Drinkz-N-Eatz-TV Soft Opening

I’ve decided to spin off a seperate HTML portal and blog of food and drink recipes using video and some podcasting too. As I get it up and running at full-speed, you’ll be able to enjoy a slew of video food recipes and listen to interviews with people in the drink and food trades.

You can go to UTube or other sites for this sort of thing, but if you do, you’ll also waste time wallowing through the junk out there to get to what you want. Drinkz-N-Eatz-TV makes it easier for the kitchen chef or the family bartender to watch and observe, and if so inclined, give any one of the posted recipes a shot at home.

In the next few months, I’ll be adding more of my own videos, along with the self-made smattering that’s now posted at http://drinkz-n-eatz-tv.com/ There will be no editoralizing, just taped and recorded recipes that are fun to prepare and are spiked with enough beer, wine and booze to make these recipes fun and easy to prepare.

So I’m looking for your input. If you have a favorite recipe out on the Web, let me know where it is, and if I can use it for content, I’ll get it up on the site. If you’re a brewer, vintner, distiller, importer, distributor and on and on, and would like to add some low-cost Internet exposure to your products, drop me a line. All it takes is a sample of your product, some sales and promo material and whatever, and I’ll include your product in an upcoming food or drink video for shits and grins…that’s it. Of course, if you’d like to add a banner or text message, you can check out the “Sponsers” tab at http://drinkz-n-eatz-tv.com/ Contact info is at the site and blog.

I’ll be heading to St. Louis on May 8 for the St. Louis Brewers Heritage Festival and hope to come back with a boatload of interviews and other interesting content to liven up the site. The seven participating brewers in this exciting event will include some smaller local breweries/brewpubs and Anheuser-Busch, so there will be a smattering of beers and much more for everyone. Stop by HERE for more info and a link for purchasing tickets. Say “Hi!” to me if you get there. I’ll be the big, balding (more like bald) guy pestering everybody for a video interview or a quote or two.

This is a “Soft Opening” for Drinkz-N-Eatz-TV, giving me a chance to find the bugs and work them out, and to start driving traffic to the site from Beer (& More) In Food and other sites I have up an running. Eventually I’ll formalize all of this when I feel comfortable with the level of content I have and know the concept is working…press releases and such. In the meantime, stop by  Drinkz-N-Eatz-TV and check it out.

Goose Island Nut Brown Ale-Braised Beef Ribs

Enjoy this while you can, even get out to the Clybourn location because it looks like this Goose Island location will close by the end of the year.

MAKES 4 SERVINGS                                                             

8 Beef short ribs
Salt and pepper
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup canola oil
4 large onions, diced
10 cloves garlic, 4 sliced and 6 whole
1/4 cup butter
4 bottles Goose Island Nut Brown Ale
6 cups chicken stock
1/4 cup molasses
2 tablespoons tomato paste
3 sprigs fresh thyme
2 bay leaves

Season the short ribs generously with salt and pepper and lightly dust with flour. In a large sauté pan, warm the canola oil over medium high heat until it starts to smoke. Add the short ribs and reduce the heat slightly. Brown the ribs on all sides, about 3 minutes per side. After browning, transfer ribs to a large stew pot.

In a separate pan, sauté onions and sliced garlic in the butter until onions become translucent. Add the garlic and onions to the ribs. Add the beer and simmer uncovered over low heat until the beer is reduced by one third. Cover the ribs with stock and add the molasses and tomato paste, whole garlic, thyme and bay leaves. Simmer covered 1-1/2 to 2 hours or until meat is tender. Shake the pot periodically to prevent sticking.

Transfer ribs to a serving dish and cover to retain heat. Skim excess fat from the broth, discard the herbs and pass liquid through a sieve. Return liquid to a saucepan on medium heat. Reduce until thickened and pour over ribs.

Nutrition facts per serving: 966 calories, 57 g fat, 17 g saturated fat, 138 mg cholesterol, 74 g carbohydrates, 41 g protein, 519 mg sodium, 2 g fiber

Julio Ambriz, kitchen manager, Goose Island Brewpub

Guinness Cake Version 3,741

GUINNESS CAKE

1 cup Guinness beer

1 cup unsalted butter

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 cups sugar

2/3 cups sour cream

2 large eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

Garnish:

Icing sugar or whipped cream

What you do

Preheat oven to 350 F. Butter a 9-inch spring-form pan and line bottom with parchment paper.

