Beer recipes

This is my respone to the recipe tag. And no, this is not a primer on brewing beer. More like a recipe that has beer as part of the ingredients (incidentally, someone found my quitting coke post by doing a search on the effects of drinking gatorade while doing cocaine. Go figure!). Like Majonzi, I don't measure. I just cook. So I won't say how much of anything to add. For that, you are on your own...

Ingredients for chicken

• whole chicken


• can of beer


• olive oil


• dried oregano


• black pepper


• garlic salt

Ingredients for mushrooms

• chopped up mushrooms


• onions


• can of beer


• rosemary leaves


• bay leaves


• olive oil


• garlic


• water


• gravy mix (eg royco)

A picture digression... While taking pictures last weekend, I came across this one below that was just weird, at least to me who views Royco as something different from that shown here!



Ingredients for ugali

• maize flour


• milk


• margarine


• water

Instructions for ugali

• Bring water to a boil along with some milk and margarine.


• Add the flour, stirring as you do until it is thick enough. Keep turning it as needed until well cooked.


• Place on plate and cut it up ready to serve

The ugali pictured above is not yellow due to the margarine, but rather due to the only corn flour I could get in the stores these sides, which has nothing on Jogoo or any of the other good stuff from home!

A minor digression...

My father has the craziest stories. He is an embodiment of the true Meru man as one to whom the kitchen is off-limits. But woe unto him when he started living on his own and had to eat. He tells us of his sagas trying to learn to cook ugali. For some weird reason, it never came out right. Yet his neighbour's ugali would always turn out perfect. So one time in frustration he asked the neighbour to explain how to make it. Neighbour asked him first how he made the ugali such that it always came out wrong. So my father says that he puts water in the sufuria, then adds the flour right away and stirs. At this point before he could continue neighbour laughed so hard, realizing the error in my father's ways Let's just say he never forgot that.

Instructions for mushrooms

• Cut up onions and fry in high heat in pan with olive oil


• Just as they go soft, add some water, rosemary leaves, bay leaves and chopped up garlic


• Let it simemr for about five minutes while stirring every now and then


• Add the chopped mushrooms to the pan with a little more water


• After another five minutes of stirring, add the whole can of beer into the pan


• Reduce heat to medium, cover the pan and let it simmer


• After 15 minutes, add the gravy mix to the pan, and stir it in for about five minutes after which it is ready to serve

Instructions for chicken

• Open can of beer and impale the chicken on it


• Rub olive oil over the chicken surface


• Sprinkle the oregano, pepper and garlic salt on the chicken as desired


• Cover in foil paper and place on grill to cook


• Chicken is ready when juice runs clear when pierced with a knife


• Cut up, serve, and enjoy along with the ugali and mushrooms

I had never heard of the impaled chicken on a beer can thing before a group trip I had with a bunch of my friends a couple of years ago. One of them showed it to us, and let's just say that chicken tasted good! Cooked from the inside by the hot beer and from the outside by the grill. Mmm... a night out on the town for the taste buds.

And there you have it. Who to tag? I don't know. If you love cooking, consider yourself tagged. Get us a recipe pronto.