Beef in a Beer Sauce

If there's one thing I love just as much as food and drink pairing, it's cooking with alcohol, as well. The flavour from cooking with alcohol is in a class of it's own. It's amazing how adding such a simple ingredient to your pot or casserole can bring your dish to new life.

Of course, the OCD part of me took over when it came to choosing which beer to use so I researched beer that goes with beef or steak. Porter and IPA were my first choices but I could only get AndUnion's amber ale as second best option. I wasn't disappointed, luckily.

For someone who is still learning to drink other bitter alcohols like beer, whiskey and brandy, this beer was quite an easy drinker for me. But I can still only do small amounts before the taste gets unbearable. Baby steps and I'll be a pro beer/whiskey/brandy drinker just like I drink my wine.

Oil for frying

550g-1kg minute steaks, sliced into strips, however chunky you like them

Steak spice

30ml butter

2 onions halved and sliced

1 heaped tablespoon of flour

300ml beef stock

200ml beer

Thyme

Mashed potatoes and a vegetable of your choice, to serve.

(Chad made us his tomato and French bean stew. It's amazing)

• Heat a frying pan over high heat. Once it's hot, add a little oil and fry the meat, coating it qith the steak spice. Stir-fry until browned and remove from the heat. Set aside. 
• Heat the butter in the same pan and cook the onion over slightly lowered heat until golden brown. Stir in the flour.
• Add the stock gradually, stirring continuously then add the beer and thyme. Simmer for 5-10 minutes until thickened. stirring periodically.
• Add the meat to the gravy and season to taste. Serve with mash and veggies. 

LadiSmith Cellar 2012 Towerkop Sauvignon Blanc

Sometimes there's more to life than just choosing the right wine to go with your meal. Sometimes it's really fun to choose a wine and then let the entire meal revolve around that. It first started when I wanted to go back to basics and do a simple wine and cheese pairing; a sauvignon blanc with feta. It all snowballed from there.

So, when I said this to Chad he went into feta mode. About a year ago we had dinner at Il Gusto for our anniversary and he had squid tubes stuffed with feta. Ever since then he's been obsessed with making that at home and half a year later we finally did.

Of course, never having made this before I automatically assumed the responsibility of resident recipe researcher and took to Pinterest for inspiration. Naturally, the recipes for on the braai is what stood out. We basically just looked for cooking methods rather than fillings as Chad was already dead set on a feta stuffing. But just feta is rather bland so we zazzed it up a bit by adding olives to two and sun-dried tomatoes to the other two and with squid tubes not being enough for a meal we added a lemon and herb haddock in foil to the menu.

As we waited for the coals to reach optimum braaing temperature Chad prepared the squid and haddock. He melted butter and added to it lemon and herbs and basted the haddock with it. 

After putting the squid and haddock on the braai we sat outside and enjoyed a light snack of ciabatta bread dipped in lemon oil and some of the left over feta with the wine. 

Dinner is served and we learned a lot from this meal. Like letting them go not quit as long next time as the tubes were just slightly rubbery and next time using danish feta or any other mushy filling as all the juices seeped out of the tubes during the braaing. I also made roast potatoes and a green salad as a side but the meal is so rich and filling that we can cut out the potatoes and have a completely carb-free meal next time round. 

All in all it was a successfully delicious meal and we are very much looking forward to perfecting it.

Robertson 2014 Gewurztraminer & Pear and Ginger Cheesecake

It’s interesting how unique all of our bodies are, especially our palates and food tolerance levels. Chad has been training me for about a year now to tolerate spicier foods and I’ve got to say it’s been paying off nicely. I’m always pleased as punch whenever I can add more food options to my diet.

The irony of this is when I made this cheesecake. I was happily scoffing down bite after bite when Chad put his plate down unfinished and stated that the ginger was burning his throat. Given the fact that he isn’t exactly fond of ginger, I just found it funny that it was burning him ut not me. I was fine. I actually paused for a minute when he said it so I could feel if it was burning me as well,but I felt nothing.

I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it. Chad, the king of spice, defeated by a ginger cheesecake. Michelle, his apprentice, victorious over the master.

