Cooking With Beer

[Airgead]

Folks

I was bottling up a brown ale the other day and due to a slight miscount of bottles I ended up with about a litre left and no bottles to put it in. I was too lazy to wash any more and too cheap to tip it out. I could have drunk it but a litre of warm, flat, green beer at 11am didn't appeal so I tipped it into a jug and carried it to the kitchen to see if inspiration would strike. It did -

Brown ale and pepper stew

Take 1kg stewing steak (chuck, shin, something like that) and cut into cubes.
Season soem flour with salt and pepper and toss the meat cubes in the mix.
Heat some oil in a pan till really hot and brown the meat well on all sides.
Place in a casserole dish.
Add some roughly chopped onion, a bay leaf and a sprig or two of thyme.
Lots of cracked pepper
Salt to taste
A teaspoon of pickled green pepercorns
Pour over 1 litre of brown ale (or any dark beer)
Place in moderate oven and cook for 2-3 hours. Meat should be very tender and there should be plenty of sauce left. If the sauce is too thin add some water.
When done, stir a teaspoon or two of cornflour into a cup of milk and add to the dish. Cook another 20 mins or so till the sauce thickens.
Serve with crusty bread and some greens.

Anyone else got some beer based recipes they can share?

Cheers
Dave

 

[Steve]

I do a mean stout n steak pie! The original receipe is for Guiness but I use my own stout. Almost exactly the same ingredients as your stew, even down to the bay leaves and thyme! - but I put mine a pie dish wish pastry! Heaven!

 

[deadly]

Chilli n Cheese Beer Bread
flour, salt, flat beer, cheddar cheese, sliced fresh chilli - mix and bake 45 min
mmmm

 

[bindi]

I drink beer when I cook, does that count.

 

[Mercs Own]

Cooking with beer is one of my favorite things!!! Last year I held a series of beer dinners at a pub in Brighton. The general theme was beer as an ingredient as opposed to the normal beer dinner where beer is matched with food. I charged $75 per head and served four course with four diferent beer and as I said each course was matched to a beer which was also part of the cooking ingredients. People loved the dinners but the ownership of the hotel changed and so the support also changed.

Would love to hold some more dinners and will let you guys know if when and where.

One of my favorite beer dishes - I have quite a few - is a beer risotto. The recipe follows. I use Hoegaarden for the seafood risotto but you could use redback, Mercs Own Peach Ale or schofferhoffer - they all add something unique to themselves!

Hoegaarden Seafood Risotto

Butter
Onion finely diced
100g speck finely chopped or use good smokey bacon bought vacuum packed in about 300g lots
300g arborio rice
One bottle 330ml Hoegaarden White
Chicken stock about 7 cups preferably home made or Massel brand powder is very good
Fresh coriander chopped
Fresh prawns 4 -5 per person - peeled
Fresh scallops 4 -5 per person if roe attached then separate from white meat and cook as per seafood
Fresh baby calamari or squid baby is more tender than adult 1 per person, cleaned and sliced


Ensure your stock is gently simmering on the stove.

Melt butter in to separate pan and add onion. Cook until translucent; add chopped speck and fry till browned but dont burn onion: add a little of the chopped coriander for flavor. Add rice and coat well with butter speck and onion mix. Add the contents of the bottle of Hoegaarden and stir rice thoroughly. Let the rice absorb the beer before adding your first ladle of simmering stock. Simply continue to stir rice whilst it absorbs the stock. Check heat the rice should not absorb the stock too fast or too slow. 6 -7 cups of stock should take around half an hour to stir in.

Before putting in the last ladle of stock add the cleaned and prepared seafood Allow to cook for a few minutes then add the last ladle of stock and the remainder of the coriander. Once at the right consistency turn off heat add salt and pepper if desired serve and eat.

Note: depending on how long the rice took to cook you may not need to use all the stock or you may need extra. Keep on tasting as you cook, testing for how it is absorbing and whether or not you want to add more herbs or seasoning. You can also add the prawns in the shell for more flavour but I find it too messy to eat that way.

Serve with a simple green salad or put peas in the Risotto - I prefer the peas!

Cheers

 

[bindi]

Hoegaarden Seafood Risotto WOW that looks yum.

About my limit [so far] is beer in a pasta sauce, tried stout in a pie once it tasted only fair at best.

 

[Airgead]

Last year I held a series of beer dinners at a pub in Brighton. The general theme was beer as an ingredient as opposed to the normal beer dinner where beer is matched with food. I charged $75 per head and served four course with four diferent beer and as I said each course was matched to a beer which was also part of the cooking ingredients. People loved the dinners but the ownership of the hotel changed and so the support also changed.

