- Today on George Hirsch Lifestyle, I visit a North Fork craft beer producer on the East End that brews and grows its own hops and yeast.

Then, my good buddy, Alex, joins me and we share the three rules for a perfect fish fry with an ale spin.

Back in the kitchen, I'm cooking an IPA leek and onion soup.

And my spin on shrimp Louis salad, fresh from the farm.

Plus, everyone's soon-to-be favorite, stout ice cream float with chocolate chip cookies.

(upbeat music) - Long Island Farm Bureau is a proud presenter of George Hirsch Lifestyle.

Long Island farmers continue their commitment to providing abundant, fresh commodities.

Supporting farmers and the local agriculture community for over 100 years.

(soft guitar music) - A farmer and a scientist walk into a craft brewery.

This isn't a joke, these are the type of young, talented people leading the resurgence of quality beverages in America today.

Take me through your process of, don't give me a recipe, - Yeah, yeah, yeah (laughs) - I know, but-- But, walk me through like a typical brewing process.

- Yeah, so it all starts with the recipe.

You have to do research, our research is drinking beer, so that's kinda nice.

Not a bad research process.

- Not a bad-- But you work on writing a recipe.

Through the years of starting small and kind of growing into larger systems, it's kind of nice because you can scale recipes more appropriately, you're not just starting with 200 gallons.

You're working your way up from one to five to whatever system.

You might work 30, 60 gallons.

You start with the grain and for us, as a New York state farm brewery, we purchase our grain from the upstate region.

Although, there's a venture down here on Long Island coming up soon that they'll be growing and malting barley down here, which is wonderful.

So we start with the grain and we mill it.

It then incorporates into what we call the mash tun.

We're blending water and the grain and hydrating it, soaking it, extracting sugar.

- Like, Like making a tea.

- Exactly, exactly and so it starts as like a giant oatmeal.

You filter all this beautiful sugar water into a boil kettle, you boil, and you add your hops and different ingredients.

- Being able to pull from local farms for seasonal beers is a huge thing that we incorporate into the brewery as well.

Whether it be butternut squash for a seasonal, fall beer.

We have a butternut squash ale that we do for the fall time that people very much enjoy, or whether it's just pulling other herbs or spices or things like that, or coffee that you can find locally roasted.

We incorporate a lot of things like that into the beer.

Another actually being native yeasts.

With my background in biology, I'm able to actually isolate and cultivate, propagate, and use wild yeasts in our beers.

What that really translates to is a beer that incorporates a large amount of terroir, a very translatable, tastable amount of terroir in the beer because you're literally tasting what grows around the home of where the beer's made.

You're tasting that fermenting the beer.

- What's next on your recipe list?

What's your - Well-- what's your reach?

- Yeah, so we're coming into spring.

So things are going to start to be budding and growing.

I mean, the hop farm is gonna be busting at the seams soon.

Of all ingredients that I'm excited to use, spruce tips.

We have a lot of tree farms and the little neon green tips that grow off the spruce trees, they have this wonderful, herbal, almost pine-like character.

And so that's kinda next, is designing a light-bodied beer that uses the local spruce tips as the flavoring agent.

You know, we'll still use the hops that we grow and incorporate in beers, but it will be the main aroma and flavoring agent to it.

And then I get excited 'cause we have a herb farm just down the road, Peconic Herb Farm.

Super excited to kinda walk around and see what different herbs they have going on this coming year.

And yeah, I don't know and then summertime, who knows?

We just get, we just get wild.

- You're just like a chef.

You get inspired, you go out into the fields and see what comes out.

- Absolutely, absolutely.

- Farm to table goes far beyond food.

Growing and harvesting hops to using local herbs and crops.

These two brewers flavor their craft beer with seasonal ingredients paired with creative chef-like recipes and a touch of science.

(upbeat music) - So how well do you know your leek?

A leek is just not another great winter vegetable, but a great addition to your casseroles, soups, and stews.

Commonly thought of as used in a vichyssoise, a potato and leek soup.

A leek is going to give great flavor and taste to fish, shellfish, chicken, and other recipes where you might normally use the onion.

One of the most important things, when cooking with leeks, is the cleaning and the preparation.

You must split the leek down lengthwise, cut off the root, and then wash between each and every layer of the leek.

Since they grow in the ground, they are gonna be sandy.

Use leeks in the next time you're preparing an onion dish and you'll be glad you did.

(upbeat music) It's time to elevate your onion soup with an IPA leek and onion soup.

