The Temptress is a Molé

For those who may not be aware, the word molé (kind of pronounced mo-lay) means ‘sauce’ in the Mexican language. It’s a fairly generic term that covers all kinds of sauces, but outside of Mexico it tends to refer specifically to a dark chocolate brown chilli sauce, the molé poblano (poblano is a type of chilli). I’d say that the most common type of molé outside of Mexico is actually guacamole, ‘guaca’ meaning avocado. Traditionally, these sauces contain 20-30 ingredients, and can take days to prepare. They are considered a celebration food, so the effort is worth it.

One such celebration where molé is usually served is Dia de los Muertos – the Day of the Dead. This is a time where people remember and honour their dead and is usually held over two days, November 1-2. Since I first came across this holiday, I’ve found a real fascination and attraction to it. I’ve never been lucky enough to experience it first hand, but it appears to be such a colourful, happy celebration – the brightly painted sugar skulls, garlands of flowers, parades of skeletons in the streets, mariachi bands patrolling the cemeteries. In the western world, we treat death as taboo and with such bland seriousness. I find the Mexican attitude a lot…healthier? By celebrating the people who have passed on and accepting death as inevitable, there is a better appreciation for life.

Last year, I decided to cook up my own molé for Dia de los Muertos, using beer of course. Seeing as I am not Mexican, I’m wasn't too concerned about sticking to a traditional recipe. This was helpful because (a) traditional Mexican ingredients can be quite hard to find here, and (b) I had moved house a week prior to November 1st. There was no luxury of cooking for days. I’m surprised I managed to make anything more complicated than an Old El Paso kit. Traditional recipes also tend to use a lot of lard, which I’m not such a fan of. So, while not exactly traditional, this dish is still super tasty and barely takes hours, rather than days.

The beer of choice is the Holgate Temptress Chocolate Porter. It’s not uncommon for dark beers to be part of a Mole recipe, and this one has the added bonus of being a chocolate porter, enhancing the chocolate that is already added in the cooking.

Well she was just 17…

3 tablespoons oil (whatever mild-flavoured oil you have – I used light olive oil)
8 chicken thighs, or 4 legs, or an entire chicken cut into pieces, or use turkey if you have a big enough pot (turkey is more traditional, but they are bloody big birds)
1 onion, diced
1 capsicum, seeded and diced
1 poblano pepper, seeded and diced – you can use canned or dried if you don’t have access to fresh…which I don’t, so I used canned for this recipe.
3 cloves garlic, diced
2 teaspoons chilli powder (hotness dependant on your pain threshold)
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 can diced tomatoes
1/4 cup raisins
2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, chopped
1 cup chicken stock
1 cup of Holgate Temptress chocolate porter (or another dark beer - bonus points if it contains chocolate)
2 teaspoons of peanut butter
1 teaspoon of salt
60 g of dark chocolate – the darker, the better

FOR SERVING:

warm corn tortillas
sour cream
fresh coriander, chopped

…and you know what I mean*

Place a large frypan on medium heat and heat half of the oil. Add your chicken (or turkey) pieces and brown on all sides. Once that has been done, remove to a plate, cover with foil and set aside.

Add the remaining oil to the same frypan and turn the heat down slightly. Sauté the onion, capsicum, poblano chilli and garlic until soft and slightly caramelized. Stir in the spices - chilli powder, cumin and cinnamon - and cook until fragrant (about 2-3 minutes should do it).

 

Add the tomatoes, raisins, chipotle, stock, beer, peanut butter and salt. Bring to a simmer and cook for 20 minutes, stirring often.

 

Transfer the sauce into a blender or food processor and add the chocolate. The heat from the sauce should melt the chocolate, allowing it to blend in. Process until you have a consistently smooth sauce.

Now, back to your chicken. Place the pieces into a deep, heavy cooking pot and pour the blended sauce over them. Cover and simmer for about 45 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through.

Serve with warm corn tortillas, sour cream and fresh cilantro. You could also serve with rice, fresh salsa or sautéed greens.

The beer we drank with this was the excellent Mikeller Texas Ranger, which happens to be one of my fantasy beers. It’s a chipotle spiced porter, so the flavour profile of smoky, chilli heat with roasty, chocolate matches the mole pretty darn well.

* On a side note, in the Australian vernacular, the word ‘mole’ (pronounced MOLE) has a completely different meaning. I used to attend a pub bingo night where one of my favourite calls was for #17 – ‘Well she was just 17 and you know what I mean! What do I mean? She was a MOLE!’ By amazing co-incidence, there are 17 ingredients in this particular recipe.

