Beer Dinner with Stephanie Izard: Recap from ChoLon Bistro on Vimeo.

belated thank you to chef friends lon and alex for a great night at cholon bistro a few weeks back.  at least i think it was a few weeks back. goat tour is affecting my brain a bit

what’s great about the tour is that cooking with each chef is totally unique… not just their different styles but also their kitchens and staff. lon’s new restaurant in denver was a great place to start. his kitchen is a bit smaller than the goat, but is so well designed and well thought out that it works perfectly. he has an awesome wok station that kind of scared the crap out of my cook joseph (if you life up the wok, the burner underneath is like a jet engine) and a special designed steaming station where he can steam ten or so orders of his awesome dumplings at once.  warning… let the soup dumplings cool a minute before popping them in your mouth.  napalm liquid explosion is hard to contain and your lunch companion wants to stay dry   congrats to lon and his partners on bringing a beautiful space with great food (intense flavors that i love) to down town denver.

of course we also got to cook with alex from fruition restaurant in the same night.  (double your pleasure…)  i didn’t know alex very well, but now that i do i can’t wait to go back and cook with him some more…or rather go hang out some more on his awesome farm that he took us to see saturday morning– he has a farm about 45 minutes outside of the city. a few pigs and some beautiful vegetables,  but my favorite part…they have a sheep’s milk creamery with about 50 or so sheep. just love how he and his team just went for it. they built a great little creamery where they focus on their sheep’s milk ricotta (which is now award winning) and a semi firm cheese that we got to taste at various stages of aging.  just awesome.  he and his team inspired me to get back on track with our dream of having a small dairy… baby steps…must get diner open first:)

thanks to the boys for a fun night in the kitchen. stressful? a wee bit, as all nights are in the kitchen. but alex, lon and everyone in the kitchen were so helpful that it turned it into just plain fun. i guess sipping on beer while cooking that night helped a bit too

here is a couple of pictures from the evening, courtesy of westword blog and lori midson.

 chef lon symensma, myself (with girl in the kitchen) and alex seidel the night of the dinner.

 

me getting ready for the dinner!

lon’s garden salad

lon’s pork tenderloin…yum!!

lon’s almond crusted duck breast

alex’s ostrich loin

alex’s kasshi oysters

alex’s creme fraiche crepes with mission figs

my goat carpaccio

lon’s coffee chocolate tart

my brown sugar cake with chocolate gelato

 

here is a picture from the book signing at williams-sonoma in denver! what a great day, thanks to all who came out. and a special thanks to the two ladies in the photograph, audrey and renee!

 

Goat Tour- Denver

ChoLon Bistro Dinner Menu

Collaboration Dinner with Chef Lon Symensma and Chef Alex Seidel

Appetizers and Beer Cocktails

Citrus Cured Salmon with Red Onion Bagel Chip, Toasted Buckwheat, Crème Fraiche Mousse, Cucumber Vinaigrette

Kitfo, Pickled Watermelon Rind, Spiced Puffed Rice, Piri Piri

Grilled Lamb Satay, Ginger Mustard, Spiced Panko

1

   Funkwerks Mairo King

Kusshi Oyster w/Passion Fruit Gelee, Chili Ginger Mignonette, Green Onion

Goat Carpaccio, Goat Tongue Vinaigrette, Whitefish Roe, Crisp Sweet Onions

Garden Salad, Snow Peas, Melon, Apricot Vinaigrette

2

Great Divide’s Rumble Oak Aged IPA

 

Pan Roasted Duck Breast with Fondant Potato, Beluga Lentil, Foraged Chanterelle, Vanilla Bean Duck Jus

Potato Filled Rice Noodles, Lamb Sausage, Apricot and Rosemary Nuoc Cham

Pork Tenderloin, Wild Mushrooms, Chinese Bacon

3

Izard and Rouben’s Farmer’s Market Honey Porter

Brown Butter Roasted Ostrich Loin with Celery Root Puree, Roasted Chiogga Beets, Honey Crisp Apple Salad, Candied Hazelnuts

Smoked Goat Ragout, Sweet Potato Polenta, Spiced Honey Glaze

Almond Crusted Duck Breast, Cauliflower, Roasted Squash

4

Jared Rouben’s Dulce

 

Rogue Creamery Smoked Blue with Crème Fraiche Crepes, Orange-Mustard Seed Marmalade, Grilled Mission Figs

Brown Sugar Cake, Coffee-Orange Gelato, Cocoa Nib Syrup

Chocolate-Coffee Tart, Milk Caramel, Grand Mariner

first stop on the tour is denver and it is coming up quick!  a fun filled dinner at cholon bistro, a book signing at the williams-sonoma in littleton on september 30th at 12pm, and a demo with jared rouben at the great american beer festival! this past spring, jared rouben and i met for the first time to chat beer, get to know each others’ favorite styles, and pick each other’s brains about ways to make our first collaborative beer (we also chronicled the experience… check out this video). we wanted it to be unique as well as representative of both jared’s brew style and my cooking. one of many qualities that make jared unique as a brewer is that he started his career back in the kitchen, at the culinary institute of america in new york. the way that he thinks about layers of flavor in his beers is similar to my approach to food at girl & the goat. at first, i’m not sure if he agreed when i asked to put mustard seeds and thai chilis into the beer alongside the more common coriander and orange notes found in a wheat beer. but in the end, the ‘tingly tongue’ was born, and it sparked our interest in collaborating more.

so here jared and i are, getting ready to head to denver together for great american beer festival. while we’re there, we will be doing a demonstration and having a discussion about pairing food with beer in the same way sommeliers pair food with wine. the chef community around chicago, and the nation for that matter, is very supportive of craft brewing in restaurants, so it’s fitting for us to come together and share our experiences with the chef/brewer collaboration.

supporting local farmers is something else that jared and i both stand behind, so the beer that we are bringing to great american beer festival is a honey porter made with wildflower honey from ellis farm in illinois. the result is a medium-full bodied beer that balances honey, roast and smoke flavors.

this fall, i will be embarking on a 15 city “goat tour” to raise money and awareness for share our strength, as well as promote my cookbook girl in the kitchen. as a part of this tour, we are going to be joining chef lon symensma at cholon bistro along with alex seidel of fruition in denver to host a dinner that is all about pairing foods with craft beers.  alongside the honey porter, we will be showcasing rumble oak aged IPA from the great divide, funkwerks belgium white, and finishing with the dulce (jared’s american stout made with seville oranges). each chef will create a family style dish to accompany the different beers to show the many directions one can go, and the various styles of cooking that can work well when pairing beer and food.