Sunday, March 21, 2010

The Kiwi Beer Lover's Cookbook Review

The following is a cookbook review I wrote for Critic:

The Kiwi Beer Lover’s Cookbook
Recipes by Sam Cook
Publisher: Hurricane Press Ltd, 2009
Chicken Paella

Frankly, I had no idea there were quite so many ways to use beer in cooking. I knew about beer battered fish and chips but this book contains beer incorporated recipes for dips, stews, sauces, casseroles, boil ups, pies, burgers, cakes, waffles and even ice cream. According to the foreword, beer is great for tenderising meats, leavening bread and batters, as well as maintaining the moisture during baking. I had originally intended to attempt at least one recipe from each of the nine chapters in this cookbook but as time and pecuniary constraints would have it, over three weekends, the obliging cooks that I recruited for this mission and I managed to execute eight recipes from five chapters – a respectable effort nonetheless.

Shepherd's Pie

The first recipe we tried was disappointing. The Chicken Paella (cooked with Monteith’s Original Ale) turned out flat and plain and tasted just like rice cooked with store bought marinara sauce. Bleagh. Then we tried the Shepherd’s Pie recipe (incorporating a dark beer - we used Black Mac) which produced a juicy, tasty, hearty meal. Since the Shepherd’s Pie recipe was one of the ones with a photograph of the dish, I decided that we would only try the recipes that had pictures from then on. For the most part, this system worked well. The Avocado Wedges and Sesame Green Beans were made with a lager (Carlsberg) batter and fried. The results were firm avocado wedges and tender green beans that were encased in beautifully light, crispy, tasty coatings. Absolutely delicious. The dipping sauce that went with the tempura-like green beans complemented the dish perfectly and I swear, if you didn’t know the wedges were avocados, you’d think you were eating Cajun-style potato wedges *wipes drool covered keyboard*.

Sesame Green Beans

Avocado Wedges

The next recipe involved sticking a can of Carlsberg up a whole chicken’s butt and sitting it upright on the roasting pan, which of course, was the entire reason we chose that recipe. Here I feel I must give credit to the chicken which sat upright, sans props, throughout the entire process without complaining even once. Having the beer steam the insides of the chicken while it was roasting produced a most delectable, moist and tender bird. Burp.

Beer Can Chicken

From the ‘Sweet As’ chapter, we made the Triple Choc Brownie (with a Black Mac) for a pot luck party. As if the divine aroma of chocolate wasn’t torture enough, fresh from the oven, scattered throughout this decadently rich, dense and moist brownie were the most fascinating little pockets that oozed warm liquid chocolate! I think it’s a good sign when the guests ask if they can take some home and the hosts ask for the leftovers.

Triple Choc Brownie

The only other two recipes that we tried that we weren’t crazy about were the Fish in Beer & Vodka Batter and the Afghan Biscuits with Beer Icing. The beer & vodka batter, while airy and crunchy, had a bitter aftertaste. We suspect that if we had cooked the batter a little longer, the bitterness of the vodka might have dissipated, but we had no reason to do that because (at that point) the fish was cooked perfectly. The Afghan biscuits, I am sad to report, had no redeeming qualities and was completely uninteresting. The biscuit was oddly powdery and the beer icing was too squishy.

On the whole, the recipes were simple, easy to follow and flexible, which is great for people like me who prefer the ‘no fuss’ approach to cooking. Most of the recipes turned out well so try the ones you think will work best and leave or tweak the ones that look iffy.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Golden Harvest

I have lived in this city for close to 8 years now. Many of my opinions about this place have changed over the years, but one in particular has stayed constant: generally the Chinese food at restaurants in this city, for lack of a better word, sucks. Of course, there are a few exceptions and over the years I have learnt to lower my standards in order to satiate my cravings for Chinese food, but overall, the prospect of Chinese food here can be downright depressing.

I am happy to report that the food at Golden Harvest does not suck. In fact, over the years, it is the only Chinese restaurant that I have kept going back to, even though there have been a few short-lived affairs with other Chinese restaurants. I couldn't fly home for Chinese New Year (the equivalent of Christmas in NZ) this year, so D and I went to Golden Harvest on CNY's eve to have our own version of the 'reunion dinner'. There were a lot of students there, celebrating CNY's eve with friends in Dunedin, in lieu of family back home. It sure made me miss home.

Anyway, we ordered four dishes even though it was just the two of us. I didn't care - it was CNY eve after all. We ordered the Sweet & Sour Fish, the Mongolian Lamb, the Garlic Prawns & the Stir Fried Gai Lan. My favourite dish was the Garlic Prawns (ask anyone who knows me, I am a prawn fiend - not in the District 9 sense of course). Overall, the prawns, the lamb and the vegetables were a tad too salty.


Garlic Prawns: Garlic + Prawns = A win, win combination for me! There was a copious amount of minced garlic in the sauce. Luckily, the succulent prawns, each encased in tasty, light, crunchy batter, were not drenched in the rather strong sauce, but simply placed upon it so that people may coat the prawns in the sauce to their preference. Delicious and perfect with rice, which mellows the intensity of the sauce.


Sweet & Sour Fish: To me this was a bit disappointing - not because it was bad, but more because I am used to the more complex flavours of the sweet & sour sauces served back home. This sauce tasted like plum sauce (only) and was a little one dimensional for me. Also, because the fish was skinned, filleted, battered and fried, the flesh of the fish was bland. For this dish, I am used to the fish being served whole and with only an extremely thin batter. But I suppose they have to cater to the local clientele. Having said all that, the fish was perfectly cooked - the batter was light and crispy and the fish was tender. If it had a different name and I wasn't comparing it what I am used to, I would have probably been quite happy with it.


Mongolian Lamb: D liked this the best and ate most of it. We had to divide the labour so I ate almost all the fish and he ate almost all the lamb, which may be the reason why I don't remember much about it. I must order it again.


Stir Fried Gai Lan: For the uninitiated, Gai Lan is a type of Chinese leafy vegetable. It grows well in Asia but the good stuff is a little harder to come by in Dunedin. I find that when I buy Gai Lan at the farmer's market or supermarket, the stems and leaves are often thick and tough, indicative of an older plant. In Asia, they are almost always sweet, young and tender. That night, the Gai Lan was alright overall, albeit a little salty and the odd stem was a tough. The Choy Sum that we ordered during our previous visit was good, but since vegetables are seasonal, it wasn't available that night.

There are numerous other dishes at Golden Harvest that I know are good and would like to photograph and others that I would like to try but I will need to revisit it with S, who is a little more gastronomically adventurous than D. D did, however, pay for the meal, from which we walked away waddling with very full bellies. Yum.

Golden Harvest Restaurant
218 George Street
Dunedin

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Fudge Brownie Smart Cookie


Let me share my food ‘discovery’ of the week. On the way back from Christchurch we stopped at the Cookie Time factory shop and got a bag of the Fudge Brownie Smart Cookie. Maybe everyone already knows about this and I missed the boat on this one when it was released in 2006 but for those of you who don’t know, they’re deliciously soft and chocolate-y and they smell heavenly! They’re cookies but they smell and taste just like brownies. Mmmm.

Cookie Time Factory Shop
789 Main South Road, Templeton

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails