Photograph: Lew Robertson/Getty Images
There’s something about the light as summer begins to fade. A sort of golden haze that always gets me terribly nostalgic. I learned a lot of my cooking in the deep south of the US and so most of those happy memories are manifest in the food I turn to as the leaves begin to fall.
So I challenged beer sommelier and writer Laurence Creamer to come up with some great beer pairings for a southern-style three-course meal.
First, of course, the starter ... well I say starter but I always regard pimento cheese as a kind of anti-starter. It’s simple to knock up and invites all kinds of refinements to the recipe.
At its simplest, it’s grated strong cheddary cheese, blended gently with cream cheese and shot through with finely chopped pickles, preserved pimento peppers and hot sauce.
If you want to, you can spread it on crackers and make it into an elegant little hors d’oeuvre, but I bet you’ll join me in slathering it thick on sourdough. It’s a fiery way to start a meal, so what beer do you drink to complement the spicy kick?
Laurence suggests India pale ale (IPA). He tells me it got its name in the 19th century when British brewers sent stronger versions of their pale ales to India. The high alcohol and hop content (hops act as a preservative) ensured the beer was still drinkable on arrival.
Today, Goose Island IPA is brewed in Chicago and offers a harmonious balance between sweet malt and bitter hops that brings out the best in pimento cheese. There’s citrus and orange zest that’s going to spike the more subdued sweet notes in the cheese and the beer’s malty base sets off the fiery sauce and peppers, allowing the cheese to sing loudest.
For the main course, I decided to go for chicken-fried steak. It’s a solid, stick-to-the-ribs kind of meal, common in diners all over the south and is a favourite with home cooks too. A cheap but flavourful beef steak is beaten to within an inch of its life, dredged in spicy, seasoned flour, and then pan fried.
To be authentic, it should be fried in a shallow pool of what fry cooks call “grease” – pork lard that’s been pimped with bacon fat. Chicken-fried steak is served with mash and pan “gravy” – made by adding flour and cream (or perhaps the beer you are drinking while cooking) to the pan scrapings.
To accompany this southern staple, Laurence and I look to the US west coast for beer inspiration.
Brimming with pine, grass, and citrus notes overlaid on a caramelly, malty base, Lagunitas IPA has the dexterity to temper the spice and salt yet not overwhelm the dish’s flavours. Those caramel notes latch on to the sweet side of the steak that in turn beautifully balances the beer’s assertive, refreshing bitterness.
For pudding, I pick a North Carolina favourite. They cook a local variation of peach cobbler called a “sonker”. Late-season peaches work very well in this, basically a light stew of the fruit that has a cake-like batter poured over and into it before baking in the oven. It’s fragrant, often spiced and very sweet.
I lived for a while in North Carolina and remember eating it fresh from the oven one evening sitting on a porch and watching the sun set over a lake. A large dollop of vanilla ice-cream melted into the sticky golden fruit the same way the sun seemed to melt into the water …
Most people wouldn’t think of putting an IPA with dessert, but sweeter versions can create delicious pairings and Sharp’s Wolf Rock Red IPA is a great example. On the palate it delivers toffee, dark fruit, orange and some subtle spice, all of which will perfectly complement this stonking sonker.
