Where the food brings the best out in our beers

W

e’ve cooked up a few choice dishes in our time, all with the idea of creating the ultimate food and beer match. This time our brewers reckon we’ve cracked it, with three very versatile dishes that put the haute in cuisine (whatever that means).

Our recipes:

• Persimmon stuffed pheasant breasts

• Risotto of trout

• Champagne tempura trout

Persimmon stuffed pheasant breasts

• 4 plump pheasant breasts
• 1 ripe persimmon
• 4 tspn cream cheese
• 1/2 cup of Marsala wine
• 1/2 cup of white wine
• 1/2 cup of water
• 1 tblspn butter
• 1 tblspn olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste

Stuff each breast with a piece of skinless persimmon and a tspn of cream cheese, clamp together with toothpicks or bind each breast with string. Mix oil and butter together in oven dish that can also be placed on a stovetop to make sauce. Place in oven preheated 180 for 15 mins each side. Remove from pan and cover with foil to keep warm and prevent meat drying out. Pour Marsala, wine, water, salt and pepper in roasting dish with remaining chopped skinless persimmon and bring to boil on stove top -- simmer rapidly to reduce mixture to sauce consistency. When sauce is nearly ready, remove toothpicks or string from breasts and serve with lashings of minted potato mash*, fresh greens and Marsala sauce.
You will love the taste of a Monteith's Black with this scrumptious dish.
Serves 4.
* Simply whip freshly chopped mint into mashed potatoes with a tblspn of butter and a good splash of milk.

Risotto of trout

Risotto of trout

• 1 fillet fresh or smoked trout sliced
• 1 cup Arborio rice
• 4 cups good chicken stock
• 1 onion diced
• 2 tblspn olive oil
• 1 beaten egg
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• small handful of pitted green olives
• handful of chopped tomatoes, or cocktail tomatoes
• salt and pepper to taste
• 4 tblspn chopped parsley
• fresh parmesan to shave over top

Saute onion for two minutes, add rice, and let fry lightly in the oil and onion for a further two minutes. Add stock, bring to boil and simmer until liquid is absorbed and rice is cooked. You may need to add more stock.

While rice is cooking put the remaining ingredients -- except trout and tomatoes -- into a bowl and mix well. Once rice is cooked, add mixture combining well, add trout and tomatoes, and just heat through. This will be enough to cook the trout, if it isn't smoked. Serve with fresh shaved parmesan and garnish with a sprinkling of chopped parsley.

A Monteith's Golden really works well with this dish during the cooking and after.

Champagne tempura trout

• 1 packet tempura batter
• 1 boned fillet of prime conditioned trout diced into 2 cm cubes
• 1 cup very cold champagne
• enough fresh, clean oil for deep-frying
• light soy sauce for dipping
• own assortment of your favourite seasonal vegetables -
• carrots - sliced diagonally about 1/4 inch thick
• kumara - peeled and sliced 1/4 inch thick
• button mushrooms
• zucchini sliced 1/4 inch thick
• young green beans - trim ends and use whole
• broccoli and cauliflower flowerettes
• shaved fresh ginger
• capsicum (red, yellow and green) cut into fingers.

The Japanese pre-mixed batters are the best, as they are the genuine
article. The only difference: when it says to make up the batter with 1 cup
of very cold water -- replace this with very cold champagne or good bubbly.
It makes a very light batter and is the key to this recipe. Be careful not
to over mix -- slightly lumpy tempura batter is the best tempura batter.
Simply coat vegetable pieces in some of the dry batter mix and then dip in
the batter itself and drop individually and in small batches into the hot
oil. Don't cook for more than a minute -- remove from oil and place on paper
towels. Do the same thing with the trout, but cook no longer than 30secs and
drain separately.

Once drained place vegetables on serving platter and trout on top with a
little spring onion to garnish and serve with chopsticks (or toothpicks if
you prefer, but chopsticks are more fun!) and two or three small bowls of
soy sauce for dipping.

Don't be put off by the long list of ingredients -- this is a very simple
and eagerly devoured recipe whether used as pre-dinner nibbles, a main
course or leisurely summer lunch. Whenever you enjoy this, you will find the
Monteith's Pilsner a superb complement to this wonderful dish.