Yellow Squash Fritters

At the last Farmer's Market of the season James and I bought some yellow squash. Usually I make a yellow squash casserole with them, but I hadn't tried any new recipes in a long time so I went to the trusty New York Times Cooking Page and adapted the recipe for Summer Squash Fritters with Garlic Dipping Sauce. I actually followed the recipe pretty closely; I just didn't make the dipping sauce, and didn't use zucchini - only the yellow squash I bought. The recipe calls for beer in the batter, which really did enhance the taste. We topped them with sour cream in lieu of the dipping sauce. We liked these and will make them again.

Beer-Batter Shrimp

There are some dishes that I used to believe could only be eaten in a restaurant, as I had no hope of ever having the ability to prepare them myself. Beer-battered shrimp was one of those things. Until this weekend. 

I found a skinny little cookbook amongst my collection called Cooking with Beer. It is of the flimsy little type that one finds at the grocery store checkout. The copyright date on this one is 2012, but I do not believe we have ever used it before. There were two recipes for shrimp. I chose the Coconut (fried) Shrimp rather than the Baked Beer-Battered Onions and Shrimp, although I did take the idea of using panko crumbs from the latter and substituting them for the crushed ramen noodles (ick) in the former.

This was relatively easy, and they fried up pretty quick. The dipping sauce was tasty too.

Heritage Chili

With chili, it is never just one thing. When done right, everything that is added to the chili makes it better. This evening's chili (which of course started cooking around sunset yesterday) came together especially well. It might be my imagination, but I have to credit a secret ingredient -- one inspired by my Scottish heritage.

It all began with a calendar item we noticed last fall -- the second annual brewfest aboard the fantail of the USS Massachusetts in Battleship Cove, Fall River. We had a chance to learn some nautical history, honor veterans, and enjoy an extraordinary variety of beers in a unique setting, so we got tickets right away. (If there is to be a 3rd annual, it has not yet been announced -- fingers are crossed!)

Among the most interesting beers was a Scottish ale that was aged in bourbon-infused oak. I did not note the brewer and could not find a recipe -- nor do I have any oak barrels. But I did purchase a kit for Scottish Wee Heavy, along with some French oak chips that are like those I use when making red wine. It was not difficult to find bourbon in our kitchen. I soaked the chips in the bourbon, and then put them in the fermenter with the ale. I think it is going to be terrific when we open them in a few weeks.

Meanwhile, we had a little problem on bottling day -- not enough caps! We had already started to the process, and realized we would have the equivalent of a wine bottle's worth of beer that we would not be able to bottle. That is, it would not be proofed or sealed, and would just be flat beer -- albeit it a flat beer with strong, complex flavor.

So guess what was the first ingredient in the family crock pot -- a bit of oakey, bourbonish, wee heavy!  We don't yet know how the beer will be, but the chili was magnificent -- sweet, tangy, and complex.

(Incidentally, a quick search of this blog for the word chili reveals that I have still not divulged the basic recipe, though I described the other key ingredient -- time -- in our silver-anniversary post. The rest of the story will be told ... eventually!

Attaining Ginger

Three years ago, when I was a younger man, my sweetheart noticed that my birthday is not just the birthday of Miss Audrey Hepburn and Randy Travis and anniversary of Kent State and other events both notable and regrettable. It is also National Home Brew Day, which inspired her to gift me a starter kit from Northern Brewer. We have since become home brewers and also home vintners, creating a variety of beers and wines in batches of 48 bottles of beer or 30 bottles of wine every couple of months. We still enjoy beer and wine from other sources, but this has come to provide about half our wine and most of our beer, at a relatively low cost for relatively high quality.

I do not think of myself as a real brewer yet, however, since most of these projects are essentially the paint-by-number equivalent of what really is a complex craft. We simply follow directions from kits, and we do not even usually need to measure anything. My first venture into a more creative beer was about a year ago, when I made a raspberry-wheat beer. In that case, a former student working at The Homebrew Emporium in South Weymouth advised me to use a simple wheat-beer kit and a raspberry flavor concentrate. The idea was to use a simple beer as a "flavor base" (a term I am borrowing from the coffee industry) so to avoid competition with the fruit flavor. Though I am not a fan of fruit beers -- this was mainly brewed as a gift to Pam -- I think the result was quite good.

I was reminded of this a couple of months back, when someone shared a ginger ale with me. I do not mean ginger ale in the common sense, or even ginger beer in the common sense, the latter seeming to mean simply ginger ale with real ginger. Rather, it was a beer with ginger flavoring. I realized that I might be able to use the same strategy that had worked for the raspberry ale, and I further realized that if I acted with alacrity, we could have some ready in time for my fiftieth birthday.on May 4.

I am from a demographic group that cannot hear the word "ginger" without thinking of that age-old question: "Ginger or Maryann?" Although I am not averse to the piquant root and agree that the fictional starlet was easy on the eyes, if pressed, I would side with my island colleague, the Professor, on this one. The famous pair are rendered here by artist Natalie Lynn Cunial, whose work is also rife with mermaids.

