A hearty snack

This is something I've made for us a couple of times, now, and 'tis easy and satisfying: lamburgers. There are plenty of ways to prepare ground lamb; I just had a really tasty sandwich at Fort Street Brewery that was topped with mint pesto and mild feta, mmm. I've been doing a more middle eastern take on it, mixing cumin, white pepper, and garlic into the meat before forming and grilling patties. (Direct fire strongly recommended.) The patties get topped with baba ghanouj and fresh tomato slices, maybe a bit of fresh spinach, and served on a bun. (A sesame bun would be particularly good.) Beer pairing is easy; we've enjoyed Vienna and dunkel, as well as the infamous pepper beer, and even a good American or English style pale ale makes a nice accompaniment.

Terse Thanksgiving Post-Mortem

Man, was that gooood. Mrs. C. knows how to put on a feast. My favorites were both stuffing/dressings, and the wild rice, all with dunkel. Also with pumpkin beer. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to get back to digesting....

So many tomatoes, but no more time.

For them to ripen, that is.

Hmmm, fried green tomatoes maybe? Never made them, not even sure if you use unripe tomatoes or a specific variety. Well, there's only one way to find out.

Presto! Fried green tomatoes, topped with shredded crab and a sauce made from whole grain mustard, mayonnaise, Worcestershire sauce, heavy cream and cayenne. With two saisons- Weyerbacher 17, and New Glarus saison. Both delicious, and great with the tomatoes. The New Glarus was drier and more effervescent, and absolutely delicious. The Weyerbacher was maltier, a bit fruitier, and good too, though the New Glarus got my vote.

(Guess we'll give the rest to Skip for picklin'.)

Beer Brunch 2012

THE MENU......
PIZZICATO
A plethora of olives, pickled quail eggs with Jolly Pumpkin La Roja
Skip's pickled green tomatoes with Jolly Pumpkin Weizen Bam*
CHIAROSCURO
Kiss Yo' Mama Soup (corn & crab) with Mr Cicerone's Robust Porter
BLUDGEON
Garlic shrimp and grits with Mr Cicerone's (famous) Rye Peppercorn Pale Ale
CATERPILLAR
Bitter greens, tangerine, blood orange, walnuts, lemon-ginger vinaigrette, hop candy crunch with Mr Cicerone's Dynamomium IPA
ANIMALS
Duck, pork, veal & pistachio terrine, La Roja pickled cherries with Mr Cicerone's Buster 2010
INTERMEZZO
Spooky Trail Farm wildflower honey with Mr Cicerone's Atmospherium Saison


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Oy! This is a tough one!

See all these awesome beers? None of them worked with the dish. We rarely have this much trouble, but this one has us stumped!
The dish? We can't be giving too much away, as it's for Beer Brunch, but it's spicy, and everything so far just makes the beer far too bitter.
Back to the drawing board....

It's starting.....

The practice runs for Beer Brunch, that is. Tonight? Wee Heavy, Buster 2009, Buster 2010 and Dynamomium. All contenders for the quiche-to-end-all quiches, caramelized onion. The winner? Now, that would be giving it away, for those that are attending....

 Three pounds of onions, cooked on loooow heat for 1 1/2 hours until caramelixed...

Become this! Onion quiche. With all the beers!

Summer, glorious summer!

Know what these are? FRESH sardines!! Rubbed with olive oil & garlic, and grilled. Along with grilled artichokes, and Greek cucumber salad.  And beer- saison I think! Mr Cicerone's Atmospherium.

Ceviche- snapper, shrimp, scallops & octopus. With Mr Cicerone's Ginger Wheat, and Hitachino Ginger brew.

Umami overload

Mmmmm. Linguine, coated with a mix of toasted walnuts and garlic, topped with Italian parsley, chives, chevre, and a soft-boiled egg. Umami overload. Sierra Nevada/Russian River's Brux was wonderful with this rich dish. The beer is a complex golden ale with malty notes, some hop flavour and bitterness, a hint of sourness and some wonderful Brett Brux character. Brett + Umami = excellent!

