Sasha's & Brad's Kitchen: Tiger Beer and Fish Curry Pairing at Masak

I've never been a big beer drinker, but there are a few kinds of beer that I do enjoy.  One of them has always been Tiger beer, a nice balanced Malaysian beer.  It's one my husband, Brad, more the beer connoisseur than I, has always enjoyed as well.  Recently, I got the opportunity to be treated free of charge to a Tiger beer and fish curry food pairing at Masak, a Singapore-influenced restaurant down in the East Village courtesy of the folks at Tiger Beer.  Coming into the experience, I knew I liked Tiger beer but wasn't sure about the pairing of fishhead curry.  Boy was I surprised.  The curry was delicious and I enjoyed the tender, flaky fish and rice with the homemade Singapore-style curry.  The dish was fantastic and Brad enjoyed it as well.  Just goes to show that it pays to be a bit more adventurous in your eating style!  You just have to be careful of the bones, but the fish was very tender and Masak's curry sauce was delicious.

Delicious fishhead curry at Masak - no need to be afraid, it's super good!

The curry flavors paired well with the smooth, exotic flavor of the Tiger beer.  The beer really brought out the flavor of the curry and it was a truly excellent pairing.  Next time I'll have to try making a curry dish at home and serve it with some Tiger.  In addition to the beer and curry we were treated to, we also purchased a couple of excellent appetizers at Masak as well - we got little Qui Pie Tee (little pastries) filled with hen of the wood mushrooms and duck, as well as the crispy duck croquettes.  All and all this was an exotic and fun drinking and eating experience and an excellent way to enjoy Tiger beer and Malaysian/Singapore-style food!

Qui Pie Tee, filled with hen of the woods mushrooms and duck rilette

Duck fritters, which also paired nicely with the flavors of the Tiger beer

Sasha's & Brad's Kitchen: Tiger Beer and Fish Curry Pairing at Masak

Sasha's Kitchen On The Road: Culinary Adventures in Prague

The last portion of our European trip this August took us to Prague, in the heart of the Czech Republic, one of Europe's most beautiful cities which has undergone a post-Cold War renaissance.  Like Belgium, Prague is famous for its beer - specifically, its Czech style pilsner, which is brewed at numerous microbreweries all over the city of Prague, and elsewhere in the Czech republic. My favorite thing that we ate during our time in Prague was the Czech style goulash (pictured above), made with local pilsner. It was delicious. I plan on preparing my own adaptation of this classic Czech beef goulash this week and sharing the recipe here on a Kitchen In Brooklyn! So stay tuned. My favorite Czech goulash was the one that we had our first night in Prague at Pivovorsky Dum, a Czech gastropub where they brew their own pilsner. This was also the best beer hall in Prague in my opinion - they make their own pilsner which is incredible and also a banana flavored pilsner which was just amazing.  My husband had the chicken schnitzel, which was also delicious.

Prague also has some amazing Czech-Western fusion restaurants. One of those is V Zatisi, where we dined on one of our nights in Prague. They had some great truffle appetizers - a truffle risotto that Brad enjoyed as well as my truffle ravioli (pictured below).  These dishes inspired me to do some more cooking with truffle oil and we plan to make truffle risotto tonight to go with my classic asian-marinated chilean sea bass with papaya salsa.  The lamb was also amazing.  For dessert, I enjoyed another Czech classic - apple strudel.

Going back to beer, the dark pilsner at U Mediviku was also quite good as well, again brewed on site.  We had a great lunch at the Strahov Monastery brewery as well.  The beers here were wonderful and so was the authentic Czech food. I had goose with apples (delicious and quite traditional Czech game), and Brad enjoyed the Czech sausages. My favorite here was the St Norbert wheat beer.

Sasha's Kitchen On The Road: Culinary Adventures in Prague

Eric's Kitchen in Jersey City: Belgian Style Mussels

In addition to cheesesteaks, I always associate Philly with Belgian-Style Mussels because of my favorite bar in Philly, Monk's, the site of my 'first-date' with Jenn and many many other wonderful nights. This Philadelphia institution is a beer-lover's mecca. Their beer list is referred to the 'beer-bible' and boasts hundreds of beers from all over the world. Their other specialty is mussels which you order by the size of the pot, small or large. All of them are cooked in beer and they always have a handful of different options to choose from with different beers and veggies. They always serve these with Pommes Frites and good bread to sop up the broth.

