Chinese Food Cooking With Beer
Last week I was invited to Imperial Garden Restaurant @ Intan Square, near Armada Hotel to try out some chinese food cooked with beer. It was organised by GAB (Guinness Anchor Berhad). A total of 7 dishes including a dessert were presented with GAB product. It was meant to be a food and beer pairing session but I think is more like cooking with beer.
Dish #1: Pan Fried Chicken Fillet with Heineken and Pan Fried Scallop
This dish is sweet and sour in flavour, mostly come from the green apple and strawberry. Heineken was used in the batter for the chicken and the sauce. Not much of beer can be tasted. The scallop and the chicken give a very nice texture combination. It work very well as a dish.
Beer value on the dish, can’t really tell without the name. For the dish, it’s awesome. As for pairing the dish with beer, because of the sweet taste of the dish it brings out extra bitter in Heineken. Would have paired with something stronger like Witbier or maybe english Ale to balance the texture and taste.
Dish #2: Double Boiled Spare Rib Soup with Black Bean and Guinness Stout
The aroma of the soup is pleasant with thick malty taste. The chef cooked it for 5 hours to give the best taste to the soup. The soup is light and pleasant in flavour. The ribs are tender and can taste the malty flavour on it’s meat.
The Guinness FES infuse soup is actually very nice. Not much alcohol taste but balance in flavour. Very nicely done. Pairing with Guinness FES may help you detect the beer taste in the soup.
Dish #3: Steamed Pigeon with Tiger Beer
This is a cold dish. As the pigeon is marinated in Tiger beer. All the beer taste are soaked into the bird. Not sure how long the steaming process. Can smell the beer taste from the dish, give a good hint of Tiger beer very well.
The pigeon may be a bit dry but still can get a lot of taste from it. Pigeon have a taste of duck but not as pungent. So cooking it with beer blend the flavour quite well.
As the meat is serve cold, is like tasting a beer meat. This dish is my favourite in terms of cooking with beer. As it brings out both world and maintain many of the original taste. A dip sauce will be good for this dish to reduce the dryness of it. As for pairing it, the dish can easily paired back with Tiger beer or any lager will work well.
Dish #4: Baked Fresh Water Prawn with Guinness Stout.
This is a heavy taste dish. The prawn are top with Guinness FES stout sauce, which compliment very well with the prawn sweetness. Can taste the mild stout taste with light salty and fresh prawn flavour.
This is a finger licking good dish as well, very well blend. Nicely infuse with Guinness Stout that bring up the taste of the prawn. AS for pairing with beer is not that easy, maybe a sip or 2 of Guinness will bring some taste bud, too much will over kill the prawn flavour.
Dish #5: Chef Special Steamed Grouper with Mushroom, Ham and Three GAB Beers
This dish is lost in translation when it comes to the 3 beers. I didn’t manage to capture any hint of beer inside the dish, maybe the ginger and the soy sauce overpower the subtle flavour fo the malt taste.
The fish absorb in the ginger and soy sauce, very nice texture fish that cooked perfectly. Sadly on the beer side no enhancement at all. Pairing it with any lager will be alright.
Dish #6: Steamed Sri Lankan Grab with Heineken Beer
From the aroma can spot on some beer aroma with light alcohol. But once you dig inside the crab meat sweetness and freshness took over the entire taste. The crab flavour cover it off, not much of flavour in it. Not worth to cooked it with beer unless a lot of beer are bath into it.
As for pairing it with beer, I would say you need some stronger taste beer to match with the crab. Maybe some weissbier or even dunkel weiss, Guinness is alrite but not too much. Just have a small glass of beer and paired with the crab will be awesome.
Dish #7: Lemongrass Jelly with Malta
This is a comfort dessert, very pleasant in taste with good combination of all the flavour. Can taste the malta but with the lime sorbet and lemongrass it tone down the malta sweetness and blend very well in the palate.
Not your regular chinese style dessert but it’s a comfort dessert to end with sweet note. Not advisable to pair with beer, may bring out bitter of the beer to kill of the sweet dessert taste.
Overall
Chinese food cooked with beer is really good. Like many chinese dishes that cooked with rice wine, beer itself can contribute to many new recipe. Of course, if the beer lost in translation inside the dish, is not that worth it unless it’s great to balance the aroma from it.
I think there plenty more of advancement to improve the variety of food done with beer. All the dishes done are with meat, would be nice if the chef explore it with vegetable as Chinese eat a lot of vegetables. No matter how, it still a great job. Cheers!
