Quite often, fusion dishes can be very off-kilter in terms of ingredients clashing and jarring once tickled your taste-buds. On this occasion, I was faced with a dilemma of choosing between something traditionally British of the roast variety, or to have something Chinese to see in the New Year. I chose to try and sate both needs in one dish and think it came off rather well. The dish is essentially roasted beef sausages (you can use roast beef – which would probably be just as satisfying), with a giant Yorkshire pudding and oriental greens in a spiced gravy. Trust me, it worked. What you Need (to make two portions): 4-6 Beef Sausages 1 pak choi, washed and shredded 2 stems of celery, chopped coarsely small handful of Mange Tout 1 green pepper 1 red chilli, sliced finely 1 clove garlic, chopped finely or minced For the batter: 150ml whole milk 3-4 eggs pinch of sugar pinch of salt 110g of plain white flour 1 tsp szechuan pepper ½ tsp black pepper Beef Dripping and vegetable oil for cooking For the Gravy: Stock made from the vegetable off cuts (100ml) 1 beef stock cube 2 bay leaves 2 tsp dark soy 1 tsp light soy 1 tsp szechuan pepper ½ tsp Chinese five-spice 1 tsp rice vinegar additional water or stock to loosen as required What to do: 1. Prepare the Pudding batter at least 90 minutes before cooking, combine all the ingredients and fold into one another without being too rough, once homogenised, leave in the refrigerator for at least 60 mins. Take this out and allow to reach room temperature before cooking. 2. Roast the sausages in the oven at 225 C until dark brown, set aside or leave in oven to cook with the Yorkshire puddings which are ready around 20-30 minutes after putting in the oven at the highest setting, ensuring the pudding trays are hot before adding the batter – this is crucial!! Use a liberal amount of beef dripping and the vegetable oil in the pudding trays, heat these up on a hob until smoking and ensure they are hot all over before adding the batter mix equally between two 6-7” pie dishes/pudding trays. The puddings are done once they have risen and are dark brown and golden all over where you can see. 3. Stir fry the vegetables, doing the celery first over a medium heat in a pan or wok, add the garlic and chilli followed by the other vegetables one at a time, not over cooking and allowing them to retain a crunch and freshness. Add the pak choi last, turning off the heat and immediately place a lid over the top, allowing the vegetables to steam. 4. Pour the stock (made from boiling the offcuts of the vegetables and the bay leaves for 15 mins if you don’t have prepared stock) into a saucepan and simmer with the stock cube, soy and szechuan pepper until reduced and thickened, you can use a roux or browning to thicken the sauce if you want plenty of gravy. Turn off the heat once your preferential consistency is almost reached and add the rice vinegar and five spice, stir these in whilst the gravy is still hot and serve immediately by pouring over the sausages, veg and pudding. Satisfyingly earthy, meaty, tasty and fresh. Enjoy and feel free to share any anecdotes of attempts below the line! Pedro. x
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Beard, Beard, Beard, Beard’s the word… and everybody’s heard about the word. Well, hopefully by the end of this piece they will have. Weird Beard hail from West London, which has somewhat a dearth of reputable drinking establishments, the White Horse in Parson’s Green aside from what I had experienced from a recent visit (although it should be noted, I only had one day to scan the area and went off recommendations from acquaintances and friends). Following a wealth of experience (and some awards) two brewers by the name of Bryan and Gregg decided to take the plunge and swap their respective small batch kitchen based enterprises and go full on with their brews. The remit of their beers is the use of hops to pack as much into their beers as is possible, whilst wearing rather fetching facial hair. Okay, I did make that last bit up, as I doubt things would grind to a sudden halt should one of them decide to defuzz. Weird Beard started their experiments in February of 2013 and over the course of the following 12 months received the accolade of being in the top 5 or 6 of new brewers in the World. It may not sound like too much of a deal, but when you consider that during this period for nomination, some 2000 new