Again, since I've been in Philly the past couple of weeks working a freelance gig while I try to secure a new full-time job, I decided to pay tribute to Philly with this dish. This was the second time I had tried this although the first time I turned it into risotto, which was fantastic.

Ingredients (feeds 4 as an appetizer or 2 very hungry individuals as a meal):

2 lb. bag of mussels, scrubbed and de-bearded

1/4 lb bacon

1 cup of chopped leeks

3 shallots, chopped

1-2 tbsp minced garlic

1 lime, squeezed

2 bottles of belgian style beer (I used River Horse Double Wit)

1/4 cup crumbled gorgonzola cheese

1/2 box of sliced baby bella mushrooms

tbsp of minced cilantro

First, I cooked the bacon until crispy and set it aside to be crumbled later. I used a small amount of the bacon grease and some olive oil to saute the veggies in the bottom of a large pot. I cooked these for a few minutes until soft and then added the beer, keeping it on the heat until simmering. At this point you can add your mussels and cook, covered, checking on them until they are all opened. That's one of the great parts about cooking clams or mussels, in that you have a clear indication of when they are cooked since they open up. Don't eat them if they don't open.

In the end I was pretty happy with the results although the ones at Monk's are still better... I think that when I try these again I will probably omit the gorgonzola and use a more mildly flavored Belgian beer. One of my favorites at Monk's is DeKonick, although I don't know where to find it in Jersey City yet.

Eric's Kitchen in Jersey City: Belgian Style Mussels

Sasha's Kitchen On The Road: Irish Guinness Stout Stew

About two years ago, my husband and I went on a family vacation to Ireland.  While we were in Dublin, a fun loving, carefree city, we visited, like most American Tourists, the Guinness Storehouse.  This was a highlight of our time in Dublin, which was a magical city to explore on foot (one of the other highlights was by chance catching a tiny R.E.M. concert at the Olympia Theater, which set us back a day or two in recovering from jet lag).  At any rate, while in Dublin, we tasted several excellent traditional Irish stews, prepared using Dublin's famed Guinness Stout.

Guinness is a popular Irish dry stout.  It has a deep, rich, heavy flavor (it's like a meal, really) that works well with a beef stew.  However, as guest writer Bryan noted to me last week, if you use too much Guinness, it will impart a bitter flavor to your stew.

I made this stew in a very impromptu manner.    I was unhappy with all of the recipes that I found online, so I started from scratch, and tried to create a hearty stew that would be enriched by the deep flavor of the Guinness.  I decided before I started that I was in the mood for a pretty unhealthy (but very tasty) version of this stew, which meant that I sauteed my ingredients using butter rather than my usual canola oil (I suppose Julia Child would be happy since I usually disregard her love for butter in favor of a healthier style of cooking with canola oil).

Here is the recipe that I used to make my version of this Irish classic:

Sasha's Irish Guinness Stout Stew

4 cups beef broth
4 sprigs of thyme
2 bay leaves
1 1/2 cups Guinness Stout
2 lb stewing beef
1 large onion
3 T butter
2 T canola oil
three large handfuls of baby carrots
4 T of flour
3 T tomato paste
salt and pepper to taste

First, I diced the onion, and sauteed the onion and carrots for a few minutes in the butter and canola oil, until the onion was soft in my Dutch Oven.  Then, I added the meat to the Dutch Oven, after tossing it in 2 T of flour.  I braised the meat in the butter and canola oil for about five more minutes, until it was browned on all sides.  Then, I added the herbs, beef broth, Guinness and tomato paste to the pot and brought the mixture to a boil.   After the stew was boiling, I reduced the heat to simmer and continued to simmer for quite awhile (about thirty to forth minutes or so) until the soup was thickened to a stew.

To thicken the stew, I used my mom's trick and added 2 T of flour (or, you could use cornstarch) to a half cup of the broth and mixed well before adding back into the stew.  This really helped the thickening process, while completing the process in the manner I suggested helps avoid clumping in the stew.

