Need Help with which ingredients to choose?

Mathieu_106691

So I was asked to cook at a family diner by my mother in law, and I am slowly getting the menu going, I wanna showcase the different ingredients associated with the region they live in.

So here's the thing, as a starter I was thinking of making something I call 'croquettes de fromage' which is somewhat similar to those fried cheesesticks, but in a round shape and instead of using mozzarella, I will be using herbs and fine cheese from the region, trying to make some sort of fried ball of cheese simply put.. that will be served on a root veggies salad made from an assortment of pickled, grilled and baked veggies served with a chive oil.

problem is that I want to add beer to that cheese mixture and I'm not really sure on how I should do it... that's where I need some suggestions.

Usually you would cover the cheese with seasoned breadcrumbs, so I don't see how I can really add a beer taste to breadcrumbs, I can't make a beer batter either as it wouldn't be the right texture.

I was thinking of mixing beer and tapioca maltodextrin and make some sort of powder that would be incorporated in my cold cheese mixture (solid), or make some sort of cheesy sauce with beer and then add agar agar to gelify it, would I be better off with Iota Carrageenan? (knowing that It needs to be fried)

Am I over complicating things or this seems about right?

Thank you for your inputs.

douglas_bd

Here's my thoughts, and maybe others can add to it. I haven't tried this, so just offering up what I'd try.

I would not add tapioca maltodextrin to beer. n-zorbit will powder oils, but release in the presence of water, and beer is mostly water, so this isn't likely to get you the desired result.

If you want to incorporate beer into the cheese, I'd follow the melty cheese recipe, but use beer for a portion of the milk as you emulsify with sodium citrate and SHMP. You could then blend in your herbs just prior to casting the cheese to allow it to set. Then you could cut into cubes, or whatever shape you wanted. Since you are looking to fry these off, I'd suggest maybe lowering the liquid level a bit in the recipe to get a firmer product when heated and/or using a batter to fry off the cheese to keep it from melting out as you fry it. I'm not sure how the herbs would hold up in the cheese, so you might want to run a test first.

Another option might be to make a flavorful fluid gel out of the beer and use that as a sauce on the plate, rather than incorporating into the cheese. May take some work to get the right flavor, but could be nice with a bright hoppy beer. You could also do some oil infusions of the herbs to incorporate them that way. Then all you need to worry about is the cheese croquettes and you could bring the other components in separately.

Another thought as I just re-read and saw you were looking for cheese balls. You could cast the melty cheese into hemisphere molds, then sandwich them together with a beer fluid gel in the middle.