So let's get started.

I have here some leeks, which have been cut and washed.

Now what I want to do is just shave the leeks down.

And the general rule with cutting vegetables for soups is try and keep all of the vegetable, whether it's, in this case leeks or carrots or whatever you're cutting, about the same size as the soup spoon.

Therefore, when you dig with the soup and into the spoon in the mouth, it's not flopping everywhere.

You just get a beautiful mixture of vegetable and soup.

So once all the beautiful whites, I've already cut the greens, have been cut down, we'll put them in with about 2/3 leeks to 1/3 sweet onion.

And I always use a sweet onion, I don't use Spanish onions because it has a much higher sugar content, which is actually going to give you a much sweeter, in this case, soup.

So next, I'm going to add in because it's a mixture of onions, we have the white onions, sweet onions, the leeks.

Next, I'm going to do is add a shallot.

(knife slicing) And we'll just roughly cut the shallot just to add in another onion flavor.

And I just did a couple criss-crosses.

(knife slicing) Just that when it goes into the pot, it adds in another onion flavor.

So for the IPA leek and onion soup, I'm not using typically, in a French soup I'd be using a white wine, in this case, I'm using an IPA.

If for some reason there's another beer or ale that you like, generally the flavor's the essence of the beer itself and the hops and the barley or the malt, will transcend in that.

It will not have an alcohol taste because you're going to cook it out.

So here we have our beautiful white onions, our sweet onions, shallots and leeks.

We need to pre-heat a soup pot to a low to medium temperature because we want to slowly caramelize the sugars in all those onions.

And then we'll add our IPA to make it a full-bodied soup.

When the soup pot is at a low-medium temperature, add two tablespoons of olive oil.

(upbeat music) Add the chopped leeks, onion and a shallot.

Stir, season with salt, pepper, thyme and two bay leaves.

Add one cup of beer, simmer for two minutes.

Add two quarts vegetable broth.

A half a teaspoon hot sauce, then stir.

Cover, bring to a boil.

Remove cover, stir and gently simmer 25 to 30 minutes.

Okay, it's time to plate up our beautiful onion soup.

And oh my goodness, is that soup just smelling magnificent with the leeks, the onions, the shallots, and the IPA, the star of the moment, the star of the moment.

Now to finish off the onion soup, I made some beautiful cheese toasts.

Some nice hearty rounds of whole grain bread that can just sit right on top of your soup with a mixture of Gruyere and Parmesan.

And there you have it, an elevated version of a classic, an IPA leek and onion soup.

I know you're gonna love it.

(upbeat music) Shrimp Louis or Shrimp Louis, it all depends upon what you want to call it.

Originating from New Orleans, from Antoine's, it basically is a very spicy, but not hot, salad dressing that has a number of condiments in it and the base of the salad dressing, the vinaigrette, is a mustard or in this case, a creole mustard.

So to the creole mustard, I'm going to add in one clove of garlic and just let that mix around.

The next I'm going to add in is a little bit of lemon.

Now the lemon juice is going to act as an acid or a vinegar.

And what I wanna do is just get some fresh lemon juice out of (lemon squelching) the lemon.

Pour the lemon juice right in and now you're starting with the base, mustard, lemon juice.

It's the same as if it was gonna be a vinegar.

I've had many versions of this salad, but this is one of my favorite, with the mustard, the lemon, paprika, couple drops of hot sauce.

So I'm adding in all my seasonings now.

And now we're going to make it a little bit more on the creamier side, some chili sauce.

Now, it is called a shrimp Louis, it's not necessarily a refrigerator salad dressing, but it seems like it does have a lot of condiments, but there is a purpose for it and there is certainly a benefit of all these ingredients.

So you have the little bits of garlic that was in that lemon juice and that acid from the lemon juice, actually it didn't cook the garlic, but it did soften it and it did bring a little bit more of the flavor out.

You can put about a teaspoon of horseradish.

And now it'll start to change.

I mean, you could almost stop the salad at this point, but we add a little bit of sweetness by adding a couple tablespoons of ketchup.

And now for the main ingredients, some diced plum tomatoes.

Starting to see how beautiful this is, right?

Some fresh chives, some fresh chopped chives and some diced hard-boiled egg.

So now you can see how it's a very hearty salad.

It's almost like a version of a Thousand Island, but this truly is a wonderful dressing for the seafood.

Okay, now we can put this in the fridge for maybe about an hour.