Summertime, And The Livin' is Eeeaaasyyy

Well, it is for me, at least, as Mrs. C. did all the work necessary to get this wonderful dinner of ceviche together. Ceviche is fresh (uncooked,) seafood that is tempered in a marinade of citrus and spices. Ours had tilapia, shrimp, scallops, and octopus. Served up with some avocado, pico de gallo, lettuce, tostadas, and salsa verde, it helps ease the heat-afflicted Cicerone's suffering. (I speak for myself regarding suffering; Mrs. C. would be happy if it was 100F.)

Mmmmmm....

That's a wonderful summertime snack, and it was complemented by the bottle of Anchorage Whiteout Mrs. C. scored on a recent visit to Chicago. Whiteout is a sort of high-gravity witbier, made with Sorachi Ace hops, lemon peel, black pepper, and coriander, and is fermented in part by Brettanomyces and aged in Chardonnay barrels.

Beer VS Wine throwdown

The Southern Great Lakes Symphony Beer VS Wine Throwdown fundraiser has come, and gone. Results?
Beer won 4 rounds, and wine won 3.

Here's the courses....
Chicken Cesar salad.
BEER StMartins Abbey Blonde Ale (Belgium)
WINE Karantes 2010 Rose de Karantes Langedoc.
WINNER- BEER!

"Very Veggie" Italian Pasta with Tomatoes
BEER Moretti La Rossa Doppelbock (Italy)
WINE Di Mago 2010 Sangiovese Terri Degli Osti
WINNER - BEER!

Bohemian Keilbasa & Kraut
BEER Veldensteiner Munich Dunkel (Germany)
WINE Pine Ridge 2010  Chenin Blanc & Viogner
WINNER - BEER!

"Doug's Famous" Pulled Pork Sliders
BEER Motor City Honey Porter (Michigan)
WINE Plungerhead 2010 Zinfandel Lodi
WINNER - WINE!

Slows To Go Macaroni & Cheese
BEER Saugatuck ESB/Amber (Michigan)
WINE M Lawrence - NV "Sex" sparkling rose.
WINNER - BEER!

Bodacious Brownies
BEER Atwater Vanilla Java Porter (Michigan)
WINE Grahams 6 Grapes Reserve Porto
WINNER - WINE!
 (Editor's note. They were all wrong!!)

"My Big Fat Greek Bakalava"
BEER Detroit Brewing Radler
WINE Tintero 2010 Moscato D'Asti Sori Gramela
WINNER - WINE! (Wrong again!)

A great time was had by all, and the event netted the symphony a bucket of cash. Yay!
We ABSOLUTELY have to do an event like this again. And soon.

Beer VS Wine Throwdown!!

Support the Southern Great Lakes Symphony Orchestra by attending their "Beer VS Wine" Throwdown fundraiser on Friday June 8. 6 small plates paired with both a beer, and a wine! You vote! And,  be entertained by a jazz quartet at the same time!

Mrs Cicerone is doing the beer pairings!
Tickets available here.

Dinner at Chez Cicerone

Tonight's dinner made use of a GIANT (7.5pound!) chicken that Mr Cicerone smoked last weekend. We barely made a dint in it, and on the spur of the moment, this evening, as I was starting to chop the leftover chook for chicken salad, I decided to make quiche instead. So, thank goodness for food processors, because like magic, the pastry was made. As it rested in the fridge, I sauteed some shallots, smashed the garlic cloves that had been used for aromatics inside the chook's cavity, and made the custard for the quiche with 3 DUCK eggs that I'd been lucky enough to find at Eastern Market last Saturday. (Whip eggs, add 1/2 cup cream, one cup milk, salt & pepper.). The pastry then got rolled out and fitted into a pie dish, and blind-baked for 20 minutes, then brushed with egg yolk. A thin layer of grated Manchego covered the bottom of the shell, then the shallots & garlic, and handfuls of chopped smoked chicken, then the custard poured in. Baked at 375 deg F for 45 minutes. Served with a simple green salad, and Mr Cicerone's Rauchbier.

