Beer Dinner

I was excited at the prospect of doing another beer dinner. I had no choice on the brewery, but the one that had been selected was more than exciting. Lagunitas.

The local brewery scene in California is definitely packed with heavy hitters. Stone Brewing, Bear republic, North Coast, Russian River, and Lagunitas are just a few of the higher production breweries worth hunting down.

I sat down with a fellow chef to hash out a menu and came up with an interesting offering. I went with a concept based from snack foods.
  (first course)
  Recently I came across a Chocodile which was a welcome blast from the past. The twist for the dinner would be to make that snack savory, and the beer to pair it with was their Czech Pilsner. The pun, Czech-a-dile, was born.
  (second course)
  More snack food! I love fruit, I love bacon, and I love them together. I immediately thought of devil's on horseback. I needed to take it a step further and push the envelope. Instead of a date, we would use apricot. Also, we would use a hot dog in place of the traditional stuffing for the fruit. He we have an apricot stuffed with a hot dog and wrapped in bacon... My mouth watered. Let's take it a step further and bread that damn thing! Corn dogs, baby! I think I peed myself when the idea hit me. I don't know what my fetish with rehashing traditional snacks is but, I can't get enough.
  (third course)
  Might as well continue with the snack vein. Fried chicken. But wait, fried chicken is a wee bit heavy for a third course... Think... Why of course, let's go with quail! Southern fried quail. Cole slaw goes well with picnic chicken and beer, so let's take that a step further too. I love to preserve things, citrus being one of them. We set to preserving limes, lemons, and grapefruits three months before the event. That would be perfect, preserved citrus slaw.
  (fourth course)
  Already deep in the snack food and picnic trance, this one went quickly. BBQ sandwich, sticky, sweet, and spicy! It would be a perfect mid meal pairing with a heavy hitting IPA. We would use Maximus IPA and the meat of choice... Goat. Throw two sides, ribbon cut chips and a jalapeno popper, in the mix and we were complete.
  (fifth course)
  Dessert. Most beers for dessert rest in the imperial stout category. This was no exception. The Cappuccino Stout could be easily paired with chocolate. I went to another snack cake, Ding Dong. But that was not enough, let's throw a float in the mix to have a two part dessert. I love coffee soda, so I made a batch, and the ice cream... We made with the beer. Also, to keep the recipe as close to its origins as possible we used tallow rendered from Prime Rib trimmings.

With the hash out the way, recipe fleshing would be next.
 

Menu Hashing - Burger concept

I was recently asked to hash through some menu ideas for an upscale burger concept. I thought immediately, "Oh gawd, another damn burger concept." Burger concepts are a dime a dozen and their failures are even cheaper. But, I tend to think left of center and, although I was forced to conceptualize within a certain set of parameters, I have come up with a few interesting offerings. This is one of them. I have taken the cliché "Tuna Slider" (apparently a required California standard) and added my suggestion to the pile.

Seared Tuna Slider.

Ingredients:

• small (<15 lbs whole fish) yellowfin loin fabricated into medallions
• 4 medium green tomatoes
• 4 large white onions
• Pickling Liquid
• 4 cups white wine vinegar
• 2 cups white sugar
• 4 oz chopped cilantro
• FGT (fried green tomato) Dredge
• 1 cup AP flour
• 1/2 cup corn meal
• 2 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp ground white pepper
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• pinch cayenne pepper
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 12 small Brioche Rolls (or store bought equivalent)
• good mayonnaise (kewpie is my guilty pleasure)
• Clarified or Unsalted butter (for cooking with)
• Oil for frying (at home, shallow fry is OK)
• S/P to taste (for searing the fish)

Start the pickled onions first. Slice the onions in rings, as thinly as possibly (I used a meat slicer to shave them). Mix the vinegar and sugar together until completely incorporated. Add the onions, add the cilantro, mix well. Set aside.
Mix the dredge ingredients well. Set aside.
Slice the green tomatoes. You should get approximately 3~4 usable slices per tomato. 
Mix buttermilk with eggs, add tomato slices. 
Remove tomato slice from buttermilk and place in dredge, coating completely. Re-dip tomato slice in buttermilk and re-dredge. Set aside. Fry tomato slices when all have been coated.
Brush hot grill with butter, sear tuna quickly. 
Brush cut rolls with butter and grill them until golden.
Assemble sandwich on grilled roll with tuna on bottom topped with fried green tomato and pickled white onions. Place a small amount of mayo on the inside of the top bun.