Kris:Thanksgiving would be incomplete without lots of side dishes. Scotty and Caroline (the 2 Americans) find cranberry sauce especially essential.
Scotty and Kates’s Hefeweizen Cranberry Sauce
500g of dried cranberries
330ml hefeweizen
Method
Soak the cranberries in the hefeweizen for 1 1/2 hours
Simmer in a saucepan for 15 minutes before serving
Kris : It was amazing that the cranberries started fermenting in the beer for the first half an hour. The main thing is that the recipe worked. The fruity/estery taste of the Hefe and the sweet/tart flavour of the cranberries tasted great with the turkey.
Caroline’s Sweet Potato Casserole
Method
Preheat oven to 350F or 170C
Mix casserole ingredients and pour into casserole dish.
Mix crumble ingredients and pour on top of sweet potato mixture.
Bake for 45 minutes.
2 sheets of good quality short crust pastry (or if you have time make your own)
700g cooked pumpkin (cooled)
3 Tbs honey or golden syrup
2 large free range eggs
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup cream
1/2 tsp fresh grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
butter for greasing the cake pan
Preheat oven to 180C
Grease a cake pan with butter
Place the pastry in the pan and trim the edges
Line the pastry with baking paper
Fill with dried beans or rice
Blind bake for 15-20 minutes
While this is baking, cream the eggs, brown sugar, honey and spices with electric mixer
Add the pumpkin and beat for a couple more minutes
Fold through the cream
Remove the pastry from the oven and take out the baking paper
Allow it to cool and then spoon in the pumpkin mixture
Bake at 180 C for 1 hour
Allow to cool before serving
Kris: I am a sucker for Barley Wines, and pumpkin pie and Barley Wine is a match to die for. I would go for an English style Barley Wine that is more focussed on the malt sweetness, as opposed to a dry hopped American style which is more hop driven. Anytime is a good time for Barley Wine. We drank a flying Dog Horn Dog Barley Wine from Frederick, Maryland and Widmer Brothers’ Reserve Galaxy Hopped Barley Wine from Portland, Oregon.
Caroline: I must admit I was very skeptical about this dish, back home you can pretty much buy pumpkin pie in a can. I wasn’t sure about making it from scratch with actual pumpkin…
Kris converted me! This pie was AWESOME. and even better with the barley wine (which I am not usually a fan of) but the spices in the pie totally mellowed it out..delicious match!
Caroline: LOOK! You know who else loves Thanksgiving? GEORGE! Well, maybe it wasn’t so much Thanksgiving as it was all the beer boxes we had around the house for him to make forts with…patriotic nonetheless George, well done.
Kris:The two Barley Wines were amazing! I think that the Flying Dog, being more an English style, was the better match with pumpkin pie, but I did love the citrus/fruit hop character of the Widmer Brosthers reserve, and it’s toffee/caramel malt backbone.
Caroline: Can you tell we are all in a turkey and beer induced coma? It lasted about 2 days, totally worth it though…yum yum yum