Fajitas (sort of) and Erdinger Alkoholfrei

Fajitas are a bit of an enigma. They are a staple of TexMex cuisine but their heritage is much more about the fast food industry than it has to do with authentic Mexican Tacos. They are, however, lovely. and really good for feeding a crowd. The joy of this recipe is that you can make it as spicy as you like. There are lots of other things you can throw into the wrap but the ones I've listed here are my standard choices.

Serves 2

• 4 flour tortillas
• 2 chicken breasts, cut into smallish, bite sized pieces.
• Cajun spice mix (or any on the mix from the southern US, you could even make your own)
• handful of salad
• 2 spring onions, chopped
• 1 avocado, sliced
• 100 gms cheddar, grated
• 2 tbsp sour cream
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 tin tomatoes
• 1 red chilli, finely chopped
• splash of oil

First, fry the onions and chilli until they are soft then add the tomatoes and boil gently until thickened and rich. Allow this to cool a little.

Mix a couple of tea spoons of the spice mix into the chicken and add to a hot frying pan with a dash of oil. Fry until the chicken is cooked then pop aside in a warm spot. 

Quickly, wash and dry the frying pan and pop it back on the stove. When it is hot slide in one of the tortillas and toast briefly on each side. Lay the tortillas on a plate, smear over a spoonful of the cooled salsa and begin building up the other ingredients: Salad first, then the chicken, then the avocado and top off with cheese and sour cream. Wrap this all up and devour. Sometimes I even throw in a couple of pickled jalepenos.

The match

Erdinger make all sorts of beers, their wheat beer is a particular favourite. The Alkoholfrei describes itself as a "Refreshing Isotonic Drink" It is one of the best no/low beers I have ever tasted. It sat very neatly with the fajitas. The Tortilla was matched nicely with a clear malt characteristic in the beer as well as the softness of the beer balancing the spice in the fajita. The light hopping of the beer gave a lovely clean finish to the experience. I must try it with one of their more punchy beers in February. 

Curried Parsnip soup and Leffe 0.0

It is the very coldest time of the year. This type of weather requires this type of soup. maybe served with a bread roll slathered thickly with butter. This recipe is very much a start point, there are no hard and fast rules here I have made many of the quantities and ingredients deliberately vague.

Serves 2

• 3 medium Parsnips
• 1 medium onion
• 1 medium desert apple
• Splash of oil
• 1 vegetable stock cube
• 2 cloves of garlic
• half "a thumb" of ginger
• 3 or 4 tsp Curry powder (or your favourite spice blend)
• 150 ml double cream

Peel and chop the parsnips into bug chunks. Finely dice the the onion and peeled apple. Heat the oil in a saucepan and add the spice mix, follow this with the onions, garlic, ginger, apple, and parsnips. Make sure all the veg and fruit are nicely coated with the oil and spice mix. Add enough water to cover everything and crumble in the stock cube. 

Boil everything until the parsnips are soft and then blend in a liquidiser, returning the soup to the same pan. Add the double cream and bring to the boil. Taste and season, pour into warmed bowls and serve with the last dribble of the cream over the top. 

The match

Leffe Blond (the full strength one) was once described to me as a "Entry level Belgium". It is very easy drinking, nicely balanced without the ferocious alcohol of some of its Belgium cousins. Please don't misinterpret this I love a Belgium Quad as much as the next guy but its definitely not midweek drinking. This is the zero alcohol version of Leffe and is really quite good. It has a solid malt base with some hoppy high notes, maybe a hint of spicy phenols and fruity esters. It stood up to the soup very well and created nicely balanced meal. It was also perfect for a lunch as there was no dozey afternoon issues after!

Chicken Margaret and Guiness 0.0

This dish was named in memory of my late mother. She was a child during the war so always had a sense of the value of chicken, especially one roast as a part of a feast day meal like Christmas or Easter. She never had much time for the idea of cheap chicken, it was always a luxury to her. Further to this, she had a liking for Black Pudding which bordered on obsession. Black pudding is a blood sausage, and so, not to everyone's tastes but it is part of "nose to tail eating". A full English breakfast is incomplete without Black pudding, and my Mum would agree. This is one of the few dishes on my YouTube channel and a demonstration of how to cook it can be seen on there:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdIfWRJNUmU&t=4s

Serves 2

Please note that the sauce is different from the one in the video

• 2 Chicken legs (just the thigh and drumstick)
• 2 slices of Black pudding
• A handful of Bread crumbs
• 1 egg
• 150 mls vegetable or chicken stock
• 1 tbsp redcurrant jelly

Cut the bone out of the thigh of each leg. This takes a bit of time so please don't hurry and do not try and take the drumstick bone out - you'll be at it for days.

