Squash Baked with Beer, Cheese, Cream and Pretzels

I love this recipe from Claire Thomson's brilliant new book Home Cookery Year which I'm tempted to say is the only cookery book you'll ever need although if you're anything like me it's highly unlikely you're going to give the other however many dozen books you've got away.

Claire writes: Squash (and pumpkins) are the prize jewel of autumn, practically toppling supermarket and greengrocer fruit and veg stands.

Always choose the variety (whether squash or pumpkin) that are superior in taste and provenance. Avoid the juggernauts set aside for Halloween, as these are produced specifically for sculpting and are usually pretty tasteless. Look for sensibly sized, ripe, firm varieties of squash: medium-size squash, like the blue-grey skinned Crown Prince, or the dark green Kabocha; or any of the smaller varieties, such as sweet Uchiki Kuri or Acorn.

Lopping the top off and pouring in beer, three types of cheese (some hard, some soft) and also cream to bake like a fondue makes this a hugely impressive centrepiece, fitting of a feast.

Serves 6

1 x 1.5–2kg (3lb 5oz–4lb 8oz) squash (such as Crown Prince), or use 2 smaller squash (such as acorn)

100g (3½oz) aged gruyère cheese, grated (shredded)

100g (3½oz) emmental cheese, grated (shredded)

100g (3½oz) reblochon cheese, finely chopped (or use taleggio, fontina, raclette or camembert)

1–2 cloves of garlic, very finely chopped

2 tsp plain (all-purpose) flour (optional, to stabilize the cheese)

150g (5½oz) pretzels, bashed into large crumbs

100ml (3½fl oz) ale or beer (such as amber ales, Belgian beers, not too hoppy)

100ml (3½fl oz) double (heavy) cream

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/350°F/Gas Mark 4.

Cut the top off the squash to make a lid, then hollow out the seeds. Season the inside cavity with salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper and place on a baking tray. Replace the lid loosely and bake the medium-size squash for about 1–1½ hours or small squash for 30–45 minutes, until tender when skewered.

Meanwhile, mix the cheeses together in a bowl and combine with the garlic, and the flour (if using).

Increase the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/400°F/Gas Mark 6. Remove the squash from the oven and put to one side, leaving it (or them) in the baking tray and removing the lid(s). Scrape any cooked flesh off the lid(s) and place it in the squash cavity along with a few of the pretzel pieces.

A little at a time, add in the cheese mixture, beer, pretzels and cream (a little of one, then another, then the next, and so on – and repeat), finishing with a good sprinkling of pretzel pieces and cheese. Put the lid(s) back on the squash. Carefully put the squash back into the hot oven on the tray and bake for 20–30 minutes, or until the fondue is melted and bubbling within.

What to drink: Claire suggests - and I agree - the same sort of beer you use for the recipe "not too hoppy - an amber ale or Belgian beer would be ideal."

From HOME COOKERY YEAR: Four Seasons, Over 200 Recipes for All Possible Occasions by Claire Thomson (Quadrille, £30) Photography: Sam Folan

Root Vegetable Stew with Herb and Mustard Dumplings

If you've been experimenting with vegan food this January or 'veganuary' as it's been dubbed you'll know that vegan food doesn't have to be insubstantial or, indeed uninteresting. For those of you who remain to be convinced here's a hearty stew from Rachel Demuth of Demuth's Cookery School in Bath which contains both cider and sherry!

Rachel writes: Stews and slow-cooking dishes are perfect for cold winter days. Winter food needs to be piping hot, comforting, filling, sustaining and hearty.

The choice of vegetables can be altered to what you have in the kitchen. If you like swede or turnips, add some. Dumplings are the ultimate in comfort food!

Root Vegetable Stew with Herb and Mustard Dumplings

Serves: 4

Dietary: Vegan

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

• 6 shallots, peeled and quartered
• 4 tbsp rapeseed oil
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 leek, sliced
• 2 large carrots, peeled and chopped
• 1 parsnip, peeled and chopped
• 2 potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
• 440ml dry cider
• 1 tbsp sherry
• 2 bay leaves
• a few sage leaves
• 500ml vegetable stock
• 1 tsp Marmite
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• handful of fresh parsley, chopped

Dumplings

• 110g self-raising white flour
• 1 tsp mustard powder
• 50g vegetable suet or margarine
• 1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
• ½ tbsp chopped fresh sage
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• cold water to mix

Method:

1. In a large casserole dish fry the shallots in the rapeseed oil until they are golden.
2. Add the garlic and the leeks. Fry for a couple more minutes, and then add the carrots, parsnip and potatoes and stir-fry.
3. Add the cider and sherry and bring to the boil.
4. Mix the Marmite into the vegetable stock and add to the stew along with the bay leaves and sage leaves.
5. Season to taste and simmer gently for about 25 minutes or until all the vegetables are nearly cooked, before you add the dumplings.
6. While the stew is simmering, make the dumplings. They need to be added 15 minutes before the stew is ready.
7. Sieve the flour with the mustard powder into a large bowl then add the vegetable suet or margarine, salt and freshly ground black pepper and fresh herbs. Just before adding to the stew, mix in enough water, a little at a time, to make a firm but not sticky dough. With floured hands, break the dough into about 12 small pieces and roll them into round dumplings.
8. Before adding the dumplings, check the stew for seasoning and add the chopped parsley. At this stage you may need to add some more liquid so that there is sufficient for the dumplings to cook through. Add the dumplings to the stew, push them down into the liquid and simmer gently for 15 minutes or until the dumplings have doubled in size.
9. Serve in large deep bowls in front of the fire.

What to drink: Since you're using cider to make this delicious stew I'd definitely drink cider with it.

You may also find this post on pairing wine with vegan food useful.

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