Egg Noodles with Shittake, Napa Cabbage, and Szechuan Sauce

INGREDIENTS (serves 2):

1 22-oz. bottle Abita Andygator

1 tbsp. sesame oil
1/2 large yellow onion
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup mirin
3 tbsp. soy sauce
1/3 cup Szechuan sauce (any brand--I used House of Tsang)
1 tsp. preserved Szechuan peppercorn (this is available in Chinatown--toasted Szechuan pepper in oil with bits of peanut and spice)
dash of white pepper
6 oz. shittake mushrooms, cleaned, stemmed, and sliced
3 cups thinly shredded Napa cabbage
1 8-oz. can of water chestnuts, sliced
8 oz. Chinese-style cooked egg noodles
3 scallions, minced
salt and black pepper to taste

1) Heat oil and saute the onion until well sweated, about 8 minutes.
2) Add minced garlic and stir to toast, 1 minute.
3) Add to your pan the mirin, soy sauce, Szechuan sauce, preserved peppercorn, and white pepper. Allow to reduce slightly, 3 minutes or less.
4) Stir mushrooms, cabbage, and water chestnuts into your pan; cover and reduce heat for four to five minutes, or until cabbage is wilted and mushrooms are cooked.
5) Uncover and adjust your seasoning with salt and pepper. Garnish with minced scallions.
6) Open Abita Andygator.
7) Enjoy together.

THE BEER:

So, we were in New Orleans.

I can't even. I just. WOW.

You know when everyone tells you you're going to love something, and I mean actually every person to whom you speak, and you're like, "That's cool. Yes, I'm excited to see this movie/city/play/concert/mime/cricket match. Yes, I bet I'll love it too. No, sure, I get it, I'll love it more than that." And then it's so talked up that you almost think we'll see, suckaaaaas, and you start thinking nothing could possibly be that much fun?

Yeah, New Orleans is that much fun.

And we were at TALES OF THE COCKTAIL.

I can't even. I just. WOW.

Tales is an event for bartenders, industry, liquor and mixer companies, and "enthusiasts" (me). It showcases every year the best of American bartending--new techniques, old techniques revisited, high standards, new products--by encouraging everybody there to taste the best of American bartending.

And taste it.

And taste it. Over and over and over again.

(A Note from the Liver: Hi! *waves* This is Lyndsay's liver. Lyndsay seemed really to enjoy Tales, and since it was her birthday and all, I wasn't going to begrudge it to her. She's been working hard of late and reasonably well-behaved, not drinking much while she's writing and all. But...I would like to lodge the complaint that I was waving the white flag by the end of this trip, and Lyndsay carried on with the cocktailing like Sherman marching to Atlanta. It got ugly in here, scorched earth and salted fields and scenes of chaos and destruction, and anyway look at that picture up there--that beer is the size of her effing HEAD, who in their right--)

*loud sounds of scuffle*

Sorry about that, I told my liver we weren't interested in her drama.

So, Andygator is an actual big beer from Abita Brewing Company. The best Abita, I think, and done in a Helles Doppelbock style. It's super drinkable, malty but with a very dry, crisp edge to it. I think that it'll pair nicely with Szechuan peppercorn, as the spice from--

(HA! You think a liver who goes through as much as I do would go down without a fight?! Look at this! Look at this picture! THIS is what I am talking about! This sort of behavior! They were pouring amazing liquors and Krug champagne into punch trash bags with single giant ice cubes! How can one behave oneself when surrounded by such debauchery, such utterly hedo--)

*louder sounds of scuffle, followed by muffled thump*

Anyway.

Yeah. The Abita Andygator was good. You should try it. It might be a local thing (I can't source it in NYC yet), but then again, maybe they just don't distribute the big bottles to the Northeast. Fingers crossed for you.

And if you ever go to Tales of the Cocktail, it might be a good idea to give your liver a solid pep talk first. As Niccolo Machiavelli was at pains to remind us all those years ago, it works to be feared. And it works to be loved. But to be feared and loved is best, and that's the relationship I urge you to have with your own liver.

Cambodian Glass Noodles

INGREDIENTS:

*(optional) 6 oz. leftover shredded pork shoulder
6 oz. Thai bean thread or "glass" noodles
1 tbsp. rendered pork or bacon fat (can use olive oil)
1 red onion, sliced thin
1 jalapeno, minced
8 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 tsp. red pepper flake
1/2 tsp. ground white pepper
2 small heads broccoli, stems peeled, chopped
1 egg, beaten and seasoned
salt and fresh black pepper
_______

Sauce:
1 tbsp. sugar or agave
1 tsp. sesame oil
1 tsp. fish sauce
2 tbsp. soy sauce
2 tbsp. oyster sauce

