Pork Chops & Chicken

Belgian Raspberry Brownies With (Espresso) Truffle Ganache

I stumbled upon this recipe a while ago, but decided to give them a chance now. I modified the recipe a bit to use espresso truffles as the ganache topping. I didn't make my own truffles this time around. There was no point to melt chocolate into truffles only to remelt them for ganache topping. I don't like Lindt chocolate at all and the recipe calls for Lindt truffles. For quick melting chocolate, I just ran to the store and picked up Starbucks Espresso Truffles. In this case it's not the quality of the chocolate I was looking for but more the rich espresso notes. This is to go along with the beer I have planned for these brownies. La Muerta Imperial Stout from Freetil Brewing Company in San Antonio, Texas. A bottle was given to us from Scott Metzger the Founder and CEO at the Craft Brewers Conference in April.

My brownies also came out a lot lighter than the images produced for this recipe from the original source. There are two reasons why. One, I used a Belgian style blonde ale with raspberries called Éphémère from Unibroue in Quebec, Canada instead of a preferred Framboise Lambic like Lindemans. I didn't have any on hand, but I did have Éphémère instead which is very effervescent and has a strong raspberry nose, but lighter body and sweet essence of raspberry on a blonde ale. Also I didn't have an 11x8 pan to bake the brownies in. I had an 8x8 or 9x13. I went with the 9x13 to make thinner brownies. So while my brownies aren't as pretty, they did turn out AMAZING. Full of rich flavor.
 

Belgian Raspberry Brownies with Truffle Ganache (Recipe By Emiline)

Ingredients:
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup raspberry beer
1/4 cup seedless raspberry preserves (Mine had seeds. No big deal)
5 ounces coarsely chopped bittersweet chocolate (Sharffen Berger Bittersweet)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup dark cocoa powder (I used Droste)
1/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Ganache:
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
5 ounces coarsely chopped dark chocolate truffles (Starbucks Espresso Truffles)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line an 11x8-inch baking dish with foil; coat with cooking spray.

 

Melt 1/2 cup butter in a small saucepan over medium heat; stir in beer and raspberry preserves.



Side Note: Since you only need 1/2 cup of beer, you might as well pour yourself the rest and enjoy it while you bake.



When mixture is hot, and starts to bubble, turn heat off, and stir in bittersweet chocolate, until melted, and well combined; set aside.

In a medium sized mixing bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, and salt.

In a large mixing bowl, using an electric mixer on high speed, beat together granulated sugar, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla, for 3 minutes.



Reduce mixer speed to low, and beat in melted chocolate mixture, until well combined. Stir in flour mixture, until just combined.

Scrape batter into prepared dish; bake at 375 degrees F, for 20-25 minutes, or until set.

Side Note: For the 9x13 pan 20 minutes was enough.



Plunge dish into a larger baking dish, filled with ice water, until brownies are cool.

To make the ganache,

Melt 1 tablespoon butter, in a small saucepan set over medium heat; stir in cream.



When mixture starts to bubble, reduce heat to low, and stir in chopped truffles, until melted, and smooth.

 

Pour ganache over brownies, and smooth the surface, using a rubber spatula.
Freeze the brownies until ganache is set, about 15 minutes.



Lift the foil-lined brownies out of dish, and slice into bars, using a sharp knife.

(The bottle for La Muerta is BAD ASS!!)

The beer pairing for this recipe can go in two ways. Either with the raspberry beer you made the brownies with, definitely the Lindemans over the Unibroue Blonde ale even if it has raspberries in it. The Lindemans is pure fruit though and would be a better fit. Or you can go classic and pair chocolate with an Imperial Stout.

In this case though, I am pairing them with La Muerta. Obvious reasons behind this one. A rich roasted stout 10% ABV with chocolate raspberry brownies and espresso ganache is a no brainer. The rich espresso notes from the ganache will marry perfectly with this beer as it already has roasted coffee notes on it.

I will have to update this post after I drink the beer itself and let you know exactly what I think of this pairing. I am taking the brownies to some friends house to watch the Kentucky Derby and share the beer with.

Until that time, read the reviews for this beer on BeerAdvocate. All A's. They explain the flavor profile well enough and you will understand why this beer will work with the brownies.

Chocolate Review: Romanengo Cioccolato Fondente Amaro 61%

Pietro Romanengo fu Stefano is an exquisite candy shop from Italy that has been around since the late 1700's. I fret to use a generic term like candy shop, but it is truly what they make, only they make gorgeous, world-class candies and confections. 

A quick read on their history. Romanengo Past and Present

I was mostly familiar with their Dragée's or sugar coated almonds and their candied fruits that came in amazing wooden boxes for an incredible presentation, from when I worked at Formaggio Kitchen.

They also make these wonderful candied sugars with liquid centers. The centers were flavored with rose, lemon, anise and other wonderful flavors.



