Beer Bread- Simple Recipe | You've Got Meal!

For some time, I've been saving on Pinterest some recipes for simple, beer bread. I never tried it before, although I am a big fan of homemade bread that does not require yeast and a lot of time. I was really curious to see if you could identify the taste of beer in the bread. The outcome was worth it!

What is great about the recipe is that it requires just a few ingredients, it is super easy to make and it is not time-consuming. The preparation it takes less than 15 minutes and after baking you have a great bread you made and of course, a lovely homemade bread smell for your kitchen. Who does not find that comforting, especially now that winter is knocking on our door?

Ingredients:

• 350 g all purpose flour
• 50 g rye flour (optional, or you can use 400 g ap flour )
• 125 g sugar
• 330 ml beer
• 2 tbsp melted butter

When I started making the dough I realized I didn't have enough flour so I also used some rye flour, but you can use all purpose flour only.

In a large bowl, mix the flour with the beer and the sugar. The resulting dough will be sticky. Place it in a buttered loaf tin or use some baking sheet if it makes you feel safer. I used baking sheet and it turned out ok. Place it in the preheated oven and bake for 45 minutes.

After 45 minutes take it out and pour the melted butter on top and return it in the oven for another 5 to 10 minutes.

My oven has some issues, being old and grumpy, and it tends to burn in the back, but that only affected the aesthetics of it all, the taste being amazing.

No, it does not taste like beer :), but rather like sugar. It is a bread more on the sweet side, perfect for some butter and jam. I have to say I will try it with less sugar and maybe some added salt and other flavors and keep you posted. Considering the minimum effort and the total cost of this bread it is a recipe to try and to save, the bread actually makes itself.

Enjoy,

Homemade Lamb Burgers "a la Purple" | You've Got Meal!

Take that for a title, internet! Honestly I had no idea what to call this other than lamb burgers, but it does have a powerful purple touch because of the veggies used. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

For 400 grams of minced lamb meat, prepare an infusion of spices: smoked paprika, ground ginger, cardamom, garlic powder, salt, pepper.

Also, mix in the burger meat a small amount of olive oil  and 1 egg or 2, this will help bind the lamb together. The rest of the burger components are red onion, beet, fries and a yogurt- garlic sauce that I will get to a bit later.

The onion and the beet I’ve cooked in the oven (just clean them, wrap them in some thin foil with some olive oil and salt, cook the onion for 20 minutes and the beet for twice more- I had a big beet) . This will give you sweet, juicy vegetables that bright up the plate. Oh, and the fries you just make them by frying potatoes, I think J.

We also served the burgers with sime small tempura zucchini, that turned out really nice, semi-crunchy and fresh..

A quick note here: I didn’t have and I was too lazy to go buy, but some crispy iceberg salad and fresh tomatoes work really well here.

Now, the sauce:  greek yogurt, salt, pepper, lemon juice, olive oil, a crushed clove of garlic, finely chopped mint. Mix everything together, balancing the oil and the lemon juice.

Place all the components in a warmed bun, grab a cold beer (a chilly Spitfire works for me with these burgers) and remember summer. It’s only 6 months before it comes back again….. L

Enjoy,

Fried Fish Sticks with Broccoli and Okra Recipe | You've Got Meal!

Super easy recipe for fried fish in beer batter, served with a healthy vegetable side dish.

Do you hate fish? Really? Why? Doesn’t matter, you will love this way we cook it, in an airy and fluffy beer batter. Actually we’ve covered the recipe before here, so I won’t insist too much on it. It is one of the best recipes for us, because the nutmeg give it a nice flavor and the batter is always very fluffy and it does not get very oily. So, go on, check the recipe, don't be shy!

Needles to say that it worked perfectly again, but this time with a little spin on the side dish. Fish wise, we used black cod, can’t say that it was better than perch, but it did the trick.