2 fresh chives, minced
a handful of cilantro, minced

Hitachino Nest White Ale

1) Place glass noodles in a mixing bowl and heat enough water (to just below boiling) to cover. Soak noodles (5 minutes is enough).
2) Heat pork fat until smoking in heavy-bottomed pan or cast iron. If using leftover pork shoulder or shredded pork, add meat to crisp.
3) Add to the pan minced jalapeno, garlic, red pepper flake, and onion. Saute 2 minutes.
4) Stir in broccoli and ground white pepper. Season cautiously with salt and black pepper and pan-fry 3 more minutes over high heat.
5) Move the contents of the pan to one side. If empty side is dry, add a touch of oil. Fry the beaten egg, then mix all together.
6) Add sauce to pan and scrape any fond off the bottom. (If at any point during this recipe something is burning or sticking, feel free to splash in a little chicken stock, water, or soy sauce--just be careful not to oversalt.)
7) Your noodles should be quite soft. Snip them with kitchen scissors in the bowl until they're a nice bite-sized length. Drain and add to pan, turning off heat.
8) Stir the noodles into the stir-fried veggies and pork, adding your chopped herbs. Check seasoning and adjust with sugar, salt, or fish sauce if necessary.
9) Open Hitachino Nest White Ale.
10) Enjoy together.

THE BEER:

We've sorta sorely neglected to talk abut Asian beers on this blog, which is a shame. Gabe is the mixologist at Woo Lae Oak, and thus has a hand in picking which beers go on the list there, and Hitachino Nest White is one of them, because people should only drink beers that are awesome and Hitachino Nest White Ale is made of awesome and drinks like liquid awesome.

(Brief anecdote: I don't recall precisely what the beer list was at "the Woo" before Gabe and his GM Dan sat down and did an Awesomeness Enhancement, but it looked pretty much like this: Kirin. Kirin Light. OB. Sapporo. Heineken. Corona Light. Water With Beer Flavor Additives. Water With Beer Flavor Additives Light.)

This is a mean pairing with glass noodles. Hitachino White is a chilled-out Witbier at 5% alcohol, brewed in Japan, a lovely pale golden cloudy color. It has a delicate but vibrant nose on it. Super floral and ginger and cloves and citrus, lemon edges, a faint whiff of yeast. Sip it. It's incredibly complex for a Witbier style, with a Granny Smith tang at the front of the tongue and a depth of bittering balance that you don't often find with brews of this sort, which can lean toward banana and bubble gum pretty easily. This doesn't--it's a medley ofIndian spices with a backbone of lemon and bread. Outstanding. Drink it with glass noodles.

THE NOODLES:

Photo caption: Lyndsay Pairs Beer with Food in Asia.

By the way, if you were ever to stop by Woo Lae Oak, you'd do well by yourself ordering the glass noodles and a Hitachino Nest White. Korean glass noodles are called Jap Chae and are made out of sweet potato instead of mung bean like the Thai/Cambodian variety I used here.

So this dish is inspired by my hometown dining experiences. There are not a lot of exotic places to eat on Longview, Washington. One might even be tempted to say boldly, ON THE CONTRARY! and drive to Portland, OR or Seattle, WA, which both have absolutely killer restaurants. But in Longview itself, unless what you want is some outrageously good Mexican food, ethnic dining is pretty much confined to Hart-C's Thai-Chinese Food and Steak Burger.

Yep. Great name. This from the town that also brought you Cleopatra's Grizzly Bear Casino.

Anyway, #58 is a dish called Glass Noodles with Pork and Eggs. The nifty trick about the Thai plates at Hart-C's is that the family that owns Hart-C's (I went to high school with their kids) isn't Thai. They're Cambodian. The food is similar to Thai, but I've never had another glass noodle dish in a genuinely Thai restaurant precisely like this one. Hart-C's is bloody delicious (they have an out of this world black pepper and garlic fried beef), so as a tribute to them I tried to recreate their glass noodles with some leftover pork. I'm pretty stoked by the results, and it's considerably cheaper than a plane flight.

I took a cooking class in Thailand, when we were in Chiang Mai. I could cook Thai food every day. So tasty. So healthy. So good with BEER.

Announcing: EXTREME SUMMER GARDEN SERIES

Beer Meets Food is taking it to another level, ladies and gents. The picture you see before you is nothing other than our yearly garden plot here in the Heights, the one we've been yammering on about for four years. See it? See the little lettuce heads and the sage bush and the five kinds of basil? See my Hudson River rocks, which are totally shiny naturally? (They're in the front by the lemon thyme). See how the parsley is trying to stage an escape, and see the Thai basil behind it? See how I have, like, one marigold? See the fried chicken smell wafting through the air from Mamma's Fried Chicken? No? Well, it's generally so thick you can see the chicken smell, but maybe the wind was blowing a little leeward this morning.