Pour Guinness into a large saucepan over medium heat. Add butter and heat until melted. Remove from heat, whisk in cocoa powder and sugar and reserve.

Combine sour cream, eggs and vanilla in a separate bowl and beat until uniform. Add sour cream mixture to Guinness mixture and whisk to combine.

Whisk in flour and baking soda. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour, or until a cake tester comes out with crumbs clinging to it.

Place tin on a rack and leave to cool completely. Before serving, dust with icing sugar or lightly sweetened whipped cream.

Serves 8 to 10.

History of St. Pat’s Corned Beef Recipes

As you read through the early recipes in Beer & Food: An American History that include beer or ale as an ingredient, consider the suggestion that many of today’s beer-themed food dishes might not have been recently “invented,” but are rather the results of an evolution in their preparation. It doesn’t take a huge leap of the imagination to see that a homemade pot roast with an added

can of Miller High Life or your mother’s rib-sticking stew with a dose of Guinness, could all stem from earlier recipes.

Londoner Susannah Carter and her later edition of The Frugal Housewife, or, Complete woman cook; wherein the art of dressing all sorts of viands is explained in upwards of five hundred approved receipts, in gravies, sauces, roasting [etc.]…also the making of English wines. To which is added an appendix, containing several new receipts adapted to the American mode of cooking, offers a number of good examples of early American food recipes, especially derived from English cookery.

 

This recipe book, originally published in England around 1765, was quite popular in British-America, with a later printing in Boston in 1772. The book’s engraved plates are attributed to Paul Revere. In 1803, Carter added new recipes for her American audience that listed very American dishes such as pumpkin pie, recipes for maple syrup and buckwheat pancakes, and even methods of raising turkeys.  

 

Carter also makes an interesting observation that too many contemporary household cooks gloss over when using beer in food. Highly-hopped beers, with their accompanying bitterness, are the last thing you want to add to a dish whose broth will be reduced. If a highly-hopped twelve-ounce beer makes your lips pucker and curls your toes with just one sip, imagine what it will do to your taste buds if concentrated down to a four-ounce reduction!

The following recipe for beef brisket might be viewed as an early step in the evolutionary path of the contemporary brisket and beer dish. Every St. Patrick’s day, innumerable slow-cooked beef brisket or corned beef recipes, usually adding Guinness or Harp to the pot for “authenticity” (while overlooking the fact that that the “Irish” corned beef and cabbage dish is really an American blarney-inspired culinary creation), are rolled out by food writers in the food sections of U.S. newspapers and magazines.

The pre-cooking rub of salt and saltpeter [saltpetre] on the brisket, and a rest time of four days, probably resulted somewhat in the reddish color of the corned beef we enjoy today, although the use of saltpeter in any of today’s food recipes is not recommended. The boiled New England meal of corned beef might have actually stemmed from this very British beef brisket recipe of the late 1700s or early 1800s:

TO STEW BRISKET OF BEEF

Having rubbed the brisket with common salt and saltpetre, let it lie four days. Then lard the skin with fat bacon, and put it into a stew pan with a quart of water; a pint of red wine, or strong beer, half a pound of butter, a bunch of sweet herbs, three or four shallots, some pepper and half a nutmeg grated. Cover the pan very close. Stew it over a gentle fire for six hours.

 

Then fry some square pieces of boiled turnips very brown. Strain the liquor the beef was stewed in, thicken it with burnt butter, and having mixed the turnips with it, pour all together over the beef in a large dish. Serve it up hot, and garnish with lemon sliced.

To make this dish “authentic,” grab a Guinness Stout.

Superbowl Savory Herb & Wheat Cheese Cake

From the National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA)    Alexandra, Virginia

The N.B.W.A. was founded in 1938 as a trade association for the nation’s beer distributors. It also, however, has assumed an educational role with the public, bringing attention to the problems of alcohol abuse, drunk driving, and underage purchasing and consumption of beer. The site also provides plenty of food recipes using beer. Make sure to stop by their site for recipes, beer terms, and further information on promoting responsibility while enjoying a beer or two.