Pear & Ginger Cheesecake

400g Bakers Gingernuts, crushed              125ml caster sugar

125ml butter, melted                     1 egg

1 can pears, diced                               250ml sour cream

250g creamed cottage cheese                   15ml lemon juice

15-30ml ginger powder

          Heat the oven to 150C. Mix the crushed biscuits with the melted butter and press into a greased cake tin. Place the pears on top of the crust and set aside.

          Beat the cottage cheese and sugar until smooth. Add the egg and process again. Add the sour cream, lemon juice and ginger powder and process to combine.

          Pour the filling over the pears and crust and bake for 1 ½ hours or until the filling is set. Chill well before serving. 

Borges Tawny Port & Malva Pudding

I originally got the tawny port to enjoy with a frozen tiramisu for my mini dinner party but I wasn't particularly crazy about the tiramisu. I did, however, very much enjoy a trick Collette showed me . She let the bottom of the glasses rest in boiled water for a little while and then poured the port in thereby warming it up. The feeling of warm and cold sliding down your throat was so much fun. For dinner that night we enjoyed cream-of-tomato chicken livers with moscato. I'd like to write about that some time, too.

Thanks again for the port, Collette.

Some time later on in the month I made malva pudding but really wanted to do it as a pairing. I'm trying my best to cut the habit of spontaneously buying a new bottle of wine for every time I make a new meal. Instead I'm trying to shift my focus on using what I already have. I only had a sweet white, a red blend and the tawny port. Come to think of it, the red blend would have gone well with it, as well. But I couldn't stop thinking about the port with the malva in the time leading up to making it.

The reason I thought the tawny would be the right wine to pair it with is because the thought of the nutty/dried fruit flavour of the tawny with the warm vanilla of the pudding seemed really appealing to me. Malva pudding is, in a nutshell, a traditional South African winter pudding that is enjoyed warm with a side like vanilla ice cream, whipped cream and home-made Moirs vanilla custard. I served mine with the custard and it was quite the pleasant pairing, after all.

I don't really know how to explain it but here goes... It's almost as if because your throat is already warmed from the malva pudding sipping the tawny isn't as harsh as it normally would be because you're already warm so that kinda leaves you to better taste the flavour of the tawny.

Does that make sense? I don't know, but that's how it felt to me.



Malva Pudding with Ideal Milk Sauce

Malva Pudding
2 eggs
250ml sugar
120g butter
10ml bicarb
500ml milk
500ml flour
Pinch of salt
10ml baking powder
10ml apricot jam
20ml vinegar

Ideal Milk Sauce
250ml sugar
120g butter
125ml boiling water
250ml ideal milk

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
Beat the egg and sugar well. Cream in the butter.
Mix the bicarb with the milk and set aside.
Blend all the remaining ingredients into the butter mixture. Add the milk and beat into a batter,
Turn the batter into a greased oven tray and bake for 40-60 minutes.
Before the cake come out mix add all the ingredients for the sauce in a small pot and mix over low heat. It shouldn't reach boiling point.
Pour the warm sauce over the hot pudding when it's come out of the oven, pricking it with a skewer so that it absorbs all the liquid.

Simonsvlei 2014 Lifestyle Shiraz & Chicken and Shrimp Casserole

I went onto the Simonsvlei website and read up on this shiraz before cracking open the bottle and it made me salivate. I couldn't wait to get home and have the aromas of plum and spice cling to my palate. 

I confess, I was rather disappointed at the taste as it was slightly stronger than I expected it would be. But that's all my own fault as I always raise my expectations and assume that whenever something has hints of any kind of fruit in it that I'd be drinking alcoholic fruit juice. My imagination tends to run wild in these cases. 

But I'm not one to waste wine. I chose this bottle of wine so I made it my duty to make sure I drink every last drop of it. By some divine intervention I realised by the end of the second glass that, hey, this shiraz is rather tasty!

So, so tasty. 

I decided to do my research and plan the meal I was going to make for it; a chicken and shrimp casserole. 

