Quick and Easy Beer-Broth Hamburger Stew Cooked in a Cast Iron Dutch Oven This is very (VERY) similar to the Hamburger Soup recipe on Beer and Iron. And, if you’re askin’ me…which you haven’t yet but I am sure you will…the “stew” version is my…
I got me a 13-year-old turned 14 this month and that boy loves this recipe, “What we havin’ for dinner?”
This is a casserole and the one thing that can hold up a meal is waiting on a doggone casserole to “dry up.” This is one of my “dry” recipes; it’s just so freaking delicious that I couldn’t just not include on this website.
Sure, there’s some way that I could “force” beer into the recipe; and I do when I include chopped chicken (brine the chicken before cooking the chicken). And there will be other recipes that I’ll post that are some of my favorite “dry” recipes or within are some ingredients you just have to try. Beer makes all the recipes taste awesome. But we know that as long as it’s cooked up in Cast Iron, you’ll be hearing, “Ohhh, it sure ‘nuf smells good in here!” Truth! My wife just walked in the room and said just that!
There is some preemptive planning to get this recipe ready. There’s the first cook and then the final cook. But don’t hang up quite yet, this is one that could be prepped the day before and ready to cook up when you are good and ready.
The squash needs to be precooked. And so does the onions and any raw meat you are adding to this recipe. You can pre-boil your squash in either a cast iron Dutch oven or, if you have one, a stainless pot. Wash your squash, slice it in ½ inch to 1 inch slices, and place the sliced squash in the pot. The next thing is to add salt…lots of salt. We’ll discard the water when we are done but we want the squash to be nicely salted.
Don’t boil the squash to mush. You just boil it long enough to soften the squash. When you put this casserole together and cook it, raw squash will not cook to fully done. By the time the casserole is “dried out” and “ready” as we’d expect a casserole to be, the squash will still have a bit of a “crunch” to it. Boil your squash, sauté the onions, and cook any raw meat you’d like to add to this recipe.
It’s gonna be good!
Your optimum cast iron pan of choice will be either the 12” or the 14” skillet. You could use your 9” x 13” cast iron casserole pan or even your 15” skillet if you wanted to (or if you added more ingredients to your casserole. That 10.25” will be pushing it. You’re likely to have a mess unless you cut the recipe back a bit.
Peanut butter, fish sauce, and chicken. This recipe is gonna be interesting! Most importantly it’s going to be delicious. There’s a bit of preplanning and prep but the cook time is “in a jiffy.” You’re gonna love this Cast Iron Griddle-Cooked Satay Chicken with a…
Kugel (kʊɡl̩) (pronounced kuh-gull or koo-gull) is a traditional Ashkenazi Jewish dish, often served on Shabbat and Yom Tov (I’m not Jewish and admit that I had to “DuckDuckGo’d-it.”). It’s been around for generations. Basically, a Kugel is a baked casserole, most commonly made with…
A few weeks ago we went camping with this dessert on the menu. There are three things that mix well: Camping, Dutch oven cooking, and BEER. And, when camping in a very public, people-filled campsite on an open plain in the high desert with it’s unpredictable weather, BEER helps maintain that bit of emotional stoicism and makes for a fabulous camping trip.
When packing for a camping trip we always include beer to cook with, drink “with,” and a few extras as a just-in-case “with.” On the way out of town, we made a visit to our favorite, local pub to “raid” the fridge. My pub always has a few interesting brews in the cooler (and sometimes hidden elsewhere if I ask and look pitiful enough).
The cooler is where they keep the $7.00, $12.00 and even the $25.00 cans and bottles of fermented awesomeness. Though the $25 brews are *usually* avoided, there was this one $12.00 brew that caught my eye. Not by the complexity of the can art (something that draws me in like an enticing book cover). As can art goes, this one was sorta a plain-Jane.
Then, boogedy…boogedy…boogedy…off to the great wild to blaze a trail to a very public, and “groomed” campsite. Our camping season usually starts with this local campground that has many things to do such as scorpion hunting, an observatory, sand dunes, and WIND! Oh my gracious. The wind is often relentless out there; but it’s a hit-or-miss. This time: MISS!
Nonetheless, we had beer, iron, and plenty of food.
“Black as midnight, black as pitch, blacker than the foulest witch.” – Blix the Goblin
We had eaten breakfast before departing on our adventure; I knew we’d be eating a little earlier in the evening than normal. So, I skipped a lunch in order to “save some room” for the cast iron creation that was planned for that evening. At three in the afternoon, with all that wind and blusteriness, there wasn’t much to do other than pull the Dutches out, add fire to the coals, and crack a beer.
That $12 brew poured black as midnight. Despite the blowing wind, the sun was shining bright. When I held up that glass up to the sun, I thought about the Black Knight, “NONE SHALL PASS!” (And if you don’t get that reference, we just can’t be friends). It was dark. It was sweet. And, it was delicious! 16-ounces of pure joy! Definitely a “sipper” and one to drink like cooking a great roast: low-and-slow.
A bit later I pulled out the 12” Dutch oven and started assembling my Cantina Jack Chicken recipe. Then I pulled out my 8” Dutch oven to “assemble” this dessert. I say, “this dessert,” because I had not come up with a name for it yet. These recipes are trial-and-error to get them just right and I usually name them after the fact. I knew I had to come up with something clever and tropical-sounding. After all, with ingredients like bananas and pineapples, what could be a better dessert to plan for during a camping trip with 20 mile per hour winds and a high of 40-something degrees (tongue-in-cheek)?
Once the Cantina Jack Chicken was in the pot and “under the fire,” I started gathering the supplies for our dessert…but…something went kinda catawampus. And not a cooking catawampus but my ability to think-kind of catawampus. Just trying to “do the math” on my coal-count for my little 8” Dutch was giving me grief. At my house math is my “thing,” and English is my wife’s “thing.” But I just couldn’t seem to think. The first problem I had was trying to figure out twice of eight and how many coals to go on top and then on the bottom.
My wife just stared at me with her why-are-you-asking-me-math-questions look when I asked, “What’s two times eight?” At first, I didn’t realize I asked that question out loud; it was supposed to be an “internal affair” rather than an embarrassing “external” question (you know, when you thought you said it in your head but your mouth didn’t get the memo). My wife usually gives me a “math look” when I ask her math problems. But, this “math look” was different. After I answered my own question, she asked to see my beer (that I had only had half). She said, “No wonder.”
There was this short period of time where her “no wonder” comment entered my ear but had not yet registered in my brain. My brain was busy toiling over the dessert preparations. Not to mention the distracting aromas from that cooking Cantina Jack Chicken as they piggybacked on the steam sneaking out from the edges of the lid of that 12” Dutch. “Wonder what?” Turns out my sweet, dark, barrel-aged porter was a fifteen-percenter. I ate breakfast but planned on “saving room” for double helpings of that Cantina Jack Chicken for dinner.
Most would like to brag about how they came up with a name for a recipe; there ain’t no bragging here. I was having so much trouble thinking but didn’t correlate the beer as the culprit. What I meant to say next was “Why am I having so much trouble making this banana and pineapple dessert?” What came out was, “Why am I having so much trouble making this bananapapple dessert?!”
Now I wondered, “why is my wife laughing so hard.”
“What?
A few weeks ago we went camping with this dessert on the menu. There are three things that mix well: Camping, Dutch oven cooking, and BEER. And, when camping in a very public, people-filled campsite on an open plain in the high dessert with it’s unpredictable weather, BEER helps maintain that bit of emotional stoicism and makes for a fabulous camping trip.
It was on this camping trip where we came up with this name, “Bananapapple.” Yes, there’s a story behind this name that involves beer and giggling.
This recipe does very well in a 10″ or an 8″ cast iron Dutch oven at camp.
Using your 10.25” Cast Iron Skillet, smear 1-2 tablespoons of butter all on the inside of the skillet where you’ll be pouring your cake batter once you’ve created it. I smear butter all the way to the edge of the skillet. This will be your non-stick in the making. Keep the “smearing” butter (about 1-2 tablespoons) separate from your icing butter (about 2 tablespoons). BE SURE TO Leave the icing’s 2 tablespoons of butter out to soften and get to “room temperature.” You’ll need this soft butter for the icing later.
