Leftover beer cooking

Anyone who went out and bought any bottles of beer with "ator" at the end, like Maximator, Salvator Animator or whatever - well, they do NOT keep long, and the shelflife will be coming to an end pretty soon. Clearly, you could just drink the stuff, but why not use a bottle for a decent bot of cooking I say.

Beef cooked in beer or stout is pretty common fare in English pubs, and bloody right too - its got a fantastic wholesome rich flavour, and is also a great way to get the best out of beef in Germany.

Dead simple recipe, just needs loooong cooking.

500g beef - cubed
Get something cheap, don't waste your money on a lean cut
Flour
Butter
2 carrots
2 onions
Bundle of fresh mixed herbs or a good pinch of dried.
1 bottle of dark strong German beer
Blob of tomato puree (can even get away with a spoon of ketchup)
Good splash of worcester sauce if you have some.
1/2 lemon

Chop the onions roughly, or slice into 1/8ths. Peel carrots, cut in half, then cut those halves lenghtways.
Whack a frying pan on the hob, full heat. Whe hot, add a touch of oilive oil, a knob of butter,a nd the onions ans carrots. Fry until the onions are soft, then emty into a big pan.
Clean the frying pan out, and get it back on the heat.

Get a plate, and put a couple of big spoons of flour on it, a big pinch of salt, and some ground pepper. Roll al the beef in the flour mix, shake off excess, then thrown a know of butter in the pan, a splash of oil, and the flour dredged beef.
Fry the beef on all sides if you can - what you want to get is some caramelised colouring all over. You also might wanna fry the beef in 2 batches, so the pan does not overcrowd. If this happens, the pan will loose temperature, the meat will let alot more juice out, and the meat will in effect steam in the frying pan.Not good.
When the meat is browned, put it in a colander to relax. Yes, you will loose juices like like, but also, the excess fat will drain off. Very good.
Empty any fat from the pan, then put it back on the heat, and add a glug of beer. Witha wooden spoon, stir the pan up to get all the nice burnt crusty bits from when you browned the beef. Reduce a little, then our into the pan where the onions are. Add the rest of the beer to this pan too, and all the beef, then bring slowly to the boil.

As soon as it hits the boil, add the herbs, and tomato puree or ketchup. Can also chuck in some worcester here. Add a good pinch of salt, then recude the heat to a simmer,a nd cook, covered, on the hob for about 3 hours at the lowest setting.

At this point, you can throw in some muchrooms if you are into them.

Cook for another 30 minutes, then check the consistency of the sauce. If it needs thickening, mix one spoon butter with one spoon flour into a paste (called a buerre maniee) and add some to the sauce on a low heat stirring it in gently so not to break the beef up. Takes a few minutes to start thickening, but works brilliantly and gives a lovely finish to the sauce.

Thats about it. Add a goood squeezeof lemon juice to the casserole and stir well before serving. You can adda load of fresh chopped parsley to the beef at the end, and stir it in for a fresh edge to the flavour. Don't forget to check for salt and pepper too of course.

Serve it up with more beer, and some of those awesome German potato dumpling things.

Bollix! I thought ou were looking for recipes and only came on here to suggest stewing beef in beer!

Great, thanks DR. As I'm too paranoid to leave a pot on the stove home alone, it will probably all get chucked into the slow cooker. Good meal for not such a warm day.

You could also just bathe in it. You know tub full of beer, telly in eye view, bacon sandwich in the right hand and a big straw in the other hand. Just as an idea but then again maybe blokes wouldnt be interested in sitting naked in a tub full of beer. Dunno really but I hear its good for your hair. Supposedly.

Pah, tis little you know. Here's me and a couple of the boys only last weekend.

Hardly can recognise you without your glasses.

Is the one on the right Jimbo?

Yes, he's doing lengths of the bath using only his ears as propellors.

I'm not the master chef like DR, but we use beer for our BBQ Ribs.

First, boil baby back ribs in a large pot of half beer and half water for about an hour. Then, drain ribs and pat dry. Brush on BBQ Sauce (we use KC Masterpiece mixed with a little of eurovol's spicy homemade BBQ Sauce). Place on hot (charcoal) grill for approximately 5-10 minutes each side (just long enought to give the ribs a bit of crispiness from the flames) and eat up. Lovely, lovely stuff. My mouth is watering as I type. I'll be making some this weekend for Mother's Day. Oh, and this works well for BBQ chicken legs as well. Yummy!

You could always use the beer to make a beer batter.
Which could then be used as a batter for dipping fish in before deep frying.

Beer batter:
110g/4oz plain flour
pinch of salt
2 tbsp oil
150ml/¼ pint light beer
1 large egg white

Sieve the flour and salt into a bowl. Make a hole in the middle, pour in the oil and beer, and carefully mix in the flour.

In a separate bowl whisk the egg white until stiff and fold into the batter.

Voila - you now have a beer batter

Well, there's beer bread. Beer is also good as the liquid in chili -- with some anchos, chipotle etc., very nice.
Oh and you can braise pork shoulder with some juniper berries & beer, that's also good.

but clearly the take home message here is you need to drink more.