What to eat during a snow storm - Part 1

December 20, 2008

Last week was supposed to be our annual snow storm here in Portland, but it turned out to only be the precursor for the real storm which is going on right now. They’re predicting 6-10 inches of snow in Portland before it switches over to freezing rain and finally rain sometime late tomorrow. Lovely.

We were supposed to have friends over for dinner tonight but they cancelled because of the weather. I sort of expected that to happen but figured I’d better buy the food just in case. Of course I hadn’t actually finalized a menu, and had figured on something sort of Spanish inspired and likely served as tapas or small plates. So I have mushrooms, shrimp, a pork tenderloin, potatoes, spinach, goat cheese, some red peppers and a package of Serrano ham courtesy of my brewing partner. I’ll likely spend the day cooking a variety of tapas. Nothing better than eating great food when there’s a blizzard outside.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any adequate bread so I made some bread earlier and it’s rising now. I make adequate, but not great, bread. It’s one thing I wish I did a lot better. One problem is I don’t do it enough. Oh, and I don’t really follow recipes. I have a basic recipe that I use that can work for anything from focaccia to pizza dough to actual bread. It's roughly three cups of flour, a teaspon of salt, a teaspoon or more of yeast, and 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups of water. I just kind of vary the types of flour and add more or less water depending on what I’m making. Sometimes I add olive oil as well (particularly if I'm making pizza dough). Today’s is 1/3 spelt and 2/3 white bread flour plus water, salt and yeast.

All I’ve decided so far is that I’ll start with sautéed mushrooms with olive oil, garlic, sherry, and rosemary (I'm using rosemary since the snow has pretty much buried and likely killed my parsley). But I can’t do that until the bread is baked because eating sautéed mushrooms without bread on the side just seems wrong.

At this point all I have are ideas for the other dishes: olive oil roasted potatoes with a spicy tomato and pepper sauce on the side (kind of like the sauce that’s used for potatoes brava), shrimp escabeche served at room temperature, chicken thighs wrapped in Serrano ham braised in a sherry and garlic sauce, spinach and goat cheese empanadillas.

Drinking a lovely home made lambic right now but I’ll need to decide what to drink with everything else later. Stay tuned.

Vegetarianism, Fish, Lamb, Scallops and, strangely, Gordon Ramsay

My wife has returned to vegetarianism. This was kind of an unexpected turn. I wanted to explain to her that vegetarianism can be cured by eating meat, but this seemed like a bad idea. Luckily she isn’t expecting me to become a vegetarian as well, although there are a lot of vegetarian dishes that I love and cook on a regular basis, and she will still eat fish occassionally. Initially, I thought this would be a huge drag (especially since I just bought a whole 12 pound NY strip loin that I cut into steaks), but so far it’s working out well. She did tell me that she feels better already (after about ten days) and she said it without sounding smug. (Nothing worse than a born-again vegetarian.)

The unexpected upside is that I’m now allow to eat whatever I want so long as there are enough things to make up an adequate vegetarian meal for her. I’m normally against cooking multiple entrees, particularly on a week night, because it takes more time, dirties more pots, etc. But I’ve done it a few times and am actually excited about the possibilities. As I mentioned, she will eat fish occasionally, but the big issue is that she doesn’t really like fish that much, and tends to prefer the milder sorts of fish. I, on the other hand, love fish. In fact I love all kinds of fish including a lot of the darker and oilier ones that a lot of people find too strong and some of the scary things like skate wing. So now I find myself with an opportunity to cook fish more often and so far I’ve been taking advantage of it. Recently, I made her a mushroom stew, with mushrooms, onions, garlic, and thyme, which I served over polenta. I sautéed a piece of orange roughy for myself, served it on polenta and stole just enough of the mushrooms to use as a topping to the fish. We both had some sautéed yellow and green baby zucchini with basil and garlic on the side. We were both more than pleased with the results. (The baby zucchini were from the farmer’s market and were incredibly good.)

The next night was faux-Chinese. I made tofu in black bean sauce, stir fried Italian kale with red chiles, ginger, and garlic, steamed rice, and steamed fish with scallions, ginger, soy and sesame oil. It’s one of the simplest fish preparations and also one of the best. You get subtle flavoring from the aromatics and the purity of the fish comes through. I hadn’t steamed a fish in ages and it was so incredibly good. Now, I need to track down some oily fish or skate wing.

