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Helen
Smith, home beercook
Heart of the Valley Homebrewers, Corvallis, OR
Helen
Smith writes a food column for the HOTV newsletter, and sent this
note, with a great recipe:
I hail from New Orleans, Louisiana, and cooking has always been one
of my favorite things to do. I am a musician and artist and cooking
is such a creative activity, it just evolved into my life... If I
had to cook the same thing all the time, then that would be a different
story!!!.
As my children grew up and moved away, it became more of a hobby to
experiment with recipes from everywhere and of course, cooking with
wine is always a wonderful way to enhance delicious foods.... from
there it was only a matter of being the wife of a homebrewer, Lee
Smith.
I approached
Kendall (Heart of the Valley Homebrewers) with the idea of having
a recipe once a month in the newsletter that involved beer to make
the issue more interesting, and he agreed if I would do it... so there
started my quest for good recipes including beer.
Most of my favorite beer recipes involve meat, fowl or fish - from
potroast to BBQ sauces - stews, etc. I like the less hoppy beers for
cooking, even though some do call for Stout.
I've found that, unlike wine, if you reduce beer too much when deglazing,
you can wind up with a bitter sauce - so its best to err on the side
of caution and to use less hoppy beers!
In the potroast recipe, I just poured it onto the browned roast with
other ingredients and simmered covered, so that was a different technique.
I've never cooked with Wort, but that would be an interesting thing
to do...
However, I did at one time make some bread from the spent grain -
and it was
heavy enough to use as a cannonball!!!. Wise thing to do would have
been to
include about l/4 spent grain with some whole wheat or unbleached
flour
which I will try next time Lee makes a batch.
Attached
is my first one - we cooked this beer batter with shrimp and onion
rings as an entree with a salad and garlic bread. This is the BEST
beer
batter I've ever used and it stays crisp a long time after cooking.
BEER
BATTER* oil at 350º
Mix
well:
l egg plus l egg white
12 oz beer
Whisk
together:
l-3/4 cup flour--
l tsp baking powder
l tsp black pepper
l tsp cayenne pepper *
l tsp salt
*
this is a very thin batter, similar to tempura
Dip
raw veggies or seafood in batter -
Let
excess drip off
Place
in deep 350º cooking oil till golden brown.
Makes WONDERFUL ONION RINGS!!!
*
this seems like a lot, but it cooks away mostly so you have to use
a lot. adjust to your taste
Bon Appetit --Helen Smith
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