Discover Cooking

If you look through a cookbook you may notice that a lot of recipes require a can of beer, my friend Lisa even has crock pot recipes that use beer. So what makes beer so great that you can’t get the flavoring any other way?

Beer is brewed with ingredients such as barley and other important grains as well as herbs that can make bread and other foods taste unique and original when you cook with it. In fact beer is becoming a popular ingredient in a lot of recipes. A wide range of recipes use beer from this beef stew crock pot recipe to slow cooker pulled pork to even cakes.

Beer is something that the average household has in the fridge anyway so why not consume it a different way? Beer comes in all different levels of intensity; light beer to dark brewed beer and each one offers a different taste as well as being brewed with different ingredients.

If you are not familiar with cooking with beer you may be afraid that the alcohol may remain in your dishes and intoxicate you and your guests. The basic point to remember is that you cannot cook down all the alcohol in the dish. But what is left in the dish is probably not enough to decrease your judgment and raise your blood alcohol level. When preparing a dish that may be cooked with alcohol you may want to alert everyone that will be eating the meal.

There are several ways that alcohol can spice up your dish. Use it as a marinade on cuts of meat that would normally turn out tough. Soaking them overnight in beer can season the meat as well as tenderize it. You can also use beer to improve your glaze on ham. Beer can also be used as a liquid substitute when making any type of bread.

You can’t really taste the “beer” taste in your breads and foods when you use it in cooking, although depending on the strength of your beer you may taste a little. Cooking with beer is certainly not something that has just begun. Beer can make the batter of your foods more puffy and better tasting when frying fish or potatoes. Beer can also make your breads and cakes with more moisture and longer lasting.

The latest fad of cooking with beer is the beer can chicken. This recipe allows you to put one whole chicken on a can of beer that is only half way full. This allows the flavoring of the beer to circulate through the chicken as it is cooking. The result is a very tender whole chicken with a lot of flavor to be enjoyed at your latest barbeque. You don’t need to only try this recipe out in your grill. You can also use it in your oven.

Make sure that you put aluminum foil over it if you cannot close a lid down on it. The chicken needs to be able to simmer in its own juices. Make sure that you also set your beer can and chicken in a pot to help hold in the juices as well. The proper cooking utensils will not only help your chicken cook more thoroughly but it will also help your chicken get done in minimal time.