Thoughtful Recipes: Beer and Brats
If you’re going to cook, you have to know the basics. Cooking with beer is no different. For that reason, I wanted to share with you the most basic beer related recipe there is: beer and bratwursts.
This recipe is very simple, you’re going to make bratwursts and simmer them in a beer and onion mixture.
For this evening, I brought home a package of Trader Joe’s Hofbrau Bratwursts. The idea was to cook these in some of their Hofbrau beer, but they were all sold out. I left the decision up to Kaleigh, Vienne Lager or the Bohemian Lager. After pointing to a bottle of Duvel twice (smart girl) she finally grabbed the bottle of Bohemian Lager.
With all of our ingredients, we headed home to make the meal. First, thinly slice a whole onion. It looks like a lot, but the onion loses all of the moisture and cooks down. Besides, you don’t want to have have too few onions in the end.
Once the onions are cut, lightly coat, or spray, a skillet with olive oil, just enough to make sure the onions don’t stick. Heat the pan to medium and toss in your brats. Smother the brats in your onions, cover and brown your brats, turning every few minutes to avoid burning and ensure uniform cooking. A little salt and pepper will add a lot of flavor to this dish, but go easy on the salt, as the sausages are already plenty salty.
Once the brats are browned you’ll notice the onions will begin to carmelize. Pour in half a bottle of beer and add a bit more pepper, preferably cracked or corase black pepper. Some recipes call for caraway seed, but since I didn’t have any I left this out. Now all that’s left to do it cover and simmer for 15 minutes, turning the brats occasionally to prevent burning.
Being a fan of sharp flavors I served this up with a spicy vino and jalapeno mustard from Willamette Valley Mustards. We picked this up last weekend while wine tasting in Napa and it’s a very flavorful and spicy yellow mustard.
I also served up another Rats in the Attic with this one. I have to say, the more this one ages, the more the off flavors disappear. I guess it’s true what they say, a homebrew is ready when you’ve drank the last bottle.
So there you have it, a classic, beer and bratwursts. Try it yourself. It’s quick and easy and goes great with beer.
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