All those flavors will come together and then we can assemble the salad.

Okay, let's start to assemble our crab Louis.

What I'm going to use here is some beautiful hydroponic Boston.

You can just take and pull out the root, the stem end of it.

We just wanna get a nice wedge of the greens.

What I like to use is avocado.

There are a few versions of it.

An to cut the avocado, you just wanna make one incision.

A pairing knife works fine, it works fine with a fruit that is small as this.

Just take and turn it, just take and turn it and it splits in half.

And then take your avocado, now if you wanna just slice it, you make one incision this way, all the way until you hit the skin, just with the tip, just with the tip of your knife.

Then you take a spoon, start from the big end and just cut that avocado and you see perfect slices will come out.

Next we're gonna take the main part of our dish, our shrimp, and we're going to just take our shrimp and just slide it over on the plate.

There's two different ways you could approach plating this.

You could mix it in right in with the dressing.

But I like to actually take the dressing and just let it lightly flavor the shrimp.

And of course, you could always put a little dressing on the side to serve along with the greens.

So because it's a very, very light salad, there's no need for anything more on the part with the greens and the avocado, then just a little bit of fresh olive oil, some sea salt, (pepper grinder grinding) some fresh ground black pepper over the entire salad.

Take some fronds from the fennel, put them on top, little bit of alfalfa sprouts, some nice pea shoots, and right before you do serve, just drizzle a little bit more lemon juice over the entire salad.

And there you have it, a very simple and fresh shrimp Louis.

- Hah, fish fry waterside.

(man laughs) Alex, I get you into a lot of different jams but this is pretty cool.

- Yeah, I mean, this is pretty awesome.

But why don't you explain to me what you got going on here because you have a lot of different things that I haven't seen on one of our outdoor cookouts yet.

- Well, I've had the pleasure of being able to do fish fries with the Cajuns.

I've been able to do fish fries with the Navajos in the mountains on horseback.

Well, we weren't frying on horseback.

(man laughs) But we stopped.

But the same basic rules really apply to a good, successful fish fry and there's generally just three rules.

Rule Number One, safety first.

Okay, always make sure that you're using the right type of oil, in this case today we're going to use a peanut oil for our fish fry 'cause it has very high smoking point, flash point, that it won't combust.

The second part of that safety is never have the oil more than half way up the sides of your pan, the level of your pan because as you add your fish or whatever you're frying, naturally it's going to come up.

- Come up.

And this is rule Number Two, is also what you're using to fry in.

It should be a heavy gauge, heavy metal, good heat conductor because again, you'll have even heat displacement all the way through and you know it's going to also hold up to the hot temperatures.

- Yeah, but one thing that I think is important to remember, too, is that it's gonna hold that heat for a long time.

So when you're done with your fish fry, you shut your burner off, you're not gonna just dump that oil out right away.

It's gonna hold that temperature for hours after.

- No, you're not frying and walking, that's for sure.

Okay, and that also goes back to the first rule of safety first, of course.

The third and foremost and the reason why you want to have a fish fry or any type of fry is that crunch.

The crunch on what you're cooking, that's the goal.

Put it on a screen or a wire when it comes out.

Let it drip for a moment or two and serve it immediately.

It's not something that you can make a day ahead when you fry it up.

- No.

- It has to be at the moment - Not even an hour ahead.

- And not even an hour ahead and if you are making it for a group like we have a group coming down, we're gonna do it in batches and let everybody, if they're waiting a moment or two, but you know what, when they get it on their plate, them are gonna be good eats.

(man laughs) That's for sure, that's for sure.

That'll be the crunch and that's a success.

This is the most incredible cod, the ideal fish.

And that's another good point as far as when you're selecting the fish.

What do you want to choose?

And it should be a very, very lean fish.

Pieces like this are good 'cause their almost like bite-sized, especially if you're having a fish fry, you're outside, you're walking around, you have a tall neck in one hand, a fish nugget in the other.

- Yeah, you don't want, no need two hands to take down one piece.

- That's it, that's it.

- What about the flour, what are we dredging it in?

- Well, we're dredging a little seasoned flour.

It's basically just an all-purpose, unbleached, organic flour.

We're using a all of natural flour with a little paprika.

You don't need that much because you want the flavor of the fish to come out.

If you're starting with a fish that's good quality, you don't have to hype it up with a lot of herbs and seasonings.

