The Beer Kitchen recipes: from ale-roast goose to chocolate pots with kriek cranberries

After seeing too many recipes calling for beer – just beer – Melissa Cole took matters into her own hands. All the dishes in her book come with a list of brews to cook with, and the mains have pairing options too. Here are three wonderfully wintery ones to try

This stout-soaked bird would make an impressive Christmas centrepiece (Photos Patricia Niven)

Ale-roast goose with double red cabbage

Serves 6-8

Just before you panic and think, “god, a goose, that’s huge and expensive!” let me just say you can use a couple of ducks instead, if you want, as that’s actually is how this dish started life; just use the same amount of ingredients, distributed equally between the two birds, or reduce the ingredients by half for one.

And this isn’t just for Christmas; it makes for a great entertaining dish too because it’s basically make ahead and reheat, freeing you up to spend more time with friends and family. You can prepare both the bird and the cabbage up to three days in advance. In fact, the cabbage is better when it’s had time to mature. And if you want to serve this with roast potatoes (why wouldn’t you?) you will get far crispier ones by par-boiling them the day before and refrigerating them, making this probably – almost certainly – the most hassle-free feast you’ll ever make. You will need a very deep, very large roasting tray (pan) for this and some turkey foil.

500ml smoked beer
500ml strong dark Belgian ale
500ml milk stout (see below)
2 tbsp soft brown sugar
4.5-5.5kg whole goose
2 long carrots
2 large celery sticks
1 onion, quartered
1 garlic bulb, broken into cloves but not skinned
8 black peppercorns
A good bouquet garni: bay leaves and your woody herbs of choice, such as sage, thyme, rosemary, oregano or marjoram
2l good-quality chicken stock (if needed)
Fine sea salt
30ml Flanders red ale

Method

Preheat the oven to 120C/gas ½ and boil the kettle full of water. Warm the beers in a saucepan and add the sugar.

Pierce the goose skin all over, paying special attention to the fat pockets around the legs. Put the goose on a trivet, put it in the sink and pour the kettle of hot water over it. Make a square “nest” for the goose with the carrots and celery in a large roasting tin, then scatter the onions, garlic, pepper and bouquet garni in the middle and place the goose on top, breast-side up. Pour half the beer/sugar mixture over it and sprinkle lightly with fine salt, then turn breast-side down and repeat.

Add enough stock to the tin so the breast and most of the legs are covered (or as high as you dare, remembering you have to take it out when it’s hot!) and cook for 4-6 hours. When the leg bone starts to come away easily, it’s done.

Take out of the oven and allow to cool for at least an hour, uncovered in the pan. Lift the goose out very carefully, making sure you empty the cavity of juices into the tin, but don’t throw the juices away!

Put the goose on a plate to cool. Put any juices from resting back in the tin, and put the goose in the refrigerator uncovered (if putting in a cold place like a garage, shed or larder instead, cover with muslin or something breathable). Warm the roasting tin on the hob and scrape the bits off the bottom, then pass the liquid through a fine sieve into as tall and thin a receptacle that will accommodate the liquid you can find. Press hard on the veg to extract all the flavour before discarding them. Allow the liquid to cool and then put it in the fridge overnight.

On the big day, take the goose out of the refrigerator just before you want to reheat it and allow it to come to room temperature. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 180C/gas 4.

Sprinkle the breast and legs lightly with fine salt, then put the goose in the oven for 40 minutes or until you can stick a knife into the leg meat and take it out hot. While the goose is reheating, take the jug of cooking juices out of the fridge and there should now be a truly glorious layer of goose fat on top.

Leave it to warm up for a few moments and then gently run a sharp knife around the edge of the jug to remove the fat, carefully, in a disc from the top. Use this for the roast potatoes. Put the juices in a pan and reduce to your favoured consistency for gravy. It’s smart to have some chicken stock or any leftover non-bitter beer or water on hand, just in case you need more volume, but it should be enough. Add the Flanders red just before you are about to dish up.