Savory Herb and Wheat Beer Cheesecake  30 servings 

1 ¼ cups flour, divided
2 teaspoons salt, divided
2 teaspoons plus 1 tablespoon fresh tarragon, chopped
½ teaspoon grated lemon zest
6 tablespoons butter, very cold and cut into 6 pieces
3 tablespoons plus ¾ cup wheat beer
3 packages (8 ounces each) cream cheese, softened
1 package (5 ounces) goat cheese, softened
½ teaspoon black pepper
5 large eggs½ cup Parmesan cheese, grated
3 tablespoons fresh dill
3 tablespoons prepared pesto
2 tablespoons chives, chopped
2 tablespoons lemon juice 

Spray an 8-inch springform pan with cooking spray. In a food processor, combine 1 cup flour, ½ teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons tarragon and lemon zest; pulse to combine. Add butter; pulse until butter is the size of small peas. In small bowl, mix 3 tablespoons wheat beer with yolk of one of the eggs; add to food processor. Pulse until mixture is crumbly.  Press mixture in the bottom and halfway up the sides of prepared pan.

Place pan in freezer. Preheat oven to 425º F. 

In large bowl with electric mixer, beat cream cheese, goat cheese, ¼ cup flour, 1½ teaspoons salt and black pepper until smooth. Beat in 4 remaining eggs, then Parmesan cheese, dill, pesto and chives. Stir in remaining ¾ cup Wheat beer and lemon juice. Remove pan from freezer; pour filling into crust.

Bake cheesecake 20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 325º F.; bake an additional 40 to 45 minutes until top is lightly golden and filling is set. Remove cheesecake from oven; cool on wire rack.

Refrigerate cheesecake for several hours. Remove from pan; transfer to serving plate. Garnish top with dill sprigs. Cheesecake may be made up to one week ahead and refrigerated. Serve with favorite crackers, or as slices on plate.

Superbowl Chili #2

2 tbsp. olive oil
1 lb. ground beef
1 large onion (chopped)
1 28-ounce can chopped tomatoes
1 (6 oz.) can tomato paste
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 1/2 tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp. paprika
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1 can/bottle beer (Negra Modelo would be nice, but use a soft pilsner in lieu of)
1 28-ounce can kidney beans, preferably the spiced beans made for chili

Heat olive oil in heavy fry pan or Dutch oven. Add meat and onion. Cook until lightly browned, stirring frequently. Add remaining ingredients except kidney beans. Stir and cover. Simmer one hour, stirring occasionally. Drain kidney beans and add to the pot. Simmer 20 minutes. Stir frequently. Serve with grated sharp cheddar or jalepeno cheese, sour cream and chopped green onions.

Open windows during half-time.

Serves 6.

Superbowl Chili #1

Ingredients

3 tablespoons olive oil; more as needed
2 large sweet onions, diced (about 4 cups)
2 large fresh poblano peppers (or green bell peppers), stemmed, seeded, and diced (about 1-1/2 cups)
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon kosher salt; more to taste
4-1/2 pounds boneless beef chuck, cut into 1-inch cubes
2 bay leaves
2 cinnamon sticks, 3 to 4 inches long
3 tablespoons New Mexico chile powder (or 2 tablespoons ancho chile powder)
1 tablespoon chipotle chile powder
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
12-ounce bottle amber ale, such as Shiner Bock, Dos Equis Amber, or Huber Bock
1-1/2 quarts homemade or low-salt beef broth

For the garnish:
2 14-ounce cans kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 medium red onion, chopped
3 medium tomatoes, cored, seeded, and chopped
1/3 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro
12 ounces sour cream or whole-milk plain yogurt

how to make

In a 12-inch skillet, heat 2 table-spoons of the oil over medium-high heat. Add the onions and saute’ until softened, translucent, and starting to brown, 8 to 10 minutes. Add the poblanos, reduce the heat to medium, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the poblanos soften, another 8 to 10 minutes. If the pan seems dry, add a little more olive oil. Add the garlic and 1 teaspoon salt and sauté for another 5 minutes. Set aside.

Meanwhile, heat the remaining 1 table-spoon olive oil in an 8-quart or larger Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Sear the beef cubes until browned and crusty on two sides, working in batches to avoid crowding the pan. With a slotted spoon, transfer the browned beef to a bowl. During searing, it’s fine if the pan bottom gets quite dark, but if it smells like it’s burning, reduce the heat a bit. If the pan ever gets dry, add a little more oil.

