Roasted garlic beer cheese dip

 

One of the main football-watching food groups seems to be something questionable involving molten cheese and another is beer, so naturally you combine them if possible.

I was looking for a slightly better version of a beer cheese dip, and ran across this one on the Beeroness site, an online repository devoted to the intersection of food and craft beer. I filed it away under recipes to possibly try for a game day, noting that I had most of the ingredients on hand already, which isn't surprising since it involves many of my usual suspects. 

Oddly, the one thing we didn't have was a Saison or an IPA, the odds of which seem slim in our house, but Dude: inventory control. We were at South Lyndale remedying that shortcoming and other deficiencies when I happened to notice the very beer (Saison du BUFF) she was raving about having used in the dip. 

Sign taken.

Roasted garlic and Parmesan beer cheese dip

From thebeeroness.com

Ingredients

2 heads of garlic, roasted and peeled

12 ounces cream cheese, room temperature

1¾ cups grated Parmesan cheese, divided

6 ounces grated smoked Gouda

1 cup beer (she calls for a Saison or IPA)

1 teaspoon Sriracha

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon pepper

1 tablespoon cornstarch

¼ chopped green onions

Method

Preheat oven to 350.

Mix cream cheese and roasted garlic in a food processor. Add 1½ cups grated Parmesan cheese, Gouda, beer, Sriracha, salt, pepper and cornstarch. Blend well.

Pour into a medium baking dish. Top with remaining ¼ cup grated Parmesan. Bake for 35 minutes or so until golden and puffy. Top with green onions and serve warm.

Note: To roast garlic, score the top tip of the head all the way around the outside, not cutting through. Place each head on a square of tin foil. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Wrap up in foil and bake for 30 minutes at 425. When cool enough to handle, squeeze out pulp and discard skins.

Rating: It's tasty melted cheese. I felt like it wants just a bit more garlic? But no one will complain if you serve this because it's not polite to snark about food with your mouth full of hot tasty cheese.

Now about that beer: I thought the description had been a tad glowing, as craft beer sites are wont to be. It often seems as if they've run out of adjectives and only hyperbole remains. But. She was not wrong. This is a really, really, really nice beer that I wouldn't tell you about but I'm pretty sure no one is really reading this anyway so the secret is safe. It's a combined release in stages from three breweries; the current one is from Dogfish Head. It's brewed with parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. No, it does not taste like stuffing, but you could drink it with that. Or with pretty much anything, because it's food friendly. Wonder if the house brewmaster would care to experiment with our own herbs next year?