Would love to hold some more dinners and will let you guys know if when and where.

[post="84195"][/post]​

Count me in if you ever do.

If you supply the food then my backyard will fit about 30 people comfortably On chairs even

Hoegaarden Seafood Risotto

[post="84195"][/post]​

That really looks the business. I think I've worked out what to do with a couple of botles of Braggot I forgot to put the sugar in (don't ask).

Cheers
Dave

 

[RichLum]

I usually add a longneck of choc porter when I make a beef stew.
Makes it real nice.
Used an amber ale once and that was ok too... a bit sweeter and not as bitter...

Might have to try adding it to pasta sauce too...

Rich

 

[Mercs Own]

One of the things that gets my goat is when you go to a really good seafood restuarant or pub and they do a beer battered fish and chips plate. Usually when you ask what beer they used for the batter the waiter needs to go and ask - not a good sign. Then they come back and say VB!!!! Well I dont know about you but I dont like my beer batter tasting like wet cardboard!

Get smart with your beer batter: Deep fried battered oysters with Guiness or Coopers special aged Stout batter. Prawns in a batter made with Pilsner - Stella, Urqual, Matilda Bay Pils, Budvar etc. What about some chillie battered calamari with a batter of Red Hill Golden Ale(actually a Kolsch) or even Roof Top Red or even Little Creatues. A nice bit of whiting in a wheat beer batter - Hogaarden, Redback or Duval. If you felt crazy try doing some battered scallops using Cherry Lambic or just a Gueze??!! Mind you I cant find any Gueze around - if you know where I can get it in Melb let me know.

But you get my point. There is much much much more to beer batter than what we usually get and what most people think of.

I might go and make some fish and chips!

 

[kook]

I cook with beer roughly once a fortnight, sometimes several times a week.

Beer is so much more versitile than wine to cook with, and the flavours can vary so drastically.

I'll post some of my recipes when I've fixed my home notebook. The most common things we cook with beer are mussels, bread, stews and sauces

There's a couple of my recipes on the IBS website too if anyones interested.

 

[peas_and_corn]

Chilli n Cheese Beer Bread
flour, salt, flat beer, cheddar cheese, sliced fresh chilli - mix and bake 45 min
mmmm

[post="84191"][/post]​

what beer do you use??

and what proportions of what?? I like cooking but don't do it enough, so I like being told how much of what I should have

 

[Wortgames]

Be careful of overdoing it with the more bitter beers though. I made what should have been a fantastic lamb and stout stew a few months back while we were camping.

About a pint and a half of stout went into it (OK, probably not working the brain cells too hard at this point...) and boy did it come up bitter. I thought I must have burnt some plastic in it or something, it was harsh.

Strangely enough a few of the other folks loved it. They must have been a lot hoppier-headed than I am!

 

[Jazzafish]

The simplest method I find... keep in mind I am talking for the simple cheffs... is to add beer to onions while roasting them on the BBQ. Basically, onions will take in any flavour they can... but red wine onions and a juicy T bone/rump is one of my personal favourites...

did I mention wine on a beer forum? Is that a sin bin offence?

 

[THE DRUNK ARAB]

This recipe never fails to impress. I have used a Dubbel, Leffe Blonde clone and Porter when making this.

http://www.abc.net.au/passions/current/cp10w005.htm

C&B
TDA

 

[deebee]

Saw someone on telly the other day making Welsh rare-bit (a cheesy roux with egg yolks spread on toast and grilled) and using about a cup of stout reduced by three-quarters added to the roux.

 

[Mercs Own]

When cooking with stout if you reduce it down you can certainly end up with a fairly bitter sauce - in fact reducing down any beer tends to leave a fairly bitter sauce. Nothing wrong with it espeacially if you pair it up with dark chocolate and some chilli and pour it over some braised chicken or turkey thighs.

 

[somnar]

The James Squire Porter roasted chicken is absolutely delicious...
http://www.malt-shovel.com.au/frames.asp?page=brews.asp

and this stout cake is great too...
http://www.coopers.com.au/media/files/10.pdf

 

[johnno]

Dont forget this site in the links section.

http://www.beercook.com/index.html

johnno

 

[Murray]

Not cooking with beer, but the humble spent grain bread shouldn't be forgotten.

 

[Wortgames]

I've tried Beer Can BBQ Chook with Melbourne Bitter and it was quite good - probably better with a real beer though.

Basically, you open a can of beer and slide your chook down over it, and sit the whole thing upright in a kettle BBQ.

The beer boils to steam and flavours and moistens the chook from inside while its cooking.