Once all the beef is seared and set aside, add the onions and peppers to the pan, along with the bay leaves, cinnamon sticks, chile powders, cumin, and cloves and cook, stirring, until the spices coat the vegetables and are fragrant, 15 to 30 seconds. Slowly add the beer while scraping the pan bottom with a wooden spoon to dissolve the coating of spices. Simmer until the beer is reduced by about half and the mixture has thickened slightly, 5 to 7 minutes. Add the beef, along with any accumulated juices, and the beef broth. Bring to a simmer and then reduce the heat to medium low. Simmer, partially covered, for 3 hours, stirring occasionally. Test a cube of meat—you should be able to cut it with a spoon. Discard the cinnamon sticks and bay leaves.

If not serving immediately, chill overnight. The next day, skim any fat from the top, if necessary, before reheating.

To serve, heat the chili gently. Using a slotted spoon, transfer about 2 cups of the beef cubes to a plate. Shred the meat with a fork and return it to pot. (The shredded meat will help create a thicker texture.) Taste and add more salt if needed. Heat the beans in a medium bowl covered with plastic in the microwave (or heat them gently in a saucepan). Arrange the beans, chopped red onion, tomatoes, cilantro, and sour cream in small bowls to serve as garnishes with the chili.

Serves 8.

Beer Stewed Pork & Green Chile

 Serves: 8                                                                                                         

4 pounds pork shoulder, butt — cut into 1-inch cubes
3 tablespoons flour
1 pound poblano pepper — about 5, aka pasilla chiles
2 whole jalapeno pepper — or more or less to suit your taste, minced
1 pound tomatillos — cut in eighths
1 medium onion — peeled and diced
6 whole garlic cloves — minced
6 tablespoons ground cumin
2 tablespoons oregano
2/3 cup fresh cilantro — or more if desired, chopped
2 cups chicken broth
2 cups beer
1/2 cup masa harina
2/3 cup sour cream
Salt and pepper to taste 

1. Cut the poblanos in half, seed (and remove the white ribs) and lay out on a roasting pan, skin sides up. Rub each with a bit of olive oil, then broil until blackened. Remove to a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Set aside for 20 minutes, then gently remove the skin. It should come right off if you’re careful. Dice the chiles and set aside. 

2. In a large Dutch oven or heavy-duty soup pot saute the onion in olive oil until just cooked, about 10 minutes. Add minced garlic and cook for a few minutes more. Do not brown the garlic. Turn off the heat and set aside. 

3. Sprinkle the meat cubes with salt, pepper and some flour. In a large round skillet (or two, if you have them, because this takes awhile) heat olive oil and brown the pork cubes. Do not crowd the pan or they’ll steam rather than brown. The crusty stuff adds lots of flavor to the stew. You may have to do several batches. As the pork is done, add it to the soup pot. 

4. Once the meat browning is complete, add the chicken stock, beer, tomatillos, half the cumin, oregano and the jalapenos. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and low simmer, without a lid, for about an hour. 

5. Add the remaining cumin, oregano and about half of the cilantro, and salt and pepper to taste, if needed. Continue to simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. If you can see visible fat floating on top, remove with a flattish spoon or ladle. 

6. Add the poblano chiles and simmer for another 30-45 minutes until the meat is fork tender. Use a lid if the mixture is getting too thick (or add a little bit of water). 

7. Remove a bit of the stew liquid to a small bowl and add the masa harina - with some additional water to get it to smooth out to a thin paste, then slowly stir this into the stew. Continue to cook for another 10-15 minutes until thickened. Serve in bowls with sour cream dollop on top, additional cilantro sprigs and hot flour tortillas on the side. 

Beer Cheese Fondue, Sausage Swirls and more

The Philadelphia Journal’s latest contribution to beer in food, via the Kansas City Star. 

The Kansas City Star newspaper shared this recipe as part of a package on New Year’s Eve appetizers. Enjoy the Beer Cheese Fondue.

BEER CHEESE FONDUE

Food Recipes of the Repeal Era and Beyond, Part IV

Editor’s Note: Before reading this installment to Beer & Food: An American History, keep in mind that these recipes represent the beginning of the American brewing industry’s pairing and use of beer in food. Up until the post-Prohibition era, most written instances of beer used in food were merely attempts to reconcile what to do with spoiled and stale beer.

As you look through the upcoming segments with their food recipes, keep this thought in mind; many contemporary food recipes reflect an evolution of food preparation. Switch an ingredient or two, maybe add a foodstuff that no one ever heard of 15 or 20 years ago and you’re working with a newer interpretation of an old standard.

