With IPA Day coming August 2nd, I thought I’d re-share one of Goran’s recipes that uses an IPA as a base. Be sure to follow him and his blog on twitter: @cookingwthgormo
–Luis

Hello,
As we continue to embark on a journey with beer recipes, I thought about combining another favorite ingredient that I love to cook with (Bacon). In this post, we will be making a Bacon and IPA Spaghetti sauce. Many of you will wonder what the actual taste will be. I will give you a little hint: it will all depend on what kind of beer you will be using while making the sauce. Think of the beer as the foundation for the sauce. If you start with a not so good flavored beer, do not expect any miracles in the end. You have been warned. The beer I choose today is coming from the Tenaya Creek Brewery. The name of the beer is Monsoon IPA. The beer is light amber in color, full bodied and well hopped. Perfect for this recipe!

On to the cooking now!

Yield: 2 QT

Ingredients:

• 4 ea slices of Bacon
• 4 ea medium Onions, chopped
• 2 ea cloves Garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 lb Beef, ground
• 1 c Parmesan Cheese, grated
• 2 T Worcestershire sauce
• 6 oz Mushroom, sliced from a can
• 12 oz Monsoon IPA Tenaya Creek Brewery
• 6 oz Tomato Paste
• 1 t Salt
• 1/2 t Tabasco Sauce
• 1 1/3 c Tomato Puree

Preparation:

1. Fry Bacon until crisp; drain. Remove Bacon from the skillet.
2. To the Bacon fat add Onions and Garlic. Sauté until golden. Add ground Beef and Cheese. Stir often. Cook until the meat is brown.
3. Add Beer and cook for about 10 minutes.
4. Add the Tomato Paste, Salt, Tabasco, Worcestershire, Oregano and simmer for 10 minutes.
5. Add Tomato Puree, Mushrooms and Bacon.
6. Continue cooking until thickened, about 8-10 minutes.

Note:

Please keep in mind, as I have stated in my previous post, when it comes to the beer recipes, I will try to keep the recipe as straightforward and as simple as possible. You can add additional flavor to the sauce by adding Basil and Parsley to the recipe. I also recommend adding just a pinch of Sugar when making any kind of Tomato sauce. It helps fight the acidity of the tomato.

The finished product should look like this:

When someone tastes the dish I prepare and when I educate them that there is alcohol in the dish, people usually just shrug it off and say “It’s alcohol, it has evaporated.” Well, that is true up to a certain point. You see, depending on the cooking method and for how long you cook a dish, it will greatly impact the remaining percentage of the alcohol. With that being said, it does not mean that you will get drunk if you consume a dish that has been prepared with alcohol.

This is very important to know, especially if you are dealing with people who have allergies or have just recently stopped drinking due to health issues.

Let’s look at this chart which will explain what exactly I am trying to explain here:

When looking at the chart, what does this mean? It’s very simple. Cooking methods that include short and quick cooking, obviously retains the most alcohol. The common misconception that I have seen among people is that if you flambé something, most of the alcohol is gone.

If you are not familiar with the term flambé allow me to explain it. It is a cooking procedure which involves a hot pan and high proof alcohol. Once you combine the two you create a burst of flames. Flambé is usually done at table sides in a restaurant for the wow effect and also for additional flavor. Flambéing can infuse a dish with additional aroma and flavor, while burning off some of the alcohol content. Granted this cannot be accomplished with beer.

So what about beer? What happens if you make that stew with beer? How does that affect the overall taste?

Stew is a combination of solid ingredients that have been cooked in a liquid and the overall dish is served with the cooking liquid. There are many ingredients that stew can include (vegetables, meat, poultry, seafood), and also the cooking liquid does not have to include water, necessarily. Some of the acceptable ingredients are wine, stock and also beer. While the stews are cooked on a low temperature for a long time, this allows the flavors to become richer. Do not forget that also less percentage of the alcohol will be retained in the final dish.

Every once in a while I make a beer ice cream. What about that? how does the alcohol affect the taste of the ice cream?

