IPA cooks up a treat

Related tags Cooking India pale ale Caledonian brewery

The use of beer as a culinary ingredient tends to follow a fairly tried-and-true path. Most pub menus will feature steak and ale pie, while beef and...

The use of beer as a culinary ingredient tends to follow a fairly tried-and-true path. Most pub menus will feature steak and ale pie, while beef and Guinness stew is also a chalkboard regular. Beyond variations on the same theme, chefs have traditionally tended to take a cautious approach to the issue.

There are some sound reasons for this. Wine, a familiar ingredient in dishes from coq au vin to champagne truffles is not, despite what the vineyard brigade might have us believe, a particularly complex product. It's a fruit juice and so behaves like a fruit juice when you cook with it.

With beer, on the other hand, there is all sorts going on. Malts and hops don't just add complex flavours of their own, they can affect the aroma and flavour of other ingredients.

The yeasts used to ferment beers tend be more unpredictable than those in wines, and so can do strange things to the chemistry of the cooking process. And, while you can safely reduce wine to add to a sauce or stock, with beer the same process often produces a metallic-tasting liquid which is, quite frankly, pretty foul.

So when the Edinburgh-based Caledonian Brewery decided to ask a group of cookery students to create recipes using its award-winning Deuchars IPA, everyone was prepared for an interesting time.

The Edinburgh School of Food and Wine (ESFW) is not your standard local catering college - not least in terms of its location, an 18th century coach house in the grounds of stately home Newliston House. The privately-run school offers a range of courses from short ones to learn the basics to a six-month intensive course aimed at entrepreneurial types looking to start their own restaurants or private catering operations.

Six of the students from the current intensive course were "volunteered" by ESFW founder and managing director Jill Davidson and her team to take up the Caledonian challenge.

Jill says: "It's important for our students to experiment with a range of ingredients and learn about developing flavours throughout their time on the course. Cooking with beer and matching beer with food is becoming increasingly popular. It is an area that we've touched on before but never to this extent."

National recognition

The students were asked to devise a main course and a dessert using Deuchars IPA. The nominal prize on offer was tickets to the Edinburgh Tattoo and a celebratory meal at the city's prestigious Sheraton Hotel. More importantly, the contest provided an opportunity for the students to flex their culinary muscles.

Deuchars IPA gained national recognition when it was voted Champion Beer of Britain in 2002 by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA). It has intense hop flavours and aromas balanced with a soft maltiness. While an excellent accompaniment to a meal, as an ingredient does it trot through its paces like a thoroughbred, or require taming like a wild stallion?

To give them an insight into the task, the six competititors kicked off with a visit to the brewery to learn about the brewing process, the ingredients, the hops and the complex mix of flavours which give Deuchars IPA its distinctive flavour. They were given stocks of beer to experiment with in the kitchen, and six weeks to hone their dishes in the ESFW kitchen.

Then, on one of the few sunny days in May, a judging panel assembled to test the results. Along with Jill Davidson, the judges included Philip Garrod, executive chef at the Edinburgh Sheraton; Caledonian managing director Stephen Crawley; The Publican's Pub Food editor John Porter, and Barry Gordon of The Scotsman newspaper.

The judging process turned up some interesting qualities of the beer. As a rule of thumb, the floral characters of Deuchars IPA seem to make it a better match with fish and very fruity dishes than with meat or puddings. That certainly seems to be borne out by the winning dishes. The main course, devised by Zimbabwean

student Nikki Marx, was coconut beer shrimp with mango, coriander and chilli salsa while Scot Rona Menzies cooked up Deuchars IPA and lavender panna cotta served with raspberries and a chocolate sauce as the winning dessert.

Mr Crawley says: "The aim of the competition was for students at ESFW to devise creative dishes using Deuchars IPA that can easily be replicated in the home, restaurant or pub. Deuchars IPA is such a versatile beer, it is not only a drink to be enjoyed on its own but is a perfect accompaniment to food and as an ingredient in cooking.

"The quality of the dishes created by all the students was "The quality of the dishes created by all the students was outstanding and we certainly enjoyed trying them all out. The competition also provided an excellent opportunity for us to work with another creative organisation where the combination of craft and skill are the main contributors to making great products."

If you fancy trying out the winning main course, Nikki's recipe appears below.

Coconut Beer Shrimp with Mango, Coriander and Chilli Salsa

Coconut Beer Shrimp