Nuit Belge brings together tastes of Belgian beer and Atlanta food

“It all came about in March of 2015, when Blackberry Farm was preparing to release their Belgian-style beers for the first time,” Leff said. “We designed the event to help spread the word about their brewery.

“But it grew to a much larger concept, giving people the opportunity to taste the traditional beers that are still being brewed in Belgium. In fact, the list we will have in Atlanta is predominately beers from Belgium, though we do have several Belgian-style beers from American breweries, including Creature Comforts and Three Taverns from Georgia.”

To make things a bit more interesting, the participating chefs were given two Belgian beers to taste, and asked to come up with a dish to pair with each one.

“The great thing about Belgian beers is that they are extremely food-friendly,” Leff said. “By getting the beers to the chefs in advance, and letting them taste them to conceptualize their dishes, I think we give them a unique opportunity to be influenced by the flavor profiles and really be creative in coming up with the pairings.”

Among a sampling of Atlanta restaurants at Nuit Belge, Cooks & Solders will pair Straffe Hendrik Wild with mussels, Georgia white shrimp escabeche and squid ink crostini. Holeman & Finch will pair Orval Trappist with house pâté de campagne, Orval beer mustard and smoked onion jam. And soon-to-open Ba Bellies will pair Three Taverns Theophan the Recluse Belgian-style Russian Imperial Stout with Valrhona chocolate, Vietnamese coffee ice cream, peanuts and sea salt.

In anticipation of the tasting, we asked two Atlanta chefs, Chris Hall of Local Three and Josh Hopkins of Empire State South, to share the recipes for their Nuit Belge dishes with us.

Hall is pairing Creature Comforts Brettomatic Hoppy Pale Ale with chicken liver mousse, Belgian waffles and cranberry gastrique — which promises to be one the more audacious and rare combinations, given that Brettomatic is a limited-edition wild beer, dosed with Brettanomyces yeast, and aged in wine barrels.

“We wanted to do a dish that paired well, but we also wanted to do a dish that had a sense of place here in the South, particularly with a local Belgian-style beer,” Hall said. We thought about how we could do chicken and waffles and make it work with the beer.

“The beer has a good amount of funk and acid to it, so the waffle is a way of playing off that. We also wanted a sweet-and-sour thing, so the gastrique did that. Overall, though, the smooth richness of the chicken livers was what was great with the beer.”

Hopkins is pairing Kasteel Barista Chocolate Quad with middle-eastern-style lamb sausage with preserved oranges and cocoa powder. The strong and unusual Belgian beer has flavors of chocolate and coffee that match the richness and exotic spiciness of the lamb.

“The sausage has flavors of fennel and orange and cocoa, and we’re going to lightly smoke it and serve it in slices,” Hopkins said. “The beer is really, really big with coffee and chocolate. I think those flavors go really well the lamb and the orange.”

For his second dish, Hopkins is pairing Creature Comfort Emergence, a wild ale that uses a house blend of four different Brettanomyces yeast strains, with Chinese-style fried catfish shumai dumplings.

“It’s like a classic dim sum-style dumpling but we make it with Georgia flathead and blue catfish,” Hopkins said. “This beer really pops. It’s bright and yeasty and fresh, and so I was thinking of ginger and this catfish in a dumpling that would be crunchy and light and salty.

“It should be a fun pairing for a really fun food and beer event, and I’m looking forward to seeing what people think of it.”

Recipes

These recipes from the Nuit Belge tasting event, coming to Atlanta on Jan. 23, capture a taste of what chefs Chris Hall of Local Three and Josh Hopkins of Empire State South will be serving and pairing with Belgian beers.

Chicken Liver Mousse With Belgian Waffles and Cranberry Gastrique

Beer pairing: Creature Comforts Brettomatic Hoppy Pale Ale.

This recipe from chef Chris Hall of Atlanta’s Local Three is an elegant take on Southern-style chicken and waffles, with a rich, buttery mousse standing in for the chicken and sweet-tart cranberry gastrique instead of maple syrup. The pairing with the wild, hoppy flavors of this Belgian-style pale ale makes for an audacious contrast of flavors.

For the mousse:

1 pound​ butter, cubed

1½ cups onions, chopped

5 c​loves of garlic, chopped

1/2 cup ​bourbon

1 ​tablespoon fresh thyme

2 pounds​ chicken livers, salted with kosher salt or curing salt

In a large sauté pan over low heat add 1/4 pound of butter, onion and garlic and caramelize until soft and golden brown. Deglaze the pan with the 1/2 cup bourbon.

Add thyme and chicken livers and cook until livers are medium, about five minutes.

Transfer hot contents of sauté pan to a food processor and puree until smooth. Add the remaining cubed butter and puree until fully incorporated.

Chill and reserve.

Makes: 3 1/2 to 4 cups mousse. Per 1-tablespoon serving: 75 calories (percent of calories from fat, 84), 2 grams protein, 1 gram carbohydrates, trace fiber, 7 grams fat (4 grams saturated), 76 milligrams cholesterol, 68 milligrams sodium.

For the waffles:

2 cups ​all-purpose flour

1/4 cup ​sugar

1 tablespoon​ baking powder

1/2 teaspoon​ salt

1½ cups m​ilk

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon ​vanilla extract

2 l​arge eggs, separated, plus 2 egg whites

1 stick melted salted butter, plus butter for serving

Preheat waffle iron to the regular setting.

Sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk the milk, vanilla and 2 egg yolks together. Pour over the dry ingredients and very gently stir until halfway combined. Pour in the melted butter and continue mixing very gently until combined.

In a separate bowl, using a whisk or a mixer, beat the 4 egg whites until stiff. Slowly fold them into the batter, stopping short of mixing them all the way through.

Scoop the batter into waffle iron in batches and cook according to directions.

Makes: 12 waffles. Per waffle: 184 calories (percent of calories from fat, 43), 4 grams protein, 24 grams carbohydrates, 2 grams fiber, 8 grams fat (4 grams saturated), 60 milligrams cholesterol, 324 milligrams sodium.

For the Cranberry Gastrique

1 pound​ fresh cranberries 1 cup fresh orange juice 1 ​cup sugar

Combine cranberries, orange juice and sugar in a saucepot and simmer for 1 hour over medium low heat until cranberries are soft.

Puree, while hot, until smooth, and cool.

Makes: about 3 cups. Per 1-tablespoon serving: 26 calories (percent of calories from fat, 1), trace protein, 6 grams carbohydrates, trace fiber, trace fat (no saturated fat), no cholesterol, trace sodium.

To assemble entire dish:

Place a small scoop of mousse on a quarter section of a buttered waffle, top with cranberry gastrique, and garnish with micro-greens, if desired.

Adapted from a recipe from chef Chris Hall of Local Three.

Lamb Sausage With Preserved Orange and Cocoa Powder

Beer pairing: Kasteel Barista Chocolate Quad

This middle-eastern-spiced lamb sausage from Josh Hopkins of Empire State South can be made and served in multiple ways — as links, molded on skewers for kebabs, or portioned into patties. Hopkins likes to serve the sausage with preserved oranges, a dollop of Greek yogurt and a dusting of cocoa powder. The pairing is a strong dark Belgian ale with flavors of chocolate, coffee, toffee and dried fruits that play on the richness of the lamb.

2½ pounds ground lamb, 80/20 lean to fat ratio

3/4 cup chicken stock, ice cold

1½ teaspoons kosher salt

1 teaspoon ground fennel seed

1 teaspoon marjoram

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/8 teaspoon ground anise

1/8 teaspoon ground juniper

zest of 1 small orange

1 teaspoon cocoa powder, plus extra for serving

1 tablespoon brown sugar

Place all ingredients, except chicken stock, into the bowl of a stand mixer with a paddle attachment. Mix on slow speed and slowly drizzle chicken stock into the mixture until combined and sticky. Stuff mixture into softened sheep casings (available at Star Provisions or the Buford Highway Farmers Market) and tie as links, mold on skewers for kebabs, or portion into patties. Grill to medium in a grill pan or on a gas or charcoal grill or smoke links in a smoker. To serve, garnish with orange zest, orange marmalade or preserved oranges, a dollop of Greek yogurt and a dusting of cocoa powder.

Adapted from a recipe from Josh Hopkins of Empire State South.

Makes: 10-12 6-inch links or small patties. Per serving, based on 10: 327 calories (percent of calories from fat, 75), 19 grams protein, 1 gram carbohydrates, trace fiber, 27 grams fat (12 grams saturated), 83 milligrams cholesterol, 397 milligrams sodium.

Catfish Shumai Dumplings

Beer Pairing: Creature Comforts Emergence

Josh Hopkins of Empire State South takes a classic Chinese-style dim sum dumpling wrapper, fills it with Georgia catfish, fries it, and pairs it with a bright, wild Belgian-style beer from Athens, Georgia. Serve the dumplings with a soy ginger dipping sauce.

4 ounces catfish fillet, small diced

1 egg white, whipped into soft peaks

3 scallions, finely chopped, white part only. Save green part for garnish

1 tablespoon ginger, minced

5 tablespoons garlic, minced

1 tablespoon low sodium soy sauce

2 tablespoons canola oil, for frying

10 shumai wrappers

Soy ginger dipping sauce for serving

Add all ingredients except wrappers to the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until a paste forms.

Divide into 10 ½ ounce portions

Place 1 portion in the center of a shumai wrapper. Place the wrapper in your left hand. With your right thumb & middle finger bring the wrapper up and around the catfish stuffing. Don’t close the top. The first one is probably not going to look as pretty as the rest. It’s fine. You are eventually going to fry it and that will make it better. Do that to the rest of the wrappers the same way and place on non-stick parchment paper coated with pan-release spray. Steam for 4-5 minutes in a colander over boiling water, just until the wrapper and the stuffing start to set. If you don’t want to fry the shumai, you can continue to steam for an additional 4-5 minutes

To fry, allow shumai to air dry for 10 minutes. Heat oil in a frying pan and fry until golden brown.

Serve with soy ginger dipping sauce and thinly shaved green onion.

Adapted from a recipe from Josh Hopkins of Empire State South.

Makes: 10 shumai dumplings. Per dumpling: 139 calories (percent of calories from fat, 23), 6 grams protein, 21 grams carbohydrates, trace fiber, 4 grams fat (trace saturated fat), 9 milligrams cholesterol, 255 milligrams sodium.