Mad Mushroom Ragout with Gnocchi

What do you get when you combine a trio of mushrooms, a Belgian Dubbel called ‘Mad Abbot’, a Spaetzle press and a stressed out home cook? I don’t know really, but it sounds like a pretty good story…

Once upon a time there was an average home cook who liked to experiment with beer in her recipes. For no apparent reason, she had a sudden desire to try her hand at making her own gnocchi. She’d never had this urge before, but it was such a powerful need it just had to be satisfied. What sauce, though, would be the most delicious? Once again, the idea came to her out of the blue – only mushrooms would do. A mushroom stew…or maybe ragout! (Wait…I think I may have stumbled into Dr Seuss  territory here.) Now the idea was in her head, she couldn’t shake it. This dish had to be made, but she needed some help. She turned to a Mad Abbot. His roots were Belgian, although he hadn’t travelled that far…and he was sure to make the dish DUBBEL-ly good.

Okay…so my story telling skills are pretty lame. The basic details are true though. I had a burning urge to make gnocchi. I had a craving for mushrooms. I used the Mad Abbot Belgian Dubbel in the dish….and it was good. I do admit, half way through the gnocchi making I was questioning my sanity.  Why on earth did I think it would be fun or beneficial in any way? I had already made beer bread (half the batch turned into thyme and garlic rolls, half into a fig and walnut mini-loaf) and beer brownies (which were disappointing and put me off my game) that very afternoon. I was stressed out and beginning to think that ordering a pizza might be the smart thing to do. The story does have a happy ending though.


Have what it takes...


Gnocchi:

450-500g potatoes (3-4) – I’ve found conflicting information on which potatoes to use. You want something dry I believe, but if you shop in an average supermarket there may not be a huge range.
2 egg yolks
¾ cup of ‘00’ strong flour
½ tspn salt
1/8 tspn nutmeg

Ragout:

1 tablespoon butter
2 Shallots, sliced finely
4 cloves Garlic - diced
100g Mushrooms – Swiss brown
100g Mushrooms – Shitake
100g Mushrooms – Enoki or Portobello
1 tablespoon fresh Thyme
Pepper
Salt
½ cup Belgian Dubbel
½ cup Sour cream

 To do what you gotta...

The Gnocchi:

There are two ways you can go about cooking your spuds. If you have time, preheat oven to 190 degrees and bake potatoes on a bed of rock salt for 45 to 50 minutes. If, like me, you realise you would like to eat your dinner before midnight, stab your potatoes with a fork a few times and place them in the microwave with a few paper towels under them. Nuke for five minutes on high, then roll them over and replace the paper towel with some fresh stuff. Give them another 5 minutes, and then test with a skewer to make sure they are soft all the way through.

Let the potatoes cool so you don't burn yourself, and when you can handle them comfortably, cut in half and peel the skin off. If you find this difficult, just scoop out the flesh with a spoon. This is where the Spaetzle press comes in. Actually, it’s a ‘multi-purpose’ press, but you can apparently make Spaetzle with it, so I call it my Spaetzle press, just because I like saying the word Spaetzle. You can use a potato ricer (BORING) or even a food processor (LAME), OR you can stick the potato flesh in your Spaetzle press (I used the smallest…hole thingy) and squeeze the little potato worms into a large bowl.

Add the egg yolks and spices to the potatoes and mix until well combined. Now add the flour to the potato mixture, mix it in with your hands and form a dough. I can’t lie – this is super messy. Eventually it will stop sticking to your fingers and that’s when you' know it's ready. Tip the dough onto a liberally floured surface and form into a thick log, about 10cm wide. Cut into about eight even pieces, and roll out each piece into a 1 cm thick rope. You may need to keep flouring the surface and your hands during this process. Cut the dough into pieces about 1cm long, trying to keep them as even as possible and keeping in mind that they expand when cooked. Lay them on a tray and squish each piece slightly in the middle with the tines of a fork dipped in flour. Let them dry at room temperature while you make the sauce.

The Mad Mushroom Ragout:

I don’t really know what a ragout is. It just sounds better than ‘sauce’. Over a low heat melt the butter. Add shallots and cook until they begin to soften. Add garlic and cook for a minute or so. Add mushrooms and cook until they start to wilt and release their liquid. Add the beer, salt pepper and thyme. Bring to the boil, and then simmer until the liquid reduces by half. Add the sour cream and stir to combine well. Bring back to a simmer and allow to thicken.