If you want to catch-up before reading Part IV, here are links to

Part I     Part II      Part III    

More info about Beer & Food: An American History by me, Bob Skilnik (with a foreword by Jim Koch from The Boston Beer Co) here.

**********************

With the war winding down, brewers continued their public relations campaign to keep beer in the kitchen, or better yet, simply in the home. The publishing firm of Frederic H. Girnau Creations of Minneapolis, Minnesota, took an approach similar to the pre-Prohibition Mendelsohn recipe books. By utilizing a couple of different culinary themes, Girnau helped promote various regional breweries with his collection of hefty-sized booklets—Famous International Themes, 300 New Ways of Making Delicious Sandwiches, the Sandwich Book of All Nations, Tried and Tested Cookie Recipes, Fish and Sea-Food Cookery, How to Prepare Wild Game & Fowl, Madame Chiang’s Chinese Cook Book (with the helpful hint that the recipes were “Translated in English”), Housewives Home Canning Methods, and lastly, How to Cook with Beer.

 

With ads for various competing brews placed between the same stock recipes in each booklet, cooks could learn the intricacies of preparing Chicago Style Chow Mein Noodles, Calf’s Head Stew, Tutti-Frutti Sandwiches, Potato Doughnuts, and obvious regional delights such as Bear Northern Style, Roast Raccoon, or Porcupine—probably all an acquired taste—and that old beer drinkers’ favorite, at least in publisher Girnau’s mind, Striped Bass Pudding.

 

While it’s amusing for city-slickers to look back at many of these dishes and laugh, there’s a lot of colonial-era frugality still involved here, all the more obvious when one considers the strong rural landscape that continued to exist in the U.S. in the ’40s. The philosophy of waste not, want not continued.

 

Although the food recipes were the same, two of Girnau’s How to Cook with Beer booklets displayed an interesting contrast in how the American Brewing Company of Miami, Florida, and the Minneapolis-based Gluek Brewing Company decided to handle the introduction to the sixty-four-page recipe collection template. A.B.C. President Louis F. Garrard took the customary approach of most brewers, using the book template format that Girnau provided. Garrard pointed out “…the importance of beer as a delicious cooking ingredient,” noting the importance of including beer in food recipes “…has been lost to our generation.” Garrard’s answer to this generational gap, of course, was to start including the use of the brewery’s Regal Premium Beer in the recipes provided.

 

The introduction to the Gluek Brewing Company’s recipe booklet, however, took a different approach, giving President and Chairman Edward V. Lahey of the United Brewers Industrial Foundation a forum to lay out the economic and social benefits of beer, all cooking aside. Of course, the Gluek booklet was also sprinkled with plugs for its Gluek beer, “The beer that speaks for itself.” A sample of Lahey’s introduction follows:

 

The brewing industry is a national asset in that it contributes importantly to the economic and social welfare of this country.

 

BEER ranks the top as a revenue source, contributing at the rate of about $700,000,000 annually in federal, state and local taxes. Since beer was re-legalized on April 7, 1933—after 13 years of Prohibition—combined revenues to public treasuries have exceeded ten billion dollars.

 

Beer, however, extends its economic benefits not only to public treasuries but also to many allied industries—agriculture, manufacturers of brewing equipment and machinery, bottles, cans, kegs, etc., and to the employment ranks, paying out about $300,000,000 annually in wages and salaries.

 

Socially, beer has served not only as a wholesome refreshment and adjunct to gracious living, but has been an aid to moderation and temperance. Military authorities have acclaimed beer also as a morale builder and as a factor in making the American Army, during World War II, the soberest in history.

 

Although the introductions to the brewers’ respective cookbooks varied in their focus, the intent was the same. Twentieth century beer had made it through the grain restrictions of the First World War, the blood-splattered years of bootlegging and Prohibition; had stumbled into American homes with the beginnings of Repeal; helped the troops to victory on two fronts, and was now ready to guide the nation through the post-war boom. It was time to really push beer into American homes and American lives. The Gluek and the American Brewing Company booklets touched on beer’s use as a flavor builder and food  seasoning. The real message, however, was clear; beer belonged not merely in the kitchen. Beer belonged in the home, whether it was included in food or not.

 

COMING SOON: PART V

Oktoberfest Glazed Onion, Kraut & Apple Bratwurst Pizza (& Milk An Alpine Cow!)

