Cuisine and Zymurgy

About food

About beer

I also brew my own beer (an avocation that Martin and Katie Luther also enjoyed), which is a great hobby. If you're not going to brew your own beer (homebrew is generally quite good for easy-to-brew beers like ales and stouts), I recommend these commercial beers:

• Weizen and wheat beer
  • Paulaner Hefe-Weizen
  • Hacker-Pschorr Hefe-Weizen
  • New Glarus Spotted Cow (local to Madison)
  • Sprecher Hefe-Weizen (local to Milwaukee)
  • The Great Dane (in Madison) also has an excellent wheat beer
• Lighter beers
  • Pilsner Urquell
  • Verucke Städt Pilsner at the Great Dane is quite good (ask for "German Pilsner")
  • Capital "Special Pilsner" and "Bavarian Lager" are quite good
  • The Great Dane also has an excellent pilsener
• Other
  • New Glarus Raspberry Tart (this is a framboise: a lambic fermented with fruit)
  • The Ommegang brewery in New York state makes a pretty good Belgian brown ale that seems to be distributed nationally -- get it in Madison at Cost Plus or Whole Foods.
  • anything else from the Capital Brewery (Middleton, WI) that I've tried has been good -- especially the wild rice beer and the blonde doppelbock

Some recipes

chicken curry (my own recipe, tested at several "potluck"-type events)

You will need:

• 3-4 heaping tablespoons of curry powder (I use about 1/2 "regular" and 1/2 "hot" -- if you don't have a reliable curry powder, mix equal amounts of fenugreek and turmeric, and add a dash of cayenne)
• these spices are "to taste" and approximate
  • up to 1 tsp cardamom
  • up to 1 tsp coriander
  • up to 1 tsp ginger
  • up to 1 tbsp cilantro
  • up to 1 tbsp paprika
  • up to 1 tbsp black pepper
• 4-5 yellow onions (big)
• cumin seed (about 1-2 tbsp)
• 2-3 cloves garlic
• OPTIONAL: about 1 cup of baby carrots
• OPTIONAL: a 28 oz. can diced tomatoes
• OPTIONAL: chopped hot red peppers
• meat (4 large chicken breasts, or lamb or pork cubes)
• olive oil
• butter

Mix all the spices (except the cumin seed and garlic) in a bowl. You're looking for a "mahogany" color when they're all combined.

Pulverize the onions and brown them in a wok or large pan with the butter. when they are brown, move them out to the periphery of the pan. Pour in a couple of teaspoons of olive oil and roast the cumin seed until the kitchen smells more like cumin than onions. Mix everything together and then spread it out again. Add some more oil and the garlic, roast it, and then mix everything together again.

Add about half to 2/3 of the spice mix and stir it up. You may have to stir in a small amount of olive oil. Your onions should now be a pleasant green color and be like slightly chunky paste.

The other half of the spice mix should cover the cubed meat. You can shake it up in a bag, etc. Mix in the meat and fry. The meat will take on a yellowish-green color because of the spices.

I have in the past added carrots and tomatoes to this, but I think it's pretty good without them, too. The tomatoes will require some more cardamom and coriander mixed in, and the dish will not be as visually appealing with them (instead of a deep green, it will be "brownish"), but it will taste great.

garlic naan (my own recipe)

You will need:

• 3-4 cups bread flour (i.e. high-gluten)
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• up to 1 Tbsp kosher salt
• up to 1 Tbsp olive oil
• up to 1 Tbsp granulated garlic
  
• 1 cup water or beer
• 2 Tbsp white sugar
• 2 Tbsp brown sugar, molasses, or dried malt extract
• 1 Tbsp active dry yeast
  
• 1 egg
• 3 Tbsp milk or kefir (I have in the past added buttermilk powder to regular milk for this)
  
• 1/2 stick butter, clarified
• 2 tsp granulated garlic

Put the water in a small bowl and heat to about 120 degrees F. Dissolve the sugars in the water. Stir in the yeast and set this bowl aside.

Put the egg and milk in a large bowl. Beat until smooth, very light-colored, and almost double in volume. Add the wheat flour, the salt, the tablespoon of garlic, and two cups of the bread flour.

If the yeast has begun to froth in the water, pour the contents of the small bowl into the large bowl. Mix until consistent; then knead, adding enough additional flour, a little bit at a time, to make a soft, smooth dough. (It takes about ten minutes with a dough hook on a stand mixer; it will take longer by hand.)

Place in an oiled bowl and cover to rise until double in volume. This dough takes twice to three times as long as regular bread to rise.

Punch down the risen dough, split it into eight balls and cover. Clarify the butter (this prevents it from burning at high heat -- just getting out most of the milk solids is ok) and stir in the granulated garlic.

Preheat your grill to high. (I've never made these in the oven, but I am certain you could with a pizza stone or cookie sheet and a 450 degree oven.)

Make the balls into "naan shapes". I use my hands, tossing and stretching them like a pizza crust, but a rolling pin is also ok. Brush one side with the clarified garlic butter and grill, butter side down. Carefully brush the upper side while the naans cook. Flip after three minutes, re-brushing the cooked side. Serve with butter.

mango beverage/ice cream

I adapted this recipe from The Graduate Student's Guide to Indian Recipes, since I don't believe in Cool Whip. You will need:

• 30 oz. mango pulp (get this from an Indian grocery like Bombay Bazaar in Madison)
• 1 can condensed milk
• 8-10 oz. heavy cream
• 1 Tbsp powdered sugar.

Whip cream and sugar. Beat in condensed milk and mango pulp. Freeze or put in ice cream maker. The longer you freeze, the closer to ice cream it will be.

midnight hour porter

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