The other thing that I’ve missed for a long time is lamb. It’s absolutely my favorite red meat. But my wife would never eat it because it was in the “cute animal” food group (along with duck, venison, rabbit and other furry and cuddly things). Tonight, I’m having lamb. At least I think so. I’m not going shopping until later and I don’t know if I’ll find something that’s up to snuff. I’m hoping to get some kind of lamb that I can marinade quickly and grill, but I can get her Portobello mushrooms. (That’s the other interesting thing. I like mushrooms a lot, but she loves mushrooms and is more than happy to eat more of them). So this may really work out after all. The irony is that she’s told me all along that I could cook whatever for me and she’s fine with something else, but I was always the one to refuse. Now it’s opened a whole new door.

I’ve made a whole lot of other great things of late as well, but haven’t written about them. One of them was something that my wife loved and may be requested for her birthday, so she asked me to write about it so I don’t forget it. I was heading home a little late from work and didn’t want to cook anything too involved because I didn’t want to wait. I had some scallops at home (big sea scallops) and stopped to get some white mushrooms but they were out. So I picked up some shitakes instead and a loaf of bread. I cut a carrot and an onion into brunoise (tiny dice for you non-geeks), sweated them in olive, cut the shitakes in half and then sautéed them quickly, deglazing them with a little white wine and the juice form half and orange. I seared the scallops in a pan with a little olive oil, plated the vegetables in the center of two plates, and then put the cooked scallops on top. I had the other half of the orange left, so I deglazed the scallop pan with orange juice, reduced it and then added a dab of butter to mount it. The sauce went over and around the scallops and I served the bread on the side. I don’t know why I decided to use orange instead of lemon, but it made all the difference. It was incredibly simple, but shows what you can do quickly with good ingredients.

I think the scallops were influenced by reading Gordon Ramsay’s A Chef for All Seasons. Many (most?) people know him as the loud, rude chef from Hell’s Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares, but the guy can cook, really cook. His book has a lot of the things you would expect form a top chef: cook things that are in season, buy great ingredients, etc. Nothing new in that. Every celebrity chef gives that same advice (because it’s true). But his food is really well done. It’s clever without being ostentatious and doesn’t get overly complicated (well for the most part). He also cooks a lot of fish. In fact he likely has more recipes for fish than for various meats. It was interesting to see that his food really is as good as his reputation would suggest. He has a talent for creating dishes that look good, are relatively easy to make and make sense. There’s nothing done for flash or show. All the elements of his dish make sense, even when he mixes seemingly unrelated ingredients. I really should look at more of his food.

Blending Lambic

June 7th

Blending Lambic

We’ve been meaning to blend up some more lambic for the past several weeks, but circumstances didn’t work out and things were delayed. We finally did get around to blending and bottling yesterday and it seems like a really good blend. It might be our best batch of Gueuze yet. Blending is incredibly difficult and I don’t think we’re master blenders, and we don’t try to create a consistent style from batch to batch. But we’ve seen that the final blend is always better than any of the single batch.

As a general rule, we try to create a blend that is roughly 25% three year, 50% two year old and 25% one year old. The older beers generally have considerably more character, but we’ve found that you need some young beer as well to give the final blend some freshness and more depth. The base beer is always 67% pils malt and 33% flaked wheat and we use a normal beer yeast for the first week or two, before we put the beer into carboys for aging. The blends of bugs are added to the carboys and we try to mix it up so that each carboy takes on a different character. The more variety in the base beer, the more possibilities in blending. Often we combine left over parts of older lots and consolidate them into gallon jugs or three gallons carboys. We’ve ended up with two jugs which have small portions of all of the first beers we made five years ago. As a general rule, we use half a gallon from each one, then combine them together and fill the other one with whatever is left over from our other older lots. The next time we blend, we’ll use half of each and then combine them again. It’s similar to a solera in that there’s always a portion of old beer in it.