Rest your goose, uncovered so the skin stays crisp, for about 10 minutes (although it will stay warmer for longer if you need a bit more time. If so, you could carve it and put it in a heated dish).

Then serve it with red cabbage (below), roast potatoes and all the trimmings and yes, that means brussels sprouts too in my world.

Cook

It’s difficult to dictate what to pair with the goose because it depends on whether you choose to cook it with the cabbage or something else, but in general, any of the dark strong ales will work, or my preferred match is a Flanders red or oud bruin, but they can be an acquired taste.

Schlenkerla Marzen – Germany (smoked beer)
Chimay Blue – Belgium (strong Belgian dark)
Bristol Beer Factory Milk Stout – UK (milk stout)
Rodenbach Classic – Belgium (Flanders red)

Double red cabbage

Serves 8

1-1.25kg red cabbage
15g unsalted butter
2 red onions, sliced into half moons
330ml Flanders red or oud bruin 
50ml port
25g sultanas 
1 Ceylon cinnamon stick
2 allspice berries
2 fresh bay leaves
Grated zest and juice of 1 large orange
1 tsp red wine vinegar
Fine sea salt

Cut the cabbage in half, then quarters and then shred on the widest setting of a mandoline or by hand so that the slices are more than 2cm thick.

Get a very large frying pan or shallow pan, put over a medium-low heat, add the butter and gently fry the onions until they are yielding but not coloured. Add the cabbage, two-thirds of the beer, the port, sultanas, cinnamon, allspice, bay leaves and orange zest. The liquid should just come to the underside of the cabbage, but if it doesn’t, add a little water.

Put a lid on the pan, very slightly ajar to let some steam out, turn down very low (use a pan heat diffuser if you have one) and allow to bubble away for 45 minutes. At this stage you can allow to cool and put in the fridge (freeze the orange juice and remaining beer in a tub together).

When you’re ready to serve, add the remaining beer and juice, allow to simmer down slightly. Just 1 minute before you’re about to serve, season lightly with salt, stir that in and check that it tastes slightly under-seasoned. Remove from the heat, fish out the cinnamon stick, bay leaves and allspice berries, add the vinegar, stir and serve.

(Patricia Niven)

Pumpkin season

Serves 2

A bowl that you can eat has to be the ultimate in greedy delight, and these pumpkins look so pretty when baked and bubbling with cheesy, cauliflowery pasta goodness, they’re almost irresistible. If you’d like to make this vegetarian then substitute your cheeses appropriately and omit the chorizo. Replace it with the pumpkin seeds you’ve scooped out, toasted in a dry pan until golden and tossed in smoked paprika instead.

2 soup-bowl sized edible squashes as equal as you can find
Pinch of fine sea salt
Pinch of smoked sea salt (optional)
80g cauliflower, grated or pulsed in the food processor to look like breadcrumbs
225ml double cream
150ml farmhouse ale (see below)
1 bouquet garni made up of 6 sage leaves, 2 bay leaves, 4 squished garlic cloves, 4 sprigs of thyme, 2 sprigs of rosemary, tied together
200g macaroni or chifferi rigati​
1 tbsp cornflour
Knob of butter
Splash of basic olive oil
10 grinds of freshly ground black pepper
150g good-quality mature cheddar, grated
175g gouda or emmental, finely chopped
40g Stinking Bishop or tallegio, finely chopped
100g chorizo picante, finely diced and fried until crispy (optional)
Chilli flakes (optional)
20g parmesan, grated

Preheat the oven to 170C/gas 3 and heat a baking tray. Cut the top 5cm horizontally off the squashes, set this “lid” aside, scoop out the innards (reserving the seeds) and season the inside of the squash lightly with fine salt (smoked if you want to use it) and pepper. Repeat with the inside of the lids. If needed, take a very thin slice off the bottom of the squash to ensure it sits stably.