Of course, the classic and easiest way to choose the meals to have with your wine is to pair white wines with white meat and red with red but because the casserole is made with a tomato-based sauce I used that as excuse to get away with having a meal with two types of white meat with a dark red wine. 

And I wasn't wrong, either. The tomato in the food brought out the spice and nut flavours of the shiraz just beautifully. So much so that even though Chad didn't like this wine at all from the first sip he thoroughly enjoyed it with the food. 

Here's to the next bottle!

Robertson 2013 Pinot Noir & Oyster Mushroom Pizza

Pinot noir, a wine that has moved past being my favourite to me being completely obsessed with it.

Since I'm new to drinking drier wines I've been experimenting with wine types I've never had before. But I've been stuck on pinot noir and of the two brands I've tried (Robertson and Two Oceans) I've decided that Robertson's is the better one.

During the day all I think about is getting home and rewarding myself with half a glass of this liquid deliciousness. So much so that I think I'm approaching borderline alcoholism. Yes, I think about drinking this wine that much.

(Just kidding. I'm only joking about the alcoholism. The only reason I'm adding this paragraph into the blog is just in case someone with no sense of humour reads this and feels the need to lecture me on my alcohol consumption.) *Rambling over.

So with researching what to eat with pinot noir, mushroom pizza and other mushroom dishes came up most of the time which was perfect since Boyfriend and I were hankering for home-made pizza in the new braai for a while now.

 Sadly we didn't let the pizza go in the braai the whole time and we had to let it finish baking in the oven the rest of the time. The temperature wasn't right for making pizza so we think we still need to experiment with how to get it just right.

For myself, personally, I enjoyed how the food breaks down the wine's acidity and allows you to taste the smooth, velvety, smoky taste of the pinot. With every sip I am amazed at how I'm not gagging from the bitter taste like I always used to before being able to drink wine. I also found the pinot to be especially tasty when enjoyed with a bowl of olives while we were waiting for the fire and with a blue cheese sauce drizzled over the pizza.

Here's to the next bottle!

The Night We Almost Burned Down The Kitchen

It had been quite some time that my friends and I were talking about hosting a cheese and wine night and when Kadine told us she's never had cheese fondue we just knew we had to do that for her farewell. I mean, she simply couldn't immigrate to the Netherlands without experiencing a cheese fondue first. I suppose you could say it was both a farewell and an initiation.

It was basically my responsibility to take care of everything but everyone else supplied the dipping food and their own bottle of wine which ended up looking like this;

We started fairly late so I ended up only having the Saint Celine and Gewurztraminer (which I supplied). I wasn't too upset about missing out on the other two, though, as I'm still in training with being able to drink drier wines. I'm getting there. I'm trying.

Well, I've never made cheese fondue before so this was certainly a learning experience. Above all, I learned not to spill methylated spirits while pouring it into the burner and then lighting it. 

We put the fondue pot on top a sheet of newspaper. I can't remember why, but a friend's mom suggested it. I grossly underestimated what was happening in front of me, but after realising that the flames are growing I froze momentarily looking at the burning newspaper thinking, "What the hell?!? What do I do?!?!?!" until out of nowhere I jumped to grab a dish cloth and smacked the shit out of the fire. By the grace of the Gods there was no fire damage. Phew. 

Waiting for the chicken to finish frying, we killed the fondue's burner and left the cheese to stand. When it was finally time to eat we reheated the cheese only to find that it had made tiny little lumps and was a general sticky mess. Reapplying heat at least loosened it a bit, but the little lumps stayed. 

Panic. Again. 

Commence copious amounts of cream and heated milk and we finally had a smooth cheese mixture. 

At the end of the process, bumps and all, we had a pretty successful cheese fondue. The morning after, however, I woke up to the delightfully acidic taste of white wine all over my sore and tender mouth. I suppose we went a bit overboard with the wine we added to the fondue, haha. 

Chicken, cabanossi sticks, ciabatta bread, steamed long-stemmed broccoli and raw mushrooms. I was seriously cheesed-out and I can't wait for the next one.

Love, Light, Chocolate & Cheese,
Michelle