While simmering, bring a big pot of water to the boil. Drop your gnocchi in. They only take a couple of minutes to cook and they float to the surface when done. Use a slotted spoon to scoop them up. Transfer the cooked gnocchi onto a plate and top with your ragout and some grated parmesan.

The happy ending…my gnocchi was light and pillowy like it should be. The ragout was really tasty and matched really well with the soft, gentle gnocchi. There a couple of things I’d do differently next time. I wouldn’t try making gnocchi when I’d already spent most of the day cooking. Give yourself plenty of time so you can be relaxed. While I think the taste and texture of the gnocchi was great, it looked fairly ordinary – the pieces were irregular and misshapen due to rushing through. The ragout was great, but the sour cream didn’t combine as well as it should have. There were visible white flecks through the sauce. A plain cream might be better, although it may lose some of the taste. Or perhaps I just need  to experiment with different brands of sour cream.

The husband and I drank a growler of the Bridge Road Saison Noir with this, and it worked really well. You want a darker malty beer to compliment the earthy flavours of the mushrooms, but nothing so heavy that is drowns out the delicate aspects of the dish.

Gardeners Pie (No Shepherds required)

Yes, this is another vegetarian recipe. Don’t act surprised, and before the carnivores all walk out in a huff I should point out that I actually had a request for more Vegetarian recipes. I am always both shocked and amazed when I discovered that someone has actually read the blog and taken the time to give me feedback, so I am more than happy to take their requests on board. It is certainly no problem for me to cook more vegetarian food. The good news for lovers of all things meaty is that once again you can use meat if you really want to.


Shepherds pie is made with lamb and cottage pie is made with beef, right? I’m going to call this ‘Gardeners Pie’ since its chock full of vegetable good ness. There was a suggestion it could be called ‘Brewers’ Pie’ as well, because I ended up using two different styles of beer in the finished product. Next time I might try for three.


This is one of the easiest pies in the world to make, due to the lack of pastry. You could put it in a pastry shell if you want, but it’s not necessary. It’s just a case of making the delicious savoury filling, covering it with delicious mashed potato and baking it the oven until delicious. I upped the delicious ante on this one by using Sean ‘Homebrew Chef’ Paxton’s roasted garlic IPA mash on top. This magic mash converted my mash-hating husband into a mash-lover, thus is the power of beer.

As it seems to be the case in most of my recipes, I just happened to have an appropriate bottle of beer in my cupboard - the Bridge Road Robust Porter. Porters are fantastic for cooking savoury dishes of both the vegetarian and meaty kinds, as they have the dark roasty flavour without being overly bitter. For the mash I used a Lobethal India Pale Al, but have made the same mash successfully with other IPAs. Only a small amount is used in the mash, so bitterness isn’t an issue. The hoppier the better though.


What to plant in your pie:

1 tablespoon olive oil
½ cup diced shallots (or 1 medium brown onion, diced finely)
3 cloves garlic, diced finely
1 large carrot, grated
2 stalks celery, diced
½ cup frozen peas
½ cup frozen corn
1 bag quorn mince (or the equivalent amount of minced meat)
1 can brown lentils
1 bottle of porter
¼ cup Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon thyme*
1 tablespoon rosemary*
1 tbsp cornflour, mixed to a paste in 1 tbsp cold water
Salt & pepper

*I just happened to have these herbs on hand. You could sub them out for others – sage, bay leaf, parsley. Again its up to what you like or what you have.


The Mash Mulch (based on the Homebrew Chef recipe):

450g potatoes
1 head of garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 sprigs thyme
Salt & pepper
½ cup butter
½ cup heavy cream
2-4 tablespoons IPA

Start by preparing the garlic for the mash. Preheat your oven to 150C.  Remove as much of the papery outside skin from the head of garlic as you can, then cut enough of the top of the head off in order to expose the tops of each clove.  Place it in the middle of a square of aluminium foil and drizzle olive oil over the top. Add a sprig of thyme and season with a little salt and pepper before wrapping up in a nice little parcel. Put on a baking tray and place in the oven for 25-30 minutes.

While the garlic is cooking, chop up your potatoes and place them in a pot, covered with cold water. Place on a high heat and bring to the boil. Cook until they are soft enough to pierce easily. Drain well and mash until smooth. (Or if you are fancy enough to have a ricer, put them through that.)

By now the garlic should be done (the original recipe says you know when it done, because the aroma will fill your entire house. It really does, and it is awesome!). Take it out of the oven, open the foil and allow to cool for five minutes.  Squeeze the cloves out of their skins and into a bowl, then mash with a fork until smooth.