breweries began operations. Remarkable. Weird Beard are apparently at the stage of considering more space to continue their quest to deliver more beers out into the world, they currently have 3 full time personnel on the brewing and are even considering a tap room from which to directly dispense their wares. And so, onward to an early May Monday evening, one of the chief beards, Gregg Irwin is stood in front of a crowd awaiting stories (of which there were many) and some of the fabled Beard brews. Mariana Trench The most popular beer of the Weird Beard stable, an American Pale style using Citra and Pacific Gem hops which started life as a homebrewed beer; this was initially called Mariana’s Trench, with the ‘s dropped due to some rather rude connotations (I’ll leave that to you guys). At 5%, this soft, slightly sour beer has a character with some stone fruit including mango, tropical passion fruit a notably peachy finish, a slight haze and orchard fruit aromas. The name is clearly derived from the geographical reference to use of trans-pacific hops. 5 O’Clock Shadow This American style IPA uses four different hop types; Citra, Apollo, Summit and Colombus. Heavy hops flavour and a ABV of around 7% gives this beer a slight savoury edge with yet more apricot and nectarine aromas, though the presence of these on the nose did not quite convey into the flavour. The beer is dry hopped at 8.5g hops per litre and started life as a darker product. K*ntish Town Beard A very interesting story reared its head in the presentation by Gregg resulting in the current name we have for this beer. It started life as a collaborative beer, brewed in conjunction with the Brewdog bar based down in Camden with a name that made another prominent brewery rather unhappy, although this has now been firmly resolved and the beer is a delicious American style wheat beer. The use of Willamette hops in the initial hopping and then with Centennial in the boil, Centennial and Cascade are finally used in the ferment to great effect. The Willamette provides the woody spiciness often conveyed by Simcoe. This interesting beer comes in at 5.5%. Fade to Black Another Weird Beard beer of homebrew origin, this excellent black IPA weighs in at 7.1% with a low payload of roast for something so dark. The use of three different hops in Sorachi Ace, Citra and Summit give plenty of flavour hit, which has depth and length without issue. Some slight chocolate flavours hum in the background along with a hint of toasted coconut, something which has been played upon with the follow up version of Fade to Black. Fade to Black (coconut) A one-off brew playing on the original beer above, this iteration removes the use of the Sorachi Ace hop and came about through a mistake with a hot liquor tank and the elements remaining on for much longer than anticipated. This beer is almost at a level where you’d classify it as a liquid chocolate bar inundated by toasted coconut, which is testament to the amounts of coconut that was thrown at making this beer, although it did have the unwanted side effect of clogging up lots of equipment with coconut. Fade to Black (coconut) was not dry hopped, retaining some more stout character as opposed to the black IPA and comes up with a strength of around 6.1%. Decadence Stout The use of 10 different grains and predominantly US Chinook and Goldings hops, this 4.8% stout uses no roasted barley and concentrated on the use of less acidic malts to retain a full body and chocolatey flavour with a hint of coffee and pleasant creamy mouthfeel. Boring Brown Beer This rebrew of the first ever beer Weird Beard made, with the possible exception of Hit the Lights, this 8.2% monster is based on the beer ‘Arrogant Bastard’ by Stone Brewery and was brewed with Chinook hops in a Pale ale style. A tinker with the yeast to a specific type helped fine tuning with the brew and a ferment temperation of 29 degree Celsius helped keep some ester compounds (ask an organic chemist, not me… I do know, but it’s the wrong branch of Kemistry, arf arf) to convey a fruity flavourful beer. This ‘Imperial Best’ beer has notes of raisins on the nose and in the flavours and over 100 IBUs, which would do well from aging both in cask and bottle. All in all, a very informative and engaging evening with Weird Beard; great beers, although some not quite to my own taste, the story telling was excellent and will make for a entertaining event.
