My good friends at Taylor Strategy wanted to be sure I was aware of this “day” dedicated to my favorite style of beer. They’re the PR firm for Guinness, so it makes perfect sense. When they offered to send me a couple of bottles of Extra Stout to use as inspiration for an article, I graciously accepted.
I went to the Guinness website in search of inspiration for recipes using or compatible with stout. There are many; most of them either use beer as an ingredient or are designed to stand their ground with it by using bold, complementary flavors. I chose Curried Cauliflower Gratin as an easy dinner dish to go with stout. I added some sausage meat to make it a one-dish meal.
The recipe was easy to access from the Guinness site, which is not always a given. The layout on the recipe page is sometimes confusing, and ingredient usages are not always clearly specified. Be sure you read the recipe closely before you choose it!
The difficulty level for the cauliflower dish is given as “easy,” which is correct. This contrasts with the frankly “hard” rating for the featured recipe for Stout Day, contributed by Chef Kwame Onwuachi. The Ribeye Suya Skewers with Peanut and Guinness Extra-Stout Aioli is described as “elevated street food… sure to bring complex aromas and robust flavors to your home.” The complete dish involves preparing five separate recipes; the ingredient list for one of them could not be found on the site. And if you believe that the total prep time is only 25 minutes, I have a bridge you might be interested in purchasing. (Ironically, it’s the Peanut and Guinness Extra Stout Aioli ingredient list that’s missing – the only component that incorporates the ingredient of focus.)
But I digress. The cauliflower was delicious. It went very well with the Extra Stout. Happy International Stout Day, indeed!
