Cooking With Alcohol - My Favourite Alcohol Based Recipes.

Cooking with alcohol has two aspects.  The first involves adding alcohol to the recipe ingredients.  The second, and much more fun, involves adding alcohol to the cook.  Of course the ideal is to combine the two and I thoroughly recommend this.  A well soused cook is a happy and relaxed cook.

I have some favourite dishes that all have alcohol as an ingredient.  Most of them are based on fruit but not all.  I firmly believe, and have experimented at some length to support my theory, that alcohol aids digestion.  I do tend only to drink alcohol when cooking hot, savoury dishes as I like wine.  I don't drink Rum, Cointreau, Drambuie or Port and so confine my cookery drinking to savoury recipes.

Here are my favourite alcohol based recipes.

Rum Bananas
Pears in Red Wine
Mandarins and Strawberries in Cointreau or Drambuie
Portly Trifle
Spaghetti Bolognaise with Red wine

The recipes follow but don't expect photos of these delights until I have time as one must make the dish look artful and place it on crystal or china.  Frankly it's Sunday morning and that's all too hard.  I suggest using your imagination.

Let's start with Rum Bananas.  My father was an expert in these and they would be the finale to his Sunday afternoon barbeques.  He would first barbeque fillet steak for guests and this would be served with whole potatoes in foil with sour cream and Ratatouille that my mother had prepared earlier.  There would also be a mixed bean or green salad and often bread rolls.  I don't know how we fitted it all in.

We would eat on the patio overlooking Pittwater at Church Point where I was fortunate enough to have grown up.  No wonder we had a constant stream of guests.  Our swimming pool formed part of the view over the beautiful bay.  I don't expect Heaven to be more beautiful than this place where I grew up. Sadly my parents sold the place to retire and by doing so broke my heart.  I have been a wandering soul cut off ever since.

The alcohol has helped a little but not nearly enough.

RUM BANANAS

Ingredients:

Ripe but still firm bananas, one per person, peeled and sliced lengthways in half.
2 tablespoons of brown sugar
1 tablespoons butter or margarine
1/2 cup dark Rum
Note: the sugar, butter and rum quantities above will cook about two or three bananas halved

Method:
In a frying pan, melt the butter.
Add brown sugar until it melts and bubbles slightly
Put in bananas and coat both sides and cook until tender about two minutes turning carefully to coat both sides
TAKE CARE WITH NEXT TWO STEPS AND STAND BACK
Heat Rum separately in a small saucepan and light with a match
Pour over banana mixture cook another minute to burn off alcohol
Serve with ice cream and/or cream if desire

MANDARINS AND STRAWBERRIES IN COINTREAU OR DRAMBUIE

I was once heavily pregnant and my husband and I drove South from Perth, W.A. to have a picnic.  I had taken all the usual picnic ingredients as well as Mandarins and Strawberries in Drambuie.
The car broke down a short way out of a country town.  My husband waved down a passing tractor and headed back to the town.  It was hot and I decided to cool off by eating the Mandarins and Strawberries.  I was so happily eating them I was unperturbed about how long it would take my husband to return.  I was almost disappointed when he came back twenty minutes later and we managed to restart the car, so heavenly and cool was this lovely concoction.

Ingredients:
1 tin of Mandarin segments drained (these are better than natural and are always available)
1 punnet of strawberries, hulled and halved or quartered depending on size
2 tablespoons of preferred liqueur
icing sugar

Method:
Place fruits together in a bowl and cover with liqueur
Sprinkle with a little icing sugar or sugar
Chill in fridge
Serve plain or with cream or ice cream
Note: Lovely to take on a picnic

PEARS IN RED WINE

These are lovely warm or cold.
Basically they are pears in Gluhwein

Ingredients:
3 or 4 pears in season, not too firm
2 to 2 1/2 cups red wine
1/3 cup sugar
stick of cinnamon
lemon zest

Method:
Peel pears but leave in stalk
In a saucepan place the sugar, wine, cinnamon stick and one or two pieces of lemon zest
Bring to boil and lower to a medium heat
Place pears in saucepan upright and bring to boil again before turning heat to low to simmer
Turn pears every twenty minutes to ensure all parts are cooked
This should take an hour.  When pears are tender carefully remove them with a slotted spoon one
at a time and place all upright in a bowl.
If the sauce isn't syrupy enough bring it to the boil again until syrupy enough.
Remove lemon zest and cinnamon sticks if desired.
Allow to cool and pour over the pears in the bowl.
Place in fridge.
Serve with cream and/or ice cream, yoghurt or sweetened Marscapone.

PORTLY TRIFLE

Trifle always reminds me of what the cooks at my boarding school could do with leftover afternoon tea buns and cakes and jelly desserts.  It's enough to make my hair stand on end.  But my mother thankfully left me with a much better memory of Trifle with her Portly Trifle.  I haven't made this for years as my appetite has now waned to the point of being non-existent.  I can only remember delicious dishes as one remembers happy holidays.

This is an easy dish and I'll write it from memory so it may need some tweaking of the Port amount by you.

Ingredients:
A bought French roll (a jam and sponge roll)
1 pint Custard ( I buy this)
Port
Blanched almonds
There is no jelly in this but do your own thing.  After all Trifle was a dish created to use up leftovers.

Method:
Slice the roll into 1cm or 1/2 inch slices
In a large glass or crystal serving bowl place in the following order:
Line the base of the bowl with slices of French roll then sprinkle with Port.
The Port should soak up to almost a third or half way up each roll slice as I remember.
Don't make the cake sodden.
Cover with a layer of custard.
Repeat the process so there are three layers.  Finish with custard.
Place blanched almonds all over the top.
Refrigerate and serve when cold.

I don't remember if almonds were placed among the layers but do it your way.

SPAGHETTI BOLOGNAISE WITH RED WINE

Well everyone has their own version of Spaghetti Bolognaise so I won't bother to give you mine.

My only addition to your own recipe is to tell you what I do.

I start by pouring myself a glass of red wine and making sure there is enough left in the bottle for the Bolognaise Sauce.

I sip the wine and start chopping and slicing garlic and onions.  I continue sipping while I chop tomatoes and brown the mince. I set the mince aside in a bowl while I cook the onions, garlic and tomatoes.  Sometimes I add sliced Kalamata olives, and sometimes, when daring, Jalapenos or bacon.   I saute these then return the meat to the saucepan.  I add some powered beef or chicken stock and water, tomato sauce and red wine.  I may add mild chili sauce in winter.  I sip some wine along the way.  I add oregano, basil, salt and pepper as well.  I simmer all of this and eventually may thicken with gravy flour (semolina powder).

I often think that Spaghetti Bolognaise sauce improves with age in the fridge and even after freezing so I always set some aside and freeze for later.
I serve with either spaghetti pasta or spiral pasta.
Naturally I sip red wine when eating my delicious Spaghetti with Bolognaise Sauce.

THE END.