Share |

Most of us have cooked with wine…but have you ever tried cooking with beer?  Or considered food & beer pairings?  Well, if you are new to this, a great place to start is SamAdams.com.  The site has a whole section about food and beer, including recipes.  The site uses Flash, so I can’t link directly to the section.  So, once you access the site (after verifying that you are legally old enough to buy and drink beer), click on World of Beer –> Food and Beer –> Cooking With Sam.  From there, you can view the recipes, and print out the ones you want to make.

Last night, I made the Pasta & Eggplant dish, with Sam Adams Boston Lager.  This is a great place to start, as the Boston Lager is Sam’s flagship beer, and therefore the most widely available.  Even the Skeevy Corner Store, normally a haven for the swill beer drinker, carries it.

But if you go to a store that carries better beers, it’s likely you will find many of the other beers and ales that Sam Adams brews.  We’ve tried most of them, and they are well worth seeking out.

Anyhoo, the eggplant pasta was very tasty.  Don’t fret over the 1/2 cup olive oil…I know it seems like a lot, but eggplant absorbs a lot of oil.  Plus, this is olive oil, not butter, so no need to worry about breaking out the weight loss supplements. Olive oil is good for you!

This dish is a great way to use leftover ham, but if you don’t have any leftover ham, just buy a small ham steak, save whatever’s left after weighing out the six ounces called for, for another use.  Maybe chop it up and make omelettes for breakfast the next day.

Also, I see no reason why you can’t make this a vegetarian dish by omitting the ham.  Eggplant has a nice meaty texture to it…not very flavorful on its own, but it absorbs the flavor of whatever you cook with it…in this case, it soaks up the flavor of the olive oil and the beer.

1 cup Samuel Adams Boston Lager
1/2 cup olive oil
1 medium eggplant, peeled & diced
6 oz. smoked ham, cubed
1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary or 1/2 teaspoon dried
1 cup fresh or frozen peas
1 pound large tubular pasta, such as penne, cooked
Salt & pepper
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese

In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Place eggplant in skillet and add salt/pepper to season. Stir for about 10 minutes, until it becomes soft. Then stir in ham and fry for 2 minutes. Add beer and rosemary, bring to the boil. Reduce the liquid by half. Add the peas, reduce to a simmer, cover, cook 2 minutes. Pour the cooked pasta into the sauce, toss it all together, and cook for about 30 seconds, until heated through. Transfer to a serving bowl, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, and serve.

This recipe calls for one cup of beer, so there will be four ounces left in a 12-ounce bottle.  Whoever does the cooking gets to drink it!  Serve the dish with the remaining beers from the six-pack!  Cheers!