in order to extract all of the flavour. This serves 4 as an indulgent lunch.

• 12 or 16 raw langoustines (frozen is fine)
• 1 medium cauliflower (broken into small florets)
• Vegetable stock
• Double cream
• 1 pack of samphire 
• 1 medium onion (finely diced)
• 1/2 bulb of fennel (finely chopped)
• 2 sticks of celery (finely chopped
• 1 carrot (finely diced)
• 2 cloves garlic (crushed)
• 1 squirt of tomato puree
• Splash of brandy
• Bigger splash of dry vermouth
• 1.5 ltr of fish stock.
• Paprika

Your first job is to remove the meat from the langoustines. I find it easiest to twist off the head section ans use kitchen scissors to cut down the underside of the shell. Then use your fingers to open up the shell and pull out the meat with the tail. The intestinal tract should come out with the tail but check this and cut it out if necessary. (It does seem like a lot of work for such a little piece of meat but I promise it is worth it). Make sure you reserve all of the shell and head of the beast.

Swear down the onion, fennel, carrot and celery in a saucepan with a little oil until softening but not browning. Split the heads of the shells and remove the sand sack (if present) and the "tomally" (a green sack) rinse these if necessary. Add all of the shell bits to the veg and stir well. cook gently for about ten minutes then add a good squirt of tomato puree then add the brandy and reduce (flame it if you want to show off, scare your partner or set off your fire alarm but this is not necessary). Reduce until it is almost all gone, then add the vermouth and reduce by half. Add enough fish stock to cover everything and simmer for about an hour. 

Strain everything into a fresh saucepan (make sure you use the back of a ladle to squeeze out all of the juices) return this to the heat and reduce further, add a really good slug of double cream and reduce further. Taste and season.

Whilst the sauce is reducing pop the cauliflower in a sauce pan with not quite enough vegetable stock to cover them. Cover and boil the cauliflower until it seems a tiny bit over cooked. Add a large dash of double cream and pop into the liquidiser. Once blitzed pop back into the saucepan and reduce if necessary, you are looking for a thick smooth puree. Keep warm. 

Bring some water to the boil in another saucepan and add the samphire (do not add salt) boil for 4 minutes.

In a frying pan, fry the langoustine meat in a little butter with some garlic if you like.

To plate up, place a solid dollop of the cauliflower in the middle of the plate, top this with some samphire and put thee or four langoustines on top. run the sauce around this and sprinkle over a little paprika.

 

The match

Blue moon is a Belgium style wheat beer brewed in Denver in the states. In Europe it is brewed under license. I have never made any secret of my love for wheat beers of any type so this was always going to be a treat for me. Like many of its Belgium cousins, it has distinct coriander and orange overtones and this stood up to the sweetness of the seafood very well. For a whet beer it has a medium body so was not too much for the delicate sauce and the complexity of the biscuity wheat flavours gave great balance against the cauliflower and samphire. This was a lovely combination.

Pasta with Short rib Ragu with Northern Monk, Sup

Pasta bolognese is a staple of every student kitchen and everyone has their own "secret" ingredient or special way of delivering this economical and filling staple. However, it is a bit of a fraud: a pile of spagetti with a huge dollop of meat sauce on top is really not very authentic. In the spirit of this fraudulent behaviour, the recipe below has been written and cooked without any research or even a glance at an Italian cookbook. My secret ingredient is Watkin's Mushroom ketchup. This is not like tomato ketchup, this is not for dipping your chips in! It is a wonderfully savoury and acidic seasoning liquid with a lovely mushroom flavour. It is brilliant for braises. soups and sauces.

• 4 Beef short ribs
• A splash of oil
• 1 medium carrot (diced)
• 1 medium onion (diced)
• 1 celery stick (diced)
• Crushed garlic (as much as you dare)
• 1 tbsp of flour
• 1/2 bottle red wine (chef's decision on what you do with the rest)  
• 500ml beef stock
• Big handful of baby mushrooms
• 1 tin of plum tomatoes
• 1 splash of Watkins Mushroom ketchup
•  Hard Italian cheese (or a slab of cheddar is none is available)

Heat the oil in a casserole on the hob and pop in the short ribs through the flour to coat and then put in the casserole. Make sure each side is thoroughly browned to a nice crust. Remove the ribs to a plate and add the onions, carrots and celery to the pan, cook till everything is soft and just starting to take colour then add the garlic and cook for a couple more minutes. 

Return the ribs (and any left over flour) to the mix and pour in the wine, tomatoes and stock. Brink to the boil, turn down to a simmer and leave on the hob for a couple of hours, stirring every now and then.

After two hours your kitchen should smell amazing. Add the mushrooms and ketchup and continue with the simmer for another 30 minutes.

Remove the ribs from the liquid and pull out the bones - they have done their job. When the flesh is cool enough to touch pull the meat away from any gristle and pull it apart with two forks. Bring the liquid back to the boil to reduce a little. Then add the meat back into the liquid and cook for a few minutes more. Heat a large pan of water to the boil and add a big pinch of salt (I was once told the water should be as salty as the Mediterranean) When the water is at a rolling boil add some dried pasta (tagliatelle and papperdelle would be ideal). 

