Baked potato and Chiltern Brewery Session IPA

Sometimes life comes down to a few ingredients and a nice beer. This is an extreme version of that sentiment. Please do not think that this dish, however humble, is anything other than heroic. There are occasions when a potato "baked in its jacket" is the only answer. Hearty, filling, comforting and full of memories, this is home cooking at its most kind. The only problem with a baked potato is the fact that it is very difficult to get a really good one if you eat out. Ever since the demise of "Spud you like", it is almost impossible to get a decent jacket spud to eat outside the home. This is nearly always a dish that is best served sitting on your own sofa. Of course you can baked beans, chilli or, if you are a bit misguided, coleslaw but I have decided to go with simple butter and cheese. I'll leave the volumes up to you.

 Baking a potato

• Large fluffy spuds
• Salt
• Butter
• Cheese (Entirely your choice)  

Wash the potatoes in cold water and through some salt over then so it sticks to the skin. Make sure you piece the skin of each potato a couple of times (you do not want one of them to blow up in your oven, or worse, in your hand. I carry the scars still).

Put the potatoes on the bars of your oven at a medium hot level until they are clearly done. 

Take the potatoes out of the oven and lay a tea towel over them. Tap each one with your hand, just hard enough to break the skin. remove the tea towel. Break open the the spuds and slide in quite a bit of butter. Pop them on the plate, open them a bit and pour on the grated cheese. 

Add salad or any other stuff you want -Cold cuts, preserved meats, and smoked fish all work well here.  

   The match

Chiltern Brewery is my local micro. They have been brewing traditional beers in the shadow of the Chiltern hills for over 40 years. They set out to be part of the movement to save cask conditioned ale. This is a beer unique to the UK and thanks to the work of the guys and girls at CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) and a few breweries that held the line, it is starting to thrive again. They have always supplied pubs and done bottles and recently have become a bit more experimental. They tend to do small batch beers in amongst their regular beers. These often celebrate an event or historic moment.

Last year they popped a Session IPA in a can and I loved it. This year they have repeated the deal and its just a touch more hoppy. Make no mistake, this is a really well made beer and coming in at a very low 3.4% abv. It punches seriously above that weight and manages to seem modern but also has its feet firmly in the tradition of English beer making. Its bitterness nicely cuts through the cheese and butter, its malty spine matching neatly with the lovely potato skin.  

Meat Balls and Czech Mates (Budvar and Thornbridge collaboration)

Meat balls turn up in all sorts of cuisines, from Italy to Sweden rolled balls of minced meat are the choice of the frugal chef with a gang to feed. This is real home cooking. You can use all sorts of different minces and, indeed, mix them up. I chose pork for these because it has a large fat content, this means that the meat balls will remain moist on the plate. I decided to make them a bit of a homage to Ikea with a creamy gravy.

• 500 gms of Pork mince
• One small onion, finely diced
• Dash of oil
• 30 gms butter
• 30 gms flour
• 250 ml of rich vegetable stock
• 75 ml of double cream
• Boiled new potatoes and peas to serve
• Redcurrant sauce    

Gently fry the onions in a little oil until they start to soften. Place the cooled, cooked onion in a bowl with the mince. Season with salt and pepper. Squeeze the mix with your hands, making sure its all fully amalgamated and sticky. Divide the mix into 10  and roll into balls. Oil the frying pan and seal of five meat balls at a time, Place all of the meat balls in a roasting dish and pop them in the oven for about 15 minutes until cooked.

In the mean time melt the butter in a small saucepan until foaming. add the flour to create a roux. Slowly add the stock to create a thick rich gravy. Add the cream and bring to the boil. 

Serve the meat balls with the boiled potatoes and peas. Pop a teaspoon of the redcurrant jelly on the side.

The Match

I am quite cross - Nobody told me! When two of your favourite breweries in the world come together to create a great beer, and you completely miss it, you need somebody to blame! 

This beer is lovely, a Czech style premium larger, complete with decoction mash finished with English hops. I purchased mine in Lidl at a price which was very low for the quality of the beer.

As it sat somewhere between Czech larger and English Pale ale it stood up to the meat balls really well, The grassy woodiness of the beer sat with the rustic nature of the meat. There was just enough bitterness from the hops to cut through the creaminess of the gravy.     

Braised Lamb Shanks with Titanic Plum Porter.

• 2 Lamb Shanks
• 2 celery sticks, finely chopped
• 1 carrot, finely chopped
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1tbsp plain flour
• 1 glass red wine (rough as ya like!)
• Lamb or beef stock
• 1 handful of small onions (peeled)
• 1 handful of small button mushrooms
• Mashed potatoes

A few years ago it was possible to pick up lamb shanks for a very little money but now they are a staple of the gastro pub, they are somewhat more expensive. However, they are worth every penny.