I wanted so badly to video this recipe preparation but my camera is down and probably out for the count. Nonetheless, I swear to you that as silly as this recipes reads, IT’S DELICIOUS! The underlying sweetness that runs right over the lactic character of the Swiss cheese, the red pepper flakes and the somewhat medicinal tang of caraway seeds demands an Oktoberfest-styled beer.

Since my video camera is down, I’m asking one more time (for about the 100th time) that someone PLEASE send my a 10-minute or less video of this Oktoberfest Pizza’s preparation, or for that matter, any beer/food dish preparation. The first person to contact me ASAP with an assurance that their video rendition of this recipe is on the way will receive a signed copy of “Beer & Food: An American History” and my everlasting gratitude.

Don’t forget. Oktoberfest actually begins in September, the 22nd this year if I remember correctly. Click on the official link to this yearly German spectacle and learn all about its history, the famous beer tents, and how to curse in German (better yet forget that. Just be familiar with the terms if someone happens to call you a Rauschada).

So here we go;

1 twelve to fourteen inch prepared pizza crust
2 tablespoons of a Bavarian Style sweet mustard. Please don’t use a Dijohn.

For the Topping:

8 quarter-inch slices of cored and peeled tart apple. Granny Smith, for instance.
3 tablespoons (or more) of a light bodied olive oil, divided
2 cups of thin-sliced yellow onions, about a pound or so
1 1/2 tablespoons of brown sugar, or better yet, a light-colored dry malt extract
1 cup of well rinsed and dried sauerkraut
1/4 cup of an Oktoberfest beer, with its typical somewhat sweet character
2 tablespoons of a Bavarian Style mustard
1/2 pound of Swiss cheese, shredded and divided
1/2 pound of pre-cooked veal bratwurst, thinly-sliced (the white, finely-ground kind)                          
red pepper flakes to taste (don’t go wild with them or you’ll ruin the sweet balance of the toppings)
1/4 teaspoon of caraway seeds, roughly crushed
1/2 cup of grated Parmesan cheese

Method:

Pre-heat your oven to 450F. Brush the pizza crust with the 2 tablespoons of Bavarian sweet mustard

Heat a heavier frying pan (cast iron, stainless, etc) and coat with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Saute the apple slices until their lightly browned, then remove from pan and set aside on a paper towel. Don’t crowd the pan or the apples might get mushy. After you remove the first batch, add some more oil if necessary and make sure it’s heated before you add more apple slices.

When you’re done with the apples, add at least 2 more tablespoons oil to the frying pan. Add the sliced onions and turn up the heat a bit for 2-3 minutes—just to get the carmelization of the onions going. Reduce the heat back to low, cover the pan and cook another 10 minutes, stirring occasionaly.

After 10 minutes, remove the cover and add the brown sugar (or dried malt extract) and the kraut and stir until its heated through.

Add the beer (and drink the rest) and cook at a high simmer until the mixture is somewhat glazed (and if you’ve been slamming a few too many Oktoberfest beers as you’re making this, you might be a bit glazed yourself. Slow down, we still have to bake this sucker!) Once the beer has evaporated, add the mustard, stir and remove the pan from the heat.

Grab the pizza crust and spread out half of the Swiss cheese on it. Now spread out the onion/kraut mixture on the crust. Top this with the sliced brats and cover with the rest of the Swiss.

Now layer it all with the apple rings and finish the pie off with the red pepper flakes, the caraway seeds and the Parmesan cheese.

Bake in the pre-heated oven for 12 minutes or until the crust is golden and the cheese is melted an bubbly.

Pull from the oven a let it sit a minute or two. Sliced right, you’ll get 8-servings and just as many compliments.
************

While you’re enjoying you Oktoberfest pizza and too many beers, why not try your hand at milking some Alpine cows. Just watch out. These large-breasted German beauties are hiding baseball bats behind them! Click on “Spiel Starten” when you are ready to play.

Food Recipes of the Repeal Era and Beyond, Part III

Beer in the Homefront Kitchen

 

As G.I.s fought and drank their share of allocated beer rations during WW II, beer also served limited duty in homefront kitchens. While the National Brewing Company of Baltimore, Maryland, chose to seemingly ignore the war with a compilation of regional recipes for oysters, crabs, ham, pigs’ feet, sausage and chops, all to be enjoyed with National Premium Beer, the neighboring Gunther Brewing Company of Baltimore published a wartime booklet titled Designed For Wartime Living. This publication served as a combination cookbook and canning guide for the homegrown bounty of neighborhood Liberty Gardens. The booklet also offered conservation hints for the household, as well as game and quiz novelties. Pictured throughout the book were women portrayed as factory workers, military personnel, nurses, and housewives. Women were leaving their kitchens and entering the wartime workforce as Rosie the Riveter and other positions that had traditionally gone to men.