As well as Fondants di Frutta with a multitude of flavors like mint, lemon, Pears, banana and orange to name a few.



Recently I was given a bar of their dark chocolate. I am mostly a fan of Italian chocolates. The time and care put into their products is seen across the board in all the chocolates from any region in Italy. Knowing what kind of exquisite candies Romanengo makes, needless to say I was very excited about the chance to enjoy their chocolate bars.

Romanengo is from the Liguria region of Italy in the Province of Genoa. The coastal, northern region of Italy.

They are purists about their chocolate. This is important when dealing with high quality chocolate bars. They use Mexican beans for their chocolate, though I am not sure of the varietal currently. Pending information request.

Updated: The information about the beans they use has been given.

The "Messicano" chocolate you are tasting does not really come only from Mexico. It is an old and traditional name used by our company for more than 150 years. The beans actually come from a variety of places, mostly in Central America (if you want, it is not a "single cru", but a "blended" chocolate).

Our philosophy does not place a great importance on origin or on high cocoa percentages but on the process. We use a 1860 mixer with granite wheels (able to bring out all the flavors, which is not the case of modern machines) and we conch the paste for 72 hours (again, in a granite-wheeled machine). And we do not use soy lecithin which would speed up the process but somehow (we feel) spoils the taste.

From their website:

We produce our chocolate by mixing cocoa paste in a traditional old mill (mélangeur) and trough, both with their own granite stones, where the chocolate is "beaten" non-stop for three days and three nights. The granite brings out the chocolate's wonderful aroma.
We never use soy lecithin: Romanengo chocolate is made exclusively from cocoa, sugar and cocoa butter with absolutely no additives (except the milk used to make milk chocolate).
Romanengo makes bars of plain chocolate (62% cocoa) and bars of milk chocolate.
Our range also includes what we call "family" chocolate, once produced in endless varieties and melted to produce a delicious drink. It is made from near-equal quantities of cocoa and sugar but no cocoa butter. The chocolate is available in the traditional "santé" version or flavoured with cinnamon. 

Cioccolato Fondente Amaro

Bean Origin: Blended Central American Beans
Varietal: Unknown
Cocoa Percentage: 61%

Ingredients: Sugar, cocoa-paste, cocoa-butter, vanilla flavor. Cocoa 61%

Amaro means dark in Italian. So the name of the bar implies exactly what you are going to get with a 61% cocoa chocolate bar.

The Nose: Light smokiness, rich tobacco, almost like pipe tobacco, tree bark notes as well as rich buttery notes from the cocoa butter, and berries.

Smells like classic semi-sweet chocolate chips. This is not meant to be an insulting characteristic or a generic term, but it rather it has a smell that reminds of me of home when I was a kid making chocolate chip cookies with my mother.

Texture: Smooth when dissolving on the palate, but a little dry and crumbly when bitten into. A little chalky. It melts very slow on the palate. Not as creamy as I had hoped for.

Side Note: I learned a little neat trick when tasting chocolate about the cocoa butter used from a great new friend, Pete Slosberg who used to own Cocoa Pete's and was the founder/owner of Pete's Wicked Ale. The cocoa bean is grown between 20ºN of the equator and 20ºS of the equator.

Cacao is grown plus or minus 20 degrees north and south of the equator.  What I was told by the technical people at my chocolate provider is that cocoa butter is softest near the equator and gets progressively harder as you approach the furthest north and south limits. Also, when chocolatiers mention a cacao percentage on the label, it isn't really pure cacao directly from the beans. It's cacao from the beans plus extra added cocoa butter, e.g. a 70% cacao chocolate could be 60% cacao plus an added 10% cocoa butter. The extra cocoa butter will smooth out the chocolate. It's next to impossible to glean how much extra cocoa butter is added, but it's worth asking the supplier directly.

I find this fascinating because this chocolate is very much representative of that factor. It's a slow melt in the mouth and the beans were a blend from around Central America. This would indicate that their beans were produced further away depending upon how much coco-butter they actually used.

Taste: A complex flavor profile. It begins almost tasteless until the bar begins to melt. Once it begins to open up there are rich nutty flavors. Slight roasted cocoa bean taste that doesn't stay on the palate for very long, but pops enough upfront to let you know it's there. Then it really opens up into bright cherries, and has a slow lingering tartness. There are fresh tobacco notes as indicated on the nose and a deep red wine grape taste. The finish is a light smokiness again as indicated on the nose.

Very low bitterness, but definite higher acid content based on that lingering tartness.

To me this is the reason the Italians reign supreme on chocolate making. Even with a higher acid content, it doesn't jab you in the neck from shoddy processing or less care in the fermentation process. Sometimes with lactic acid and the bacterial process in the fermentation can't be helped. But it's those chocolate producers who go to the farms and care to research the issues with their production who make all the difference in the world. Again you are getting tart fruit flavors that are wonderful to eat and experience in the flavors of chocolate versus actual physical reactions to the acid content.

