Wait! First – check out part 1 of this awesome article! It’ll teach you how to get ourself drunk and how to cook at the same time!
Since the dawn of civilization, or at least since the invention of the beer keg, people have been making the most of fermentation. Happily, these beverages are great in food as well.
If you are not permitted to take intoxicating drinks, a brief period of heating eliminates the alcohol. Here are some ideas to use up that pesky half-growler stealing space in the dorm refrigerator after a big party!
Beer makes chili even better! Routinely, in chili cook-offs (if you have a chance to attend one of these wonderfully idiosyncratic American phenomena, do so!) the top contenders seem to include at least a splash of beer at the beginning or the end, or both.
Chili is a great cheap way to feed large hungry crowds, and here is a BASIC rule for it:
Brown ground beef in a large frying pan, remove with slotted spoon, and pour off most of the fat. Sauté chopped onion/bell pepper in the remaining fat.
Add: beans (either home-cooked, or canned; drained, and rinsed), tomatoes (chopped fresh, or low-salt canned), cumin, coriander, oregano, hint of cinnamon, chili pepper, garlic, black pepper, bit of unsweetened cocoa, and of course, BEER! Let it cook to marry flavors
Serve with corn tortillas (flour tortillas are an invasive species). Amendments may be anything from rattlesnake meat to guacamole. Dairy garnishes make it Tex-Mex, because Mexico apparently had no indigenous dairy animals. Of course this is only one way cook with beer.
Beer is also one of the nicest ways to transform the cheapest cuts of pork such as picnic shoulder or Boston butt. Browning the outside adds depth. Pour beer over the pork and let simmer in a crock pot or heavy pot on a slow fire. Add bay leaves, pepper corns, mustard seeds, and walk away. When the pork is falling apart, remove it, and chill the juices overnight; lift off and dispose of the fat properly.
Thicken the defatted juices with a classic flour/butter roux, or make pulled pork in barbecue sauce. Something from the tomato family, molasses, a bit of vinegar, and black pepper, with the beery juices will do nicely, although you could add other exotica. Pull the meat to pieces, add sauce, serve in little potato rolls with Cole slaw, and accept the applause of your adoring dorm mates. Beer enhances cheap cuts of beef as well.
A complete meal results when you brown the beef, put it in either a slow cooker or oven roasting pan, with plenty of leftover beer, roughly chopped onion, carrots, celery, potatoes, garlic, green pepper, rosemary, thyme, parsley, marjoram, black pepper, and leave it on moderate heat for a long time. Take the meat out when it is cooked – test by poking with your finger – well done feels as firm as your forehead. You can thicken the juices with a roux of butter and flour. Voila, an elegant dinner, and you have made space in the fridge for food rather than partial bottles of beer!
Steam washed mussels in beer, with garlic, lemon slices, pepper corns, and a hint of chili flakes, for an incredibly simple, reasonable way to impress guests. Serve with bread for sopping up all those good juices. Mussels are cheaper than other shellfish.
Canned cheese soup is also more palatable, and usable as a sort of emergency Welsh rarebit, when thinned with some beer.
Keep reading for more boozily delicious ideas!