That's Mr Cicerone's Rauchbier in the Schlenkerla glass.

Lovely as the quiche was, next time I think I'll add some bacon!! And, there will be a next time. We still have about 2 pounds of leftover chicken, and 9 more duck eggs!

I got okra, enough to choke ya....

Quick post about Dinner at Chez Cicerone this evening......

Giant (8 pound) chicken, lovingly sloooow-smoked by Mr Cicerone, accompanied by whole steamed okra  blanketed with a decadent mustard remoulade sauce. The sauce was made thus....

3 large egg yolks, 1 1/2 tablespoons Dijon, one tablespoon lemon juice, 1/4 teaspoon Tabasco, salt, pepper, one clove minced garlic, whisked together. Then, on low heat, 12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter are whisked in gradually to produce a thick, velvety, buttery, mustardy sauce.....Oh My!

Beer? The only commercially available Steinbier, Hofstetten Granit Bock, went wonderfully with the smoky chicken. The beer is rich and uber-malty, with that deep, almost raisiny/pruney malt flavour reminiscent of Celebrator Doppelbock. It has a delightful burnt toffee flavour, too, and as it warmed this transitioned into a nice, mellow smoke....

(Mr Cicerone's Wee Heavy was also a fine accompaniment to our meal.)

(And now, as I'm writing this, I'm sipping on Buster 2010,which has oxidized a wee bit in the loveliest way, with the end result being a drier, hazelnutty version of the original beer which is hiding its 10% ABV content a little too well.....)

Happy Anniversary!

Our 8th wedding anniversary had us doing what we really enjoy most- cooking at home!
We started with our annual anniversary toast - 2004 Bigfoot (the year we got married; we have one every year on our anniversary)- paired with some stilton and a 5 year cheddar from Wisconsin. First- the beer. It's getting old ( a bit like us!); oxidation/vinous/nutty flavours abound. It's still good, and still holding its bitterness, but personally we both prefer fresher examples. Both cheeses were quite splendid with the beer.

Next- dinner. We had scored some venison and berry sausages from Corridor Sausage Co. Hmmm, what to do, what to do. Inspired by a bottle of Goose Island's Bourbon County Bramble Rye, I pan fried them and laid them over a bed of the most delicious rice ever- Black Japonica by Lundberg farms- and made a simple sauce from blueberries macerated in port. A side of simple steamed spinach, and we were happy! Needless to say, the Bramble Rye Stout was wonderful with the meal. The beer, made with blackberries & raspberries, was silky and fruity, and the boozy character from the rye whisky aging was not over powering. 

EDIT from Him: The "simple" blueberry sauce incorporated the aroma and flavor of crushed black peppercorns and juniper, and was piquant and delicious....

Thanks again, Sean.....

....for last night's meal, carefully prepared according to your recipe! The corned beef turned out superbly, as did the veggies. Though, we did have to tweak things a tiny bit. The cooking liquid (which contained both Mr Cicerone's Sunuva Buster 2011, and Matmos Ale) was unbearably, inedibly salty about half way into the cooking time, so I had to start over with an all new batch of cooking liquid complete with beer and spices. And, the beer in the cooking liquid created a lot of bitterness when cooked down, so I added 1/2 cup of buckwheat honey to the cooking liquid, with a delicious end result.

Result- perfectly cooked, unusually spicy corned beef, with the most delicious accompanying vegetables I think I've ever had!

Oh, try this mustard ale sauce, also Sean's recipe, with your next corned beef. It went superbly. I used Bell's Hopslam.