Preheat Oven to 350°F / 177°C.
You see that “1 cup granulated sugar?” That’s a lot of sugar, right? But, this is a dessert so don’t skimp out on me. Here’s a trick: AFTER YOU SMEARED THE BUTTER TO THE INSIDE SKILLET SURFACE, pour in the entire cup of sugar into the buttered skillet. Hold it with two hands and rotate it all about to spread the sugar into the butter. The sugar will create a “floured” surface to pour your cake batter into. But, DON’T THROW THE REST OF THAT CUP OF SUGAR OUT. There will be a lot of sugar left; pour that in with the dry ingredients. That will go into the cake!
Mix all the dry stuff in a large bowl and sift together: 1 ½ cups flour, the remaining portion of the 1 cup sugar (remember there’s sugar all in the cast iron skillet sticking to the butter coating), ½ tsp baking soda, ½ tsp salt, ½ tsp cinnamon, and mix in the ¾ cups of nuts.
In another bowl, scramble the 2 eggs up real good.
Mash and measure your bananas (eat the rest…there’s always “the rest”)
Mix all the wet stuff in with the eggs: ½ cup crushed pineapple, 1 tsp. vanilla, ½ cups oil, and the 1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2 bananas).
Now we’re making magic. Mix your wet and dry ingredients together.
Pour your batter over into your buttered and sugared 10.25” skillet.
Place the skillet in the oven at 350°F / 177°C. We’re baking for 45-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. If you peek, you’ll see the cake “cooking” from the outside towards the center and is a light tan color. Eventually it will start to brown…we’re getting close!
Once the cake is done, pull it from the oven and let the cake rest for about 10-20 minutes. This will cause it to shrink and “pull away” from the skillet. If you try to pull it out too soon, it’ll break. Give it a bit of resting time while you finish up that (or pour another) beer.
After it’s cooled for about 10 minutes (not more than 20 minutes), run a spatula (or equivalent) around the edge of the skillet between the cake’s edge and the skillet rim to “loosen the cake.” The big question: will it stick and break? Just tossing it out onto a cooling rack may cause breakage due to the motion and less likely due to stickage.
With the skillet sitting normally, place a cooling rack or a plate over the top of the skillet. Using both hands (that skillet will still be hot), turn the skillet upside down and the cake should just lay out onto the cooling rack or the plate.
Let the cake cool to a “warm temperature.” Unless you want to eat it hot and steaming (it’s delicious that way too especially with some ice cream on top as the ice cream melts and blends with the cake).
Step 14: In a medium bowl, mix your powdered sugar and the soft butter.
Step 15: Add three tablespoons of beer to the powdered sugar and butter mixture. Start stirring and mixing with a fork to blend. Initially it may look like you need more but you likely don’t; keep mixing.
This recipe should feed about 6-8 people…it’ll feed less if y’all are cuttin’ loose…it’ll feed more if y’all are on a diet.
There’s a story behind the “Bananapapple” name. Yes, it involves math, hot coals, and a 15%-er. It’s a stupid story but I know you’re asking, “what in tarnation is a Bananapapple?” But, if you don’t know what “tarnation” means, I’m sorry but we can’t be friends. (I’M JOKING!…only a little).
*Mixing Your Icing Tip: Go with a Medium Bowl to Mix The Icing (1 ½ cups of powdered sugar “fluffs out” of the bowl when mixing…go deeper on your bowl selection).
If the Bananapapapple Cake turns out “too dry” for your pallet, add ¼ more oil to the recipe. Or, better yet, add that 2nd tablespoon of butter to the skillet when you are doing the “smearing.”
If you put this in the refrigerator, the icing will crust up a bit and get kinda crack-ly.
ENJOY!
There’s two things that at 50-years-young that I have to keep in balance: My appetite for cast-iron-cooked, beer-infused, delicious foods and…my midriff. And trust me, the balance is very hard to maintain. I want to eat and drink like I weigh 400 pounds, but I…
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I am always sharing fresh, flavorful, recipes cooked up in well-seasoned cast iron awesomeness with a bit of my liquid, hop-based, happy-maker as an ingredient.
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