Dinner and a Beer, a la Eli
Posted February 1st, 2012
by Eli
Sometimes, when you’ve been at the coop for 8 hours, staring at the same product that you’ve been staring at for years, it can be really hard to figure out what you are going to eat for dinner and how you are ever going to walk out that door to go home.
Generally, a walk through the produce section will help break you away from zoning out at the mac and cheese. Right now, for the first time I’ve ever seen, we have galangal. I will warn you that the galangal root is very hard, and you should use a good knife or grater; I found that grating in a twisting motion helped, but really, watch out for grated knuckles on this one. However, it is totally worth the amazing aroma that you will be hit with. It’s not as peppery as ginger, and really flowery. So, having a primary flavor motivation and knowing that I had some stir fry sauce left over from the last trip to Fubon, I knew stir fry with rice was my dinner. I got 2 serranno peppers, a bit of ginger, an onion, some mushrooms, a carrot and a bunch of the sweet baby broccolini.
So… stir fry…. galangal…. what to pair it with? Maybe some sake? Or an IPA? Oh, but wait, we have the Ginger Pale Ale from Trade Routes Brewing! I had not been so enthralled with it recently, but decided it was the perfect beverage to accompany this dinner. The ginger is pretty mild and its a bit of a sour pale (I mean, really, a bit, but something I tend to like).
So, I got myself out the door of the co-op!
Once home, I started some rice, chopped the onion and some garlic and then grated the galangal (and my knuckle) and started cooking them in some coconut oil. The knuckle grating convinced me that I would do a better job of flavoring this stir-fry if I opened the beer now. It was a nice inspiration to get the dinner finished. I then grated the ginger and chopped the mushrooms and peppers and threw them into the pan. I poured the stir fry sauce in (I’m sure you have your own favorite way of seasoning stir-frys, but if not, Soy Vay Veri Veri Teriyaki is really good). Then I chopped the carrot and the broccolini and threw them in the pan, gave a stir, added some cumin, and covered it for just 2 minutes. By then the rice was done! All ya gotta do now is pour the beer into a nice tall glass, put the rice in a bowl and top it off with those delicious veggies!
Dinner, with a perfectly matched beer. Ta da!
herbs. According to the back of the bottle, the farm sought out biodynamic certification because the owners believe that type of farming is “a holistic approach to agriculture that emphasizes self-sustainability. The farm is viewed as a living organism that achieves health and vitality when the dynamic interactions of nature are balanced.” Plus, in my humble opinion, the end product taste pretty darn good.
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