Scottish Devils and Ruination

I didn't want this to turn into a food and beer blog so I've been holding back on writing about the pairings I've been experimenting with. But I accidentally invented the best beer snack known to man and I have to share.

Recently I was invited to a beer and food pairing event held at the Liquor Plus branch on Douglas Street. It was the first pairing event I'd been to and I'm excited to attend and perhaps even host some more. Left4Beer designed a menu and attendees had to bring a specific snack or beer. By the time I got my act together, there were only a few options left. I chose to bring devilled eggs.

Having never made them before, I did a bit of research on egg recipes and discovered that scotch eggs — a childhood favourite of mine — are not that hard to make. I really wanted to make scotch eggs, but the brief was for devilled, so I decided to combine the recipes and called it "Scottish Devils".

The eggs were partnered with Howe Sound's King Heffy, which is a total triumph of an imperial hefeweizen from one of BC's best craft brewers. They went down well with the beer guys.  I neglected to take my camera and felt like I could improve on them a little, so I recreated them at home later in the week. Here they are, partnered with a Stone Ruination IPA. I gave the recipe a good kick of heat and garlic which is ideal with a powerful IPA like the Stone beer.

Ingredients
Scotch part
4 large eggs
4 good quality sausages
1tsp cumin
1tsp garlic powder
1tsp cayenne
1tsp thyme
1tsp pepper
1beaten egg
flour
panko breadcrumbs (or other)
butter

Devilled part
half cup mayonnaise
2 minced garlic cloves
1tbsp dijon mustard
1tsp curry spice (curry powder is good, but use imagination)
2 green onions (chopped)
2 tsp vinegar
salt
pepper

Directions
Hard boil and peel the eggs (5 minutes is enough). Split sausages open and mix well in a bowl with the cumin, garlic powder, cayenne, thyme and pepper. Divide mixture into four, wet hands to prevent sticking, and mold each portion around a peeled egg. One sausage per egg provides perfect cover. Dip each egg into flour, then beaten egg, then breadcrumbs. Bake in a buttered oven dish at 350f for 30 minutes. Remove when done and leave to rest for ten mins. Halve each egg (be careful, the coating can split, so use a very sharp knife). Gently ease out each yolk with a teaspoon and put in a bowl. Add all the devilled ingredients apart from the mayonnaise and smoked paprika. Then add the mayonnaise and stir well until the texture is creamy and easy to spoon. Spoon a blob into each egg cavity, sprinkle paprika over the top, and serve. The version below was a second batch. I followed the same recipe, but drizzled tabasco, chinese pepper/garlic sauce and some more chili powder over the top.

Imperial Stout Chocolate Cake

This is the best chocolate cake I've ever had.

My wife has been making the excellent Nigella Lawson Guinness Chocolate Cake for years now. It recently occurred to us that Nigella only uses Guinness because of its popularity, and maybe other stouts or porters would be even better. As usual, my wife is way ahead of me, and I came home the other day to find a bottle of Howe Sound Pothole Filler Imperial Stout in the fridge.
"Do NOT drink this one," she said, as I lifted the heavy, litre-bottle of tar out of the fridge to inspect it. "It's for a cake."

After three days of my ceaseless pestering, she finally baked it. I could have done it myself, but she's a cake-master, and I didn't want to risk ruining it. The recipe calls for a quarter of a litre of stout, which isn't a bad thing, as drinking a litre of imperial stout in one sitting can be a bit much (all Howe Sound beers come in litre bottles only.)

The Guinness version of the cake has a subtle bitterness that complements the sweet chocolate. The Pothole Filler model blows it out of the water. It certainly adds a heavily bitter twang, but also a complex sweetness. As you'd expect, it brings aniseed, coffee, and molasses to the party, which is perfect for this cake. But because it is an imperial stout, not all the alcohol is lost in the bake, and you still get a bit of heat and boozy-aromatics. As for texture, the cake is as thick and rich as you could ever want, which is typical for this recipe, and the imperial stout certainly doesn't dry it out any.

Of course, I got a chance to drink the stout too. It's a very accomplished RIS, and the texture is thick and hearty. The flavours can become a bit of a muddle, though. I already mentioned the aniseed, which works in the cake, but gets a bit much in the beer, jostling with vanilla, coffee and other warm flavours. I suppose I wish it had just one or two dominant flavours coming through the mix, but some people will enjoy disentangling the complex soup. Any BC stout lover should try it, but perhaps not by the 750ml glassful like I did. Too rich for a session for me,

I strongly recommend you bake the cake, though. I'm already thinking up other stouts that could work (I think barley wines could be good too). Maybe that Stone Smoked Porter would be good, or, if I could bear to sacrifice a bottle, the Peche Mortel from Brasserie Dieu du Ciel would probably be sumptuous, as would be pretty much anything on this page.