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?)