I picked up a True Brew American Wheat Kit and a knob of ginger. I followed the directions, putting in the rather generic bittering hops at the beginning of the boil. The recipe does not call for flavoring hops -- those distinctive hops that are put in the brew just a minute or two before the boiling stops and yeast is added. I decided that a couple tablespoons of minced garlic would serve as the equivalent of flavoring hops. A few weeks later, on bottling day, I took one more step to ensure some ginger flavor. When bottling beer, a small amount of sugar -- five ounces for five gallons -- is added just before filling and capping the bottles. The idea is to give the yeast just a bit more flavor, so that a small amount of carbon dioxide will be released within each bottle. Without this step, the beer is flat. I always dissolve the priming sugar in boiling water to make sure it is distributed evenly among the bottles, and having made a ginger syrup for our Valentine's dessert this year, I knew that I could infuse ginger into this priming-sugar mix.

Knowing we would have a few friends over for a birthday dinner, we decided to give the new concoction a try on the day before, which is known as Attainment Day. These are celebrated in our house, and according to the federal government, I was already 50, so it was a good excuse to try a special beer anyway. Mainly, to be honest, I wanted to make sure it was drinkable before springing it on company. Readers of this blog know that we are not always so cautious, often serving guests food we have never tried before, and in fact we would do that on my birthday itself -- stay tuned.

Results -- this wheat-ginger ale is a winner! It is lighter than most of our home brews and had just the right amount of zing!

Lagniappe

Lest folks think that only hetero men who grew up in the Golden Age of U.S. sitcom television waste their time on shallow, binary choices between the Gingers and the Maryanns of their imaginations, I recommend Dona Flor, her two husbands, and the various remakes of this Bruno Bareto tale.

Fortunately, as the New York Times recently reported on our own marriage, neither of us had to choose between sizzle, as it were, and steak.
.

Blubes

"Hello, professor," I heard over my shoulder as I walked into the new Homebrew Emporium in Weymouth. I have learned not to be too surprised at being recognized when I'm out and about, but I really did not expect to encounter a student in this little warehouse of a store. When I turned around, I recognized a student -- don't worry, well into his 20s -- from a class I had taught last fall. And I remembered that the student and I had traded -- not in class, again don't worry -- bottles of our home-brewed efforts. He is a bit more accomplished as a brewer than I am (this is not coffee, after all), so it all made sense, once I got my bearings.

Perfect timing, as we just
saw Blueman Group
on Sunday!

And I was glad to find him there, because I was on a bit of a mission. More than a decade ago, our first visit to Firefly's Bodacious BBQ (a regional chain with fiery food that we do not often find in New England) was also Pam's first encounter with Wachusett Blueberry Ale -- from a relatively new microbrewery near the center of our adopted state. We were delighted at the simple innovation of putting blueberries (known in our household as blubes) in the beer, where the rising bubbles rolled them like little lottery balls or some kind of strange aquarium.

Although that beer is still made, it is off the menu at Firefly's. I am not really so much a fruit-beer person, but since my sweetheart -- and brewing assistant is -- I decided this spring that it was high time to try my hand. So I entered the warehouse with a vague interest in making some blueberry beer, but no clue how to do it. After talking over some options with my former student, we devised the "recipe" that follows.

We started with a Witbier kit from Brewer's Best, which the manufacturer describes as "A classic white ale brewed with wheat, barley, orange peel and coriander. It is lightly hopped and fermented with Safbrew WB-06 resulting in a fruity, spicy, refreshing beer with a dry finish." I must admit I used a standard yeast in place of the Safbrew because I once ruined a batch with fancy yeast, and though I understand why, I'm still a little cautious.

So, I brewed this, adding four ounces of blueberry extract along with the priming sugar when we bottled about three weeks ago. For the premiere, I went looking for local blueberries, which I've seen recently, but which are starting to be in short supply. I was pleased, therefore, to get some blueberries from Hilltop Farm in Blandford, Massachusetts.

SKREEEEEE---EEECH! STOP THE PRESSES!

I had written most of the foregoing when I started to have a little tickle of a doubt in the back of my mind. After all this great, blog-worthy prelude, was I brewing with the wrong berry? Just before we opened the first two beers -- with the blubes on the table next to a local farm-box dinner -- I mentioned that this might in fact be raspberry beer. We dumped the blubes in anyway, and got to watch them swim around. Then we tested, and I had my doubts. Pam -- who has better taste than I -- both literally and figuratively -- confirmed that in my indecision back in that warehouse, I had gone with the raspberry extract..I think I did so because a four-ounce bottle would be about 2/3 the recommended strength, which sounded like a good compromise.

The outcome was all good -- the beer was perfectly conditioned and delicious. Sometimes even a successful beer has not developed enough pressure by the first time we open it, but this was just right -- a good head of foam and a sweet/tart flavor that made a nice berry medley!

Is Cheese a Vegetable?

It may not be difficult to believe that I have already returned to our new super-market-checkout booklet Cooking with Beer, not even week after the terrific scallops-with-stout dish that was part of a recent very busy evening in our kitchen. Although the photo looks like mush, Pam and I were both pleased to notice Cerveza Chicken Enchilada Casserole on our first perusal. The result was a genuine guilty pleasure with Tex-Mex roots.

