The primary audience for Garrett Oliver’s The Brewmaster’s Table may be beer enthusiasts who are looking to find new flavors in their beers through the magic of pairings. I, on the other hand, approached the book as a food enthusiast and cheap wine drinker who had always been curious about beer but never bothered to “get into it”. So where most of Oliver’s readers might look up a beer they love in search of a food will heighten the experience of drinking it, I usually run into a food that I want to make and then seek out beer that will go with it. All credit to Oliver that this book can serve both approaches very well.

I have enough culinary curiosity to consider most of Oliver’s pairing suggestions, but it was as I was reading the chapter on Belgian-style ales that one dish in particular jumped off the page: pasta carbonara. This dish did not stand out to me because it is exotic or technically difficult; no, it appealed because of my long history with carbonara, going back to my youngest memories. There are certain dishes that, when I was younger, my mom would make with regularity and carbonara was one of them (at least until my dad rebelled). Although I don’t like to repeat dishes for the most part, in carbonara I take after my mom and make this at least every two months. I think it’s a great pasta sauce in its own right, but I am sure my childhood memories play some role in my regular enjoyment of it. 

And what’s better than nostalgia for youth? Nostalgia for youth with beer! Really strong beer. The beer that Oliver recommends specifically with pasta carbonara is one Golden Monkey, as brewed by Victory Brewing Company of Downington, PA:

…a bottle conditioned pale orange beer with an eager carbonation. The nose is rich and distinctly Belgian—oranges, spices and hops in a nicely meshed interplay. The American influences shows up front—a thin whack of hops wakes up the palate. Then Belgium takes over and drives this beer through a dry, full-bodied fruity center and a graceful dry finish.

I don’t know why but almost every beer I’ve been drinking lately has been pretty orange and this was actually not so crazy orange, but certainly somewhat orange:

I am still having trouble remembering to take a big pretentious whiff of my beer before tasting it, so I can’t comment on the nose. Otherwise, though, my own tasting notes agree completely with Oliver, although not expressed so precisely. This tasted first and foremost like an ale (surprise!), by which I mean it was fruity and floral and just a little hoppy, not very bitter and even with a light sweetness. There is definitely something citrusy in there too, but all the flavors were nicely balanced and subtle. Nothing overwhelming about this beer, and that is a good thing.

Since carbonara is so fundamental to my life experience it seems a little odd to describe its flavors, but for the sake of the uninitiated and the logical structure of this post I will try. The first thing you should know about carbonara is that it is bacony. Probably the original recipe called for guanciale, which isn’t smoked, but since this is America, damnit, I use smokey bacon that contributes its hazy, sweet porkiness to the dish. Beyond the bacon, the other flavors are perhaps more subtle; a slight sweetness from the bacon and the milk and a little bit of sour dryness from grated Parmigiano Reggiano (ok, Grana Padano). This is also a very rich dish thanks to: bacon fat, butter, whole milk and eggs. If this sounds like breakfast pasta that’s more or less correct; I would in fact happily take this over most breakfasts.

After my shrimp salad experience I was a little skeptical of Oliver’s pairing genius, but this combination redeemed him a thousandfold (maybe even a millionfold). It was PERFECT. The slight sweetness of the pasta was balanced by the very subtle bitter hoppiness of the beer just as the beer’s own sweet-fruitiness helped to enliven some of the musky flavors of the cheese in the pasta. All that fat in the sauce has a way of coating your mouth and a spritzy beer is great for cutting through that fat, refreshing your palate and getting you ready for more. The beer’s relative lightness was also a huge asset; carbonara’s sweet, light flavors would be overwhelmed by an intensely malty beer (or, God forbid, red wine) but this beer had just the right weight to stand up to the flavors in the pasta without overwhelming them. Each bite and the swallow of beer that followed it created a perfect balance such that one could hardly imagine one without the other. 

I have not yet felt so strongly after trying a beer with a food that I would say everybody needs to try it, but that’s how I feel now. Golden Monkey seems to be widely distributed, so you should be able to find it. Pasta carbonara could not be much easier to make and you probably have everything for it in the fridge. The recipe I use comes from Jeff Smith’s The Frugal Gourmet (in fact this is the only recipe I use from this book). I’m providing it here so you have no excuse not to try this. You’ll need:

• 1/4# Bacon, chopped or sliced thin
• 1/4# Butter (can use less if you are planning to see old age)
• 1 c whole milk (whole milk curdles less than skim when you add acid to it, which you are about to, so whole results in a smoother sauce. Skim can be used, however)
• 2 T Wine vinegar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 c grated Parmesan cheese
• Salt and Pepper
• 1# pasta (spaghetti is best but almost anything works)

Bring a lot of seawater (or your closest imitation of it using salt and tap water) to a boil. While it’s heating, fry the bacon until it just starts to get crispy and heat the milk to just below a simmer in a small saucepan. At this point, determine your risk for heart disease and drain or do not drain most of that sweet, sweet bacon fat. Add the butter and let it melt. Add the butter and bacon to the milk. Add the vinegar, which will curdle the milk, and stir. Simmer the sauce for about 20 minutes; hopefully it will become a little more smooth. When the water is boiling add the pasta and cook until al dente. Lightly beat the eggs together. When the pasta is ready, drain it, then toss it in a bowl with the sauce, the eggs, the cheese and salt and plenty of pepper. Serve it, passing the pepper grinder and additional cheese at the table.

Recently Big Pepper decided it could add value by attaching grinders to jars of whole peppercorns. I guess this is a good thing if it gets people to stop eating pre-ground pepper, but there is a big problem with these new jars for those of us who own (several) pepper grinders. For whatever reason, the grinders are not removable: you can’t get to the whole peppercorns inside the jar. They just sit there, mocking you. Until now.