In a small saucepan, place the butter, cream and 2 sprigs of thyme on to medium heat.  Bring to a boil, then turn down to low and simmer for 10 minutes.  Remove the thyme and add garlic paste and whisk to combine. Simmer another three to five minutes, then remove from the heat and add salt and pepper, and your IPA. Add the garlic cream to the mashed potatoes and fold in.  You might want to add half first, then check the flavour to see if it needs more garlic or IPA. I generally add the whole amount, but I like both garlic and hops.


Cultivating your pie:

Turn your oven to 180 degrees.

Slice and dice all of your vegetables. In a large saucepan, put 1 tablespoon of olive oil on low heat and sauté your onion and garlic until soft. Add the Quorn, breaking it up and cook until defrosted. Add the rest of the vegetables, stirring to combine, and cook for five or so minutes. (If you are using mince meat, add at the same time as you would add the quorn and cook well before adding the vegetables.)

Add the beer, Worcestershire sauce, herbs, tomato paste and bring to the boil. Turn down to a simmer for about 5 minutes, then add the cornflour paste and stir well. Allow to simmer until the sauce reduces and thickens nicely.

When the filling is ready, take your pie dish (or several small ones) and fill ¾. Top with the garlic IPA mash and ‘rake’ the surface with a fork. Some people might also put cheese on top, but considering the butter and cream in the mash, that could be considered overkill.

Bake for 25 – 30 minutes or until the top has browned and filling is bubbling up around the edges.

You could serve with a green salad if you want even more veggies, or with some warm beer bread rolls if you'd like some extra carbs. As for beer, pair with something along the lines of a brown ale, or more porter - something dark, but not too serious.

Midnight Spice: Vegetarian Beer Chilli

I was pretty excited when I stumbled on a few recipes for vegetarian chilli made with the added awesome of beer. Not only does it satisfy my red-meatless dietary needs, but I love Tex-Mex style meals. This recipe is a Frankensteinian concoction of several recipes. Although the beer is not a stand-out flavour – it can be hard to pick it amongst all the spice – I think it does make this a damned tasty dish. So far I’ve made this recipe with a few different beers, including amber,  porter and even a chocolate stout (nothing special, just a Youngs Double Chocolate) and it turned out very tasty. Chocolate goes really well with Chilli, as anyone who has had a mole sauce can attest to.

This time I used a Grand Ridge Mirboo Midnight - Oaked Dark Ale. You need to stick to the darker spectrum of beers in order to stand up to the spice. This is also one of those recipes that improves over time, allowing the flavours to develop.

Raid your spice rack:

1 bag or can of mince alternative – I use Quorn, but any pseudo-mince should work. Or, you could probably leave this out and add another can of black beans...or see the note at the end.
1 medium brown onion, diced
1 green capsicum (large), sliced into strips
1 red capsicum (large), sliced into strips
1 jalapeno chilli finely diced, seeded if desired (it will be less spicy if you do).
5 cloves of garlic, finely diced
1 cup of beer – amber ale, brown ale, porter or stouts are all good choices.
1 large (400g) can diced tomatoes
2 cans of red kidney beans (or, two cups dried beans, soaked)
1 can black beans (or one cup of dried beans, soaked)
1 can corn (or 1 cup frozen or fresh kernels)
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon of dried coriander
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon chilli powder
1 tablespoon paprika*
Salt and fresh ground black pepper
Olive oil – just enough to coat the bottom of your pan
Grated cheese and/or sour cream to serve

*For a twist, use smoked paprika

How to spice up your life:

Get everything ready before you start. Chop all your veggies. Open all the cans of beans and corn, strain the liquid and rinse. In a small bowl combine your dry spices - cumin, chilli powder, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper.

In a heavy-based pot, add enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan and put on low to medium heat. Sauté the onion and garlic until soft, then add the capsicum and continue to cook for 5 minutes or so. Add your mince alternative and turn the heat up to medium. (Quorn needs to be cooked from frozen, so you will need to break it up while it thaws out. Continue to cook until all the chunks have broken up and fully thawed.)

Pour in the beer and turn the heat up to high. Add the can of tomatoes, all the beans and corn and stir well. Bring to the boil, then turn down to simmer for a few minutes.

Stir in the spice mix and jalapeno, turn heat to low and cover. It should simmer for about an hour, but stir occasionally so it doesn’t stick to the pan. Taste to test the spice level. If you like your chilli really nuclear, you can add some hot sauce.