Granted the beer is cooked for about 10 minutes on a medium heat on the stove, but if you look at the chart, that means that approximately 40% of the alcohol content remained in the final product.

Since I can keep on rambling about this subject all day long, let me conclude this post for now. What am I trying to say in the end? Inform your guests of the ingredients you have used in your dishes, just in case someone is allergenic to something. Just because you have “cooked” the alcohol, it does not mean that it is all gone. Help spread the word and when someone tells you next time that the alcohol is evaporated, please correct them. There are lots of misconceptions about food going around. Especially when you combine alcohol!

Last week, the Whole Foods at Town Square held a beer pairing dinner with Sierra Nevada and Bit & Spur Restaurant in Springdale, Utah. The food and the beer was amazing, so I’m just going to cut to the chase and show you some pictures.

Gazpacho soup with roasted green chiles, tomato, cucumber, and garnished with a hard boiled egg and croutons.
Paired with Sierra Nevada Kellerweis
Kellerweis is a wheat beer, and a perfect companion to lightly spicy, flavorful soup. The soft textured, sweet beer cleanses the palate between each bite.

Smoked baby back riblets with red chile ketchup BBQ sauce with & citrus ginger cole slaw with fennel, apples, and pomegranate seed, ginger yogurt, lime dressing.
Paired with Sierra Nevada Ruthless Rye
If you read my Ruthless Chicken article, you know that I love rye beers with barbecue. These ribs were no exception. The sweet smokey taste compliments the harsh, rustic IPA.

Picadillo empanada garnished with queso fresco & pico de gallo
Paired with Ovila Quad
Quad is probably the first Ovila beer that I’ve really liked. The malty sweetness was a good choice for the ground beef inside this empanada.

Warm brownie with espresso creme anglaise & raspberry coulis
Paired with Sierra Nevada Porter
You can never go wrong having a porter with desert.

As a bonus, we also got a taster of Sierra Nevada Hoptimum. Holy hell is that a bitter beer! Probably one of the most bitter beers I’ve had in a while. A must try for the hop heads!

The above photos were either taken by me or by Whole Foods. See the rest of Whole Foods’ photos here.

It is surprising to me that craft beer drinkers are too often not always craft food eaters. Craft beer drinkers are often proud of the fact that their beers do not contain the adjuncts or chemicals that the large macro brewers use. However many will happily eat low quality, mass produced food.

When Stone brewery first opened their restaurant, they created a menu that contained as much of a focus on quality ingredients, as they have on their beer. The result was their guests often complaining that they didn’t sell cheap bar food. In addition to being the largest purchaser of organic food in San Diego, the brewery even purchased a farm last year so they can even start growing their own vegetables. Stone’s World Bistro and Gardens is a great resource for how to merge craft beer with high quality food.

Here in Vegas, we have several restaurants that do focus on both craft beer and food. Public House and Todd English’s PUB immediately come to mind, along with a few others. However, it isn’t practical for anyone to solely eat at these restaurants everyday, so what can someone do at home to enjoy both craft beer and food?

The first step is to start cooking, using as few prepared meals/ingredients as possible. Buy fresh meats and vegetables and prepare it yourself. I’m not saying you have to buy organic foods, and I’m not saying that you even have to eat “healthy” foods (though both are good options), all I’m saying is that you make your own food from fresh ingredients. Write down a few of your favorite foods, and look up recipes to make it yourself. If you love pizza, buy cheese, sauce, pepperoni, dough, and make it (even better, make your own dough). Do you like hamburgers? Heat up the grill and start making your own burgers. If you want to go to the bar and eat chicken fingers, then you should make your own. I guarantee that if you buy fresh chicken and make your own beer batter, it will taste better than anything you can buy in a bar where the focus is solely on making chicken fingers as quickly, and cheaply, as possible. There are many things added to these foods when you get them at your local bar that you would never use at home. Restaurant food is known for having ridiculously higher sodium levels than the freshly homemade equivalent. The fresher your ingredients, the more flavor the food will have and you will need less salt and fat to make it palatable. Even if it’s a bacon cheeseburger, the home cooked option is more likely to taste better and be better for you (bacon is a nutrient right?).