For this hack, you’ll need a sharp knife and some pliers… use the knife to cut all the little plastic arms holding the central grinder piece in place and use the pliers to rip out the center, as violently as possible. I was so satisfied when I defeated this nefarious contraption that I immediately filled all our pepper grinders.

Just one small victory in the war against the pepper industry fat cats who think they know what’s best.

While watching my alma mater make it into the national championship I was enjoying a treat inspired by many a dinner in Case Hall: Spartan Sausage Bread. It is just regular sausage bread but prepared in a Michigan State cafeteria, or in this case, by a Michigan State fan and alumnus. I’d like to think my making this bread contributed in no small way to tonight’s win, so in the interest of the national championship I wanted to make sure everyone has the recipe for Monday.

Start with a Midwestern-American style pizza dough; I used Peter Reinhart’s from American Pie. Mix together:

• 11 1/4 oz flour
• 1 1/2 T honey
• 1 t salt
• 1 t instant yeast
• 1/8 c vegetable oil
• 1/2 c 2% milk
• 3 oz water

Stir/knead everything together for a few minutes. Allow to rest for five minutes and then knead another two. Divide into two equal balls, place in oiled bags, and refrigerate for as long as possible. You need to have them back on the counter and rising two hours before you want to bake them.

When the dough is ready, pat and roll it out into a large rectangle if you can manage it, but probably more like an oval.

Cover it with 1/2# of your favorite Italian sausage, browned, and shredded cheese (either your favorite cheese or whatever happened to be skulking in the back of your freezer).

At this point, it’s ready to roll. You might want to use a bench scraper to avoid tearing the dough as you roll it into a loaf. When you have done this with both dough balls, hopefully you intuited that you need to have a 375° oven roaring. 

Because this was the Final Four, I decided to get fancy and brush both loaves with egg wash then sprinkle them with salt before baking them for 40 minutes. They came out deep brown:

Now your excitement will be palpable, but they still need to cool. Luckily, a riveting first half kept me glued to the TV so that by the time half time rolled around, my delicious snack was ready.

Go Green! Go White!

On this, the second-to-last Friday of lent (and the last one where you can eat a proper meal), we decided it was high time to check out one of the many fish fries available to us in the Twin Cities. Since it was our first and last for the year we decided to go with the best and headed straight for the Church of St. Albert the Great in Longfellow. We were greeted by the most welcoming of open doors:

After descending a short staircase we were plunged into considerably more insanity:

This is a very popular fish fry! For how crowded it was (and it was extremely crowded) the people at St. Albert’s did an awesome job keeping the line moving and getting everybody fed. It’s obvious they’ve done this before. With two serving lines for added speed it was a matter of ten minutes until we had paid our ten dollars a head and loaded our plates up with fish and starches. Finding four seats together in the room pictured above seemed unlikely, so unfortunately we missed Fr. Joe Gillespie’s lively announcements throughout dinner as we headed up to the gym. But there was bingo!

There is obviously an art here to piling up your plate, and from what I saw some people have refined this art to a far greater extent than I. The food was great, a perfect example of its kind. The fish was fried Alaskan Pollack which was mild and meaty and extra delicious when slathered with copious amounts of tartar sauce. There was also some sort of baked fish, but I was here for a fish fry, damnit. What really shined about this meal was the sides:  the meatless spaghetti sauce managed to be pretty meaty tasting and the cole slaw, which gave me and my dining companions some pause for appearing to be drenched in mayo, ended up being very light and tangy. I wished I had gotten a (much) bigger pile. The low point for the sides was the mashed potatoes; not the worst mashed potatoes I have ever had but they tasted distinctly reconstituted. But that is really a minor quibble in the face of the great food and the extremely friendly and welcoming people serving it. St Albert’s, I’ll see you next lent!

Even being in Egypt for a short time as I was, one can’t avoid encountering fuul. Fava beans show up all over Egyptian cooking (more deliciously, in my opinion, in ta’amiya) but simple fuul is one of the basic staples of the Egyptian diet.  It is Eaten at all times of day, especially at breakfast. In the hotel I stayed at in Alexandria, it was the breakfast served to Egyptians, while foreigners got the Syrian treatment of bread, cheese and fresh vegetables (at this point in the trip the last thing I needed to eat was more beans so I embraced my foreignness).

Fuul is, at heart, a big pot of beans, cooked slow until soft and mashable. There is a actually quite a variety of fava beans available in this world, and in fact fuul is the general Egyptian term for them, but it most commonly refers to this dish of small, round fava beans cooked until they are mushy (fuul medames to be exact). People make this at home in special pots, but I also often saw housewives and children go to local restaurants to have whatever container they happened to have filled up with the stuff.

I’ll concede that that doesn’t look or sound too appetizing. For me, the best part of fuul is not the beans themselves, but all of the toppings: fuul is served with a variety of additions, which each diner can add in at their preference. I assembled a fine passel of ingredients, including lemon (very important), ground cumin, aleppo pepper, pickled beets and rutabagas, minced parsley, salt and pepper and yogurt (the yogurt is more of a Levantine thing as well. I just gravitate that way). Chopped hard-boiled eggs are traditional, but yuck, none of those for me.

Once you’ve added all your fixins’ you mash it all together on your plate and then eat it with plenty of pita bread.

OK, so it’s a little disconcerting to dig into a big pile of beans for breakfast, nor does it bode well for anyone who needs to spend time with you that day in an enclosed space. But if you can get over that, this gives you a really hearty start to your day.