Take an arm’s length of kitchen foil and fold it lengthways three times to create a long, thin “belt”. Wrap around the squashes and gently tie to help prevent splitting. Put the lids back on the squashes, leaving a small gap to allow steam inside to escape, place on the heated baking tray in the oven for 30 minutes to soften and cook.

Meanwhile, put the cauliflower, cream and ale in a saucepan with the bouquet garni over a low heat. Don’t allow to boil.

Put a saucepan of well-salted water on to boil. Add the pasta, stirring after a few minutes. After 5 minutes, take 2 tablespoons of the starchy water and mix it with the cornflour to make a paste. After 7 minutes, the pasta should be quite al dente, so drain, (reserving some more of the pasta water in case you need it for the sauce), then put back in the pan and mix with the knob of butter and a tiny splash of olive oil to stop it sticking together. Toss so it distributes equally.

Take the bouquet garni out of the cream mixture, add the cornflour and the black pepper. Mix in all but a few handfuls of the different cheeses with the cream. Using a hand-held blender, blitz the sauce. It should start to thicken quite quickly but if it gets too thick, just add a bit more pasta water. Check for seasoning and adjust accordingly.

Mix the cheese sauce and pasta and spoon into the squashes, pop the lids back on, turn the oven down to 150C and cook for 20 minutes. Take the lids off, top with the reserved cheese, sprinkle with chorizo and chilli flakes, if using, and grated parmesan. Remove the foil belts and turn the oven up to 170C/gas 3 and bake for another 10-15 minutes until golden and bubbly.

Leave to rest for 8-10 minutes before serving.

Cook and pair

You can interchange any of the beers from cooking to pairing here.

Burning Sky Saison à la Provision – UK 
Saison Dupont – Belgium
St Austell Sayzon – UK (also sold as M&S Cornish Saison)

(Patricia Niven)

Quick chocolate pots with kriek cranberries

Serves 6 as a small treat or 4 indulgently

There are times when you just feel like you deserve a treat and these little pots are perfect. I had the idea when Tempest Brewing Company sent me some of its bourbon barrel-aged Mexicake – a kind of mole stout, and that’s what I’ve used in this one, but there are plenty of other examples like it out there, or you can substitute a barrel-aged stout – bourbon barrel ones work well.

For the pots:

200g dark chocolate with at least 70 per cent cocoa solids, broken into pieces
100g spiced or barrel-aged stout
100ml double cream
2 tsp basic olive oil

For the cranberries:

25g dried cranberries
50g kriek (see below)
2 tsp caster (superfine) sugar
Tiny pinch of sea salt

Prepare the cranberries first. Put all the ingredients in a small saucepan and warm over a low heat until the liquid just starts bubbling. Stir well, then allow to bubble for 4-6 minutes until the liquid is almost gone. Leave to cool.

To make the chocolate pots, melt the chocolate using a microwave method or a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. While that is melting, put the beer in a small pan and heat until it just starts to bubble around the edges. Swirl the pan a few times but don’t let the beer boil.

When the chocolate has melted, take it off the heat and add a small amount of the hot beer, beating with a rubber spatula until the mixture is smooth – don’t panic if it looks granular, you just need to apply some elbow grease! Repeat until all the beer is used and you have a smooth, shiny paste.

Add the cream and oil and beat until you get a smooth mixture. Pour into espresso cups or ramekins. Place in the fridge for 30 minutes to set. Take out of the fridge, top with the soaked cranberries and serve.

Cook

Chocolate:

Tempest Mexicake – UK
Stone Brewery Xocoveza – Berlin
Wiper & True Milkshake Stout – UK

Cranberries:

Oud Beersel Kriek – Belgium
Boon Kriek – Belgium
Bacchus Kriek – Belgium

If you can’t find the exact beers listed, pop into your local beer shop or even ask Melissa on Twitter for a substitute – @melissacole.

‘The Beer Kitchen’ by Melissa Cole (Hardie Grant, £20). Photos Patricia Niven