Last week, I caught The Big Chili episode of Good Eats and I remembered again why I love Alton Brown so much. I laughed so hard in so many spots in this episode — and the chili looked pretty good too. It’s the best kind of Good Eats episode as well, with characters, costumes, accents and a plot! Whee!

From the episode, while buying ingredients at the store:

Grumpy Gus the Cowboy (played by AB): Well, there it is, Rusty. It’s the secret ingredient of lazy chili chefs everywhere. Now you could go spending an hour slicing and dicing various vegetation. But I say why not just crack open the lid on your favorite hot salsa? This here is my favorite. It’s made in New York City, so you know it’s good.

Rusty: Imported!

Grumpy Gus: That’s right, imported.

Ha! But hey, that’s a great idea. Salsa in chili. The original recipe is here — check it out and try it sometime. Instead of making that exact recipe, though, I opted to just use just a few of AB’s ideas in my chili because, well, I kind of like to fancify my chili with beans, various vegetation and things of that nature. Sorry, Alton.

I used chicken breast instead of stew meat (so it took less time and I didn’t need a pressure cooker). I also added some canned tomatoes, I diced an onion, and added the aforementioned beans. But no tofu. Yee-haw.

Big Chicken Chili
1 lb chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized cubes
1 tbsp + 1 tsp vegetable, peanut or canola oil
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1 white onion, diced
1 yellow bell pepper, diced
1/2 bottle ale (I used a Newcastle we had in the fridge)
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 chipotle pepper with 1 tsp adobo sauce
10-15 crushed tortilla chips
1 16 oz can fire-roasted tomatoes
1/2 cup salsa — any kind you like (I used my Charred Tomato Salsa Borracho, because I had some leftover — buy hey, store-bought works fine!)
1/2 cup frozen corn
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed

Garnishes: Cilantro, sour cream, cheddar cheese, chopped tomato, avocado

Add the tablespoon of oil to a heavy soup pot and brown the chicken (in batches if needed). Remove from the pot and set aside. Add the other teaspoon of oil and add the onions, bell pepper, chili powder and cumin. Sauté until the vegetables are soft and the spices are fragrant — about 3-4 minutes.

Add half a beer (”middle of the road ale”) — drink the rest. Not all at once, while you finish the chili, Rusty! Use the cooking-beer to deglaze the pot. Use the drinking-beer to refresh your parched throat. Then add the salsa, canned tomatoes, tomato paste and chipotle and adobo. Stir. Add the chicken back into the pot and crush the tortilla chips on top. Give it another good stir.

Cover and simmer your chili for about 30 minutes, stirring every so often.

Give it a taste and adjust any seasonings. Add the frozen corn kernels and the beans. Simmer for about 10 more minutes and then grab a spoon! It’s done.

As far as garnishes go, I like cilantro, cheddar cheese and sour cream. But other “possible service options” include avocado, chopped tomato and olives. Quail eggs? Not so much.

It was the day before Saint Patrick’s Day and I was hunting for a good recipe to make for dinner. Something timely. Something festive. Something with beer! I’d never made lamb stew before but I wanted to try it. I came across this recipe at the Food Network site and it looked very interesting, as I love roasted vegetables. Oh and Guinness? Well, okay then!

For this recipe lamb shoulder is the best. When I went to Zupan’s, they didn’t have any of this. The meat guy said that lamb leg meat would work for a stew and, while I browsed the aisles looking at the tasty things, he cut a pound of it up into 1-inch cubes for me. I have no idea if he was actually knowledgeable about what a good substitution for the lamb shoulder would be but I believed him. So, I guess, try to find lamb shoulder and if that fails, ask the person behind the meat counter what to use instead.

I halved the recipe, so as listed below it will feed 3-4 people. Double it up for double the servings.

Lamb Stew with Guinness & Roasted Vegetables
2 tbsp olive oil
1 pound lamb shoulder, cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces (or lamb leg meat)
Salt
2 leeks, cleaned and sliced
8-10 button mushrooms, sliced
1/4 cup flour
4 tbsp unsalted butter
3/4 cup Guinness stout
1.5 cups beef stock
2 tomatoes, seeded and diced
1 large parsnip, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces (about 1/2 lb)
2 carrots, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces (about a 1/2 lb)
1 large russet potato, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces (about 1 lb)
6 cloves garlic, peeled
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary, plus 2 tsp chopped
1/2 cup peas, (fresh or frozen)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

In a heavy-bottomed pot, heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Salt and pepper the lamb lightly and when the oil is hot, add the lamb and brown evenly.

Remove the lamb from the pot and set aside. Add the leeks and mushrooms — sauté until soft. Add the butter and melt. Add the flour to make a roux. Turn the heat down to low, and cook the roux until it is evenly brown, about 10-15 minutes.

Whisk in the beer and stock. Add the tomatoes and the reserved lamb, bring to a simmer, and cover. Simmer, covered, for 1 1/2 hours. I stirred the stew occasionally and in doing so got a face full of steam. It smelled really, really good.

While the lamb mixture is simmering, combine the parsnips, carrots, potatoes and garlic in a large bowl. Toss with 1 tablespoon of olive oil, salt and pepper and rosemary sprigs. Place the vegetables in a roasting pan and roast in a 400-degree oven for 45 minutes. Halfway through the cooking time, turn the vegetables over and shake the pan a bit. When done, set aside, discarding rosemary sprigs. Some of the leaves will fall of the stem, that’s fine — just leave those with the vegetables.

After the stew’s 1 1/2 hours of simmering is done, add the roasted vegetables and the peas to the lamb mixture.

Cook for 10 minutes, then add the chopped rosemary. Taste and season with salt and pepper.

