Cooking With Beer

It's officially cool enough to turn the oven on!!!

In honor of this amazing landmark, I am sharing a recipe with you. Pork cooked in beer. What more could you want? The perfect fall dinner. This is so dang good you won't believe it. You'll want to actually pour the sauce in a cup and drink it. I'm serious. Don't say I never gave you anything...

Pork Roast and Root Vegetables Braised in Stout

2 small potatoes, peeled

1 sweet potato, peeled

1 turnip or rutabaga, peeled

2 carrots, peeled

2 parsnips, peeled

3 cloves

1/2 tsp. allspice

1 tbsp. black peppercorns

1 tsp. juniper berries (or about 1/4 cup of gin - it's true!)

1 sprig parsley

1 sprig rosemary

3 sprigs thyme

5 to 6 lb. pork roast

salt and pepper

6 tbsp. olive oil

2 medium onions, sliced into wedges

3 cloves garlic, minced

3/4 cup maple syrup

6 tbsp. white wine vinegar

3 cups stout

2 1/3 cups beef stock

Cut the potatoes, sweet potato and turnip into 1/2 inch cubes. Cut carrots and parsnips into 2-inch spears (does that make sense?). Using  a square of cheesecloth and a string, make a small sachet containing the cloves, allspice, peppercorns and juniper berries. Tie the parsley, rosemary and thyme sprigs together with a piece of string to create a bouquet garnis. SEE NOTE BELOW.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Season the pork with salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a large skillet and sear the meat on all sides; remove and place in a large Dutch oven. Saute the garlic and onions in the skillet until just starting to brown. Put the vegetables and sauted garlic and onions into the Dutch oven surrounding the meat. Deglaze the skillet with the syrup and vinegar and reduce by half. Add the beer and stock; bring to a boil and pour over the meat and vegetables. Add the spice sachet and bouquet garnis to the casserole and bring to a boil. SEE NOTE BELOW AGAIN. Cover and place in oven for 3 hours.

While the pot is in the oven, be sure and drink the rest of the stout that you didn't pour on the meat!

When cooked, remove the meat and vegetables and keep warm. Strain the liquid and reduce to a third in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Season to taste. Arrange the meat and vegetables on a  large platter. Pour some sauce over the meat and pass the rest at the table.

NOTE: This is based on a Julia Child recipe, and Julia's all into things like small sachets and bouquet garnis, but seriously, I've just dumped the cloves, allspice, peppercorns, juniper berries, parsley, rosemary and thyme loose into the pot and it was just fine and dandy.

Happy Fall cooking!

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Today's post was inspired by...

 

Prompt #4 - Share a favorite fall recipe.

Comments

[The Meaning of Me]

You're right - this sounds amazing. I am not a pork fan, but this might make me convert.

Visiting from Mama Kat's! :)

[Ginny Marie]

Cooking with beer! You can't get any better than that! We just had the best pork roast at an Octoberfest, but this sounds pretty awesome!

[Alaina]

You had me at beer! Here's my Spin for the week :-) http://viewfromdownhere-viewfromdownhere.blogspot.com/2012/10/thats-what-makes-you-beautiful.html

[Jan's Sushi Bar]

Good heavens, this looks good. I'm intrigued that you make it with beef stock - I usually cook pork with chicken stock. And I rarely take time to tie my herbs, unless the recipe calls for a large amount of fresh thyme, in which case tying the sprigs together with kitchen twine and fishing out the stems at the end is much, much easier than stripping all those teeny leaves. You can always strain or pick out the cloves and peppercorns if you have to.

Alas, I cannot cook with beer due to my problems with gluten (it does not help that I don't really care for beer in the first place). Now, having said that, I am going to cook one of those pork jowls in my freezer this weekend - the original recipe calls for beer, but I'm going to use hard cider. I'm ridiculously excited about this, and I'm not sure why.

[VandyJ]

That sounds wonderful. So cozy and warm and snuggle and comfort like.
My spin is up:
http://tttandme.blogspot.com/2012/10/spin-cycle-beautiful.html

[mommylisa]

Awesome. An excuse to buy beer and gin.

[Mo @ The Baby Is Fine]

Sounds delish! Glad to hear I can just dump all the spices and whatnot in there...cuz that's as far as my chef-skills will go.

[Kimpipi]

Great posting! Thank you so much for giving the recipe and the procedures. I would definitely try it cause it looks so delicious.