VeggieDag Thursday: Watermelon Salad

Beer is a versatile cooking ingredient. Low enough in alcohol and acidity, it can be an almost one-for-one substitute for water in a recipe ... yet one with flavor. Malt, caramel, roast, toast, cocoa, meaty, spice, earthy.

But ... there is a reason you'll find recipes scaled for exactly 6 ounces of beer. The remaining 6 are reserved for the chef. Beer cuisine is as much pairing food with beer as it is cooking with it.

At lunch the other day it was a saison —
a Belgian-style ale with flavors of sweet cooking spices derived from yeast fermentation ... additionally spiced in the cask with dried peels of Mineola orange, lemon, lime, and with juniper and Cubeb (Japanese peppercorn) berries, coriander, dried fresh ginger, rosemary sprigs ... and additional hops.

with a salad—
Summer Melon & Cherry Tomato Salad
Watermelon, cantaloupe, honey dew melon, cucumber, tomatoes, blue cheese; tossed with ginger vinaigrette.

Together, a flavor riot. Beer cuisine ... and mighty tasty.

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Thursdays at Yours For Good Fermentables.com are meatless Thursdays —as inspired by VeggieDag in Ghent, Belgium.

Tom Balthazar [mayor of Ghent, Belgium] has officially declared Thursday meatless in his city of nearly a quarter million people. In an effort to make the connection between meat consumption and greenhouse gases (18 percent of which come from livestock production), Balthazar has asked his fellow civil servants to abstain from meat every Thursday.

Kim O'Donnel
Mighty Appetite
Washingtonpost.com

• Keeping with the 'good fermentables' aspect, I'll often inveigle beer or wine (or spirits) into VeggieDag.
  
• Submissions are welcome from chefs, homecooks, food writers, etc.