Serve with buttered and parsley-ed noodles. I used the no-yolk variety — proceed as you wish. If you can get your hands on some fresh noodles or pappardelle well, that’d work just fine.

To set a mood, perhaps put on some U2 or some Pogues or a little Damien Rice. Then, dish your stew into a bowl, on top of whatever noodle you can procure and enjoy.

jwa and I both enjoyed this and the sauce that all the beer and stock and lamb fat made was just delicious. Mmmmm…lamb fat.

Holy hell in a humongous handbag this was good. And it really started as an accident. See, I went to New Seasons to pick up some tuna for dinner. They had none. As I perused the meat/poultry/seafood area in search of something tasty, my eye caught the word “rosemary”.

Now, I love rosemary, so I continued reading — Maple Rosemary Skirt Steak the sign said. Whaaaaaaa? Maple and rosemary? Together? Well, okay then.

I made my purchase and brought two of the skirt steaks home.

They were rolled up and secured with a skewer, drizzlets of marinade clinging to the meat. I stored them in the fridge and then tried to find out what in the world to do with skirt steak, ie: how to cook it. After some Internet sleuthing, I discovered that grilling and braising are the best ways to cook skirt steak. Of the two methods, the braising seemed the most appealing, as the steaks were already rolled up in these cute ittle rounds, I hadn’t done a lot of braising before and it just seemed….well…fun.

My next decision was what to braise in. Wine or beer seemed to be the most popular choices by far. Works for me. Because of the maple in the marinade, which seemed like it might clash with the wine, I chose beer. And one of the best things about cooking with beer? The leftovers.

If you are lucky to live near a New Seasons or some other market that sells maple and rosemary marinated skirt steak rounds, there you go. If not, I found this marinade recipe online that sounded kind of interesting.

Marinade:
4 tbsp maple syrup
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
2 cloves garlic, crushed

Combine all ingredients in a zip lock bag. Add rolled up and secured skirt steak and marinade overnight. Remove steaks from bag and discard remaining marinade. Now we can all start on the same page.

Stout Braised Maple & Rosemary Skirt Steak
2 maple-rosemary marinated skirt steaks
1 tbsp olive oil
1 bottle of stout
1/4 cup beef stock
8-10 button mushrooms, sliced
4 cloves of garlic
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Start by heating an oven proof pan over high heat. Add a little olive oil, salt and pepper the steaks lightly (there’s soy in the marinade which is pretty salty, remember) and sear the steaks 2 minutes or so on one side. Flip over and add the mushrooms and garlic cloves to the pot. Let steaks sear on second side for about 2 minutes as well. Remove pan from heat.

Pour stout in the pan until almost halfway up the steaks. Drink leftover beer. Add the stock next and then place the rosemary sprig on top. Cover and bake for 45 minutes. At this point, I took the pot out, turned the steaks over, recovered and baked for 45 more minutes. Now, I’m not sure if I was supposed to uncover and flip, but it seemed like a good idea. Perhaps, that just let heat escape and hurt my braise. I don’t know but in the end, it worked out just fine.

After a total of about 1 1/2 hours cooking time, remove the meat to a plate and cover with foil to keep warm. Discard rosemary twig. Place pot of stout on the stove top and bring to a boil. Let it reduce and make a sauce, until it thickens enough to leave a nice trail from whatever you are stirring with.

Serve each steak topped with the mushroom-stout sauce and perhaps some rice pilaf and asparagus. This bears repeating — it was so good. I’m especially pleased as I completely just winged that whole thing. I know hardly nothing about cooking red meat and I had never really braised anything before. This could easily have been a complete disaster. So, I’m considering this a happy, delicious accident. The meat was all tender and moist inside and the sauce was just amazing. I think the garlic cloves actually melted into the sauce.

Stout. Is there anything it can’t do?

While doing research for my upcoming post for the Weekend Cookbook Challenge next Monday, I pulled out a cookbook I got a couple of years ago but have never made anything out of before — Prairie Home Cooking by Judith M. Fertig. I got this book by accident, through the Good Cook Club, when I didn’t return the response card in time. This is a problem that has been plaguing me ever since the Music Club fiasco of ‘86 when I ended up with that Whitney Houston record.

But this accident was actually a useful one. I pulled down Prairie Home Cooking the other day and there were quite a few recipes that looked good to me. This one especially caught my eye. Being a Chicago native, I have had Cheese Beer soup before (mmmmmm…cheese and beer….mmmmmm) and I was perfectly happy to recreate the experience here in Portland.

Wisconsin Cheddar Beer Soup:
2 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tbsp AP flour
1/4 cup chopped yellow onion (I used white)
1/2 cup thinly-sliced celery
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (I would actually reduce this to a dash, taste, and add more if needed)
1/4 tsp dry mustard
1 cup milk
1 1/2 cups full-bodied beer (1 bottle)
2-3 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 tsp paprika
salt and pepper to taste
Garnish: garlic croutons

What justifies the Oregon in the title you ask?

Tillamook and Bridgeport, of course!

Okay, so, melt the butter in a soup pot over medium heat. Add the onion and celery and sauté until soft, about 6-8 minutes.

Stir in the flour and cook, stirring, for 2 more minutes. Add the cayenne and mustard and stir to combine. As I mentioned above, I would add a bit less of the cayenne and add more later if needed.

Next, whisk in the milk and beer. Bring the soup to a boil while continuing to whisk over medium high heat. For the beer, I would recommend a good amber ale. Darker beer seems to overpower the soup and a very light beer would be too under-whelming. The Ebenezeer Ale seemed okay, as that’s what I had on hand, but next time, just a plain ol’ amber will do.

Reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, until the soup has thickened — about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the cheddar and paprika, until the cheese has melted and incorporated into the soup. Taste and adjust seasonings. Serve while hot with garlic croutons if you have some on hand.