Salmon burgers with goats cheese and sundried tomatoes

Burgers don't have to be beefy as these delicious salmon burgers from my book An Appetite for Ale prove, inspired by browsing the aisles of the Wholefoods market in Denver during the Great American Beer Festival a few years back!

Serves 3-6, depending how hungry you are

450g skinless filleted salmon, cut into chunks
80g young, unrinded goats cheese
4 spring onions, trimmed and finely chopped
80g Sunblush* or other roasted dried tomatoes in oil, finely chopped
A handful of fresh basil leaves
40g natural dried breadcrumbs
Salt, freshly ground black pepper and a pinch of paprika
Oil for frying or coating the burgers

Chop the salmon finely or pulse 4 or 5 times in a food processor. Break up the goats cheese with a fork and add it to the salmon along with the chopped spring onions and Sunblush tomatoes. Mix well or pulse again (keeping some texture - you don’t want to reduce the mixture to a paste)

Finely chop the basil and add along with the breadcrumbs. Season with salt, pepper and a pinch of paprika, mix again and set the mixture aside for half an hour for the breadcrumbs to soften and absorb the moisture.

Divide and pat out into six burgers. Fry in a little oil or rub both sides with oil and barbecue over an indirect heat for about 6-7 minutes turning once or twice during the cooking process. Or grill or fry them - that's fine too. I quite like them on their own with salad and a salsa but you could put them in a bap or bun with lime-flavoured mayo, sliced cucumber and shredded lettuce.

What to drink: A Blonde or golden ale or lager pairs well with these burgers or you could drink a Chardonnay.

Photograph © Vanessa Courtier

Lamb Boulangère with spruce beer

I've been looking forward to beer writer Melissa Cole's new book The Beer Kitchen since I heard about it a few months ago. As I expected it's packed not only with delicious recipes but some great suggestions for the type of beers to use in and pair with each dish (see the Cook and Pair suggestions below)

Serves 6–8

Melissa writes: This is one of my go-to lazy Sunday roast recipes. I'm not renowned for my patience and normally for a dish like this you’d be exhorted to poke little holes in the lamb skin and stick anchovies, herbs and slivers of garlic in them – but it’s such a lot of fuss, so I’ve devised a simpler and, pleasingly, more efficient way to infuse these flavours into your meat.

Two quick notes on this: firstly, buy a cheap mandolin – it’s an invaluable kitchen tool, but always use the guard. Don’t argue with me! Cutting yourself on a mandolin blade is a sickening feeling that you'll never forget – trust me. Second, you will need a BIG roasting dish and some turkey foil or a large roasting tray (pan) with a lid.

Ingredients

2.25–2.5 kg (5 lb 8 oz–5 lb 10 oz) bone-in lamb shoulder

4 tablespoons anchovy paste (if you can’t find the paste, pound 20-30 preserved anchovies to a paste in a pestle and mortar)

10 large sprigs of lemon or ordinary thyme, leaves picked and finely chopped

1.5 kg (3 lb 5 oz) waxy potatoes

2 red onions

1 large garlic bulb, cloves lightly crushed

2 teaspoons fine sea salt

2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

330 ml (11 1/4 fl oz/1 1/3 cups) spruce or pine beer (see below*)

500 ml (17 fl oz/2 cups) chicken or lamb stock (or however much will fit, reserve the rest)

For the gravy:

1 tablespoon cornflour (cornstarch)

1 tablespoon dark soy sauce

1 tablespoon red miso paste

Method

Preheat the oven to 140°C (275°F/Gas 1).

Turn the lamb shoulder skinside down and make 3 cm- (1 1/4 in-) deep incisions to create a large diamond grid pattern in the flesh. Take the anchovy paste and a tablespoon of the thyme leaves, mix them together and rub them into the incisions. Set aside.

Into the base of the roasting tray (pan), slice two-thirds of the potatoes and all the onions, evenly scatter over the garlic cloves and the remaining thyme leaves, season with half the salt and the pepper. Mix together with your hands, breaking the onions up into rings as you go.

Roughly smooth out the top of the potato mixture, add the beer and the chicken or lamb stock, then, with the remaining potatoes, make two neat overlapping rings, one inside the other on the top around the outside.

Put the lamb shoulder, flesh side down, in the middle of the potatoes and very lightly score the top in a smaller diamond grid pattern, literally just scratching the surface with the knife. Season with the remaining salt and pepper.

Put the lid/foil on and pop in the oven for 30 minutes.

Turn the heat down to 120°C (250°F/Gas 1/2) and cook for 5–6 hours. When the lamb is ready, you will be able to pull the shoulder bone out with little or no resistance.

At that point, lift the lamb out very carefully and place on a large plate, cover with kitchen foil and pop back in the oven.

Carefully pour off any excess roasting juices from the potatoes (it’s helpful to have an extra pair of hands for this if you can) into a large saucepan.

Turn the oven up to 200°C (400°F/Gas 6), take the lamb out and put the potatoes back in. Leave the lamb somewhere warm-ish to rest.

To make the gravy, mix the cornflour, soy and miso in a small bowl, add a ladle of the cooking juices and whisk together with a fork.

