Cardamon Cauliflower Soup with Hitachino Ginger Beer
A recent foray to the local farmer’s market yeilded an unexpected treat: cauliflower, but not the usual kind. This breed had long, slender stalks, with tiny little buds at the top. The farmers informed me it would cooks up extra sweet, as well as extra tender. Given all the rain and cold weather lately, it seemed like the perfect excuse to make soup.
I made just a basic vegetable soup: simply sweat an onion in a large pot, add spices (in this case, cardamon and coriander) add stock and cauliflower, and simmer until tender. Once everything has cooked though, hit it was a stick blender, adjust seasoning as needed, and you’re set. No cream or milk needed.
Per Elianna’s suggestion, I reserved a handful of the tiny florets, and sauteed them separately to top the soup. Feeling spicy, I coated them in a thick layer of curry powder. The florets took on and carried the powder, while the white stems took on a light green character. The resulting soup toppers had a delightful textural element to the soup and bit of spice that was needed. So what to drink?
Given the spice laden character of the soup, an equally aggressive beer seemed in order. I reached for a bottle of Hitachino’s Ginger Brew which I’d been saving in the fridge for just such an occasion. So far, just about everything I’ve tried from this Japanese brewery had been a knock-out hit, so I had high hopes when I cracked the lid. Their Belgian Wit style beer is my favorite sushi beer these days.
It’s a real stunner. The ginger is perfectly blended into the light malt, resulting an ingrained flavor that is both unexpected, but welcome. While other ginger beers often just feel like a layering of ginger on top of a standard beer, this particular bottled seemed to turn that relationship inside out: the ginger flowed through the entire flavor, and gave it a slightly tart bite that reminded me of some of the better brett-based sour beers I’ve had. Against the soup, the beer almost took on the character of a dry ginger lassi-like drink, and provided a nice foil to the spice laden soup.
I’m going to need a few more bottles of this, for sure. Perhaps a ginger homebrew is in order? Anyone had any experience playing with ginger, either as part of the mash, or in bottling?
Tags: ginger beer, hitachino, soup
March 5th, 2009 at 3:02 am
I can’t help you with the brewing question (sorry) but I highly recommend infusing your own ginger brandy. Recipe: Peel and cut up a hand size chunk of ginger for two big jugs o’midprice brandy. The finer the cut, the quicker it’ll be ready. I call it Winter Survival Tonic. A quick online search found me a bar (biking distance from my house, no less) that carries Hitachino Ginger. Woo hoo! Thanks for the tip and the yummy soup recipe.
March 5th, 2009 at 8:29 am
I’m hoping the second bottle of Hitachino Ginger I bought is better than the first. Otherwise, my money’s on Laughing Buddha’s Ginger Pale every time. (But I’ll take the soup!)
March 5th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Nice recipe. I love cauliflower soup. And one of my favourite beer snacks is cauliflower florets covered in spice (any real, curry, paprika, etc) and roasted – it’s like healthy popcorn! I’ve tried it with cocoa powder too to go with a stout and that’s pretty cool, earthy, savoury and sweet!
March 5th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Years back (2006-ish) this beer was quite a simple ale with ginger. Sometime in 2008, I started noticing a change in HN Ginger: it became increasingly wild, with a profile closely resembling that of XH. I began to wonder if they had begun aging the ginger brew in the same sake barrels they use for XH (a side-by-side tasting was remarkably similar). In any event, the barnyard funk, mild tartness, and increased bitterness all enhanced the ginger character, transforming a good beer into something remarkable.
That is, until I tried an Espresso Stout a few weeks ago that unfortunately showed the same signs. Soon to follow (last week), I tried a HN Ginger (gusher) that was over-the-top fruity/jam-like and downright sour, lacking the barnyard character.
I wonder if their playing around with bugs in XH has brought an infection to other beers. It’s become a crap shoot as to whether a bottle of HN Ginger will be good or not.
As to brewing with ginger, I recently brewed a clone of this beer. It’s a pretty hard one to clone, unless you’re playing with bugs, but I at least took a shot at the base beer. It turned out quite delicious and I think I’ll give it a re-try someday with brett and a small addition of toasted oak chips.
For the ginger addition, it’s best to peel and juice fresh ginger. I used an Omega 3000 for juicing. It kicks ass. Strength of ginger depends on variety and freshness, so you’ll have to do a test batch with a beer that somewhat approximates the base beer you’re brewing.
* Weigh out 1oz of peeled fresh ginger and juice it
* Measure the volume of ginger juice that 1oz of ginger gives you
* Add small, measured amounts of juice in 1/4tsp (or less) increments to a pint/0.5L of your chosen beer
* When the ginger level is right, scale up, based on the amount of juice you got from 1oz of ginger and match the test batch ratio to your full batch volume. For me, this worked out to the juice of 4oz of fresh ginger for 5 gallons of beer to give an assertively gingery brew.
I added my ginger just before pitching my yeast starter, before primary. Adding the ginger after primary fermentation is also fine. Take note that pitching before primary will likely give more subdued aromatics, due to some of the volatile compound blowing off with the CO2 during fermentation.
Hope that helps. Cheers!
March 5th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
interesting… It sounds like your experiences line up very much with a combination of mine and brian’s – where mine had good funk, and his was less so. I have had the espresso stout, and that showed no signs of infection.
Thanks for the brewing hints – I think a ginger beer is next on my list. I have been playing around with wild bugs (i have two kegs – a golden and a red, fermented with White Lab’s Sour Mash, WLP655) but for this experiment, I think I’ll stick to something a little more straight forward. Although If i were to bottle a few, they could get spiked with some bugs…
March 5th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Last summer I made a hopless ginger beer. I substituted mugwort for hops. It was different, not quite a hit with most of my friends. I thought it was pretty nice for the hot September/October nights, and it goes very well with Indian curries. I only have a couple bottles left.
I agree with Sally that you should make your own infusion or tincture. I used cheap vodka. All the ginger I added during the boil may have contributed some body to the flavor, but there was little spice left when I took a sample after primary fermentation had completed.
By the way, I live nearby, on San Bruno @ 24th.
March 5th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
This sounds like one amazing meal. You’ve got me craving soup and a cold beer!
April 2nd, 2009 at 5:02 am
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