And then, secondly, is the batter, you know the beer batter, the flavor that you have from the natural beer that you're using in the batter is what makes the flavor of coming, and not only is it going to help aid in some of the leavening, but it's going to give you the character of the hops, the maltiness, et cetera.

What type of beer, Alex?

You use what you like and that's critically what's important.

But make sure you do use a fresh beer.

- Now one trick that I learned is that whenever you're frying something that's battered, go about half-way in the oil and then after you get just a little bit of a sear on the batter, then you can let it go and that just keeps it - Then you let it go.

From sticking to the bottom or the sides of your pot or pan.

- And, always when you're dropping it in, never drip towards you, always let it go away.

- How do you know when it's done?

- It's really by color.

You know the pieces themselves are very, very small.

They will not take long at all.

(oil bubbling) - There's only one thing that's better than good, fried fish, is what you serve with it.

(man laughs) And I don't mean the ale or the IPA.

- Oh you know I'm a condiment man myself (laughs).

- Yes, it's all about the sauce, it's always about what goes with it.

- You have to respect condiments, I know you and I do.

We always - We do.

like to have our dipping sauces with every meal.

- It's all, it's all week.

Sometimes plan our own meals around dipping sauces, okay.

(man laughs) - So what are you gonna serve with this batch?

- We're gonna use a little bit of sweet chili mayonnaise, which is very, very easy.

The dressing's is 2/3 part mayonnaise, good quality mayonnaise, 1/3 sweet chili sauce and maybe a half a teaspoon of hot sauce in there of your choice and really it's ready to go after that.

- That's a versatile sauce, too.

That thing goes great on everything from fried fish to sliders and burgers.

- Now you see that there's a little bit of a orchestra playing here, with the snap, crackle, and pop.

And that's actually the moisture that's coming out of the fish.

- Out of the fish.

- And it's starting to come through the batter.

So it's talking to you and it's kinda saying, "Hey, hey George, hey Alex, I think - Ready to come out?

we're ready to come out.

We're ready to come out.

- Well it looks beautiful.

I mean this batter has the perfect thickness.

Again, just keep 'em at right consistency.

Too thick and it's gonna be clumpy and heavy and dense, and too thin and it's gonna be watery and you're not gonna have a nice coating like that.

I think that this batter that you made just has the perfect consistency.

- Truly, truly, truly is.

And you know what?

When you're doing a fish fry, maybe the buddy system works, too because we made a good team here.

(man laughs) You, the Big Dipper, - Yeah, that's-- me the Big Skimmer.

Traditionally, fish fries were a Lenten dinner with huge fish fries held every Friday night in communities across the country.

Sometimes known as a shore lunch, fisherman would fry up the catch right on the shore.

It doesn't matter where you live, if you're frying up catfish, cod or perch, the reason for having a fish fry is always the same.

It's more fun cooking and eating with family and friends and even better, when gathering in the great outdoors.

(upbeat music) So now is the time to put a smile on everyone's face.

We're going to serve a sweet, which is one of my personal favorites.

It's a stout float, made of course with stout beer and topped with a little bit of coffee ice cream.

Now you might think, beer and ice cream, ah, just hang on.

You're going to see stout itself is a wonderful, wonderful dessert flavor to it.

Coffee essence with a little hint of chocolate.

So just gently fill the glasses with the stout and then take a good scoop of coffee ice cream, put a scoop in each glass.

Top it off and finish it with a little more stout.

You can see that creamy, creamy head on top.

So this is something you'll definitely want to share with somebody you care about to put a smile on their face.

And don't forget the chocolate chip cookies, it won't hurt.

So there you have it, my comforting brew dishes to complement any occasion, an easy-to-prepare IPA leek and onion soup, and a shrimp Louis salad, and a perfect fish fry with beer batter cod, topped off with a refreshing stout and coffee ice cream float.

I'm George Hirsch, if I can do it, you can do it.

We'll see you real soon.

(upbeat music) For more on recipes, entertaining lifestyle tips, TV series blog, and selected video clips from today's show, join me at chefgeorgehirsch.com.

(gentle music) - To download and own episodes of George Hirsch Lifestyle, containing inspiring lifestyle segments, original recipes, and complete how-to, visit amazon.com or chefgeorgehirsch.com.

(upbeat music) - Long Island Farm Bureau is a proud presenter of George Hirsch Lifestyle.

Long Island farmers continue their commitment to providing abundant, fresh commodities.

Supporting farmers and the local agriculture community for over 100 years.

(serious music) (ethereal music)