For the side dish, I have to confess that I was lazy. Not  “lazy so I cook something terrible” (that doesn’t happen in the YOUVEGOTMEAL kitchen – a touch of modesty there), but “lazy so I will use frozen veggies”. 

• So, I pack of frozen broccoli, 
• 1 of frozen okra, 
• 1 chili, 
• 1 onion, 
• 2 cloves of garlic, 
• cardamom, 
• all spice, 
• curry leaves, 
• coriander seeds, 
• lemon juice, 
• salt , pepper and olive oil. 

You probably realized that the differences from the post above are the spices and the okra. About the latter, it is a vegetable that is used in Lebanese cooking, but I’ve seen it as an ingredient in Mediterranean dishes as well. The thing about it is that it gets gooey when cooked if not treated with an acidic ingredient (say vinegar or lemon juice). Traditionally, I’ve cooked this by boiling it with salt, vinegar and various spices and added the okra at the end.  But, considering that a lot of lemon juice was already being used for the broccoli, this wasn’t the case. Start of by sautéing the onion, chili and garlic in the olive oil on medium heat for a couple of minutes, until the onion gets nice and shiny. Add the broccoli, okra and the spices. Cook this mixture for 5 minutes, then add a couple tbs. of water and the juice of 1 lemon, cover the pan and cook for another 7 minutes . 

As a last touch, increase the veggie power in your dish and get “lazy” again by getting a small can of baby carrots and peas and mix them with the other greens after turning the heat of. The spicy fish and this health bomb (be it even from frozen/canned veggies) of a side dish will make your day.

Enjoy,

PS: why give your liver a break ? Get a nice bottle of sauvingnon blanc and turn this into an adult menu *wink.

Chicken Roasted on Salt

   

I’d like to start this post with a confession: I’m not a big fan of chicken, maybe it’s because I get to eat it pretty often and it’s mostly fried. But this time, I actually was excited about cooking it, and for 2 reasons. First, because I got my hands on this beautiful organic, yellow, plump chicken at around 2,5 kilos. I don’t  say this easily, but this meat was just both gorgeous and delicious. 

The second reason to be excited was the fact that I wanted to cook the chicken on salt, a first in the YOUVEGOTMEAL kitchen. The cooking was a 2 step process, first marinating the meat and the roasting it on salt, on low heat in the oven.

Now, I decided to cut the chicken into pieces, but you can choose to cook it whole, that gives it a more grandiose look (in my case, our tiny oven couldn’t handle a whole chicken). I cut the meat into 5 pieces: 2 whole legs, 2 pieces of breast, each with its own wing attached, and the back of the chicken, that I used to make some stock for later use in the kitchen. For the marinate, use  some olive oil, the juice of 1 lemon, thyme, basil, garlic and pepper. Mix everything together and massage it into the meat, then leave the chicken to rest for 1 hour in the flavored juices. The cooking process is a piece of cake (or salt, if you prefer, that actually sounds easier than making cake). Prepare the baking tray by cutting a big enough piece of baking paper, pop it under some tap water, the just crumble it into your hands then return it to its original shape. This will help you handle it easier when you place it in the tray and it will protect it better from the heat (it will make cleaning the tray a piece of salt- see what I did there?). Next, take 1 kilo of salt and place it in an even layer in the tray and place the pieces of chicken on top, skin side up, and pour the remaining juices on the meat. 

Put the tray in a preheated oven, on medium-low heat and cook the chicken for about 80 minutes. You can check if it’s done by running a knife through the breast, if it goes in easily, remove it from the oven. Leave the meat to rest for 10 minutes before cutting it. I have no idea how the salt work, but the meat was tender, fresh and had a nice crisp on the outside and it didn’t taste like, well, salt. Definitely worth making. As a salad that suited the meat, we just  mixed some lettuce leaves (something called latuga bowl), chopped endives leaves, pomegranate seeds with a dressing made of olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper and honey – tangy, crunchy, sweet, perfect.

Enjoy,