I am stickler about this because once this factor of acid content became apparent to me, it really makes or breaks chocolate bars for me.

An excellent chocolate bar over all.

Ladies, Don't Look At Me To Start Your Beer Revolution

[Illustration by Kyle T. Webster | BA mag #27]

This is my very first article to ever be published. It was published in the Beer Advocate Magazine April Issue # 27. You can subscribe to BA and get a subscription of the Magazine or order special back issues of the mag.

Beer Advocate Magazine

This article was briefly mentioned during the Women In Beer Panel at the Craft Brewers Conference which I was on this year and is part of an on going discussion about women in the beer industry and how women and beer are perceived in general.

This article is more or less a manifesto, a proverbial "kick in the skirt" to those women who are not sure that the beer world is "safe" for them. A slap down to those who think the beer world is so "male dominated" yet sit on the sidelines and do nothing about it. Or worse yet perpetuate the perceived "male dominance" by forming women exclusive groups. Doing to the men what has been done to them for so many years. Bleh!

In the weeks to come as I get the audio from my panel discussion at the CBC, I will blog that panel discussion and add some more depth to my answers and the panel over all.

There is certainly a generational gap when it comes to these issues. The women who have had to forge their careers, and the women today who enter with the luxuries of a more female friendly environment. I don't mean or aim to piss all over those who have worked hard to be taken seriously. But I don't support the effort to make beer only about them or their issues either.

I am taking a stance now once and for all, no special treatments or marketing ploys for women when it comes to beer. The beer should be about the beer. Women and men alike will drink it if it is worth it's salt. Beware of the marketing angles that tell you women need special treatment, or special attention and care in order to drink more beer. Down with separating the houses, and trying to capitalize on women as though we were weak, stereotypical, and worst of all, predictable. Enjoy the reading. As always comments are appreciated.

Click the images to enlarge.

 

 

 

I Am A Craft Brewer

This video was first shown at the Craft Brewers Conference 2009 that took place here in Boston. This video is now viral and spreading fast. Please help pass it on whether it's through my site or the video link itself.

Greg Koch, CEO of Stone Brewing Co. gave the keynote speech at this years CBC and offered a room full of 1700 craft brewing professionals an affirmation. I was lucky enough to be present when this was first aired.

This was Greg actually twittering during the keynote speech and took a picture of the crowd. Image via Greg's iPhone.

 

Big room. Thank god the crowd at my panel discussion at the CBC was significantly less than that.

A Note about this video:

"I Am A Craft Brewer" is a collaborative video representing the camaraderie, character and integrity of the American Craft Brewing movement. Created by Greg Koch, CEO of the Stone Brewing Co. and Chris & Jared of Redtail Media...and more than 35 amazing craft brewers from all over the country. The video was shown to a packed audience of 1700 craft brewers and industry members at the 2009 Craft Brewers Conference as an introduction to Greg's Keynote Speech entitled "Be Remarkable: Collaboration Ethics Camaraderie Passion." As is tradition for the CBC Keynote, a toast to the audience was offered. This time, the beers offered for the toast were all collaboratively brewed craft beers including Isabella Proximus, Collaboration Not Litigation, AleSmith/Mikkeller/Stone Belgian Style Triple, Jolly Pumpkin/Nøgne-Ø/Stone Special Holiday Ale, and 2009 Symposium Ale "Audacity of Hops."

When the entire Keynote speech is posted, I will blog that video too. The entire speech was awesome and worth spreading.

BBQ Chicken Pizza With Homemade Crust

One of my favorites. Ever since I found this awesome recipe for pizza crust, I make homemade pizza a lot. This crust was done a little differently for me this time however. I rolled it out a bit more for my round pizza pans. Normally I roll it out minimally for thick crust square pizza. Like these images here:

As you will notice in this recipe, when it comes to the toppings for the pizza, The pictures do not show what the recipe calls for. That's because while I was making the toppings, I realized I should have doubled the ingredients. So the pictures will look scant compared to what I think you should be using.

I didn't use cilantro for my pizza. I cannot stand cilantro unless it's in small doses. It's alright in pico de gallo and other Mexican dishes, but only in small amounts. People either love cilantro or they hate it. I am not a fan at all. It tastes overwhelmingly like soap to me. It dominates my palate. Some people think this is one of the clues to being a supertaster. I quite possible could have that palate based on a lot of sensitivities. I haven't taken the test yet to find out if I am one. It would be weird to discover I am one though. Hops and extreme hops tend to be no no's for supertasters. I am a freak for hops and double IPA's. You never know.