The end result was a delicious thick and hearty broth that had a strong thyme flavor, as well as the hearty deep flavor imparted by the Guinness.

Have some extra Guinness?  Make my Chocolate Stout Cupcakes next.

Sasha's Kitchen On The Road: Irish Guinness Stout Stew

Sasha's Kitchen: German Street Pretzels & Braised Beer Short Ribs (from Marcus Samuelsson)

As part of doing this project, I am trying to experiment with new types of cuisines, new culinary experiments and new cultural influences in my food. I had heard quite a bit about the Chef Marcus Samuelsson, and I decided to purchase and review his new cookbook, New American Cuisine, in a series of posts over the next several weeks.

Marcus Samuelsson, a well known American chef, was born in Africa (Ethiopia) in 1970 and, after tragically losing his mother at a young age, he and his sister were adopted and raised in Sweden. He currently lives in the United States, where he is currently an advisor to the Institute of Culinary Education, in New York. He came to New York in 1991 to serve as an apprentice at the Scandinavian restaurant, Aquavit, where he eventually became executive chef at the age of 24. He subsequently has published numerous books exploring his cultural and culinary roots, including a Scandinavian Aquavit Cookbook and an African cookbook.

Samuelson's new cookbook, A New American Cuisine is intended to be a cross-section of the culinary influences that make up the melting pot that is America. It includes influences of his multi-cultural background, as well a mixture of the the variety of cuisines and ethnic traditions that have become part of American society. What's interesting is that his recipes aren't really German, Japanese, Ethiopian, Creole or French per se, but they often mix different culinary influences and it is this that make them distinctly American. Really, then there is no such thing as American food without adding a cup, dash and a pinch of the different ethnic and cultural traditions that make up America. We have become such a melting pot that we don't even notice it that our cuisine seamlessly mixes these influences, just like we do in our everyday lives.

With that background, it is not surprising that the President invited Marcus Samuelsson to be the guest chef at his first state dinner (yes the very same state dinner that was crashed by the wanna-be reality TV stars). The link above includes a full discussion of the state dinner and menu.

I decided to try two of his German-American Dishes: Beer Braised Short Ribs (page 277) and Caraway Pretzels (page 117).

Beer braised short ribs are a dish I have been meaning to try as I am not crazy of the other short rib braises that I have tried that use a very heavy tomato sauce. Samuelsson describes his beer braised short ribs as having been influenced by the Germanic traditions he discovered in Milwaukee, but they are purely American (rather than simply German) because of the Asian influences in his recipe.

The recipe, found on page 277 of his new cookbook is as follows:

2 T red Chile paste
3 pounds beef short ribs
1/2 cup of soy sauce
4 cups beer (I used a lager, Blue Point Toasted)
q tsp salt
3 T olive oil (I used truffle olive oil)
2 red onions, diced
one three inch piece of ginger
3 bay leaves
4 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup mirin
2 T ketjam mains (An Indonesian soy sauce; I substituted regular soy sauce)
1 T honey
2 scallions
1 T butter
I also added a couple handfulls of carrots, which were delicious with the braise




First, I smeared the chile paste on the short ribs, as Samuelsson instructs, in a baking dish. I added a mixture of the beer (1 cup of beer, although he only says to use 1/2 a cup, and 1/4 cup of soy sauce). I allowed this to marinade for 4 hours, rotating the ribs once.

Next, I heated the truffle olive oil and sesame oil in my Le Creuset Dutch Oven (I love Le Creuset and it is so pretty; I wish it was cheaper). I added the garlic, ginger, bay leaves and onions and sauteed. Then I added the ribs, beer, rest of the soy sauce, chicken stock and mirin and brought to a boil. We cooked for about two and a half hours at 350 F (he says 300 F but we wanted it done a little faster).

After the braise was done, the ribs were removed and we prepared the sauce by mixing 2 cups of the remaining liquid with 1 T honey, 2 T soy sauce, another 1/2 cup of beer, 1 tsp salt and the butter. Then I added the scallions. The sauce was delicious with the ribs and had a beautiful color. You could taste the flavors of the beer, but without the alcohol. This was great because it didn't have the heaviness of most tomato-based braises.