Blitz up the Black pudding, breadcrumbs and egg in a small blender to produce a rough, dry paste. Roll two fingers of the paste and put it where the bone has been removed from the leg. Wrap the flesh and skin around and secure it with two or three cocktail sticks. Put the legs in the oven at 180 for about 20 minutes until it is cooked through and the skin looks brown and crisp.

Meanwhile, reduce the stock in a pan until it becomes a little bit syrupy. Stir in the jelly and allow it to melt to create a sweet, rich, shiny sauce.

Carve the thighs into three or four pieces and place neatly on the plate. Gently run some of the sauce over and create a small pool.

I always serve this dish with a puree of cauliflower (more of this in a later post). This time I also added buttered cabbage and roast potatoes.

The Match

At present I am partaking in Dry January so my beers will all be without any alcohol and doing some research into this, increasingly important, type of beer has been a revelation. Guinness 0.0 is genuinely lovely. It is a really good approximation of the "real thing". Obviously, it is Malt forward and has the thick, creamy head that makes this style of beer so famous. However, I was not expecting the level of depth in the maltiness or the dryness in the finish. It is not exactly like the real thing but a few pints into an evening I would defy most people to tell the difference.

The richness stood up well to the black pudding and the depth of flavour in the chicken. The redcurrant sauce with the Guinness took me back to my student days when some of my misguided friends used to have a shot of blackcurrant cordial poured into the top of their Guinness claiming it was the next big "thing". I look forward to matching stouts (Irish, Milk, English, Oyster and American) with food in the forthcoming weeks. 

 

Chicken chow mein and Wild Beer Everstone.

 

This will be my last beer and food matching with alcohol until February as I will be undertaking Dry January. However, I will be matching food with no and low alcohol beers for the whole of the month. Despite the fact that this blog was loaded early in the new year the meal was cooked on the 29th December. 

Chicken Chow Mein (Serves one)

• One nest of dried noodles
• 60 - 70 gms skinless chicken (either breast of thigh meat is fine)
• A handful of mushrooms
• Half a medium onion sliced
• 1 clove garlic finely chopped
• Small lump of peeled ginger finely chopped
• A handful of bean sprouts
• A few peas
• 1 tbsp of corn flour
• Soy Sauce
• Sesame oil
• Vegetable oil for frying

Boil the noodles according to the instructions on the packet and then cool them down under a running tap until they are cold. allow them to drip for a few minutes then stir a couple of teaspoons of the sesame oil.

Meanwhile chop the chicken into bite sized pieces and dredge them with the cornflour, ensuring total coverage. Pop a little vegetable oil into a wok and heat it up. Add the onions and fry for a short while. Then add the garlic and ginger and cook for a couple of more minutes. Put this in a bowl and set aside. Put a little more oil in the wok and add the chicken. fry until nearly cooked and add the mushrooms until they are cooked. Add the onions, garlic , ginger, peas, bean sprouts and noodles and stir fry until everything is piping hot. Add quite a few dashes of the soy sauce and serve.

(You could add some finely chopped chilli with the onions if you fancy a bit of heat).

The Match

Wild Beer Company went into liquidation a while ago but was rescued and are still producing this awesome beer. I discovered it a couple of years ago and it's one of the few beers I always have in the fridge. It describes itself as a New Zealand IPA which  sounds a bit weird but as it uses New Zealand hops the concept seems to work. It is full of tropical fruits on the nose -  mango, lychee, pawpaw. Then on the palate it seems to move onto stone fruit - peaches, nectarine and even pear. Its all held together by both a malty spine and  a crisp finish.

This collection of big flavours manage to deal with the strong and rich flavours in the dish with all the fruit weighing in against all the salt and the bitterness balancing the richness.