Cocktails & Canapes for Women's World Cup 2015: Germany Quarter Final

The Women's World Cup Football quarter finals start today and the first game is Germany vs France, billed on the Fifa website as a 'Titanic duel', I am hoping for an exciting game. I have picked Germany for my canape and cocktail theme and not for the first time meatballs are making an appearance and these have a hint of caraway flavouring.

The cocktail is a wheat beer/orange mix, and very much a first for me. I'm finding it a bit weird but I'm not sure wheat beer is my favourite style of beer. It is a long time since I tried some Belgian fruit beers but this reminded me a little of that slight shock of the two flavours together.

 My meatball recipe comes from germanfood.about.com but instead of all beef I used half home minced leg of pork and half home minced topside of beef. I reduced the caraway to just a pinch and left out the parsley.This gave a very lean but well flavoured meatball that was served with a little sliced gherkin and a spot of mustard. The meatballs were just pan fried and cooked up to a nice golden brown.

The Citrus Beer Cocktail is based on a recipe from Foodie Misadventures

1 500ml bottle of German wheat beer

40ml citrus flavored vodka
20ml Grand Marnier or orange liqueur
60ml freshly squeezed orange juice
Orange slice to garnish

Carefully pour the beer into a tall chilled glass leaving any sediment behind.

Add the citrus vodka, Grand Marnier and the orange juice to the glass and stir slowly to mix.

Garnish the glass with a slice/wedge of orange.