We also made his recipe for Caraway pretzels, on page 117, which are supposed to be similar to German street pretzels. These were delicious and came out perfectly the first time.

1 T dry active yeast
1 T dry active yeast
2 T sugar
2 T brown sugar
2 1/2 tsp plus 1 T salt
4 cups flour
1 T baking soda
1 egg plus 1 T water for wash
2 T cheddar cheese
1/4 cup caraway seeds

First, I combined the yeast (I used more - 2 packages of 1/4 oz each, and I suggest that you do the same), water and sugars and let the yeast activate for a few minutes. Then I combined this mixture in artisan mixer with the flour and 2 1/2 tsp salt to form a dough.



Samuelsson says to let this rise overnight - but I didn't want to wait that long, which is why I added the extra yeast and my dough rose just fine in about 3 hours. The I divided into 10 balls (he says 12, but I only made 10 perfectly sized pretzels). I rolled it out and shaped into pretzels after printing out a picture of a pretzel from the Internet to use as a model.

Then I let them rise for about 45 minutes, as he instructs in his cookbook (they didn't change much), and then boiled in water with the baking soda, much like is done with bagels. I boiled for 20 seconds or so on each side. Before baking at 400 F for 20 minutes, I did the egg wash and sprinkled with healthy amounts of lowfat cheddar cheese and caraway seeds.

20 minutes later, the end result were some delicious German pretzels, which were a big hit. We have some friends living overseas in Germany now who are visiting for the holidays and I plan to test them on our friends tomorrow night and see how they measure up to the real thing (if my husband doesn't eat them all first!).






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Sasha's Kitchen: German Street Pretzels & Braised Beer Short Ribs (from Marcus Samuelsson)

Sasha's Kitchen: Chocolate Stout Honey-Vanilla Frosted Cupcakes

I love making cupcakes. I have made dozens and dozens of cupcakes since receiving my artisan stand mixer as an engagement gift. I have experimented with different flavors of cupcakes and icings, as well as different colors for the icings (from mango to chocolate cherry to coconut to mexican chocolate to vanilla). If there's any food I like, I will put it in a cupcake.

I have always been fascinated with cupcakes since I was a kid - they're cute, sweet and oh so pretty - a little girl's favorite dessert. I have studied various recipes from different cupcake chefs over the last few years (Martha Stewart Julie Hasson and Magnolia Bake Shop in particular).

The problem with many cupcakes is that often times the cupcake itself is overpoweringly rich (especially the case with chocolate cupcakes) or that the frosting is overly sweet so that you can't have more than a bite. What I am striving for is a cupcake that you can eat and enjoy without feeling overpowered by the flavors in the cupcake (note: this does not mean that the cupcake doesn't contain tremendous amounts of butter and sugar).

Who would have thought that the very best cupcake I ever made would involve pouring an entire beer into the cupcake mix? If I told you I made something that required mixing beer, eggs and butter, you would probably laugh at me and tell me how disgusting that sounded. But the truth is, it is the perfect combination for an amazing chocolate cupcake.

With respect to the icing, I always make my own icing recipes at the last minute on the fly - most of the time they work out and this one was a success. For tonight's recipe, I decided to incorporate some honey in the cupcake icing. I read about a different, but really great cupcake recipe on the white house food blog (which I plan on making at some point). What caught my eye was that they have been using a lot of honey in their baking by utilizing the White House beehive. This made be consider incorporating honey into my vanilla icing for the cupcakes.

Just an aside here - the White House Beehive must be a new thing under the Obama administration (along with the well reported on vegetable garden), as I keep getting this image of George Bush accidentally stumbling into the beehive and getting chased by a swarm of angry yellow jackets. I'm sorry, I can't help it. To read more about backyard beekeeping at the White House as a culinary adventure, click here. The foodie focus of the current White House is a current interest of mine that may periodically appear in my articles.