Foodies and people-who-tolerate-me everywhere, prepare yourselves for a series as rooted in the natural world as the flesh of a rutabaga, as verdant and grassy as our neighbors' marijuana supply, as flavorful as the language used on the streets here in Washington Heights, in the pulsing heart of the Dominican Republic. Did you think I lived in New York City? Think again. Or don't think at all, as might be more comfortable for you depending on workload--and check out our hood for yourselves. Wander through the streets, sipping a cafe con leche that you asked to have with "no" sugar so that you only got a heaping tablespoon. That's right, kids, Beer Meets Food is taking you on a whirlwind tour of our very own community garden, with recipes inspired by growing plants, in our new installment:

BEER MEETS FOOD: EXTREME SUMMER GARDEN SERIES*
Baseball season never felt this locavore-agrarian!

GREENER-FRESHER-ADMITTEDLY DRUNKER-WAY MORE HUMID

*(with special guest appearances by
Stinky the Redolent Subway Crackhead and
The O-No-He-Di'En't-3 am Screamers)

THE HERB:
Let's talk about purple basil for a second.

Purple basil has a similar flavor profile to its cousin Italian basil, but we find it to be a bit more concentrated, less sweet than the classic Italian "sweet" green basil, and it carries more touches of pepper and anise. This is all relative, by the way--purple basil is bred specifically to filter the green out of it, and in consequence the strains are not always consistent regarding flavor. I've heard it called bland, which isn't the case for ours, but I can certainly see how that might have happened. In any case, the leaves are generally a little thicker, more durable. And also purple basil is more awesome, because it's purple. Purple things rule.

(Not to get off topic, but seriously, even if I didn't have a girlfriend called Purple, how awesome are purple things? Like beans, and sweet potatoes, and...daring old women's outfits? I approve of purple things. Besides, they're good for you. Lots of antioxidants.)

THE RECIPE: Herb-Topped Slurp Noodles

INGREDIENTS:
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp sesame oil
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 inch of peeled ginger, grated
6-8 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
1/2 tsp dried red pepper flake
6 cups chicken stock
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 star anise pod
2/3 pound asparagus, thick ends peeled and trimmed, cut into matchsticks
1/4 of a small red cabbage, cored and sliced very thin
1 handful (the pre-wrapped portion we used was 3 ounces) buckwheat soba noodles
3 handfuls each fresh mint, purple basil, and chives, sliced thin in a chiffonade
---------------------------------
1 bottle Weyerbacher Zotten Belgian Pale Ale.

1) Heat both oils in a stock pot and add ginger, onion, garlic and red pepper flake. Saute until fragrant and golden, a little over a minute.
2) Add chicken stock, soy sauce, and star anise. Simmer uncovered for 15 minutes.
3) Add cabbage and cook for another 3 minutes.
4) Stir in asparagus and bring back to a simmer, cooking for about 2 minutes longer.
5) Clear a space in the broth for the soba noodles. Submerge in the broth and simmer until cooked through and just barely tender, about 3 minutes. Adjust seasoning--add a little agave or salt if needed.
6) Garnish with the fresh herbs, to taste. Open Weyerbacher Zotten. Enjoy together.

THE BEER:
Zotten is a new special-release offering from an Easton, PA craft brewery called Weyerbacher who make pretty damn killer specialty brews. They're a local outfit who like to bill themselves as being artisanal, which is perfectly fair--they don't brew too much and let anything lose consistency, while on the other hand they make an impressive variety of seasonal styles. Specifically, the Zotten is an American Pale Ale, so very crisp and clean with Centennial and Cascade hops, but brewed with a Belgian abbey yeast strain. The stuff is good. You should drink it in a garden.

THE GARDEN:
This is me smiling in my garden. I'm smiling for three reasons: first, I love my garden. Second, I am not shoveling the mulch you see underfoot. Last week the garden administrator ambushed Gabe and me as we were coming out the front door of our apartment building.

NANCY: We just got these three forests' worth of mulch delivered free of charge in seventeen city dumptrucks. It's all sitting right here in a big pile. And as you can see, here are several extra shovels.

US: Awesome. That is so tight.

NANCY: There are some wheelbarrows over there.

US: You must feel really comfortable being so equipped for any eventuality.

NANCY: Since the mulch is on the sidewalk and it's going to rain in an hour or so, how would you feel about grabbing a shovel?

US: Poor. We feel pretty unenthusiastic about that idea, in all honesty. We were steps away from the subway. Well. Ok, fine.

