beer braised beef and beerisotto

out of nowhere, amanda sent me a link to this cooking competition and encouraged me to enter.  at first i thought she was joking, but when i actually started considering it, i realized she wasn't. it looked like fun and a neat challenge to try to make something new, which i enjoy.  the contest allowed for one co-competitor, so i asked my friend chris lalos if he wanted to get in on it and he graciously accepted.

i had made braised short ribs and risotto on new year's eve and the guy at revival market said suggested beer, as well as bourbon, as an alternative to wine, so that's the first thing i thought of.  of course, the short ribs from revival market were a bit more expensive than i would want to serve to 250-300 people.  also, the logistics of cooking enough ribs to feed that many people seemed complicated. i opted to try chuck roast to see if that would be similarly tasty, while also being less expensive and eaiser to get in larger hunks.

the sponsor for the event was brooklyn brewery, which i'm aware has a very nice brown ale. this seemed like a good choice to use in the braising liquid, being rich and malty. i had tried a few iterations with various ingredients, but eventually settled on braising with onions, garlic, carrots, parsnips, rosemary, thyme, beef stock, and of course brooklyn brown ale. for the risotto, i used about 1/3 beer and 2/3 stock, garlic, ground thyme and rosemary, mushrooms, spinach, and parmesan cheese.

the event started at 1pm and you had to arrive by noon to set up and be ready for attendees.  i figured on braising the beef for about 3.5 hours, so i wanted to start cooking at around 7:30 to be done around 11, to be able to reduce the liquid for the sauce, pack up and drive over to the competition.

i started with about 11 lbs of pretty good looking choice chuck roast...

i had generously seasoned them with salt and pepper and put them in the fridge overnight.  the first step in actually cooking the beef, was to sear each roast on all sides.  i heated some olive oil in my large stainless steel pot and seared the roasts for about a minute on each side.

after searing the roasts, i added a little butter to the pot and cooked the onions until they were near translucent.  then i added the garlic and let it cook just a bit, but not too long to burn the garlic.  i deglazed the pan with beer and let it boil to reduce it down a bit.

after boiling down the beer by about half, i added in the remaining vegetables and the roasts, as well as a sachet i made with fresh thyme, rosemary, and whole black peppercorns in a cheesecloth.  i would have liked to tie the end of the cheesecloth, but i didn't have any string or twine, so i just rested it over the edge of the pot and put the lid over it to keep the herbs from escaping into the liquid (i don't want them in the final sauce and through my experimentation, discovered that retrieving them was a pain in the a**)

at this point, it's just a matter of waiting for the beef to braise for about three hours.  with about an hour and a half left in the cooking time, i started on the risotto. i started by sauteing the mushrooms and spinach with the garlic in olive oil.  i added the arborio rice for a bit towards the end.  i then began to add beer and beef stock two cups at a time, letting it absorb almost completely before adding the next round of liquid.  i stirred it occasionally to keep it from burning on the bottom. my friend chris lalos let me use his le creuset pot, since i didn't have enough big pots to do three roasts and the risotto.  it's quite nice and i'd like one for my own.

with the risotto going, the beef finished braising until it started to come apart easily with a fork.  i carefully removed the roasts from the pots and trimmed off as much of the fat as possible.  i knew we'd be giving out small portions to the tasters and didn't want anybody to end up with just a hunk of fat.  as for the liquid, i removed the sachet, as well as the carrots and parsnips (as best as i could), and turned the heat up high to begin reducing down the liquid for the sauce.  i added a little sugar to sweeten up the sauce a bit.  with as much liquid as i had for all this beef, it took about a half an hour to get the sauce to a nice thick and sticky consistency.  when the sauce was done, i put the beef back in the pot and stirred it together to coat the beef in the sauce.

with the beef ready to go, we just had to wait for the risotto to finish, then we packed up and headed out to the competition.  we waited until we got to the competition to add the parmesan cheese, mostly because we filled the risotto pot about to the brim and didn't want to attempt to add anything more to it or attempt to stir it.  we were worried that we might be running a bit late, but the timing actually worked out perfectly. we didn't realize that other contestants were going to have elaborate decorations, tablecloths, signs, and other whatnots.  we didn't bring anything of the sort, so after dumping our beef and risotto into the chafing dish they provided for us, our set up was complete.  we were feeling self conscious that we didn't even bring a tablecloth, so we laid out the old blue towel i had used to transport the hot pot of beef in my car and called that our tablecloth.

i'd like to say that this is when everybody voted for our food and we won the competition, but alas, we did not win any of the judge or audience awards.  we did receive a lot of compliments and some great support from our friends (inluding the chuck-in-law).  it really was a lot of fun and extremely gratifying, even though we didn't win.  a lot of the other entries were very impressive and many of them seemed quite experienced at entering competitions like this.  it was an honor to feel like we were toe-to-toe with the other ameteur cooks.  all in all, it was a great experience and i'd definitely consider doing something like this again.

ingredients list, as we made it for the competition:

beer braised beef

 - 3-4 lb chuck roast (x3 if you're making it for 300 people to have a 1-2 oz serving)

 - about 1/2 a large onion per roast, roughly chopped

 - 2-3 cloves of garlic per roast, minced

 - 1/2 lb or so of parsnips per roast, peeled and chopped into pieces that are big enough to retrieve later

 - 1/2 lb or so of carrots per roast, peeled and chopped into pieces that are big enough to retrieve later

 - 1-2 good size sprigs of fresh rosemary, per roast (wrapped in the cheesecloth sachet)

 - 2-3 good size sprigs of fresh thyme, per roast (wrapped in the cheesecloth sachet)

 - about 1 tbsp of whole peppercorns, per roast (wrapped in the cheesecloth sachet)

 - olive oil for browning the roast and the onions

 - plenty of salt, both for seasoning the roast ahead of time (with ground pepper) and for seasoning the braising liquid (in accordance with your taste for salt)

 - few shakes of red pepper flakes to add a little kick

 - 1 1/2-2 brown ales per roast

 - beef stock to add enough liquid to cover about 3/4 of roast

 - about 1 tbsp of granulated sugar per roast to add to the sauce

beerisotto

 - arborio rice (7 cups if you're making 21 cups of risotto)

 - 1 cup of brown ale per cup of rice

 - 2 cups of beef stock per cup of rice

 - about a handful of diced mushrooms per cup of rice

 - about a handful of chopped fresh spinach per cup of rice

 - 1-2 cloves of garlic per cup of rice, finely chopped

 - about a cup of parmesan cheese per cup of rice

 - salt and pepper to taste