When the pasta is cooked, drain it then swiftly add the beef ragu. stir it all together. Serve with the cheese grated over the top and a twist of newly milled black pepper.

The Match

I have previously written about how much I admire Northern Monk Brewery and this was a beer of theirs that I had never tried. The beer itself is a light golden ale coming in a 3.4% alcohol. There was a tiny hint of citrus on the nose back up by some floral tones. The body was light though nicely carbonated and a soft malt spine held the whole thing together. This is going to sound strange but it would be the perfect match for this meal if it was an early evening dinner; it would probably need to be replaced by something richer if it were to be a late night supper. I offer no rational flavour explanation for this and no excuse either.

Viet Nam / Thai spring rolls and Queer Brewing Flower

These little spring rolls are not very authentic, or at least, they are of mixed authenticity! Further to this, I have deliberately written the recipe to be vague as they should be made to your taste and precision is not an issue here. They can be served as part of a flight of canapes or as a starter; I have even served them as a lunch in their own right. They can be hot, spicy, mellow, salty, sweet or sour and any combination of these. 

The wraps are available in some supermarkets and most Asian shops. You should look for the ones that seem to have woven pattern all over them. In essence they are dried rice paper discs and they come in various sizes to suit how you wish to serve them. The ones I used were on the smaller size, perfect for little snacks. 

Rice paper wraps before re-hydration

• Rice paper wraps
• Carrot (sliced into fine "julienne"
• Cucumber (middle removed and sliced into fine "julienne")
• Spring onions (sliced into fine "julienne")
• Bean sprouts
• Cooked White crab meat (or prawns, or lobster, or anything you fancy)
• Red chilli (finely diced)
• Soy sauce
• Nam Pla (fish sauce)
• Toasted sesame oil

Put all of the ingredients except the wraps in a bowl, adding enough of the ingredients as you fancy (be a little careful with the liquid ingredients - you don't want soup). Pop this in the fridge for an hour or so for the ingredients to be properly introduced to each other.

In a frying pan, or pie dish, pour a little warm water. Slide in your first wrap and wait for a few minutes until it is slippery and very flexible. Place this on a board as flat as you can manage. Put a little of your mix towards the top of the wrap in the shape of a cylinder and wrap towards you tucking the ends in half way. You should now have a spring roll.

Serve with a sweet chilli sauce or a mixture of soy sauce and honey to dip.

The Match

Queer brewing is a queer-owned brewery providing visibility and representation for LGBTQ+ people. It was founded in 2019 and they have done over 50 collaborations in 5 countries. Flowers is a Witbier and as such wheat makes up a large part of the grain bill. Like a Belgium Wit, it contains both orange and coriander and these are both present without overwhelming the wheat and malt spine. It is naturally cloudy and has a soft gentle mouthfeel. This really is a very well made beer. It handled the spice and the richness of the dish without ever being overbearing. I was delighted with it as a pairing.    

Braised lamb neck fillet with Tap Social Inside Out

It is the time of year when it is unwise to trust the weather. This is the reason that one always needs to ready with a bright zingy salad or a heavy braise. This is really a dish that is suited to dark winter evenings and not to mild spring twilight.

• Lamb neck fillets (work on about 150-200 gms per person)
• 1 large carrot (cut into chunks)
• 1 medium onion (diced)
• 2 celery stalks (cut into small pieces)
• 3 cloves of garlic (roughly chopped)
• 1/3 bottle red wine
• 250 ml lamb stock
• 1 tbsp quince jelly (or redcurrant)
• splash of oil

Heat the oil in a heavy pan with a lid. Put in the carrot, onion, celery and garlic. sweat these down until softened and taking on a little bit of colour. Remove these from the pan and set aside. Pop the pan back on the heat and ad the lamb to brown it all over (get a real crust on them). Add the veg back in and pour over the wine. Make sure it boils to burn off the booze and then add the stock. Cover and put on a low simmer for a couple of hours until the meat is falling apart. 

Lift out the meat and set aside somewhere warm. Stain the liquid and return to the pan on the heat, add the jelly (it really is very easy to make) until it is thick and sticky. Serve the meat with the sticky sauce over the top. I served it with cauliflower puree, baton carrots and roasted shallots.

The match

Tap Social Movement are a force for good. They deliberately recruit staff who are leaving the prison system, a group for whom paid work is not only hard to find but their only chance to build a future outside of the criminal justice system. Their beer is also really good.

Inside Out is an Oatmeal Stout, meaning that oats are used as part of the grain bill during brewing. This tends to add body and also makes the head nice and creamy. This is a really lovely beer and hits all the chocolatey and coffee flavours that would be expected. It has a lovely body and matched up to the rich meal very well.

As a note, because I've been asked, I am perfectly comfortable matching a beer to a dish which contains red wine. By the time that the wine has been cooked for 2 hours it has a lovely flavour but it is not in any way like something you would put in a glass.