Beer goes with everything!

A beer tasting may sound a little different, but when your learning about Northern European cuisine it goes hand in hand. This week students of the Northern European cooking lesson at the “Danny Boome Cooking School” enjoyed some great beer thanks to our friends at Diageo , Guinness (Stout) Smithwick’s (Bitter) and Harp (lager) were all tasted along with a traditional ploughman’s lunch,  Apples,Pears, Sharp Cheddar, Stilton blue cheese, pickles and chutneys, bringing out each beers distinctive taste

The students were taught two essential recipes of Northern European cuisine to go along with their beer tasting, Mummy Boome’s Sheppard’s pie and traditional Yorkshire puddings in beef gravy, were scoffed down while comparing which beer went well with what food, as the group started thinking about planning there fall dinner party’s.

“The Harp larger did extremely well as the students opened themselves to it’s refreshing new taste, and I know that the Guinness and Smithwick’s will be the winter drink of choice of many of the lady’s in attendance.”

Many Thanks to Diageo for supporting the school and our future lessons.

What is a Lager? Lager is brewed using bottom-fermenting yeast at lower temperatures and for longer durations rather than those typically used to brew ales. In German, the term “lager” refers to storing a beer at cool temperatures and does not necessarily imply bottom-fermentation. Pale lager is the most widely-consumed and commercially available style of beer in the world. There are also dark lagers, such as Dunkel and Schwarzbier.

What is a Bitter? Bitter is an English term for pale ale. A boy’s bitter has less than 3% alcohol by volume, while a strong bitter has at least 7%. Bitters may be a dark amber, or as light in appearance as a golden ale. By 1830, the terms bitter and pale ale were synonymous in England where breweries would tend to designate beers as pale ale, though customers in the pub would commonly refer to the same beers as bitter.

What is a Stout? Stout and porter are dark beers made using roasted malt or barley, hops, water, and yeast. Stouts were traditionally the generic term for the strongest or stoutest beers, typically 7% or 8%,produced by a brewery. There are a number of variations including Baltic porter, dry stout, and imperial stout. The name porter was first used in 1721 to describe a dark beer popular with street and river porters of London that had been made with roasted malts. This same beer later also became known as stout, though the word stout had been used as early as 1677. The history and development of stout and porter are intertwined.

Mummy Boome’s Traditional Shepherd’s Pie

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 carrots, diced
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 2 pounds lean ground beef or lamb
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 cup beef stock
• 1 1/2 cups garden peas
• Cheesy Mashed Potatoes, recipe follows

Directions

Preheat oven at 400 degrees F.

Add butter and oil to a large skillet on medium heat. Sautee onions, carrots, celery and garlic until tender for about 7 to 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Once the vegetables have softened and start to brown, add the tomato paste and mix evenly. Add the ground beef and cook until beef is no longer pink about 10 minutes. Add the Worcestershire sauce and beef stock. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Cook and simmer for another 10 minutes. Mix in peas. Transfer mixture to an oven-proof baking dish and spread evenly. Place potato on top of ground beef mixture and spread out evenly, once the top surface has been covered, rake through with a fork so that there are peaks that will brown nicely. Place the dish into the preheated oven and cook until browned about 20 minutes. Spoon out the shepherd’s pie and serve.

For the Cheesy Mashed Potatoes:

• 4 pounds Yukon gold potatoes, peeled, quartered
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 1 cup grated mature white Cheddar
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Fill a large saucepan with cold water and a tablespoon of salt. Add potatoes to the water and bring to a boil. Let potatoes cook until soft about 20 minutes. Once the potatoes are at a desired density, drain the potatoes and place them back into the saucepan for mashing. Add butter and cream and begin to mash potatoes into a semi smooth consistency. Once at desired texture add cheese and mix well. Season with salt and pepper.

Yorkshire Pudding

Ingredients

• 4 large, fresh eggs
• 1 cup of milk (equal quantity of milk to eggs)
• 1 cup of flour (equal quantity of all purpose/plain flour to eggs)
• Pinch of salt
• 2 tablespoons lard, beef dripping or vegetable oil

Directions

Heat the oven to the highest temperature possible, but do not exceed 450F/230C or the fat may burn.

Pour the eggs and milk into a large mixing bowl and add the pinch of salt. Whisk thoroughly with an electric hand beater or hand whisk. Leave to stand for 10 minutes. Gradually sieve the same volume of flour (as the eggs) into the milk and egg mixture, again using an electric hand beater or hand-whisk to create a lump free batter resembling thick cream, if there are any lumps pass the batter through a fine sieve. Leave the batter to rest in the kitchen for a minimum of 30 minutes, longer if possible – up to several hours.

Place a pea-sized piece of lard, dripping or ½ teaspoon vegetable oil into your chosen Yorkshire Pudding tin, or a 4 x 2″/5cm hole tin or 12-hole muffin tin and heat in the oven until the fat is smoking. Give the batter another good whisk adding 2 tablespoons of cold water and fill a third of each section of the tin with batter and return quickly to the oven. Leave to cook until golden brown approximately 20 minutes. Repeat the last step again until all the batter is used up.

Serving Yorkshire Pudding

In Yorkshire, serving the pudding is traditionally with gravy, meat and vegetables. Smaller puddings cooked in muffin tins are served alongside meat and vegetables. Yorkshire pudding isn’t reserved only for Sunday lunch. A large pudding filled with a meaty stew or chili is a dish in its own right and cold left-over Yorkshire Puddings make a lovely snack with a little jam or honey.

Yorkshire Puddings do not reheat well, becoming brittle and dry.