Moktoberfest!
CHOW loves holiday parties. But sometimes we feel “tradition” could use some help. Take Oktoberfest. We love drinking good beer and eating hearty grub with our friends when the weather turns cool. But we wanted to do something lighter and more complex than bratwursts and salty sides. So we created Moktoberfest: a feast with traditional ingredients like pork and spätzle, but put together in more interesting ways.
To create the menu, we tweaked classic dishes and cooked up new ones inspired by cuisines of German-speaking Europe. Our onion tart with leeks and crème fraîche, for example, is a riff on flammenküche, a tart with cream, onions, and bacon found in the area around Alsace. The butter lettuce and pumpkin seed salad is a nod to the fact that the German-Austrian border produces the most pumpkin seeds of any European country. For dessert, we deconstructed traditional Black Forest cake into a creamy layered parfait with chocolate cookies. But rest assured: The spätzle, the side dish of comforting dumplings, is traditional. You don’t mess with spätzle.
We asked a beer sommelier for some interesting pairings: Phil Baxter of the LAX Four Points by Sheraton hotel in Los Angeles, which boasts more than 75 bottled beers from all over the world. For each course, there are two suggested brews: One is a complement, containing flavors that marry with the dish; the other is a contrast, to offset and show off flavors. With the Black Forest “Strata,” for example, we pair the complementary Lindemans Kriek Lambic, which we use to soak the dessert’s cherries. For the salad, we recommend Samuel Smith’s Imperial Stout, dark and malty but more mellow than a traditional stout. The barley in the nose and the good malt flavor offset the tartness of the salad dressing. You don’t have to choose one or the other: We got both at Suppenküche, San Francisco’s modern yet homey German restaurant, and had fun sampling them all.
You’ll also find lots more information about German beers, as well as handy tips on how to make spätzle, stuff pork chops, and shape pie crusts.
Complementary Beer:
Czechvar
Contrasting Beer:
Samuel Smith’s Imperial Stout
Complementary Beer:
Duvel
Contrasting Beer:
Stone Smoked Porter
Complementary Beer:
Lindemans Kriek Lambic
Contrasting Beer:
Old Rasputin Imperial Russian Stout
Our first course pairs the Savory Onion and Leek Tart and the Butter Lettuce and Pumpkin Seed Salad. There’s heavy fork-lifting required later in the meal; this is a lighter start—but not so light as to make the next course a shock. The rich tart, with its crème fraîche filling and buttery crust, is a good partner with the salad. A crisp pilsner like Czechvar provides a subtle flavor of hops, which suits these dishes well. Samuel Smith’s Imperial Stout is the contrasting beer. A British stout, this beer is mellower than its Irish counterparts. There is an almost malty sweetness to it that contrasts with the tartness of the salad’s vinaigrette.
Czechvar
Samuel Smith’s Imperial Stout
Butter Lettuce and
Pumpkin Seed Salad
The roasted garlic and apple juice in the vinaigrette add dimension to this simple salad.
Savory Onion and Leek Tart
Bacon and herbs give this rustic
Germanic dish even more flavor.
Now we really get into the Oktoberfest swing of things, with flavors tightly associated with Germany and Austria: cabbage, pork, and the little herbed dumplings called spätzle. Duvel is a shoo-in here, as its dry edge and light effervescence complement the ingredients. Though it may seem a bit light on first impression, the beer has a high alcohol content that cuts through the fat in the Apple-Stuffed Pork Chops with Cider Sauce and the acid in the Braised Red Cabbage with Bacon. The Stone Smoked Porter is our contrasting beer. Somewhere between a pale ale and a stout in color, the Stone porter has a heft that marries well with this hearty course. Despite the name, the smoke does not overwhelm the palate, and the hints of coffee in the beer contrast with the sweetness of the pork dish. Don’t go doubling up on your beers in this course: According to our beer sommelier, these beers together can be overwhelming.
Duvel
Stone Smoked Porter
Apple-Stuffed Pork Chops
with Cider Sauce
Apples star in the stuffing for this satisfying autumnal dish.
Braised Red Cabbage
with Bacon
A great side
dish that can be made ahead and gets even better with time.
Herbed Spätzle
Little dumplings that are a great accompaniment for saucy dishes.
Black Forest is one of those cakes that you want to dig into in order to get all the flavors in each bite, so we decided to deconstruct it (with a little artistic leeway). In our version, Black Forest “Strata,” we layered in lambic whipped cream, cherries, and chocolate crème anglaise for an indulgent but balanced dessert. Since Lindemans Kriek Lambic is used in the dessert, it is only natural that this be served as the complementary beer. Though lambics are notorious for a cloying sweetness, there is a slight dry cherry flavor in this beer that works nicely with the chocolate, cherries, and cookies. The contrasting beer, Old Rasputin Imperial Russian Stout, makes your taste buds stand to attention; it’s complex and chocolaty. If you are taking the indulgent route for this meal, then this is the perfect beer to end things with.
Lindemans
Kriek Lambic
Old Rasputin
Imperial Russian Stout
Black Forest “Strata”
Lambic and dried cherries are high notes in this deconstruction of the classic German dessert.