Cooking With Beer: Frying Pan Brats

Unfortunately grilling brats is not an option for me at my current residence.  However, I do enjoy brats especially in the fall for football season.  Here is my recipe for brats in a frying pan:


1 Package Johnsonville Brats
1 Paulaner Oktoberfest Märzen


Place the brats in a frying pan and pour in half the beer.  The other half is yours to drink as you cook.  Cover the pan and wait.  It will come to a boil keep on a medium high until the brats start to loose their pink. You should turn once during this process.  Remove the lid and allow the beer to start boiling off.

Once the beer begins to form a caramelized coating on the pan its time to start browning.  I like to turn the brats onto three of the sides to brown and get bits of caramelized goodness.  Do not try to brown the inside U of the brats that only breaks the casing and makes a mess.

I prefer to serve the brats on whole wheat sesame seed buns with spicy honey mustard.  Also, a hard pretzel or two and some refrigerator pickles are a nice touch.  Finally, a big frothy mug of beer to wash it all down.

Cooking with Beer: Budweiser Wings

Ok Ok I know your thinking "Budweiser?"  Yes I cook with Bud.  Why? Well for one its cheap.  Although it may lack flavor in the glass; it has flavor after being reduced at a boil.  It provides a simple cheap way to instill flavor in a dish.

6 Pounds of Wings
2 24 oz cans of Budweiser
2 Cups BBQ Sauce
1/4 to 1 Cup Hot Sauce

Open the cans and sit them on the counter a couple hours before you plan on making this dish.  I have heard beer can be prone to boil over if not flat.  Opening ahead like this flattens the beer considerably.  I am in fear of Beer Bitch so I will not test this.  To be honest, and in her defense, I am a sloppy cook anyways.

Put the (thawed) wings in a large stock pot.  Pour the beer in and bring to a boil.  Bringing to a boil took considerably longer than I thought they would.  I boiled for about 12 minutes until the wings had lost their pink.  I transfered them to a 9x12 dish into a preheated 475F oven.  Bake until crispy and brown. (You could also try grilling here)

While baking mix the sauce and hot sauce.  I used Sweet Baby Rays and Frank's Hot Sauce.  I would recomend adding 1/4 cup of the hot sauce at a time stirring and taking a taste.  Half a cup of Hotsauce made a perfect balanced sauce of spicy without being spicy for the sake of spicy.

 When the wings are done toss in bowl of sauce and serve with blue cheese dressing and celery on the side.

Served 4 for dinner although would do fine for more as an appetizer.  Also this recipe could easily be halfed.

Cooking With Beer: Backdraft Flank

Sometimes cooking with beer works sometimes it does not.  This is the first recipe I developed myself for the blog.  Developing a recipe involves a great deal of trial and error, but perseverance will result in success.  I know summer is now officially over but as football season is getting started a few of you may need a good tailgate recipe.

Here is a recipe I recently tried out that worked well:

1 Flank Steak

1 Bottle Hook & Ladder Backdraft Brown

Combine for 12 hours in zip lock bag.

Grill to desired doneness.  (I grilled it for about 20 minutes on low coals)

Make sure you rest your meat.  If you do not know how to do this, then you really should not be allowed in the kitchen.  Also, cutting flank steak across the grain will generate a better mouthfeel as you chew on it.

Paired with: Backdraft Brown of course!