Our normal blending batch is 8 gallons (based upon the size of our largest bottling bucket). We normally use one gallon of this old, solera style blend to add some backbone and complexity. This batch had the following lots blended into it:

1 Gallon of the Super Old “Solera Style” blend (average age about 4 years old)
1 .5 Gallons from a batch from March 2005
1 Gallon from a batch from February 2006
1 Gallon each from two different batches from December 2006
2.5-3 Gallons from a batch from November 2005

The “solera” blend was quite astounding on its own. The oldest lot was incredibly austere with moderate acidity and good length. It had a lot of peach and apricot flavors plus a good dose of horsiness. The March 2005 beer had more lemon/citrus flavors, more acidity, and a distinct smoky note. The February 2006 lot had a lot of pineapple and orange notes. It almost had a tropical fruit type of thing to it and it was considerably softer and less tart than the other batches. It would clearly add some interesting notes to the final blend, but it was my least favorite batch on it’s own. The two different lots from December 2006 were quite interesting. They had been stored indoors as opposed to in the garage. Although they both used different combinations of bugs, they were both incredibly tart and were the most acidic of all of the batches we tasted. Clearly the warmer temperatures from being aged indoors had favored the growth of the lactobacillus. They both had some smokiness as well and some lemon flavors. One of them had a distinct horsiness as well. They were as tart as anything form Cantillon and each sip made my eyelids quiver slightly (seriously). The final batch from November 2005 was interesting. It had the best overall aroma of any single lots. It had a great mix of horse, smoke, peach, citrus and apricot. On the palate, it seemed very sugary and candy-like. The palate and nose were completely different from each other. The final blend had a little bit of everything. It had good, noticeable acidity, and intriguing nose of citrus and stone fruits, smoke and horsiness. The palate had good depth and great length. The deep flavors of the older lots were nicely balanced by some of the younger, rounder, fruitier and sweeter lots. All this could change as it sits and develops in the bottle. I will likely try a bottle in about 2-3 weeks to see if the flavors are holding or if it’s changing. We’ve had some lots that change completely with six months of aging. We’re hoping this one keeps its general balance because it was so good at the time.

Februrary 2nd - Brewing Lambic

February 2nd – Brewing lambic

We brewed another 10 gallons of lambic today and also packaged the molasses porter from last time. The porter is fairly sweet (which is what we wanted) and has a subtle molasses flavor. It’s just enough to taste it but not so much that it overwhelms the other flavors. It’s still a little young, but it has some roastiness and a nice bitter chocolate quality. In addition to the molasses, there’s a caramel sweetness as well. It’s got a big rich, round mouthfeel and should be good in the cooler weather.

We hadn’t brewed lambic in a while (maybe four months or so). Our stocks of it were down to about 80 gallons which are all between 4 months and 4 years old. We had picked up the production of these a couple of years ago once we had a chance to taste the first ones and decide if it was all worth it. Sour beers are getting more popular and it’s good to see that more and more breweries are making them.

Our “lambic” is modeled on the real ones from the Senne Valley in Belgium. The grain bill is fairly simple: 2/3 pilsner malt and 1/3 flaked, unmalted wheat. Hops are used for the aseptic properties but not for their bittering qualities and brewing lambics requires the use of old hops. Hops are best at a couple of years old, but you don’t want them cheesy or moldy smelling. Ideally, they should be totally dry and reminiscent of dry hay in aroma. The traditional mash for lambics is a turbid mash which is a complicated process and is sort of similar to a decoction mash, except that in a turbid mash, you pull the liquid from the mash and then boil it and add it back in to raise the temperature. In a decoction mash, you pull the thickest part of the mash out and boil it. The enzymes that convert starch to sugar are water soluble and are in the water that you boil in a turbid mash and that essentially denatures the enzymes and deactivates them. Unlike most other types of brewing, you actually want unconverted starch in a lambic base because it will be consumed by one of the types of wild yeast down the road.

We don’t use a traditional turbid mash, but do a step mash instead. We mash in at about 122 for a 30 minutes protein rest to help break down some of the excess protein in the flaked wheat. Then we raise it up to about 156-160 in order to get a wort high in dextrins. Dextrins are a complex sugar that aren’t digestible by standard brewing yeast, but can be broken down by wild yeasts. The idea is to make a wort that has some easily fermentable sugars for the brewing yeast, but also has a fair amount of starch and complex sugars for the wild yeasts and bacteria that grow later in the process.