At the very beginning I altered the recipe slightly. It calls for small amounts of carrot and celery, but we had frozen tri-color bell peppers on hand, suggesting a substitution that would be both thrifty and more fitting. When we repeat this dish -- which clearly we will want to -- I will use bell peppers again, but also some hotter peppers. This dish is scrumptious except for a lack of piquancy.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I brought one cup of Mexican beer and two cups of water to a boil, along with the veggies, a dash of salt, and the juice of one lime. I then added two chicken breasts and cooked through -- about 12 minutes. I forgot to let it cool before shredding the chicken -- in the pan -- with two forks.

Then I began to assemble the dish; the recipe calls for doing this in three rounds in a slow cooker, but it was getting close to dinner, so I used a casserole dish and just two rounds, each like this:

half a 10-ounce can of enchilada sauce -- half a 9-ounce bag of tortilla chips -- half the chicken mix -- a bit of chopped onion -- shredded cheddar cheese

REPEAT, then pour the rest of the bottle of beer over the whole thing.

The recipe mentions 3 cups of cheese, but I think I did a bit more. It calls for 4-5 hours in a crock pot, but I cooked at 350 in a convection oven for about 30 minutes, then cooled to 325 for about 15 minutes more. Crispy on the edges, bubbly on top, and delicious all over!

Perfect pairing for this dish, of course, is beer, Mexican if possible but our home-brewed English ale worked just fine. This dish makes particularly good leftovers, either heated through in the oven or microwaved in small batches.

Busy Kitchen

Monday morning was spent dodging (not very effectively) downpours as we went into Boston for errands, mainly the provision of a travel visa for our daughter's upcoming service trip to China. The late afternoon found me in the kitchen juggling (somewhat effectively) three little projects.

I began with a slight variation on a very familiar recipe -- a smoked pepper dip for a small gathering on Tuesday. It is a perennial crowd-pleaser that calls for roasted red peppers and commercial salsa. I always try to use a chipotle salsa -- usually from Trader Joe's -- supplying even more roasted peppers. This time I used Arriba! Fire-Roasted Mexican Chipotle Salsa, available at my local grocery, and decided to roast the additional peppers myself.

I had been intimidated by this process for years -- which is why I have not yet made my own mole from scratch -- but tried it a couple of times in the past year or so, and I am now fairly confident putting an entire bell directly on the front (super) burner of our stove. The keys are, I think, to turn the peppers frequently and to be unafraid to char them quite thoroughly. In this case, I roasted one bell pepper and one jalapeño, giving the dish a bit of extra piquancy.

A strange but important part of the roasting process is the sweating -- the peppers go into a sealed bag for about ten minutes, after which it is a simple matter to remove the vast majority of the charred patches of outer skin.

(UPDATE, January 2019: since writing this, I have learned that I can sweat the peppers just as effectively -- and with less mess -- in any very small covered dish.)

The resulting dip was delicious -- a few test bites had to be taken -- probably one of the best I have made -- and I have made this dish at least 100 times. It can be served either warm or cold; since I was almost a day ahead, I set it aside to cool and then turned my attention to brewing some raspberry whitbeer -- my first foray into fruit-flavored beer. I am still a novice brewer, but competent enough to keep the kitchen relatively clean while progressing through the various steps required to create wort (unfermented beer) and get it set up for initial fermentation. Once I was done with steeping the grains and adding the malt, hops and spices (a first for me), I put the whole shebang in sink full of ice water to chill it for the final step.

Because it was starting to get late (by our early-bird dinner standards) I decided that I could continue brewing and still get started on our dinner, which was made possible by two things we had picked up on Sunday. The first was one of those little recipe books from the grocery store. We had gotten rid of many of these when we cleaned up the cookbook cabinet a few months ago, but could not resist one entitled Cooking with Beer. Pam had thumbed through the booklet as I drove us to Fresh Catch in Mansfield, and we settled on an intriguing recipe involving sea scallops.

The recipe called for hoisin sauce -- which we had never used -- and other ingredients that we already had on hand. I made one unusual error. I did not notice that the recipe called for drained beans, so when I blended the beans with a few other ingredients for a sauce, I did not realize that it was way to thin. Ordinarily, I would just keep cooking to reduce the sauce, but it was far too thin, and sufficient cooking to reduce the sauce would have overcooked the scallops. Fortunately, Pam suggested corn starch as a compromise, and it worked fairly well.

The scallops went beautifully with an Argentine Malbec called Loca Linda (I called this "Pretty Crazy" but the company prefers "Crazy Beautiful"), which we purchased at currentVintage, a dress shop on Nantucket that is also one of our favorite wine stores.

After dinner, I pitched a little yeast into the wort, gave it a stir, and covered it with a lid and airlock. As I write this just over 24 hours later, the dip is mostly gone (a crowd-pleaser for the small crowd we entertained this evening), the scallops are a scrumptious memory, and the beer is fermenting in the next room, bubbling up about twice each minute to assure me that the yeast are now working overtime!