A special shout should be given to Kusina ni Lola for providing the cooking at this event, four excellent courses to accompany the beers were provided and from the taste (and photos above) they were excellent – you can catch them occasionally at the Foodslam events at the Camp and Furnace, infrequent pop up events or at the Albion Market in Crosby, North Liverpool. Until the next time…. Pedro. x --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Weird Beard Brew Co. Unit 5 Boston Business Park, Trumpers Way, Hanwell. W7 2QA Tel: 0203 645 2711 Web: http://www.weirdbeardbrewco.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/WeirdBeard_Brew Twenty Three Club / Clove Hitch 23 Hope Street, Liverpool, L1 9BQ Web: http://www.theclovehitch.com/# Twitter: https://twitter.com/TwentyThreeClub or https://twitter.com/theclovehitch Email: [email protected] or [email protected] Tel: 0151 709 6574 Kusina Ni Lola Twitter: https://twitter.com/KusinaNiLola Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kusinanilola Gone is the first Bank Holiday weekend of May, along with it, a multitude of Beer (and some food) festivals across the Northwest (covered in a previous blog: [http://electrokemistcuisine.weebly.com/1/post/2014/04/may-bank-holiday-round-up-2014.html]), at least for another year. Whilst the weather held until the Monday evening, the majority of us received some warm, if somewhat grey conditions in which to indulge in some fine ales from up and down the UK. Unfortunately, already making arrangements for the Mad Hatter Brewery Tap opening on Friday evening and for a trip to Bispham Green into West Lancashire, it left little time to head elsewhere such as the Aigburth Cricket Club Beer Festival. There was however, a chance on a Sunday afternoon to wander down to the Old Christchurch in Waterloo to indulge in the embers of the seventh festival held at the remarkable environs. Journeying by train out to Ormskirk from Liverpool and then onward to the Eagle and Child pub in Bispham Green, between Mawdesley and Parbold is now an annual treat for me and a few other regular accomplices. The pub is owned by the Ainscoughs (also of Racquet Club fame) and run as a ‘gastropub’ – the term usually makes me shudder, but it isn’t too ill fitting here as the pub does indeed present some superb, honest and fairly priced meals. The tranquil settings are excellent at the beginning of our session, from 4pm onwards things tend to get noisier, with the live music sound checks and a larger number of locals heading down to the venue. A single large marquee is stationed to the rear of the pub, with the bowling green and other patio areas soon populated with revellers, getting in early with picnic blankets is highly recommended. There are usually around 50-60 ales on offer along a single row of stills, alas keg has yet to catch up here. There are a large number of ciders to compensate, although these have a tendency on warmer occasions to run out by the Saturday afternoon. A £10 door tax returns the festival pint glass, a programme and around £6 worth of festival tokens, with halves being around £1.50 to £1.75 depending on the ABV, meaning this is one of the better value beer festivals around in terms of entry costs. Food is available at a tuck shop and with proper chips and a rather enticingly aromatic hog roast also to the rear of the pub. The Festival at the Eagle and Child is now heading beyond its 19th year and is as popular as ever, but the setting is by far and away the greatest asset; few beer festivals feel as relaxed as this when the weather is dry and warm. The beers were of a usual standard for such beer festivals, alas none of them were listed in the festival programme. Sadly, the first festival where they have left it out, this was a glaring omission from previous festivals, where the presence of the list made planning your beers a much easier and stress-free task. Breweries such as Propsect, Southport, Allgates and Burscough, Frodsham and Phoenix all have a heavy presence at this festival; producing some excellent English pale ales, best bitters, red ales and stouts, although there wasn’t too much of variation beyond this. Coach house Brewery from Cheshire did supply many fruit infused beers such as the very drinkable ‘Pineapple’ and supermarket friendly ‘Blueberry’ – again though, these beers are all pale ale, where the Coconut they brew jarred with the hopped pale ale style when best paired with a darker ale in stout or porter style. An extra two hours was added to the session at Waterloo by the Liverpool Organic Brewery guys, making an 8pm close the order of the day. Luckily the session was not sold out, so being able to pay on the door was a blessing, although many of the first choice beers had gone in the previous sessions. With allegedly some 200 beers on offer (and