Beer Dinner!

The following dishes all contain beer! YES! These recipes are easy to make and have big flavor!

I used Lost Coast’s Alley Kat amber for all my dishes – lucky for us in California, Lost Coast is making its away into our grocery stories! I’ll write up a separate review on the beer itself later – Let’s get to the food!

The Appetizer

A play off a Caprese salad – not sure what exactly but it’s a multi-grain chip, basil, cherry tomatoes, fresh baby mozzarella pearls and a amber ale vinaigrette. Sorry the color of the lighting is bad, I wanted to take another photo but ended up eating it all before I could For the dressing, I took 1/2 cup of beer and boiled it in a small sauce pan to burn off the alcohol (ya I know..), I then added balsamic vinegar,olive oil, salt and pepper. The trick was getting the ratios right in order not to mask the flavor of the beer. Start off with adding the balsamic vinegar to taste once you have that worked out, then add in a very small amount and then add as needed. You dont want it too oily. Chip+basil+tomato+cheese+dressing = Yummy

Bread and Butter!: Multi-grain beer bread

Okay, Im not taking credit for this one.. beer bread Simple, add beer mix and bake. Delicious with the honey nutmeg butter I made.

Side Dish

runken Papa’s Braves
A play off the Spanish tapas plate, I first boiled the baby red potatoes until they were 50% done, dried, cut and cubed. Then in a separate pan, I used a lil olive oil, and cooked down some garlic and jalapenos then added half a bottle of amber ale, cooked it down and then added the potatoes slowly. Eventually the potatoes soaked up the beer and begin to crisp.. The dish is then finished off with blue cheese crumbles for nice flavor pop!

The Entree’: Spicy Beer Braised Short Ribs
Ahhh.. spicy beer braised short rib.. not sharing my recipe for this one but let me say.. WOW. Just kidding.. Habanero ketchup, brown sugar, soy sauce, cider vinegar (i used hard cider instead), you can add a couple tsps of white vinegar for a lil kick and add a little edge to the sweetness. So in bowl combine ketchup, brown sugar, soy sauce and vinegar, give it a good mix and set to the side. Brown the short ribs in a skillet. Once brown, put the short ribs in the crock pot. In the same skillet, add a couple tbsp of olive oil and cook down the onions – once they begin to cook down, add in the sauce. Finally poup over short ribs, set the crock pot on slow and enjoy the beautiful aromas!

Of course pair the food with the same beer you used to cook with to tie it all together!

Enjoy!

This entry was posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 4:30 pm and is filed under Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.