Good use for Brandy

[Cathrin]

I have spent most of the day working in the kitchen making use of an unwanted Christmas raffle prize of a ltr bottle of Courvoisier Brandy.

Some of you will be screaming 'No' at me but as Mark and I don't drink brandy we use it in cooking.

So as this is quite a good brandy I decided to do a 'Pears in Brandy'
I have never done it before so looked it up on the web.
You know the type of thing make a syrup, peal and core the pears cook in syrup put in kilner jar/s boil syrup cool add brandy and
'Presto!'

I read that it only took about an hour to do all of this I started at 10.30 this morning ... it is now 2.30 in the afternoon .... thats 4 hours to get 1 jar of pears!!!
The worst thing was half way through I realized that I had way too much syrup for the 2lb of pears recommended so snaffled some apples to do a jar of those too ;D

Now I have to wait 3 month before I can taste the fruits of my labor I just hope the jars don't explode

I think I will have to try and preserve some other fruits before the brandy gets all used up on other more mundane cooking.

[Ann]

I can drink a good cognac neat, although I haven't done it for years. I love the occasional cognac and coke too, a habit I picked up in Germany.

And yes, I don't know who works out the timings in cookery books either. Ex Olympic sprinters probably! Do let us know in 3 months time if all that work was worth it.

Another suggestion, if you have any brandy left. Next time you stew some beef, put just a little in the liquor as it's cooking. If you get the quantity right, you won't taste the brandy when it's finished, but it gives the gravy a much richer flavour.

[Cathrin]

Hi Ann,

We already do use ordinary brandy with beef and it does work very, very well 'Hic'

But I was thinking more treat like things
Brandy butter (that will freeze for next year)
Manderines in
Peaches in
Plumbs in
or
split plumbs on toast with brandy drizzled over the top then a crumble mix to top that grill until golden brown serve with whipped cream (you can whip some brandy into that as wel )

As for the the cookery sprint maybe they all watched the Galloping Gormet as kids