Cooking With Beer: Youngs Double Chocolate Stout and Venison Stew

Cooking With Beer: Youngs Double Chocolate Stout and Venison Stew

For a couple of months I've been toying with the idea of writing a piece around cooking with beer. After a month of searching various websites I came across a recipe from guardian website. Rather than just replicating what they have done, I decided to put my own spin on it by using Young's Double Chocolate stout rather than brown ale. I also substituted some of the Venison (as it's so expensive) with some beautiful chestnut mushrooms. So here is my recipe and some photos from my attempt. Let me know if you give it a go too.

400g venison medallions

300g of baby carrots

2 tbsp oil

7 shallots, peeled and chopped in half

150g of diced pancetta

2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

1 tbsp plain flour

200ml beef stock

400ml Young's Double Chocolate Stout, 5.2%

2 tsp soft light brown sugar

2 bay leaves

Sprinkling of Cadbury's drinking chocolate

200g of Chestnut mushrooms

Serve with creamy mash potatoes

Preheat the oven to 130C/Gas Mark 2. Cut the venison into 3cm cubes, discarding any gristle and sinew.

Trim the carrots, and put them into the oven.

Heat 1 tbsp oil in a wok. Fry the venison for 5–6 mins until browned on all sides, adding a little extra oil as necessary. Transfer to a plate with a slotted spoon.

Add onions to the wok and fry for 2–3 mins, stirring occasionally until lightly browned, add the bacon and fry for a further 2 mins.

Return all the meat and any accumulated juices to the wok. Add the garlic then stir in the flour. Gradually stir in the stock and stout, scraping up any juices stuck to the bottom of the wok. Heat, stirring until simmering.

Add the sugar, bay leaves and thyme and season with freshly ground black pepper. Sprinkle in the drinking chocolate.

In a casserole dish, cover the base with the mushrooms. Pour over the meat and liqueur.

Cover the casserole with a tight fitting lid or foil and cook in the oven for at least 2 hours or until the meat is tender.

The end result was a lovely hearty stew for the winter. This should serve four but with Emma and myself around, it realistically serves three. Very nice!

You could also supplement the Young Double Chocolate Stout for the following beers,

Meantime Chocolate Porter:
http://beefsbrewery.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/meantime-chocolate-porter.html
Titanic Plum Porter:
http://beefsbrewery.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/titanic-plum-porter.html

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Meantime Chocolate Porter

 Meantime Chocolate Porter

Style: Porter

Alcohol content: 6.5%

From: Greenwich, London, England

Purchased from: Waitrose

Last week i was due to go to a craft beer pub in Richmond called the Pig's Ears with my good friend Mala. Now i had not seen Mala for quite some time so i was very excited about the evening. Whilst on the train i heard that a signal had failed in Barnes and that no trains where running to Richmond. I hopped of the train at Twickenham, crest fallen. Firstly i was not going to see my friend but secondly i was not going to have any tasty beers that evening. After talking to the staff at south west trains, i worked out that i had a one hour wait ahead of me. Gasping for a beer i decided to head to a near by Waitrose to see what they had in stock. Lucky they had the Meantime Chocolate Porter in stock, so i picked up a bottle and headed back to the station to wait for my train.

Meantime Brewery was founded by Alastair Hook in 2000. The originally Greenwich brewery was originally located 0° 2' 12" east of the Greenwich Meridian, moving to a site on nearby Blackwall Lane in 2010. This mission driven company aims to help the consumer rediscover their cultural and culinary beer heritage, which it believes has, in the UK at least, largely been lost as beer manufacture has been concentrated in the hands of a smaller number of ever bigger brewers, who do not wish the consumer to have any great understanding or appreciation of beer. Since opening the brewery has gone from strength to strength and their Coffee Porter won a gold medal at the world beer cup in 2008.

Now i will admit that i have tried this beer before but i drank it very chilled and it spotlit the taste some what. Make sure you serve your beer at the correct temperature people. Now onto the tasting.

Sexy Boy!

Colour: This brew is a dark as the night (like all good porters should be). On the pour you notice a white/brown head a bit like a latte. The head is not very thick and disappears after a couple of minutes.

Smell: As soon as you pour the drink you, get hit with a smell that is similar to a chocolate hobnob. This comes from the four roasted dark malts and the real dark chocolate that they add during the maturation process. Now you may think that as they have used real chocolate that the smell might be quite bitter but its actually very sweet on the nose.  

Body: Light and actually quite refreshing. Normally, i would associate porters to be quite heavy so it was a pleasant surprise that this beer was not like that at all.There is low level of carbonation and pours very smoothly. Here, i will also mention the body of the glass that the Meantime Chocolate porter is served in. It looks very sexy indeed and helps it to stand out from the crowd.

Taste: Just like the smell you get a taste of chocolate hobnob on your first sip. As you enjoy your first sip, you get an aftertaste of an espresso or black americano with a slightly mineral finish. This finish actually helps to cleanse you palate by removing the bitterness of the coffee taste. Now i actually drank my Porter with a Chili Con Carne. The sweetness of the beer helped to balance out the spicy of chili. Very good match indeed!

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