There are two things you will learn once you start pairing great food with great beer:

1. Great food will make a great beer taste better. The rich, hearty flavors in great dishes will match the quality of the beer and increase its refreshing characteristics.

2. Great beer will make your food taste better. Because the quality of the food matches the beer, the flavors in the beer will match the flavors in your food. The caramel sweetness in a brown ale will match, and increase, the sweetness in barbecue. The light tartness in a hefeweizen will match and highlight the lemon flavors in seafoods, salads, or other dishes seasoned with lemon. Because beer and food have so many similar flavors, you will find a near infinite amount of ways to match food with beer.

I am confident that once you begin to drink your beer with better quality food, you will enjoy both even more.
If you need help with recipes (especially ones using bacon and beer as ingredients) contact Hooked on Hops’ own contributor, Goran Cvijanovic. You can view a few of his recipes here on the site as well.

Earlier I mentioned the struggles Stone had getting their guests to enjoy and appreciate high quality food. You can read more about this, and even get some recipes from the restaurant in their book.

Local Las Vegas brewery, Joseph James, has not only a gluten-free beer, but the first gluten free beer to be canned!

Also notable, this is one of the few gluten free beers that doesn’t use sorghum, the typical barley replacement. Instead, Joseph James says it uses “organic rices and nectars.” The taste of this pale ale is very light, dry, and crisp. This light flavor profile, along with the low alcohol content, hides the fact that there is no barley in this beer. The American hops give Fox Tail a light grapefruit citrus taste.

The beer paired well with the sausage, mushroom, onion pizza I was eating. The lightness in the beer allowed the vegetables on the pizza to still be present with each bite. This is an ideal beer for any sort of meal involving primarily vegetables with little seasoning.

Since Joseph James is a local brewery, you can find their beers at  nearly every beer retailer in town.

The above image greets you when you visit Public House’s website. There are billboards in town with a business suit dressed chimpanzee holding an American flag. While the concept of a gastropub is traditionally English, Public House is quintessentially American.

The interior resembles a library. Dark wood covers the floors with bookshelves holding various old books, ornaments and antiques. The decorations typically have an American theme. Pen drawings of American Flags or founding fathers are displayed.

Where to start? Public House is home to the only Certified Cicerone in the state of Nevada, and as such, has an impressive beer list. There are roughly 200 beers to choose from, primarily in bottles, ranging from German lagers to Belgian abbey ales, and from French farmhouse ales to American IPAs and even a few sours and barrel aged beers. They also regularly keep a beer available on cask. During my visit the cask beer was Deschutes Black Butte Porter.  The cask version gave this beer a very soft and smooth texture. It retained it’s dark chocolatey taste while feeling very light texture-wise. I also tasted Stillwater’s Existent, a dark farmhouse ale. A lot of plum aromas paired with grape flavors. Despite the dark, fruity flavors, the beer was still refreshingly light.

Both beers paired perfectly with the hearty, rich food that Public House has to offer. Appetizer was the Welsh Rarebit. “Cheddar-Beer Sauce on Toast” as the menu described. The cheese sauce tasted like it was comprised of a dark malty beer with a little mustard, possibly even Worcestershire sauce? The bread was perfectly crusty to contrast the creamy cheese sauce on top.

I opted to try the Pub Burger for the main course. Maybe it was the bacon marmalade, the Guinness aioli, or the gruyére cheese,  but this was one of the best burgers I’ve had in Las Vegas. The grass-fed beef was juicy and the toppings complimented it with rich cheese and sweet bacon. Despite the flavorful ingredients, the burger was perfectly balanced with no one aspect dominating the others. This is a difficult burger to eat in one sitting, but it’s even more difficult to stop eating it!

 Other items on the menu include fried quail served with waffles, roasted bone marrow served with bacon, and various steaks, and shellfish. There is also grilled octopus, duck confit, and a foie gras parfait.