While the recipes in the Gunther booklet displayed the obvious cooking practices of wartime rationing (Stuffed Bologna, Macaroni With Left-Over Meat), there were the occasional bits of fancy, including some “man-filler” food recipes that called for beer for “When Your Man Comes Home.” Interestingly, food recipes using malt syrup are absent from the booklet, and light or dark corn syrup is recommended in lieu of rationed sugar. The lack of malt syrup usage in the WW II-era kitchen strengthens Gussie Busch’s old argument that the malt syrup industry’s plethora of food recipes was truly a cover for the syrup’s real use in home kitchens…homebrewing.

 

Here are a few food recipes from the Gunther recipe booklet that encouraged the use of beer in WW II kitchens:

 

ESCALLOPS [SCALLOPS] OF VEAL WITH BEER SAUCE 
1 1/2 pounds of veal escallops
3 tablespoons margarine
3 tablespoons grated cheese
3/4 cup Gunther’s Beer
2 egg yolks
1 tablespoon cream

 

METHOD: Dip escallops in seasoned flour and brown in melted margarine. Remove to service platter and keep warm. In a double boiler melt the cheese in the beer. Mix eggs with cream and add to hot beer slowly, stirring over low heat and continue cooking, stirring steadily, until thickened to sauce consistency. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Pour over escallops and brown lightly under broiler. This should serve 4 or 5 people.

 

The wartime Gunther recipe booklet wasn’t the brewery’s first attempt to tie their beers with food. An earlier, sixty-four-page effort, complete with an extensive cross index for easy recipe selection, began with an introductory endorsement by “The Gunther Hostess,” who set the stage for “…colorful Old Time recipes which have come down from Colonial times, using beer as an ingredient…” With a mention of “B.D., meaning ‘before the depression,’” the booklet emphasized shortcuts for home efficiency, economy, and downright frugality, including a section on “What To Do With Left-Overs.”

What better way to use up kitchen leftovers than with a homemade pot pie, followed up with an interesting beer cake?

GUNTHER POT PIE
2 tbsp chicken fat
1/2 lb. sausage, sliced
1 cup cooked meat, chopped
1 hard boiled egg, sliced
1 cup lima beans, cooked
1 bottle Gunther’s Dry Beer-y Beer
1 medium tomato, chopped
1 clove garlic
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp salt
Boiling water
standard recipe for biscuit

 

METHOD: Melt fat slowly in sauce pan, fry sausage lightly and remove from pan. Add garlic and tomato, sauté. Mix seasonings and add with sausage, chopped meat, sliced egg and cooked vegetables. Cover with beer and boiling water. Simmer slowly 10 min. Grease a casserole, place meat and vegetables in alternate layers, cover with biscuit crust and bake in quick oven (400°) until well browned.

 

GUNTHER FRUIT CAKE
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup Gunther’s Dry Beer-y Beer
2 cups raisins
1 cup shortening
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp [baking] soda
1/4 cup hot water
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 cups sifted flour

 

METHOD: Wash and pick over raisins, cook with water to cover for three minutes; drain and cool. Cream sugar and shortening, add flour sifted with baking powder, and beer, alternately. Dissolve soda in hot water and add. Fold in spices and raisins. Pour into a well greased loaf pan and bake for 50 minutes at 350°. Test with straw. If it comes out clean and dry, your cake is done. If cake browns too rapidly, cover with brown paper.

Remove from pan and cool. Cover with Chocolate Butter Icing.

This earliest Gunther recipe booklet is also an uncomfortable reflection of a different era, including a number of pictures in the booklet of black porters smiling while serving groups of well-dressed white diners and party-goers. One picture in particular would have never made the Political Correctness guidelines of today, with its portrayal of a smiling, elderly, white-suited servant balancing a tray of Gunther bottled beer saying “Have a bottle of beer, Suh! De driest, beeriest beer in de land, Suh!” 