At any rate, below is the recipe for the Chocolate Stout Cupcakes that I prepared today, which makes two dozen of my favorite cupcakes:

Chocolate Stout Cupcakes

3/4 cups unsweetened cocoa (use Droste Dutch chocolate, which is the best on the market)
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
1 bottle or can of chocolate stout or regular stout (I used Guinness in tonight's batch)
1 stick butter (melted)
3 large eggs
3/4 cup non-fat sour cream (because we want to keep our cupcakes healthy. . . yeah right)
1 T vanilla extract


Honey Vanilla Icing
1 pound box confectioners sugar
1 8 oz package of cream cheese (I used Temptee cream cheese)
about 1/4 to 1/2 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 T honey
1 stick of unsalted butter

To make the cupcakes, I first combined the dry ingredients (the cocoa, flour, baking soda and salt). Then in a separate bowl, I combined the beer with the stick of butter that I had melted first in the microwave. After you do this, the mixture will look absolutely disgusting and may even curdle (mine did). Persevere and don't worry about this, as it will turn out all right in the end. Then add the vanilla and the three eggs, one at a time. Next mix in the sour cream until fully combined. Next, slowly add the dry ingredients and mix well. At this point the batter should look and taste delicious.

Bake the cupcakes about 25 minutes at 350 degrees F after filling about 24 cups 3/4 of the way to the top. I love using silicon cupcake trays, which I line with cupcake liners. These can be purchased almost anywhere, these days, and are an essential addition to the kitchen if any aspiring baker. I registered for both silicon cupcake trays and silicon loaf pans when I got married a few years ago and it has made baking a wonderful experience.

The cupcakes should rise nicely and you can test the inside with a fork or toothpick to make sure they are done. Then allow them to cool completely before frosting them.



The icing recipe is something I whipped up tonight on the spot that worked beautifully with these cupcakes. First I whipped the cream cheese and butter in the mixer until combined. Then I added the entire box (yes, you really do need to use the entire 1 LB box, which I why I don't eat or make cupcakes every day) of confectioner's sugar. Then to thin the cupcakes to make a better tasting, smoother frosting slowly add heavy cream while the mixer is running. I added somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 a cup of heavy cream. Next add about 1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla, and finally 2 tablespoons of honey.

Just a word of caution, while it is generally a lot of fun to use food colorings to dye your cupcake frosting, I chose to leave this one white. First, I think it accents the chocolate cupcakes nicely. Further, if you are using heavy cream, you cannot use conventional food colorings because it will curdle and ruin your icing (I had a bad experience once with curdling purple cream icing). If you must color this particular frosting, you will need to experiment with various oil-based frostings. I tend to limit my use of colors to a more conventional buttercream and cream cheese icings.

These cupcakes were great - the Guinness in the chocolate cupcake is nice but subtle (it won't get you or your kids drunk, as the alcohol is lost in the baking process). The chocolate flavor is therefore less overpowering, which is what I had sought. And it accents nicely with the honey-vanilla icing.

Sasha's Kitchen: Chocolate Stout Honey-Vanilla Frosted Cupcakes

Eric's Kitchen in Jersey City: Mussels Risotto

This recipe came about while dining out in Jersey City a few months ago. My girlfriend and I were at LITM bar and restaurant where they had a special on Belgian mussels. $15 for all-you-can-eat mussels enticed us to go in. We also decided to order the mushroom risotto as an appetizer. When it all came out, the risotto had probably been sitting too long under the heat lamp and had congealed and dried out. We decided to take some of the extra broth from the mussels and revitalize the risotto which worked wonderfully. I decided that I needed to try this out at home and see what would happen when combining too things I love.

I started out by making the Belgian-style mussels with Duvell ale, shallots, mushrooms and fresh parsley. For those who have not tried this style of mussels, you clean the mussels, then saute the veggies in a pot until soft. Add your ale and mussels and steam them, covered, until they open up. I strained all the veggies and mussels from the broth and set them aside and kept them warm.

When making risotto, it helps to coat the rice with fat. In this case we used a thick-cut bacon, copped finely and then cooked until crispy in the bottom of the pot for the risotto. I added the risotto, then some of the broth from the mussels and cooked until most of the liquid had been absorbed. You repeatedly do this until the risotto is done cooking; about 20-25 minutes. You will most likely use all your broth and may have to add some chicken broth or other broth to finish off the risotto. You can also add in the veggies from the mussels about halfway through the risotto. Save the mussels until the very end to avoid over-cooking them.