excellently, some keg for the first time at the Waterloo iteration) alongside the ciders, Liverpool Gin, Peninsula Pies, Liverpool Cake Company and the ever-present Liverpool Cheese Company. As with many other festivals, there is live music alongside the beers, but the main attraction is the well organised and well stocked feel the festival has. As the festival has grown, attracted sponsorship and added a greater variety of beers to the repertoire it has also very gradually increased the cost of the sessions, sadly with overheads spiralling in all industries, this is sadly inevitable, but the festival does remain good value for visitors with the added attractions of great food from the aforementioned contributors. Attendance does feel as though it has slipped ever so slightly in the last two years most likely due to a saturation of the marketplace for Beer Festivals (where demand is thankfully still remarkably high), but the event still sells out on the Friday and Saturday evening sessions in a heartbeat, meaning slightly easier going sessions during Thursday, Friday and Saturday daytime and Sunday can be less crowded to get around. The beers at the Waterloo festival are again, as with the Eagle and Child, all run off stillage, aside from two groups; the Liverpool Organic Beers on cask hand pull and the craft keg beers from the likes of Mad Hatter, Saltaire and Tiny Rebel. Long may these two excellent festivals continue to provide a gateway for new beer enthusiasts, great beers and a convivial atmosphere in which to enjoy them. Pedro. ------------------------------------------------------------ Eagle and Child Malt Kiln Lane, Bispham Green, Mawdesley, Lancashire. L40 3SG Web: http://www.ainscoughs.co.uk/The-Eagle-Child/eagle-and-child-home.html Telephone:01257 462 297 Email: [email protected] Liverpool Cheese Company 29a Woolton Street, Woolton Village, Liverpool. L25 5NH Web: http://www.liverpoolcheesecompany.co.uk/ Telephone: 0151 428 3942 Email: [email protected] Liverpool Cake Company Web: http://liverpoolcakecompany.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/liverpoolcakeco Telephone: 0151 734 0761 Mobile: 07864 069 105 Email: [email protected] So Spring has indeed sprung, with lots of clement weather; featuring warm sunshine spattering the land for many of us. Something else that has sprung is the new brewery premises of Mad Hatter Brewery in the Baltic Triangle, rising up out of the larva of the meagre space of previous premises to allow for space to create greater volumes of the strong Mad Hat ichor and additional room for revelry next to tuns, fermenters and other brewing equipment. Approximately one year and many, many unusual, strong and intoxicating brews on from setting up and only a little longer since moving to Liverpool, the brewery is gathering momentum at an alarming rate; culminating most recently in the new Brewery and Microtap. A relatively balmy Friday evening saw Gaz Matthews and Sue Starling along with recent additions to their team Marc and Jen, pushing the boat out and opening the premises on the corner of Watkinson Street and Jamaica Street to the public, welcoming them for consumption of the Mad Hat wares. The location of the new premises is a promising one, with other gastronomic and cultural gems festooned throughout the industrial district’s warehouses and dereliction; the latter facet certainly could be a thing of the past if the area continues such growth. The Microtap itself featured a bar loaded with current brewery favourites of Scotch Ale, Toxteth Pale and Penny Lane Pale amongst others on keg from Mad Hatter and a cask beer in the form of RedRum, these were augmented by a stout presence on the bottle bar from Fat and Fatter Stout plus some of the Drink Me range. The Microtap was open from Friday early evening until Sunday evening only on this occasion, but is set to have a continued presence in the Baltic Triangle and open for the next Bank Holiday weekend at the end of May from the 23rd until the 25th, then more regularly from July onward. The new brewery premises have a certain charm, with existing structures such as cast iron delivery hatches and unusual brickwork left to adorn the interior as an echo of a previous life whilst providing some character for what is about to happen. Judging by Gaz and Sue’s continuing enthusiasm, plus the hardcore support they have received from other breweries and consumers in Liverpool and beyond, things look bright for the beer and the bunny. Until next time mis amigos!! Pedro x ------------------------------------- Mad Hatter Brewing Company Watkinson Street Liverpool Web: http://madhatterbrewing.co.uk/ Email: [email protected] Twitter: https://twitter.com/MadHatBrew Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MadHatterBrewing |
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