I have been in a German frame of mind recently.  We are running a small Oktoberfest and we have brewed an Oktoberfest lager and our annual rauchbock .

These two food recipes both are inspired by Schlenkerla who amazingly post recipes to some of the dishes in the tavern on their website, you can find it here.
Bamberg Onions are onions hollowed out and then stuffed with the minced onion core, pork, smoked pork and a few herbs and spices. They are served in a gravy made with smoked lager and they are a bastion of savoury, hearty, gastronomic comfort.

Obatzda is a delicious dip made of aged soft cheese, butter, mayonnaise , and hot paprika topped with onion. Perfect beer drinking snack served with crusty bread.

Bamberg Onions

Ingredients

8 big onions
400 g pork mince
150 g smoked pork shoulder (could use bacon lardons)
8 slices smoked bacon
250ml Smoke beer
salt, black pepper, white pepper, garlic powder
1 egg
bread crumbs from 2 pieces of toast
chopped parsley
chopped spring onions
100ml brown meat stock
Beurre Manié made from 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 tablespoon of flour

Peel the onions, cut approx. 1 cm off of the root end. I actually chose the other end as my onions sat better on the root end.

Carefully make cuts to the internal portion of the onions and then use a fork to scoop out the onion until the sides are approx 1 cm thick.

Put the smoked pork and then the insides of the onion through a meat grinder or blitz in a food processor. Dry the minced onion in a sieve.

Mix the results with the pork mince, egg, bread crumbs, spices and the parsley and spring onion.

Fill the 8 onions, fry the bacon rashes and cover each in a rasher, then pop the lid back on.  

Roast in a casserole with some water and without lid for about an hour at 200°C.

When done, remove onions from casserole. Pour the drippings from the casserole into a skillet; add brown meat stock, Beurre Manié, salt and pepper and the smoke beer; heat and stir until the gravy becomes thick.

Serve with mashed potatoes or boiled potatoes.

Obatzda

Ingredients

2/3rds ripe white mold or washed rind cheese

1/3 softened butter

1 tablespoon of mayonnaise (more if lots of cheese and butter, just enough to lubricate the texture)

Enough pinches to taste of hot paprika or cayenne powder

Salt and pepper to taste

Optional a teaspoon of bock beer.

Sliced raw onions and sliced spring onions to garnish

Mash together everything with a fork except the garnishes.

Garnish and serve with crusty bread.