In the end you should have a delicious dish that combines Belgian-style mussels and risotto, similar to a Paella.

Ingredients:
~2Lb. Mussels
1 bunch of parsley
1 shallot
1 bottle of Duvell Belgian Ale (use 1-2 cups for the mussels)
1/2 lb bacon
1 container baby bella mushrooms
extra chicken stock or broth if needed.
1 cup of Arborio rice

One more link: The first (and still the best) place I had Belgian-style mussels is Monk's Cafe in Philly.

Eric's Kitchen in Jersey City: Mussels Risotto

Sasha's Kitchen: Beer Bread

I've always been told that I am very prolific in whatever I do. I have a lot of excess energy, enough to bottle and sell. Perhaps this explains that when I cook, I can never make one or two things in small quantities. Rather, I have a compulsion to make large amounts of food or a variety of different things and I don't space it out. I suppose this would be idealy suited to having a large family, provided that my future children were willing to eat things like braised oxtail, tamirand chutney, and beer bread. Probably not so likely. The other thing about this prolific quality I have (some might refer to it as obsessive, perhaps intense, or maybe just hyper, driven and energetic) is that I work extremely quickly. I was always a fast writer, editor and worker, whether it was as a journalist for the newspaper in college or as an attorney. So, I expect it will lead to my being a pretty prolific blogger as well.



Beer bread. What is beer bread? Well it is bread made with beer. I had never heard of beer bread until very recently. In fact, I had only so much cooked with beer once, when making a Guinness beef stew after a family trip to Ireland in June, 2007. But the concept of putting beer in bread does make sense. Beer contains large quantities of yeast which is ideal in bread. Plus, depending on the type of beer you use, that would impact the bread itself and perhaps the types of other ingredients that one would add to the bread to complement the flavors in the beer.



I'm not such a big beer drinker. I never have been. I tend to drink about half a beer, or one beer if I really like the flavor. I also have this face that I make when drinking some kinds of beer (even if I claim I like the beer). My husband refers to it as my beer face and can tell instantly how much of the beer I will finish based on the face.



I should also mention that even if you do not drink, beer makes for an interestingly textured bread that is good with various meat dishes and stews - a hearty kind of bread. The bread itself does not contain any alcohol (all of that is lost when it bakes at a high temperature) so even if you have reasons that you would not drink beer, you can still make beer bread.


The basic recipe is very simply. However, I intevented my own recipe here. Beer bread calls for 3 cups of self rising flour, 8 oz of beer (whatever kind you prefer), 1/2 cup of sugar in a buttered or pam-ed bread pan.



I have four mini bread loaf pans (half loaves) so I cut the recipe in half and made two different kinds. For starters let me explain about the self-rising flour. This is not regular all-purpose flour. You can either buy self-frising flous or make your own. If you are going to make your own, like I did, add 1 1/2 tsp of baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt for each cup of flour you use.



For other flavors beyond the beer, you could add anything that complements the beer you selected. Since I had not planned on making this recipe before this afternoon, I used what I had - 1/2 cup of grated cheddar for each of the two batches and some diced chives. However, other ideas for good beer bread could perhaps include different types of nuts, grated carrots, pumpkin puree, bananas, even chocolate (if you were using a chocolate stout.)



As far as the types of beer, I used 8 oz of Post pumpkin ale (Brooklyn Brewery) for half of the beer bread and Guinness for the other half (I had to know what the bread would taste like if I used Guinness). Finally - bake at 375 until the bread is lightly browned and cooked through (check with a fork) Mine was done in about 40 minutes. However, I suspect it could take 1 hour if you use larger loave pans.



It turned out great. A somewhat tough and chewy bread which, as I expected, rose beautifully in the pans. The pumpkin and guiness flavors were evident as the bread took on the essence of the flavors in the beer. The cheese definately added some nice flavor and texture as well. I would not use this bread to make french toast or a turkey sandwich, but it is perfect snack bread, and would taste excellent as a complement to various meats, braises, stews and even soups. I plan to have some with the braised oxtail which is still in the oven.

Sasha's Kitchen: Beer Bread