Public House is located in the Venetian resort on the strip. They use the best quality ingredients and have a renowned chef. As such, the prices reflect this. The quality of food definitely matches the price and this restaurant is worth every penny. That said, the beer prices are also higher than most places in Las Vegas. Bottles start at $7 for 12oz and drafts start at $8. You are likely to end up paying about $10 a beer if you want to drink the less common stuff. Yes, the beers are priced high, but you are likely not going to find most of these beers anywhere else in town. Even still, this place is completely worth it for the food alone.

Rye is an acquired taste. I for one cannot stand rye bread. I do, however, enjoy rye beers. Many people either like one, or the other. Or neither. Rye adds a harsh, rustic, peppery taste in beers. This makes Sierra Nevada’s Ruthless Rye the perfect beer for rotisserie chicken. 

Ruthless Rye is a new IPA from Sierra Nevada that was just released about a month ago. The hop bitterness is very similar to their Torpedo IPA. This means that the aroma is also very citrusy, with an orange marmalade kind of sweetness. The rye in this beer gives this IPA a very different level of flavor and taste. This is not a smooth beer, instead there is a strong, harsh bitterness that can only be found in rye beers. 

Unless you’re fancy enough to know how to make a rotisserie chicken, I recommend you go buy one at the grocery store. Chop up said chicken and eat it while drinking this beer. The peppery rye will match perfectly with the pepper and herb seasoning. The sweet, citrusy taste will match the caramelized skin on the chicken. Finally, the carbonation and bitterness will cut through the fat and lift the flavor off your tongue, preparing you for your next bite. 

Thank you to everyone who came by Tenaya Creek this past Tuesday for the stout and cake event. We all had a blast drinking awesome beer and eating Goran’s amazing cake! Hopefully in the future we can plan more of these types of events!

Thanks to Justin Massongill for the photos

Hello,

Today we will be Tiramisu with a twist. Instead of using Rum and Espresso we will be using Beer Geek Breakfast. You can find the review on the beer in the previous post on HookedOnHops.com

On to Cooking!

Ingredients:

• 3/4 c Cold Heavy Cream
• 2 ea Eggs
• 1 c Confectioner’s Sugar
• 2 1/2 t Pure Vanilla Extract
• 2 ea (8 oz) Tubs Mascarpone Cheese at toom temperature.
• 2 c Mikkeller Beer Geek Breakfast
• 40 ea Ladyfinger Cookies
• 1/2 c Unsweetened Cocoa Powder

Preparation:

1. In a chilled bowl, whip the Cream until stiff peaks form, making sure not to overbeat. Cover the bowl when done and set it aside in the refrigerator.
2. In another bowl, beat Eggs and Salt until the volume doubles and the color lightens. Add the Sugar, Vanilla and Mascarpone. Mix gently until incorporated.
3. Fold in the whipped cream and then set aside in the refrigerator.
4. In a shallow dish quickly dunk both sides of the Ladyfingers. Arrange them in a single layer in an 8 inch square dish.
5. Spread the layer of Mascarpone mixture over the Ladyfingers. Sprinkle on a liberal amount of cocoa using a fine mesh sieve. Repeat the layers, using all the Ladyfingers and Mascarpone mixture, and generously dusting with Cocoa again.
6. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving.

Notes:

Beeramisu will keep covered and refrigerated for up to 2 days.

The final product will look like this:

You remember Goran’s cake recipe he posted using Tenaya Creek’s Imperial Stout, right? Wish you could eat the cake without the hassle of actually making it? Head to the Tenaya Creek brewery after 6pm on the 31st to meet up with Goran and the rest of us at Hooked on Hops to sample some of the cake while drinking some of the brewery’s finest beers.
We plan on having a busy night and there’s only so much cake to go around so show up early!

Tenaya Creek Brewery
3101 North Tenaya Way, Las Vegas, NV 89128
Tuesday, January 31st at 6PM