TRENDING: Craft Beer

Before this year, I hadn’t heard much about craft beer, it could be that I live under a rock, however I think this year craft beer has trended more than before. In my humble opinion, it’s because there’s a new appreciation for the craft and for the different tastes. 

With this growing interest, the trend of pairing meals and cooking with different craft beers has started to grow. Having just been to Taste of Durban, where we watched beer ice-cream and beer mussels made, and the SA Craft Beer on Tap as well as a tasting at Robsons; I couldn’t help myself, I had to try a few recipes using craft beer.

So this week I am sharing not one, but two delish dishes you can try out with craft beer, or you can simply enjoy your craft beer with them! Please note that the doughnut recipe is taken from the STORK website and slightly adjusted. The beef recipe was an experiment that turned out good; on the bottle of the craft beer I used from Robson it suggested that it works well with spicy food and red meat, so I played with flavours. Just like wine, craft beer too has unique tastes and flavours that work well together. So I hope you get creative and try pairing craft beers with your meals and even cooking with them.  

Beer doughnuts

 

Ingredients:

250g Cake flour

1 ¼ tsp Instant Yeast

30g Stork Bake Margarine

65ml Milk

45ml Water

45ml Craft beer

Pinch salt

½ tsp Vanilla essence

½ egg, whisked

30ml sugar

Syrup:

1/2 Cup water

1/2 Cup Sugar

Instructions:

Doughnuts:

•  Pour the beer, water, milk and butter in a pot and heat until margarine is melted; take off hot plate.

• In a separate bowl, sift the sugar, yeast and flour together; create a well in the middle.

• Whisk a whole egg but only use half of the mixture.

•  Pour the beer-milk-butter mixture in the middle of the flour well, pour half of the whisked egg in as well and then vanilla essence.
• Mix all ingredients together really well.
• Leave mixture to prove for about 30 minutes.
• Roll out dough into balls or your preferred shape.
• Heat a pot of oil up, fry the balls of dough slowly to ensure they cook through.
• Once golden brown, take out

     Syrup

     Pour water and sugar in a pot over a hot plate, stir the sugar into the water until all has dissolved.

     Decorate as you wish

       Beer Beef Strips

 

 

Ingredients:

500g Beef steak strips

½ cup Craft beer

1 Cup milk

1 ½ tsp Maizena (corn starch), diluted in a little water

2 Tomatoes, chopped & fried

1 Onion, roughly chopped & fried

1 cup Cheese

Salt & pepper

Pickled  jalapeño

Slices of bread/rolls

Instructions:

• Marinade beef strips in craft beer for 15 – 30 minutes.

• Drain the marinade, and stir fry the steak strips

• Make a quick cheese sauce; heat milk to a boil, take pot off the heat and pour in the corn starch.

• Place back on the heat and stir until the sauce has thickened.

• Melt cheese in the white sauce.

• Toast bread, place strips on top, with a dollop of chunky sautéed tomatoes and onions, a little cheese sauce and topped with cheese and  jalapeños.