I cooked my chicken in a skillet and sort of stewed the chicken in BBQ sauce. It's fast and easy and I did it this way because my grill is not ready yet for the spring and summer. So if you have a grill go ahead and grill that chicken in coat it in BBQ sauce and slice it up for your pizza.

Let's begin with the pizza dough.



Thick Pizza Crust by Linda Larsen

This recipe for thick, or deep dish pizza crust, is easy and classic. Make it in a Pizza Pan for best results.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

• 2 pkgs. active dry yeast (1/4 oz or 2 1/4 teaspoons per package)
  
• 4 cups flour
• 1/2 cup warm water (Between 105 and 115 degrees)
  
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 cup warm water

Preparation:

In large bowl, combine yeast, 1/2 cup flour, and warm water in a bowl and mix well.

Side Note: Make sure the water for the yeast activation is between 105 degrees and 115 degrees. If the water is too hot, it will kill the yeast. Also since I have a giant bag of yeast from Costco, I usually sneak in a little bit more active yeast to the mix than the recipe calls for. It makes the the dough puffier and you don't need to add more flour or water.



Cover and place in warm, draft-free place; let rise for 30 minutes.

Stir down batter.

Add 2 cups flour, salt, and 1 cup warm water and beat well.

Side note: At this point I switch out my whisk attachment for the Kitchenaid mixer and use the bread hook attachment.

Gradually add enough of the remaining flour to form a soft dough.

Turn down onto a lightly floured board and knead for 10 minutes.

Place dough in a greased bowl, turning to grease top. Cover and let rise until double, about 1 hour. 

Side Note: It is best to rise dough in a warm place. Some people do it in their ovens on a very low heat. I do it in the summer time, right on top of my stove. I open the door to the oven a crack and the let the heat rise up. Be careful with this technique on the stove. Make sure all knobs are off and nothing is hanging by the open stove. Be careful not to cause a fire.

In the winter time, I use my radiator in the kitchen. It's small and I place towels over the heater and place my bowl of dough right on top. Again make sure the radiator is not getting too hot or the dough won't raise, and make sure it's not too hot to put a towel on top of. Monitor both situations carefully.

 

Punch down dough and roll to 16" round. Place in greased 14" round deep dish pizza pan and form a raised edge.

Let dough rise for 30 minutes.

Side Note: As the dough is rising, you can begin prep on the pizza toppings. See below for ingredients and preparation.

 

[Onions will be darker than above image indicates when done caramelizing.]

Caramelized Onions

Two large red onions chopped

1/2 cup of white sugar

2 to 4 tbls. butter

Heat skillet to medium heat and put butter in the pan to melt.

Add in chopped onions and make sure all are coated in the melted butter. Toss onions in pan for a minute.

Then gradually add in of sugar.

Allow the onions to soak in the butter and sugar until soft. Then turn up the heat to about medium high. Cook until sugars begin to caramelize and brown. Do not over cook or leave onions to cook on one side for too long or they will burn.

BBQ Chicken

4 chicken breasts

1/2 cup to 1 cup of favorite BBQ sauce

3 to 4 tbls of oil

Salt and Pepper

 

Wash chicken breasts in cold water. Slice the breasts into thin strips. Salt and pepper the pieces.

Heat oil in a skillet on medium heat. Add chicken to the skillet and cook for a few minutes on each side.

Add BBQ sauce to the pan and let the chicken sort of stew in the sauce.

Once done remove chicken and dice in the small cubes. You want to cook them in larger pieces so the chicken doesn't dry out. Smaller pieces will cook in half the time and could over cook. Place the chopped pieces back in the skillet in the bbq sauce until ready to top the pizza with.

Now that your pizza crust has been rising, it's time to top the pizza.

2 8oz. packages of shredded mozzarella

2 8oz. packages of shredded cheddar cheese

1/2 cup give or take of BBQ sauce for each pizza

Caramelized onions

BBQ Chicken

Cilantro (optional)

Using about 1/2 cup of BBQ sauce, spread it around on the dough as the base.

Cover the base of the pizza with shredded mozzarella. One package per pizza.

Top with onions and chicken.

Cover pizzas with remaining cheddar cheese. One package per pizza. If you do use cilantro, take some washed and chopped cilantro and sprinkle it on the pizza at this point.

Bake at 425 degrees for 20-30 minutes until crust is deep golden brown.

Beer suggestions for this particular pizza: I am going to go with a darker lager or a brown ale. I use brown ales all the time as my so called "default beer." But with BBQ, brown ales are perfect. Avery's Ellie's Brown Ale, Smuttynose Old Brown Dog, and even rich porters like Mayflower Porter. If you go with a lager, something like Old Dominion will work. I say something like Old Dominion because the brewery has closed and they brewed their final batch of beer recently so you might not be able to get it after a while. But the taste of OD lager is preferable. Darker in color, rich bread-y or buscuity notes. Or a good German Dunkel or doppelbock like Celebrator.