The Beer Kitchen: The Art and Science of Cooking, & Pairing, with Beer

by Melissa Cole

When a recipe calls for 'beer' do you have the first clue of what you should add? When was the last time you read a recipe that really specified a beer style, or even suggested a few different brands from the bewildering array on the shelves? Good news, this book does all that and more.

In The Beer Kitchen award-winning beer expert Melissa Cole has combined two of her greatest great brews and delicious food. Sharing over 70 incredible recipes Melissa expertly guides you through the gustatory pleasure of cooking with beer and what to drink with your creations. Starting with the 'science bits' you will discover the importance of taste and flavor, how to assess beer and pair to perfection. Then dive into the recipes, which include everything from delicious dips, flatbreads and pickles to show-off roasts, classic pies and inventive desserts. Feast on the exquisite Beer-brined Pork Chops with Blue Cheese Polenta or perhaps prepare the perfect Beer-Poached Chicken for Sunday lunch. For mid-week meals, for when you want something hearty but healthy, then dish up the creamy Celeriac Croquettes with Hefeweizen Sauce or the lighter but extremely tasty Warm Kale & Nduja Salad or, for ultimate indulgence, tuck into the Quick Chocolate Pots with Kriek-Soaked Cranberries.

With thorough advice on beer-types and flavor notes to beer and cheese pairing plus a helpful guide to tools and equipment and store cupboard essentials, The Beer Kitchen is a new, scientific and exciting approach to food that will change the way you cook and what you drink with it.

Genres: Cookbooks

224 pages, Hardcover

Published October 16, 2018

Reviews

[Jm Rollins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mostly solid recipes, my two big knocks on this book are:
1) overly chatty text, that sometimes overwhelms a good description.
2) The physical design of the book is frustratjng- multiple fonts, in multiple sizes.. often on one page. And a good deal of the main text is in a very small (6pt?) Size.

[Julie H. Ernstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm rating Melissa Cole's The Beer Kitchen: How to Cook with Beer 4 1/2 stars. It's admittedly my own bias, but I withheld that last half star because of all that organ meat and the book's absence of any sort of barbecue. Those quibbles aside, this book rocks! I read a lot of cookbooks and books about cooking, and I learned more about gastronomy in the first 20 pages than I have in reading oodles of other books. Plus, I want her to come spend the weekend at my house and cook with me. Or better yet--since she lives in London--I'd be willing to travel to cook or be sous chef in her kitchen. Although if she comes to me, we can sort out that whole lack of barbecue thing.

Seriously, though, Cole is an international beer judge, well known food author, and a quite decent home cook. This book provides an assortment of her favorite dishes (including snacks and dips), each of which identifies a particular style of beer contained in its preparation in addition to recommendations for the beer to be paired with said meal or nosh. Other than giving a few of the items a very hard pass (i.e., Ben's Welcome Home Hotpot or any of the several items containing "black pudding"), The Beer Kitchen drops a ton of knowledge that is humorously introduced as "the science bits" and appears throughout as the descriptive text accompanying each preparation.

The Beer Kitchen is written with equal measures great ideas and keen wit. Cole is a food adventurer with a bit of a inner traditionalist. The book is dedicated to her grandfather and contains Cole's own spin on her Mom's spag bol (that would be spaghetti Bolognese to the rest of us). What's not to love about that?!

Seriously, Melissa: call me. My passport is current and I'm ready to travel. Conversely, I can have the guest room made up for you in an instant. Either way, let's do this!