Add this mixture to any juices in the saucepan and allow to bubble gently over a low heat and reduce to your desired gravy consistency.

When the potatoes are browned, turn the oven off, crack open the door slightly, and return the lamb to the middle of the dish. Put your serving plates in to warm.

Cook whatever vegetables you require and bring everything to the table to serve.

* Spruce, juniper and pine beers can often be seasonal, so feel free to substitute a tripel, gently heated for a few minutes with some rosemary or pine/spruce tips and left to stand for 10 minutes

COOK

Williams Bros. Alba – UK

Finlandia Sahti – Finland

Pihtla Beer – Estonia

Pinta Koniec Šwiata – Poland

Rogue Yellow Snow Pilsner – USA

PAIR

Tripel Karmeliet – Belgium

Unibroue La Fin du Monde – Canada

Westmalle Tripel – Belgium

Wäls Trippel – Brazil

St Austell Bad Habit – UK

Extracted from The Beer Kitchen by Melissa Cole (Hardie Grant, £20) Photography © Patricia Niven

Oktoberfest Chicken

This recipe which I edited slightly from the version in the Oktoberfest Insider Guide by Sabine Kafer, comes from my beer and food book An Appetite for Ale. The secret is the lavish last minute slathering with butter.

Serves 2
1 small chicken (about 1.2kg or 2lb 10 oz. Geitl stresses the importance of this being dry-plucked)
Salt and pepper
A good handful of fresh parsley with the stalks
50g (2 oz) unsalted butter

An hour before roasting season the chicken generously with pepper and salt “so that even the preparation makes your mouth water” Wash the parsley, shake dry, chop roughly and stuff inside the chicken. If you have a rotisserie attachment in your oven preheat the oven to 220°C/425° F/Gas 7, skewer the chicken on the spit and roast for about an hour.

Alternatively preheat the oven to 200° C, and put the bird breast side downwards in a roasting tin. (Geitl recommends not using a fan oven or fan oven setting for this as it will dry the meat out. Not sure I agree about that.). Roast for about 30 minutes then turn the bird breast upwards and finish cooking (allow 25 minutes per pound in total - just over an hour for a bird of this size.)

Either way - and this is crucial - 15 minutes before the end of the cooking time the bird should be coated with fresh, soft but not runny butter. Repeat this process 4-5 times. To check if the chicken is ready stick a skewer or the point of a sharp knife into the thickest part of the leg. The juices should run clear. Cut the chicken in half down the breastbone and serve half a portion each.

Best beer matches: At the Oktoberfest it would be served with a light Helles beer but I prefer it with a classic Oktoberfest Märzen or a golden lager like Budweiser Budvar.

Do also make this delicious Oktoberfest potato salad

Photograph © Miredi at fotolia.com

Sausages with rich Guinness gravy

If you don’t like Guinness don’t be put off making this recipe for St Patrick's Day from my book Sausage & Mash. It makes the most fantastic dark, rich, sticky onion gravy that doesn’t taste remotely of beer.

Serves 4

2 tbsp olive oil
20g butter
2 large Spanish onions (about 425-450g), peeled and finely sliced
1 dsp granulated or caster sugar
1 dsp plain flour
175ml fresh beef stock or stock made with 1/2 an organic beef stock cube
225ml original Guinness
8 plump traditional pork sausages or 2 Cumberland rings (about 700g in total)
2-3 tsp malt or wine vinegar
Seasalt

Heat one tablespoon of the oil in a large frying pan, add the butter then when it has melted tip in the onions. Stir them so they’re coated with the butter mixture then cook slowly over a low heat for about 25-30 minutes until soft and golden. Sprinkle in the sugar, mix in well then turn the heat up and stir continuously for about 5 minutes until the onions are brown and caramelised. Stir the flour into the onions and cook for a minute then add the stock and the Guinness. Bubble up for a minute or two then turn right down and leave to simmer.

Grill or fry the sausages using the remaining oil until browned on all sides. Check the seasoning on the onion gravy adding salt and vinegar to taste. Transfer the sausages to the gravy, spooning it over them thoroughly then continue to cook on a low heat for about 15-20 minutes until the sausages are cooked, adding a little water if the gravy gets too thick. Serve with colcannon (below).

What to drink: Guinness or another Irish stout would be the obvious pairing but a hearty British ale would work too. Or you could drink a hearty red like a Malbec - see this list of wines to pair with Irish food.

Colcannon
Serves 4
900g King Edwards or other good boiling potatoes, peeled and cubed
250g sliced spring or Savoy cabbage
50g butter at room temperature
75ml warm milk
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Place the potatoes in a saucepan of cold water and bring to the boil. Skim off any froth, season with salt then cook for 20-25 minutes until done. Drain the potatoes thoroughly then return to the pan.

Meanwhile toss the greens for 2-3 minutes in a little boiling, salted water until just cooked. Drain, return to the pan and season with salt, pepper and 10g of the butter.

Mash the potatoes thoroughly till smooth then beat in the remaining butter and milk. Season with salt and pepper then mix in the buttered greens.

Sausage and Mash is published by Absolute Press. Photo © Georgia Glynn-Smith

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