Serve topped with cheddar cheese and/or sour cream, with Mexican rice and / or tortillas. You could also use it as a topping for nachos, or possibly a filling for tacos.

This can be a pretty spicy dish, so you’ll want to drink something pretty refreshing with it. Lager can work in this way, although some might be a little too delicate. IPAs are a classic match for spicy foods too. I’m quite fond of more amber ale…usually a Mountain Goat Hightale Ale, which is my go-to beer.

Note: You carnivores will be happy to hear that this chilli can be made using real meat as well. Beef, chicken, turkey, possibly lamb or pork even. You will need to cook it separately in a fry pan, then try to drain as much fat as possible. Add it to the pot when you would add the fake meat - after the capsicum has softened and before the beer, tomato, beans and corn.

The Way to a Man's Heart: Scotch Ale Pie

I feel I should share something – I don’t eat red meat. No beef, lamb, ham, bacon, pork, rabbit, kangaroo, goat, horse, camel… you get the idea. I was a proper vegetarian for year. I gave it up in the face of delicious salmon steaks and roast chicken dinners, but I just can’t take that final step. So, why the share? The thing is, a lot of recipes using beer are kind of…meaty. All types of meat seem to really work well with beer, whether as a marinade, carbonade, brining, braising or stew. Sure, I can keep myself busy baking with beer, but I do need a break from all those carbs occasionally.

Love is a powerful emotion. So powerful it has even allowed me to put aside my aversion to red meat and cook with it. My husband doesn’t share this aversion to meatiness. Valentines day this year was our first as a married couple, so I decided to spoil the man with a beer soaked meal. As all good wives know, you should feed the man meat, so I decided to whip up a delicious scotch ale pot pie (I also made myself a chicken ale pie – I’m not going to starve!).

Ale pie recipes are not hard to come by. They are never too specific about what kind of beer to use though. I went with a Scotch ale (specifically the BrewBoys Seeing Double), because not only did I think it would work well with the beef, but it is also one of the man’s favourite beer styles. I fully admit to being lazy and buying the pastry for the top. A better cook may have made that too, but I wanted to focus on getting the filling right (as well as making my own pie, and the sides, and dessert). I can’t comment much on the finished product, as I didn’t taste it, but the husband seemed to enjoy it and is still alive to tell the tale. In fact, he noted that the scotch ale flavour was deliciously robust throughout the whole pie.

What it takes:

500g steak (best to use a cheaper cut – it actually tastes better)
1 tablespoon olive oil
100g shallots – peeled and quartered
125g small button mushrooms – cut into halves
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon tomato paste
250ml (1 cup) scotch ale
150ml (3/4 cups) beef stock
1 sprig of thyme
1 bay leaf
1/2 tablespoon of cornflour
Frozen puff pastry (or you can make your own, if you have the time and nous)
1 egg – beaten - to brush


How to make it work:

Cut the steak into medium chunks – about 2cm cubes. Heat the oil to high in a large, heavy saucepan. Brown the meat evenly in batches, then remove from the pan and cover with foil.

Turn the heat down to low and add the shallots and mushrooms to the remaining oil. Cook until they are soft and golden. Stir in Worcestershire sauce and tomato paste. Pour in beer and stock and add the herbs. Return the meat to pan (and any juices that are on the plate) and bring to the boil, then cover and simmer for 1 1/2 hours. Stir every now and then to make sure it’s not sticking to the bottom or burning.

Blend cornflour with two tablespoons of cold water, stir into the steak mixture and cook for a couple more minutes until thickened. Cool completely.

Preheat oven to 190°C. Roll out the pastry to fit top of pie dish (or dishes – I made two small pies). There should be 1-2 centimetres of extra pastry hanging over the edge. Fill dish with meat mixture. Brush the outer rim with water and place pastry over the top, pressing the edges down to seal. Brush with egg and bake in the oven for 30 minutes until puffed and golden. Allow to sit for five minutes or so before serving.

Drink more Scotch Ale with the pie, or a malty beer such as an ESB or Amber Ale. You need something with a bit of flavour to stand up to the pie, but nothing too hoppy or bitter.

I served the pie with a side of vegetables (those things that are often on your plate next to the meat) and the Homebrew Chef’s roasted garlic IPA mash (made with Murray’s Icon 2IPA), and followed by a dessert of double chocolate beer-a-misu (made with the Holgate Temptress, of course!). I think I definitely earned some brownie points. Hmmm...brownies...