This time we ended up with a stuck mash which made for a long brewing day, but we made our way through it and ended up with 10 gallons of cloudy wort (cloudy than normal, but these beers will sit for about 2 years before being bottled). We added standard brewing yeast and will that work for about 1-2 weeks before we rack it into carboys and then add the wild yeasts and bacteria. We’ve gotten some Belgian Sour blend from White Labs and a tube of pure Brettanomyces lambicus. The major souring bugs in lambics are lactobacillus or pediococcus, both of which are bacteria and produce lactic acid, and brettanomyces, which is a wild yeast which gives some sourness as well as the characteristic barnyard and “funk” aromas to these beers. Lactobacillus can take several months to really grow, but Brett can take 6-12 months. The Brett aromas and complexity will grow over several years and the beer will become increasingly dry and steely.

The problem in brewing with all of these bugs is that they’re unpredictable. There’s no guarantee that all of them will grow and no way to tell which “bug” will become the dominant one. Each 5 gallons carboy is its own ecosystem and each one will taste slightly different, even if the base beer and bugs were the same. As a result, blending is a critical part of the process. We normally blend beers to roughly 25% one year old, 50% two year old, and 25% three and four year old. We can use as many as ten lots to make a single batch. Since having different lots of beers seems to add complexity to a blend, and since most of the bugs are available as blends and as single species, we’ve gotten in a habit of adding different bugs to different carboys to create as wide a variety of underlying beers as possible (even though they all use the same grain bill and old hops). Oftentimes, we combine leftover partial lots together increasing the complexity of the individual carboys and have found that the more lots you have, the better chance you have of making a successful blend. Currently we have a little more than 20 carboys of different sizes sitting around. Our blends are normally about 8 gallons, because that’s the largest bucket we have for blending and it gives a decent size batch.

Each batch we’ve blended has been different but there is a somewhat of a “house” style that we’re developing. Our beers are not as tart and sour as some of the traditional lambic houses, like Cantillon, but at our best, the beers have the right taste and characteristic aromas. I would like then a little tarter, but they’re tart enough to be refreshing and are generally equivalent in acidity to an average white wine. We’re working on getting the carbonation level high enough to really emulate the best commercial examples and aren’t quite there yet.

We don’t have any fruit batches going right now but will be investing in raspberries in a few months to make some framboise for the fall. Normally the beers need to sit for 4-8 months with fruit before being bottled. It’s best to let the beers age at least a year before adding fruit, since they still need the underlying complexity. We’ve done both raspberries and cherries, but so far the raspberry is the clear winner to me.

So we brewed ten gallons and built the stocks back up, but this beer will likely sit for at least 2 years before it’s bottled. We are planning on blending another lot in the next month or so, because we’ve built up enough stock that we should be able to bottled 2-3 batches a year without depleting our stocks too much. The main issue is making sure you keep enough of the beer back to get sufficient stocks of three year for blending. Strangely, the older lots, while incredibly complex, aren’t very good on their own. By 3-4 years, the beers are very austere and bone dry. They get a kind of steeliness to them as well. They add great depth of character to a blend but need younger beer as well to soften them. We had debated bottling some straight three year old but, on tasting it, realized it wouldn’t be the best thing to drink on its own.

January 2nd

January 2nd

I survived day number two of no stove. Both my wife and I were feeling like we’re catching colds, so I opted for entrée salads, which are really easy. I cooked some shrimp on the electric griddle and then tossed them with olive oil and garlic. Threw together some mixed greens, sliced red onion, pine nuts, and four mandarin oranges, with a ginger vinaigrette. Plated it and then put the shrimp on top and gave it a quick grating of parmesan (OK, actually grana padano). My wife had picked up a ciabatta at Trader Joes. It was OK, but nothing special, but was really just a vehicle for more of the Irish butter. The whole thing was quick however and that was a plus.

