Cooking With Beer

Well, if you’re a regular reader of this blog you’ll know that two weeks ago I bottled my homebrewed smoked porter. It’s been sitting in those bottles carbonating the past couple weeks and the day when I can enjoy it is almost here. That day is not here yet, but more on that later. Since I was planning on popping the top on the first homebrew this past weekend my girlfriend Meredith and I decided to cook up a dinner to pair with the beer. The pairing of beer and food is something that we are both very interested in yet really know perilous little about. So, the quest began to find something that would be fun to cook that would pair well with a smoked porter.

The first thing that came to mind to pair with a smoked beer is smoked meat. While that would certainly be delicious, it would also require a smoker. Next. We also thought about grilling since the weather was so beautiful but wanted to try something a bit more adventurous.

The inspiration for brewing this beer was Stone’s Smoked Porter. With that in mind, Meredith googled recipes using that beer, whereupon she came up with this gem: Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens' Mac & Cheese. A macaroni dish made with andouille sausage. (The recipe can be found below if you’d like to try it out yourself) Not only would this dish pair well with the smoked porter, it would be featured in the recipe! The smoked porter is an ingredient in the cheese sauce, and when cooking the sausage the pan is deglazed using Stone Arrogant Bastard.

Serves 8

1 1/2 pounds elbow macaroni
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 pounds of Andouille or other smoked sausage, sliced*
1 cup Stone Arrogant Bastard Ale
Cheese sauce (recipe follows)
Salt and pepper to taste
8 ounces topping (recipe follows)

• Cook macaroni in a large pot of salted water per package instructions.
• While the pasta is cooking, heat the olive oil in a large sauté pan over a medium-high heat.
• Add the sliced sausage, cooking until slightly browned, 5-6 minutes.
• Deglaze the pan with the Arrogant Bastard Ale, and bring to a simmer.
• Once the pasta has finished cooking, drain it, and return it to the cooking pot.
• Add the sausage and Arrogant Bastard Ale, stirring to combine.
• Add the cheese sauce, and mix thoroughly.
• Season with salt and pepper, to taste.
• Divide into eight separate bowls and top each with a sprinkling of the Mac Topping. (You may brown lightly under the broiler, if desired.) Serve immediately.

- Cheese Sauce

2 quarts heavy cream
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 cup sundried tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1 clove minced garlic
2 cups Stone Smoked Porter
1 1/4 pounds white cheddar cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

1. In a large saucepan, bring cream to a boil, reduce temperature and reduce volume by 10 percent.
2. While the cream is reducing, heat the butter over a medium heat until it has melted completely.
3. Add all of the flour, whisking to combine and removing any lumps.
4. Cook 3-5 minutes, stirring constantly, until the mixture takes on a light blonde color and gives off a light nutty aroma.
5. Whisk in the reduced cream.
6. Add the sun-dried tomatoes, garlic and Stone Smoked Porter. Return to a simmer.
7. Add the cheddar cheese, one handful at a time, whisking in each addition until it melts before adding the next handful.
8. Season with salt and pepper.
9. Cover and reserve until ready to use.

- Topping

2 cups Japanese-style Panko breadcrumbs
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
2 teaspoons Hungarian paprika
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup parsley, coarsely chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil

• Place all ingredients in food processor and mix on low speed until fully combined.
• Reserve until ready to use.

With shopping list in hand we headed to Jungle Jim’s to get our ingredients. After which we returned home to start cooking. Temperatures and tempers ran high (I had to put out a literal fire and I also got a clove of garlic thrown at my head). One great thing about cooking with beer is that most recipes don’t call for more than a few ounces of beer. So what doesn’t get thrown into the pot gets poured into a glass! The rest of the Arrogant Bastard certainly helped to mend some frayed nerves. (What? we had a lot of burners going at once, it got a little hectic) Ultimately the dish came out delicious. Very tasty but also very rich. That cheese sauce is serious business. Neither of us could eat more than one bowl.

As for the homebrew, it wasn’t quite done. The beer tasted very flat. I think it needs another week or two to continue carbonation. Hopefully a couple more weeks in the bottle will finish things off.

HD