Beer isn’t just for drinking. It’s also the secret ingredient in some of Tiny New York Kitchen’s favorite recipes, from stews to pasta sauce.
Depending on which brew you choose, you can add richness to stews and braises, a bright zing to sauces, and make baked goods extra tender and tasty. It’s great with chocolate. You can also pair it with your meals, just like wine, to make your dishes taste even better.
LAGER
Lager is the most popular beer for drinking. Smooth, light-bodied, and slightly floral, it goes with just about any dish, especially cheese. It’s also great to bake with. The bubbles in this beer add extra lightness and tenderness to all sorts of baked goods.
PILSNER
Clean, crisp, and slightly citrusy, this beer is refreshing on its own. Serve it with seafood or a simple tomato and basil pizza. Use it for quickly simmering shrimp because it won’t overwhelm the delicate, sweet flavor of the seafood.
STOUT
This rich dark beer has notes of coffee and caramel, great for sipping in colder weather. Pair it with heartier dishes like chili or steak and potatoes. In baking and cooking, stout makes chocolate cupcakes taste even more chocolaty and slow-cooked meats even richer.
AMBER ALE
You will know this beer by its reddish-brown color. It has a smooth, malty flavor that makes it a crowd-pleasing choice for your next party. Try this beer with grilled or roasted meats and barbecue. For cooking, it’s great in a glaze for pork or in a cheese sauce.
“Work With What You Got!”
©Tiny New York Kitchen © 2020 All Rights Reserved
Use simple pizza dough to make smaller individual pies that guests can top themselves or make 2 larger ones for family pizza night.
Have you ever wondered what the difference between cake flour, bread flour, and pastry flour is? Is it ok to substitute all-purpose flour that call for a specific flour type? These are questions that I get asked often.
Choosing the correct flour is about controlling the amount of gluten in your dough. Gluten is a protein structure that makes dough both firm and elastic. Bread flour comes from “hard” flour, which has a higher protein content (produces more gluten) making it perfect for bread, pizza dough, and any recipe that needs a little more elasticity and cohesion.
Pastry flour is made with “soft” flour, which has a much less protein content and produces less gluten. Dough made with pastry flour is tender, flaky and doesn’t hold together firmly. That’s a good thing because no one wants a rubbery piecrust! Cake flour has even less protein content than pastry flour, but not by much. It has just enough protein to give the cake a little structure, but not enough to make it tough.
All-purpose flour is a blend of “hard” and “soft” flours, which falls in the middle of the gluten spectrum, and works well in most baked goods. Your cakes might not be quite as tender, but in most cases they’ll still come out beautifully. It’s all a matter of degree. Cookies, piecrusts, muffins, quick breads, and scones all do well with all-purpose flour.
Gluten development is also the reason why recipes instruct you not to over mix your dough. Once you add water or any other low-fat liquid to flour, gluten bands start forming and the more you knead or stir the dough, the more these elastic bands start connecting. If you are using all-purpose flour in a cake or piecrust, make sure to stop mixing just when everything comes together.
“Work With What You Got!”
©Tiny New York Kitchen © 2018 All Rights Reserved
I don’t know about you, but I for one, am tired of the constant stream of political rhetoric and, hey, it’s still early. Perhaps we should all just have an ongoing pizza party until after the election. I’d vote for that!
It’s been quite a week waking up to discover there was no water and that the irrigation guys had drained the well! Welcome to the country! After chasing all the appropriate people the well is back to normal. A wonderful thing is happening this moment. Because of the heavy rains yesterday my guys who come mow the acreage came this morning. It just so happened that I had made way too much pizza. So my guys are sitting on my front porch chowing down on pizza and taking a little break before their next stop. It always makes me so happy to see people enjoying the food that I make. It’s a beautiful thing!
“Work With What You Got!”
© Victoria Hart Glavin Tiny New York Kitchen © 2016 All Rights Reserved
Spreadable sausage from Norwalk, Iowa? The culinary creativity across the country never ceases to amaze me. Nduja is a spreadable sausage that comes from Calabria in southern Italy. My husband is Calabrian so it goes without saying that I love all things from Calabria. La Quercia, the cured meat producer in Iowa has introduced its American-made version, which is a mix of prosciutto, speck, and red chili peppers. It comes in five ounce links and is extremely versatile. Use it in pasta sauce, grilled cheese, BLTs, egg salad, burgers, pizza, crostini, or tacos. It’s also wonderful slathered on warm bread or crackers.
If you’re in New York City you may find it at Fairway, Amish Market, or Murray’s Cheese. If you’re in other parts of the country then go to La Quercia’s website for store locations. http://laquercia.us
“Work With What You Got!”
© Victoria Hart Glavin Tiny New York Kitchen
