HOOSIER WOMEN

Acorn Squash, Bacon and Heirloom Bean Bake with Farm Eggs

Serves 4–6

½ pound bacon, cut into ¼-inch pieces 1 acorn squash, skin removed, diced into ½-inch pieces ½ cup onion, diced Pinch of salt and pepper 1 cup cream 2 cups cannellini, pinto and red kidney beans, cooked and drained 4 sprigs fresh sage, minced 6 farm eggs ½ cup goat cheese (or a local triplecream-style cheese)

In a 12-inch cast-iron skillet over medium heat, add bacon and cook until fat is rendered and bacon is almost crispy. Remove bacon from skillet, but leave the fat.

Add squash and onions. Season with pinch of salt and pepper. Cook until squash gets a little color and onions turn translucent.

Add cream, beans, bacon and sage to skillet. Bring to a simmer. Reduce liquid by about half, or until it starts to thicken slightly. When mixture has a stew consistency, crack eggs evenly onto surface. Dot with cheese. Cover with lid or aluminum foil.

Keep over medium to low heat. Egg whites should be set and yolks runny. Crack pepper over top and serve from skillet. Whole Duck in a Dutch Oven with Apples, New Red Potatoes and Cabbage

Serves 4

4–5 pounds fresh whole duck Salt and pepper to taste Enough twine to truss a duck 2 Idared apples, cut into chunks 8 sprigs thyme 1 rib celery, cut into fourths Oil to coat pan ½ large onion, diced 12 garlic cloves, whole Pinch of salt ½ head cabbage, cut into wedges ½ pound large new red potatoes, diced 2 carrots, cut into chunks ½ cup beer, wine or vegetable broth

Season the duck, inside and out, with generous amount of salt and a few cracks of pepper. Stuff the cavity with a few chunks of apple, sprigs of thyme and celery. Truss the duck.

Allow the bird to come to room temperature and salt to dissolve into meat, about 30 minutes. Pat dry.

In large Dutch oven over medium heat, add light sheen of oil. Sear breast side until fat begins to render and skin browns, about 10–15 minutes. Flip bird over. Repeat browning. Remove bird and keep ¼ inch of fat in pan.

Add onion, garlic cloves and pinch of salt to pan. Cook until translucent and garlic begins to soften, but not burn. Add cabbage wedges, potatoes, carrots and remaining apple.

Set duck inside nest of vegetables and ½ cup beer, wine or vegetable broth. Cover. Cook slowly without disturbing for about 1½ hours. Allow pot to rest at least 15 minutes before carving.

Caramelized Pear, Black Walnut Snickerdoodle Cake with Brown Sugar–Cinnamon Sour Cream

Serves 6-8

For the cake:

1¼ cup all-purpose fl our 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 tablespoon cinnamon 1 stick soft butter, plus 1 teaspoon for skillet 1¼ cups sugar, divided into 1 cup and ¼ cup ½ teaspoon salt 2 eggs ¼ cup black walnuts, toasted 1 cup buttermilk 2 pears, fi rm but ripe, cut into eighths*

For the brown sugar–cinnamon sour cream:

½ cup crème fraiche (or sour cream) 3 tablespoons brown sugar 1 teaspoon cinnamon Pinch of salt

Sift the dry ingredients together in medium bowl. Set aside.

In another bowl, cream the butter, 1 cup sugar and salt. Add eggs 1 at a time. Scrape sides of bowl and incorporate dry ingredients. Add nuts and slowly incorporate buttermilk until batter is loose enough to fall from a spoon, but not liquid.

Place cast-iron skillet over fi re or low fl ame. Add 1 teaspoon of butter and melt slightly. Add to the skillet ¼ cup sugar and pears. Set tightly into pan and heat until pears begin to gain a little color. Pour batter over caramelized pears, gently tapping skillet to evenly spread batter over pears.

Bake covered in campfi re until center is almost set (approximately 25 minutes), or bake in oven at 425°F. Remove from heat. Allow to rest for about 10 minutes until cake is set.

Serve with butter and the brown sugar–cinnamon sour cream.

* Any seasonal fruit (peaches, apples, blueberries, mulberries) can be substituted.

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We consider local, product we pick up from the producers while making our daily deliveries.

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Sugar Creek Malt Co.

BY RACHEL D. RUSSELL | PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARY MCCLUNG | ILLUSTRATIONS BY CARYN SCHEVING

The rain this June and July in Central Indiana was exhausting. Th ose of us in the area spent a large portion of our time spying for sunrays in the horizon and shaking our wind-battered umbrellas free of raindrops. So as I sat and watched the deluge drown my idea of summer, I hoped it wouldn’t rear its ugly head on July 16. Th is was Sugar Creek Malt Co.’s fi eld day and open house in Lebanon. Edible Indy had been invited and the excitement was building.

Why so much excitement? Th at’s where the aff able Michalkes (pronounced like Milwaukee) come onto the scene with their contagious enthusiasm. Jim and Heather Michalke, along with their son, Caleb, and daughter-in-law, Whitney, have undertaken a venture lost in Indiana’s yesteryear: malting.