                                                                                                 

More at Beer in Food: An American History
by Bob Skilnik                                                  

Barleywine Pork Ribs

Adventures in Beer Tasting recently posted this interesting recipe for Barleywine Pork Ribs so I though I’d post it here too. In all honesty, I’d probably skip the barleywine in lieu of whiskey (why? Because I’d drink it before I threw it in as a basting misxture) that’s also added as a possible substitute for the barleywine. In any case, here it goes;

Dry rub: 2 tbsp black pepper, paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, 1 tbsp celery salt, chili powder, and ½ cup brown sugar. Rub half of the dry rub thoroughly onto both sides of the ribs. Place ribs in a zip closure bag or covered container and let marinate overnight in your refrigerator. Reserve the remaining dry rub to use on the ribs prior to cooking.

Basting mixture: mix 1 cup of barleywine or ½ cup whiskey and ½ cup cider vinegar with ¼ cup of orange juice and 2tbsp of water. Reserve this mixture to apply half way through cooking and at the end.

Smoking instructions: Smoke your ribs using mesquite wood chips at 225 degrees farenheit for 4 hours.

Food Recipes of the Repeal Era and Beyond, Part II

By 1940, the industry promotion of cooking with beer seemingly stalled again with the publication of The Wiedemann Book of Unusual Recipes from the George Wiedemann Brewing Company of Newport, Kentucky. An initial look inside the book proved it to be the old stock Mendelsohn cookbook of the pre-Prohibition era, seemingly devoid of any recipes using beer. As in Mendelsohn’s prior build-to-order cookbook format, the Wiedemann brewery name was substituted this time in the book’s title template, as was the practice with his dozen or so pre-Prohibition brewery customers. The book also included a number of full-page ads for Wiedemann’s Bohemian and Royal Amber beers.

 

But this time, a new, original preface indicated the addition in the book of “a unique feature incorporated in the present volume, beginning on page 229, of special recipes in which beer is an important and necessary ingredient.” The recipes were furnished by the United Brewers Industrial Foundation.

 

The U.B.I.F. had been funded by the United States Brewers Association after the U.S.B.A. conducted a survey of Americans’ attitudes toward beer and the brewing industry. The survey’s disheartening conclusions focused the ultimate goal of the U.B.I.F. on the paramount need to establish an extensive public relations campaign on beer’s benefits. As part of their national PR effort, the organization began to publish a series of informative booklets on beer and its positive aspects.

 

The inclusion in the Wiedemann cookbook of a mere twelve food recipes from the U.B.I.F., which utilized beer as an ingredient, was a culinary rebirth and marked the beginning of industry-supported, beer-infused recipes that carry on in today’s kitchens. A representative sampling from the Wiedemann cookbook follows:

 

SWISS STEAK WITH RICE

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Notice the familiar call in this recipe for “stale warm beer”—more a simple recommendation here than a reflection of the all too common reality of bad beer in colonial households and its use nonetheless in the kitchen as detailed with food recipes appearing in previous chapters of this book. Beer’s use back then reflected the hard realities of frontier existence and the difficulties in brewing and keeping a fresh batch of homebrewed beer for family enjoyment. Following a recipe back then that called for stale beer was easy.

 

2 lbs. round steak, cut 2 inches thick

1 cup flour

1 bay leaf

2 teaspoons salt

Dash pepper

6 onions

1/4 cup fat

1 cup water

1 1/4 cups cooked rice

1 cup stale warm beer

2 cups cooked string beans

METHOD: Pound the meat thoroughly. Rub the flour and the seasonings into the meat well on both sides. Brown the sliced onions in the fat. Remove and brown the meat in the same pan. Cover the meat with the onions and the water. Bake in a slow oven for 2 hours. Cover with rice, pour beer all over. Cover and bake until meat is tender and flavor well developed. Serve on a platter with string beans.

 

SHRIMPS IN BEER

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Possibly the first published of many beer-boil recipes for shrimp.

4 cups beer

3 shallots

2 onions (diced)

3 sprigs parsley

Bay leaf

Stalk of celery

2 lbs. raw shrimp

Salt

Pepper

1 tablespoon flour

3 tablespoons butter

METHOD: Simmer the beer with the onions, shallots, bay leaf, parsley and celery, for about 15 minutes, covered; add peeled and cleaned shrimps to the broth and simmer for 10 more minutes, covered; season with salt and pepper. Remove the parsley, celery and bay leaf and bind the sauce with butter and flour, smoothed to a paste. Serves 5 or 6.

Food Recipes of the Repeal Era and Beyond, Part I Here

From Beer & Food: An American History by Bob Skilnik

Food Recipes of the Repeal Era and Beyond, Part I