I had made a spiced Belgian Triple (which I opted to call a Triple de Noel for Christmas) several weeks ago and have been drinking some of it although it still hasn’t cleared completely. It’s the same combination of the La Chouffe and Duvel yeast, but this batch has some orange peel and ginger in it and we used Centennial and Summit hops in it which adds to the fruitiness of the aroma. It’s also a bigger beer than the last one and clocks in a little more than 8% alcohol. Despite this, it’s actually a good beer with a salad (assuming the vinaigrette isn’t too acidic at which point it would seem too big and overly alcoholic). I was a little surprised and had feared that it was too big, but it worked out. Why do we worry that a beer at 8% may be too big when we would serve a 10-11% “light” white wine and think it was fine? I was thinking about doing a bottle of lambic instead, but opted for the triple because the vinaigrette wasn’t too sharp and I was hoping the orange notes on the beer would work with the oranges in the salad. In retrospect, I wonder why I didn’t add black olives to the salad since I love the combination of oranges and black olives. Perhaps next time.

I also started some black bean soup in the crock pot. Added carrots, onions, celery, black beans, a little cumin, a dried chipotle, bay leaf, and chicken stock and let it sit over night. I can doctor it all later and will make for another quick meal.

Brewing on a Cold Day and Yellow Split Pea Soup

I was brewing beer yesterday, which was nice since I hadn’t brewed in the previous three weeks. We had previously brewed a Belgian Golden Ale using a mix of the Duvel yeast and the La Chouffe yeast. We had mashed it low in hopes of getting a very dry beer and if the samples we had during bottling and kegging yesterday are any indication, we hit the mark pretty close. In the past I hadn’t been too fond of the Duvel yeast because it takes a long time to clear out of the beer, but it does a characteristic fruity citrus note to it that is tough to beat. My half is kegged and carbonating now and should be ready in a day or two, but I think it will take a few more weeks for it to round out. Still it’s very approachable now and quite delicious.

We won Best of Show with one of our Lambics at the Fall Classic a few weeks ago and part of our prize was a 55lb bag of Weyerman pilsner malt, so we decided to repitch the yeast and brew another Belgian Golden style beer but this time with a little more alcohol and slightly spiced. (The last one clocked in around 7% and we were looking for something more around 8-8.5% this time). We used about 23 pounds of pilsner malt and 4.5 pounds of sugar to boost the alcohol and lighten the body. We had some odd lots of American hops sitting around so we decided to actually use them in this batch, so we ended up with Amarillo hops for the bittering and a small amount of Summit hops in the finish for aroma. We also added some bitter orange peel and sliced fresh ginger at the end of the boil to add just a hint of spicing. In keeping with the season, I’m calling it a Tripel de Noel. With any luck it will actually be ready by Christmas. Purists may decry the American hops, but Belgian beer is all about experimentation.

It was cold and overcast yesterday and by the time we were done, I was ready for something warming. We had been eating Thanksgiving food the last few days and needed a break from it. I had cured some pork belly for bacon about a week ago and was smoking it yesterday, so I decided to make a pot of yellow split pea soup. As a kid, I hated any kind of split pea soup, but I’ve since grown to love it (at least yellow split pea), but it’s unthinkable to me to make it without some kind of cured pork for flavor. I’m actually very fond of the smoky undertones that bacon gives it. It was pretty standard stuff: onions, carrots, celery, bacon, chicken stock, a few bay leaves and the yellow split peas, but it was the kind of warming, homey dinner that I love on a cold day. It had only been about 40 degrees, but brewing in the garage left me cold and raw feeling and soup is a natural restorative. We had a loaf of Grand Central Ciabatta with it to help soak it up. After the overindulgence on Thanksgiving, it was exactly what I wanted.

I was looking forward to tasting the new Belgian Golden, but it wasn’t carbonated, so I just had a pint of our dry Irish stout. We sample some of it yesterday while we were brewing and were amazed at it. It’s a simple recipe, British two row malt, flaked barley, and roasted barley, but it’s incredibly good. Most commercial Irish stout, like Guinness and Beamish (my favorite), are actually quite low in alcohol and that increases their drinkability. Most of the stouts we had made in the past were too big and rich, and ultimately, too filling. This one is about 4% alcohol, just roasty and bitter enough, with enough body to match with food, but also light enough to not overwhelm what it’s served with.