You might ask how this all came about. Jim is a hog and row-crop farmer in Lebanon, and his wife, Heather, assimilated to country life after being raised on the south side of Chicago, so Caleb grew up with the agriculture bug. He earned his degree from Purdue and taught for a couple of years before determining it wasn’t his path. Two years ago, the four family members came up with the concept of a farm focused on growing grains that could then be malted on location. One year ago they started cultivating that idea, and now here they are—providing “local malt for local beer” out of a retrofi tted barn in Lebanon.

But don’t be fooled … it didn’t come easy.

Wanting to dive into farming and malting grains, Caleb couldn’t get the information he needed locally (remember, yesteryear was a while ago). Th at’s when Caleb’s education began, which took him to North Dakota and Winnipeg. Th ere he learned about moisture, time, temperature, types of brew, enzymes—all of the magic that goes into malting for craft brew.

Armed with education and determination, Sugar Creek Malt Co. became a reality earlier this year and according to the Michalkes has now entered the fi eld of only 50 craft malt houses throughout the nation.

And on July 16, on a sparsely clouded, sunny summer day Central Indiana souls had been starving for, Sugar Creek Malt Co. had its open house.

During the event, guests were treated to a tour of the facility and an explanation of the careful process the grain, like barley, goes through before it fi lls its purpose of becoming part of “small batches of malt for craft breweries,” according to Caleb.

Amongst the guests were some of the 11 farmers throughout Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio, all within a 200 miles radius, Sugar Creek has contracted with to grow 200 acres of grains. (Th e Michalkes are personally growing 20 acres of barley, 20 acres of wheat and 20 acres of rye.) Th ese farmers are a proud and necessary part of a local circle of life—from fi eld to malt house to brewery. One farmer even leaned down with me to hold a piece of barley in her hand and point out

From Left to Right: Heather and Jim Michalke, Caleb and Whitney Michalke and a few of the farmers and brewers making chit happen.

Look closely and you can see the chit sprouting out of each piece.

the diff erence between two- versus six-row varieties. And while only 100–150 of this year’s planted acres can be used—back to that pesky rain that drenched Indiana in early summer—looking forward Sugar Creek hopes to increase this number to 400 acres.

So what exactly is the malting process? It begins with placing the grain, let’s say barley here, in storage tanks. From there, it’s moved for cleaning to a 1948 Clipper machine, which has been totally restored and, according to Whitney “separates the bad from the good.” Th en, the barley is soaked in a steep tank for 2–3 days in a germination room. During this time, each piece of tiny barley goes through an important metamorphosis—this is when chitting happens.

“Chitting is a very important part of the malting process.” Caleb told those of us on the tour looking to see exactly what that meant and seeing each piece of barley sprouting what looked like a little threaded tail out of one end.

And once the chitting occurs, those little barley bits are sent to germinate further on a pneumatic germ fl oor or on a malting fl oor for approximately four days. And germination is a tricky business, according to Caleb, as they analyze each batch to ensure quality.

After germinating, the chit-sprouting barley is dried in a machine special ordered from the East Coast, and based off of tobacco drying machine technology, because small-scale malting equipment is not easy to fi nd. After installation, and a tweak or two from the company that installed it and a local individual who defi nitely had a learning curve, the result is only about a fi ve point temperature diff erential, which according to Caleb is the key to good drying.

Th en, the barley is placed into a machine that “debeards” each piece—bye bye chit!—then it’s cleaned one last time before being bagged and stored. Th e end destination of this malted goodness produced up to two tons at a time involves craft brew.

Th ere are four barley varieties currently in production at Sugar Creek: Scarlett, a German variety that produces traditional German malts; Conlon, a plump North American variety that will give brewers really high-extract yields; Full Pint, a variety specifi cally developed for the craft brewing industry for its fl avor; and Th oroughbred, which is Sugar Creek’s only six-row with lineage from French malting varieties and is good for Belgian-style ales. Th ey also have two rye varieties, a red wheat and, hopefully in the near future, spelt, which provides a nutty fl avor for beers; buckwheat, which is gluten-free; and oats, which add thickness and foam retention in beer. Right now, Sugar Creek Malt Co. is working on what they call several base malts out of their tworow varieties—pilsner, pale ale, Vienna and Munich. Th ey are also “playing around with the sixrow variety and making some darker, more fl avorful six-row malts,” Caleb said. As if that wasn’t enough to get your taste buds going, by the end of the year this oneof-a-kind Indiana business hopes to have their roasting and smoking facility up and running to off er a line of smoked malts showcasing the range of fl avors barley off ers. One of the last remaining questions for beer geeks and neophytes remains: How does the malt taste when brewed? At the open house, Great Crescent Brewery (Aurora) was pouring beer made with Sugar Creek’s malt. I think those who gave it a try would agree—local through and through never tasted so good.

Learn more about Sugar Creek Malting Co. at SugarCreekMalt.com or by emailing caleb@sugarcreekmalt.com.

Rachel D. Russell is the managing editor of Edible Indy. She has a passion for food, second only to writing, and enjoys hearing about how food has shaped lives. She is always interested in comments and ideas for new stories. She can be reached at editor@edibleindy.com.

As part of the process, barley is placed in a pneumatic germ floor. Sugar Creek Malt Co. is located in Lebanon.

After the initial cleaning process, the barley is soaked in a steep tank for two to three days in a germination room.