Pour a little oil into a medium saucepan with a lid. Brown off the lamb shanks, ensuring that all sides are thoroughly browned. Remove the shanks from the pan and pop on a plate. Add the chopped vegies and brown them too. Add the wine and allow it to reduce by half, throw in the flour and stir. Pop the shanks back into the pot and pour in enough stock to come about 3/4 of the way up the shanks. Put the lid on and boil gently for 90 to 120 minutes, turning the shanks once in a while.

In the meantime pour a little oil into a roasting tin, and put the onions in. roll them about a bit then put in an oven at about 170 c for about 30 minutes.

When the shanks are nearly falling off the bone, lift them out of the liquid and put them on a warm plate, cover with foil. strain the vegies from the gravy and return the liquid to the pan. Add the button mushrooms whole into the liquid. The roasted onions and the shanks can now be added back to the gravy and warm through.

A quick word about mashed potato: Mash the cooked spuds with some butter and some milk or cream. consider how much butter you want to use then double it! I tend to whisk mine a bit at the end.

The Match

If I were matching a wine with lamb I would tend to start with Bordeaux as it's a classic pairing. However, we are matching a beer so, on the basis that a good claret will give flavours of blackcurrant and other red fruit I decided to go with a beer that also offered fruit. Titanic Plum Porter has rapidly become this breweries best seller. For those of us who occasionally like our beers on the dark side this is a superstar! The plum in the mix gives both flavour and sweetness. The match worked very well with the limited bitterness backing up the richness of the gravy.

Toad in the Hole with London Pride

For me, one of the greatest of British comfort foods is Toad in the Hole. Opinion is divided as to what should be in the perfect toad and there is considerable evidence that this dish was originally made with all kinds of meats. Lamb cutlets. beef topside, pork cheeks and, of course, sausages. In essence, as with everything that involves Yorkshire pudding batter, it was a way of making an expensive piece of meat fill more bellies than it probably should.

For those of you who are reading from outside the UK a little explanation on Yorkshire pudding is required. It is actually a very simple flat pancake batter; the sort you would use for Crepes. Just a simple mix of eggs, flour and milk. This is then added to a hot deep roasting tray (one could use the tray that the meat has been roasted in as it rests on the side) or a muffin tin for individual Yorkies. Either way the fat has to be fearfully hot before the batter is added. Traditionally Yorkshire pudding was served only with beef and also sometimes as a starter with gravy to lower the appetite for the expensive meat mail course.   

This is a classic, and with all classics, less is more! Don't mess with near perfection.

Toad in the Hole. (Serves 2)

• 4 good large Butcher's Sausages. 
• Plain Flour. 
• Milk. 
• 1 egg. 
• Salt and pepper

Sieve about 200 gms of flour into a bowl and add enough milk to make it the consistency of single cream add the egg and beat in - DO NOT OVER WHISK - its not a meringue!

Gently fry the sausages, just to seal them then pop them in a high sided roasting tin with a little nugget of lard, dripping, or oil with a high burn point. Pop them in a hot oven and let them sizzle for about 5 minutes. The fat in the tin needs to be really hot, almost smoking. Pull out the tin and pour in the batter so that the edges sizzle and bubble a little. Then its back in the oven and enjoy the magic of a rising Yorkshire pudding. Serve when it is crisp on top and has a bit of fluff underneath. Make sure there is something green and squeaky to go with it and lashings of onion gravy.

For the Toad in thepicture has some streaky bacon wrapped round the sausages, this is not a necessity but I had some spare. I also served it with peas as I didn't have any greens. (I have lifted a lot of this recipe from my previous post of this recipe)

The Match

A British classic dish deserves a classic British beer. I decided to match this dish with another British classic: Fullers London Pride. When I first moved to London for University in 1987 you were either A Young's fan or a Fullers drinker. They were the two largest independent breweries in London. Youngs in Wandsworth and Fullers in Chiswick.

Only Fullers remains and it is now owned by  Asahi, but still brrewing in the same manner. London Pride is named after a little flower which is the first to grow in ruins or land broken up with bricks and rocks. It was particularly important during the Blitz for obvious reasons. It was also the first beer I ever pulled from the cask with a beer engine.

It is a classic "Best Bitter". It is tawny in colour and on the nose it gives clear malt spine with a subtle English hop herby high notes. On the palate it has a sweet maltiness balanced with bitter hops. Nothing about this beer is overdone, all is in balance.

It was a super match with the toad; the malt matched the savour of the batter with just enough hop edge to cut through the fattiness of the sausages. the gravy sat up with the sweetness and reclined with the malt!