While I’m writing this, I’ve been sipping on a Cascade Lakes Monkey Face Porter, which is new to me but very nice. It has nice chocolate and roast notes in the aroma, but a rich bittersweet chocolate flavor and a good long finish. It’s definitely something that I’ll look for again.

Lambic and salad

I had initially planned on doing Middle Eastern food today (home made pitas, tabouleh, hummus, and maybe some chicken kabobs), but I ended running around today and didn't have time. We hit my friend Max's brewpub (http://www.maxsfannocreek.com/) this afternoon at about 4pm. He recently added a Belgian IPA to his line up. The beer is essentially his NW IPA recipe brewed with his house Belgian yeast (which is a yeast cultured from La Chouffe). It sounds like a strange idea, but the fruity yeast esters actually work with the citrus/grapefruit aromas of the American hops that he uses. It's great idea and one that you'll likely see more of as Belgian brewers themselves start to use more hops (as the La Chouffe Houblon Double IPA/Triple and the De Ranke XX Bitter attest to). When you see a Belgian IPA at your local pub, remember you saw it here first and should give Max some credit. It's a great beer and was well worth the trip.

Of course since he had his Czech Pils on draft, I also had to have a pint of that as well. It's the real deal: golden, malty, and has the incredible flavor and aroma of real Czech Saaz hops. There are too few lagers in the craft beer scene and I'm thrilled he has such an authentic version pouring right now.

We left after a couple of pints but it was after 5pm when we got home and there was no choice of making anything for dinner that I had intended. Plus it was still too hot to even think about cooking indoors. Days like this are meant for entree salads. I had some chicken breast, so I lit a fire in the Weber and went into the garden to harvest some baby greens and basil. I had some amazing small, sweet shallots from the farmers market as well as some carrots, so we had a salad, of baby greens, grated carrots, shallots, kalamata olives, toasted almonds, and grilled chicken in a vinaigrette. I minced the basil and mixed it with olive oil, homegrown garlic, and salt to make a topping for the grilled chicken. The whole thing was quick and easy.

But all of this begged the larger question. What to have with a dinner salad with an assertive vinaigrette? If you ever want to give a sommelier a hard time, ask him what to have with a salad dressed with a vinaigrette. Vinegar and wine is generally a tough combo to pull off (unless you have a taut, acidic young white wine). Even beer can be scary here, but luckily the beer world has a few great choices. These choices are generally the various sour beers of Belgians. My favorite choice is good lambic, more specifically, good geuze, which is aged, blended lambic. Fortunately I had a single bottle of Boon Geuze on hand.

If you haven't had Lambic, you need to try it, because even the best description will do it no justice. The beers are sour, but they are incredibly aromatic and complex. Don't confuse the sweet fruit lambics from Lindemans, as good asa they are, with the real article. The real deal is tart, highly carbonated and refreshing. In fact, the perfect companion to a good salad, especially on a hot day.

Frank Boon is one of the more traditional makers and his Geuze is one of the best. It poured with a thick frothy head and a slightly cloudy gold color. The aroma was full of peaches and apricots and the distinct horse blanket of Brettanomyces (a wild yeast that lends a distinctive character to these beers). The aromas was like a ripe peach wrapped in a horse blanket, but in a good way (if you can imagine it). The beer had good body and wasn't overly tart or as aggressively sour as the magnificent beers of Cantillon, but it did finish with a distinct lemon/citrus note. Overall, a great beer with a good entree salad.

It was so good in fact, that I felt compelled to chill a bottle of my homebrewed Framboise, which is a lambic which has had raspberries added to it. This batch was made by blending two different lots of two year old lambic together and then adding about 1 pound of raspberries per gallon to the mix. It sat for about 4 months with the fruit and then was bottled. It's been bottled for about 10 months now.

It poured with a decent head and a deep ruby color. The nose had a distinct raspberry note, but had the underlying barnyard quality of good lambic. The acidity of the raspberries added a little extra zing to the already tart beer, which makes it a good choice as an aperitif, although I was enjoying it as a vibrant dessert. It's a great style of beer that deserves more attention in the beer world, and unfortunately seems virtually unknown in the mainstream "foodie" universe. With one foot in the beer world and one foot in the wine world, it can match a variety of foods that more traditional wine and beer can't touch.