So with stellar arguments like that backing you, what you end up doing for the next hour--wearing little black leather pumps, no less, and hell yes the gents on our street laughed at me--is shoveling mulch. If you're me, and you're starting to crack and you see kids coming down the sidewalk, you also start saying things under your breath like, "Hey kid, wanna play a shovel game?" I tell you, with Dominicans, that proposal goes over like a lead balloon. I think my favorite moment came when one of my fellow shovelers remarked in rapt shock (and also in Spanish) after about forty minutes of this that I hadn't put down my shovel once, and I replied (in English), "Setting my shovel down is no way to make this pile of mulch my bitch."

But I digress. The third reason I'm smiling is that the garden is so much better this year than in years past. You would not believe the sort of crap people used to sling at each other in this joint, while other more docile people sat shivering and hugging themselves behind the tool shed murmuring, "I like plants. Why? Why choose rage? Why are the hoes sharpened to knife points? Dear God. I like plants so much." This place used to be a seething hotbed of Machiavellian political intrigue, a place where being feared, or loved, or both, was not enough--you needed a mastodon with distemper. But this year...this year is going so well. And see? We have mulch. That's why I'm smiling. More to come in the next installment of Beer Meets Food's EXTREME SUMMER GARDEN SERIES.

Pappardelle with Artichokes and Rabbit Sausage Ragu

1 package D'Artagnan Rabbit & Ginger Sausage (8.5 oz), casings removed
1 package fresh or dry pappardelle noodles (we used fresh mushroom-infused pappardelle)
3 tbsp olive oil
4 large shallots, minced
1 inch of fresh ginger, minced
4 garlic cloves, pressed
1 carrot, minced
1 celery rib, minced
1 14-oz. can diced tomatoes, drained and chopped, with juice reserved
2/3 cup dry red wine
5 large deli artichoke hearts (or use marinated), quartered
1 tbsp dried thyme
1 tsp. honey
2 fresh chives, green parts only, chopped
1/4 cup grated pecorino romano cheese, finely grated
Salt and fresh black pepper
------------------------------
1 22-oz bottle Pennichuck Shouboushi Ginger Pilsner

1) Heat the oil in a large skillet. Add all the rabbit sausage (without the casings) and fry until well browned, using a wooden spoon or heavy spatula to break meat into small pieces.
2) Add garlic, ginger, and shallots and sweat for 2 minutes.
3) Add carrot and celery, sauteing for approx. 5 minutes.
4) Stir in the dried thyme, red wine and the reserved tomato liquid and cook for ten minutes, stirring occasionally, until liquid has reduced to about 1 cup.
5) Add diced tomatoes, artichoke quarters, honey, salt and pepper, and cook another 10 minutes (covered, on a low simmer) until sauce is slightly thickened and well infused with all the flavors.
6) Meanwhile, cook pappardelle according to package instructions until al dente in plenty of salted boiling water. Drain the pasta.
7) Taste your ragu to adjust its seasonings. Return pasta to the pot and add sauce along with the grated pecorino romano. Garnish with chives, additional cheese and black pepper if desired.
8) Open Shouboushi Ginger Pilsner
9) Enjoy together.

THE BEER:
This was an interesting idea put forth by Pennichuck, a southern New Hampshire brewing company. Its execution was odd in that the pilsner doesn't really taste gingery--it's crisp and refreshing, but we expected such a dominant flavor additive to come through considerably more, without wanting it to be overpowering. When all's said and done, if you eat a ginger-based food with this beer, you may not be able to taste the ginger at all in the Shouboushi--however, the malts are nice and subtle in this particular pilsner and the overall profile is very drinkable. They certainly erred on the side of caution with this one, but there's probably something to be said for that; it's difficult to finish more than two sips of Rogue's Chipotle Ale without trying to dip a corn chip in it.

THE NOODLE HANGUP:
I'm not a stickler at all for the recommended pasta shape being an exact match, since there are so many variations to consider when deciding on a tasty tasty noodle, but there is one good basic rule to follow. Here we go...are you ready?

RULE: Serve thick, hearty sauces with thick, hearty noodles. Serve thin, delicate noodles with light, delicate sauces. Break this rule whenever and however you please.

Any questions about specific shapes and what in blazes to do with them? Find an excellent guide here.

In general, a ragu is best with a hearty shape, but that doesn't mean you have to run out and buy pappardelle* if you're staring into the pantry and it's causing you angst. Pasta is not about angst. Grab your dried package of lasagne noodles and break them into glorious uneven pieces. Yes, they do this in Italy when they feel like it and no one from the Sopranos is going to arrive at your house and break your kneecaps for Pasta Sacrilege.

*If you have time and/or are bored, run out and buy fresh pappardelle by all means. It's my favorite noodle. If you were to get me noodles for my birthday, I'd want fresh pappardelle noodles. My birthday is July 26th, and the best pappardelle noodles in the world are the mint-flavored ones with lamb ragu from my old workplace Osteria Laguna, pictured above.