Welcome to the February edition of “Cooking with Beer”! Once again, I am featuring a beer that DuClaw Brewing sent me. Since February is National Heart Month, it’s appropriate that the beer I’m featuring is called Quick Start My Heart.
DuClaw Quick Start My Heart is a strawberry milk stout with 6.8% ABV and a medium body. It has flavors and aromas of chocolate and strawberry with a hint of coffee. You all know I love my dark beers and this is a tasty beer that answers the question of “beer or dessert” with a resounding yes! As you might imagine, this is another beer that could easily work well with in the recipe I created for beer cupcakes. I think it would be great combined with a strawberry glaze on top.
I had a lot of fun with this beer. The first thing I did was create a beer and balsamic vinegar reduction. It had 3 simple ingredients: DuClaw Quick Start My Heart, balsamic vinegar, and honey. I mixed the three and then simmered on the stove until reduced by about a third. I basically simmered until the sharpness of the vinegar mellowed and it became a slightly sweet glaze. I then played around with different options.
I used it as a cooking sauce for pork chops, combined with some broiled strawberries. This was quite tasty.
I also just poured it over some strawberries. This was tasty as well and leads me to believe that there is a potential for a strawberry shortcake recipe or perhaps a strawberry balsamic ice cream topping.
Finally, I took a beer vinaigrette recipe that I have and tweaked it a bit and made it with the beer balsamic reduction. Boom! We have a winner! I served it over a basic salad with romaine, cucumber and peppers, but I think it would be great over a spinach and strawberry salad (if you like spinach salads, which I don’t LOL).
Ingredients
- 3/4 C DuClaw Quick Start My Heart
- 1/2 C Balsamic Vinegar
- 4 tsp honey
- 1 C Beer Balsamic Reduction
- 1 C Olive Oil
- 4 Tsp. Brown Mustard
Instructions
- Combine DuClaw, vinegar, and honey in a small sauce pan.
- Bring to a simmer.
- Simmer until reduced by about a third or until sharpness of vinegar is reduced.
- Combine reduction, olive oil, and mustard.
- Whisk (or shake if you are using a vinaigrette bottle)
Disclaimer: I received the beer and compensation from DuClaw Brewing. All opinions and recipes are my own.
Yum, this sounds delicious! I would never have thought about beer as part of a vinaigrette. And I make my vinaigrettes with a 1 to 1 ratio too.
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That looks good. Do you think it would work using a Belgian fruit beer, like a kriek or strawberry beer? I’m not really a beer drinker but I do like Belgian fruit beers and Old Peculiar from Theakstons brewery, which is a dark beer and rather tasty.
I should use beer more in my cooking. I use beer in my batter for deep fried tofu and for a Belgian stew but I’ve not tried it with anything else.
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I have never heard of that beer but it sounds great and so does your recipe!
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