Oh, almost forgot the beers! Of course Sunuva Buster 2011 & Matmos Ale were superb with dinner, as was Mr Cicerone's Rauchbier!!

That's cabbage sprouts on the left- delicious!!

More on the intriguing beer dinner.....

The dinner at The Rattlesnake last Thursday was wonderful, and a lot of fun. Mr Cicerone, unfortunately, was out of town at a family funeral, so my date was Miss Eat It Detroit (who isn't really a fan of IPA, though she's being won over...)  Brian Tennis of the Michigan Hop Alliance was the guest speaker, and he did a wonderful job talking about all things hop-associated, as well as discussing the beers that were being served that evening. Thanks to Alex for the idea, and for putting this evening together - I'm not aware that an all IPA dinner has ever been done before? And thanks to Chef for the amazing food!
Here are some pictures......


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An Intriguing Beer Dinner

Rattlesnake Club is doing an all-IPA beer dinner next week on Thursday. A very interesting idea; check it out here. What other beer styles would you think might lend themselves to such an adventure?

A Nice, Simple Meal

A favorite meal here at Chez Cicerone is edamame, sushi rice, and some grilled fish, usually rare tuna seared a bit on the outside. Tonight, though, we had a nice pair of mackerel filets, broiled with a little bit of salt and pepper. Such things are usually served with a little dish of soy sauce, which one can stir a bit of wasabi into, if one likes. Also on hand, typically, is gari, which is thinly sliced pickled ginger. Gari serves as a palate cleanser, or 'tongue Zamboni,' and is nice when you've a lot of different things on your plate. It really wasn't necessary tonight, as we were lucky enough to have some Bambic to serve that purpose, however. Bambic, from Jolly Pumpkin, is 30% "Lambicus Dexterius," and 70% Bam Biere, and is as tasty and refreshing as any gueuze. Also, though the gari wasn't required, an apres-tif of Winter Ginger Ale provided us with a different sort of pickled ginger altogether....

We have it all!

The end result of this

We tried Mr Cicerone's Wee Heavy ( just a tad too lightweight for this incredibly rich boozy pudding, but close),
Mr Cicerone's Buster '09 (one of my favourite beers EVER, but the pudding made the beer taste too bitter), and Mr Cicerone's Buster  2010- perfect! It takes one MIGHTY beer to stand up to this dessert.

Potato latkes for Chanukah, along with, er, ham and shrimp?

Among the many beers consumed, the "official" Chanukah beer is always He'Brew "Origin" pomegranate ale.

Christmas Eve, Cicerone Style

Aperitif: Bridgeport Hop Harvest Ale, a fresh hopped Imperial IPA. Massively bitter, fairly light bodied, and nary a whiff of grass clippings, cat byproducts, or any such unpleasantness. Awwright!

We enjoyed the IPA with some of our favorite cheeses, Manchego, Wensleydale, and Farm Country Truffle, while waiting for our porcini-crusted lamb shanks to sloooowly roast. When the bomber of IPA ran out, we dialed the throttle back a bit and enjoyed some special bitter from downstairs, which despite its diminutive OG, was actually a better partner with all of the cheeses. This keg was dry hopped with Northern Brewer, and is gulpably good, to use more of that fancy Ciceroney language.

Main course:  Lamb shanks slow roasted with a paste rub of garlic, shallot, thyme, and rosemary, and finished with dried porcini crumb crust. A sauce made with pan drippings, and a deglaze using Buster 2010 Uber-doppelbock. Plated up with some steamed spinach and mashed rutabaga, to catch all the tasty drippin's. Beer: Allagash Musette, a Belgian style Scotch ale aged (partially) in a bourbon cask. The Musette was deliciously malty; the booze character was minimal.

Dessert beer: 2010 Goose Island Bourbon County Stout. Woof. Veery boozy and a bit hot. Wish we'd let this one rest another, say, 5-10 years.

All of this occurred in front of a cheery fire. And to all, a good night....