If you go to the Compass Brewery website (www.compassbrewery. com) you will see that Mattias is developing a recipe page featuring dishes that can be flavoured with his beers. This recipe calls for cremini mushrooms, or morels. I used a mixture of wild mushrooms, including morels, and that worked fine. In applying a Scandinavian twist to this recipe by Lucy Saunders, Mattias gives elk or moose as the main ingredient. Fortunately he also suggests beef sirloin — rather more readily available!

Lucy Saunders’s recipe is taken from her book The Best of American Beer and Food: Pairing & Cooking with Craft Beer (Boulder, CO: Brewers Publications, 2007) and is reproduced by kind permission of the publisher. YOU WILL NEED 1lb (450g) elk, moose or beef sirloin roast, well trimmed 2 tbspns olive oil 2oz (50g) butter One medium onion, diced fine Three shallots, diced fine ½lb (275g) sliced cremini mushrooms or a mix of cremini and morels 12 fluid oz Baltic Night stout ½ pt beef broth 1pt sour cream, lightly warmed Salt and freshly-ground black peppercorn to season 1lb (450g) egg noodles or pasta cooked al dente.

METHOD Cut meat into thin slices about an inch long and cook over a medium to high heat in a large pan to which the olive oil has been added. Cook until just browned.

Remove meat, reserving the juices.

Add butter to the meat juices. Heat and sauté mushrooms and shallots until translucent, then add mushrooms and sauté together for a further two minutes.

Add the meat to the mushroom mix.

While the mushroom mix is cooking, heat the stout in another pan until it begins to steam, then add the beef stock to the stout and bring to high heat.

Add the meat mixture to the boiled liquid, lower the heat and simmer over a lower heat for about 30 minutes.

Stir in the warmed sour cream and simmer with a lid for a further eight to ten minutes, season to taste and serve over cooked pasta.