Choucroute garni

I first had choucroute in France more than 40 years ago. Depending on how many people were being served, some of the platters were freakin' enormous. My version today is very modest. I used homemade sauerkraut (it only takes a few days and very little effort), a kielbasa I got on sale, and boiled potatoes. You can make this with a variety of meats, from corned beef to hotdogs (although maybe wurst is best, LOL). It bears a remarkable resemblance to New England boiled dinner, and is no doubt related genealogically speaking. For a sauerkraut recipe see "Kimchi and sauerkraut", my post from May 15, 2010. I needed to stop by the Georgetown Safeway to get prescriptions for Peter so decided to see what other meat I could find. I did find some white sausages to go with my kielbasa.

I'm not going to post a formal recipe for this. It isn't needed. Boil the potatoes; boil, steam or fry your meats; heat up your sauerkraut. Put it all together on a platter. Invite people over.

Green papaya sauerkraut

What could be more NOT Thanksgiving than this. In fact I made the kraut last Thursday or Friday and it’s been “curing” ever since. I think it’s ready to eat.

I bought a green papaya when I visited my favorite Vietnamese market last week. I was going to make a traditional Thai salad with it, but the weather has been so chilly I wasn’t in the mood for it. Then I got an idea. A Google search confirmed what I suspected: you can make sauerkraut from green papaya.

With the aid of one of my favorite books, “Wild Fermentation” by Sandor Ellix Katz, I started the sauerkraut using his simple method. I julienned the papaya with my mandoline, then layered it in a crock, sprinkling salt as I went along. To weigh it down I used a 1 gallon freezer bag filled with water. It’s been curing now for 4-5 days and is almost ready to eat. I’m thinking we’ll use it on turkey sandwiches later in the week.

There is no difference between making sauerkraut with regular green cabbage or napa except the vegetable itself. Green papaya is nice and crunchy and the crunch is retained during the curing (which is done at room temperature). This is better than any commercial sauerkraut I’ve ever had. It is infused with that wonderful quality, umami.

I’m remembering I did one thing special: I added about a half teaspoon of ground caraway seed after a couple of days.

Now, you might ask me “how much salt did you use?” Only a medium pinch on each layer. Can’t be more precise than that.

Sauerkraut, sausage and potato casserole

I’ve been mulling over what to do with some Italian sausages (mild) that are in the freezer. Then it hit me – I want mustard, I want horseradish, I want sauerkraut. Normally I would prefer to make my own sauerkraut but I’m impatient just now and simply bought some at Safeway. Normally I would buy sauerkraut in the refrigerated section, either in a bag or a jar.

Turns out I used canned sauerkraut. Kuner’s brand. After tasting it, I decided to rinse it slightly. No reason to leave all the chemicals in. Even though rinsing removes some of the flavor, the addition of caraway and capers helped compensate for that.

So as to make this a one-dish meal, I added some potatoes. There is nothing astounding about my sausage/kraut/potato casserole. It’s just darned good! Peter suggested adding some cheese. I just couldn’t bring my head around to that. In the end, he was perfectly happy with the results. I did agree that he could add a bread crumb streusel, a combination of crumbs,

Sauerkraut with sausages and potatoes
1 14oz. can sauerkraut, drained and lightly rinsed
1 tsp caraway seeds, ground or smashed
8 oz. red potatoes
8 oz. Italian sausages (spicy or mild, your choice)
1 tspn caraway seeds, lightly smashed in a mortar and pestle
2 tbs prepared horseradish, or to taste
2 tbs capers
black pepper to taste
½ cup chicken stock
Streusel: unseasoned breadcrumbs moistened with melted butter, about ½ cup

Cut the potatoes into 2” pieces. Cut the sausages into 2” pieces.

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add the potatoes and sausages. Simmer 8 minutes. Drain.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Lubricate a medium casserole with cooking spray. Mix the caraway, horseradish, capers and some pepper in a bowl. Put the sauerkraut into it and toss. Put the potatoes and sausage into the casserole. Top with the sauerkraut and add the chicken stock.

Bake until hot and the sausages are cooked through, about 1 hour. You can do this as much as a day ahead. When you’re ready to eat it, top it with the streusel and run it under the broiler for a few minutes to brown and crisp it.

NOT your usual Vietnamese banh mi sandwich

Banh mi is a Vietnamese-style sandwich. My variant of it uses gravlax, homemade sauerkraut and a dill sauce. The sandwiches are usually pressed, so we weighted them down with our teakettle for about 20 minutes. This gets the flavors to ooze into the bread.

I guess my conception of this is that it is a deconstructed/reconstructed bagel with lox and cream cheese. The sauerkraut is a gratuitous addition that brings in an element of a Reuben. Go figure.

NOT your usual Vietnamese banh mi sandwich
1 sfilatino loaf, or 2 - 6” sections of French bread
dill sauce* (recipe below)
gravlax
homemade sauerkraut (or store bought)
lettuce or baby arugula

Slice the bread in half and pull our some of the soft insides (if you wish). Smear some dill sauce on both sides of the bread. Layer in gravlax and sauerkraut (as much as you want). Top with some lettuce or arugula (arugula is in the picture above).

Lay a piece of foil over the top of the sandwiches and weight them for 20 minutes or so.

*Dill sauce
Mix together equals parts, yogurt, mayonnaise, sour cream. Add salt and pepper, and a generous tablespoon each parsley and fresh dill. It will taste best if you do this ahead – day before, an hour or two, whatever is convenient for you.

Kimchi and sauerkraut (both homemade)

I have mentioned before the book “wild fermentation” by Sandor Ellix Katz. (Yep, it’s in lower case.) Katz not only has a wonderful name, he has wonderful ideas. I have used his basic plan for making both kimchi and sauerkraut several times. Each dish is distinctly the best homemade version of itself I’ve ever had. The process is extraordinarily simple, though it does require a few minutes per day during the curing period.

Let’s start with the kimchi (pictured above). You can use bok choy or napa cabbage or savoy cabbage. Of course the standard way of making sauerkraut would be to use regular green cabbage. In this case I used savoy for both kimchi and sauerkraut. The amounts of stuff you use is entirely up to you. I can never get daikon radish at our local Safeway, so I substitute some standard red radishes.

Peter had the bright idea of tossing in some pickled garlic which he bought the other day. Neither of us had tasted it before. It’s meant to be used as a condiment or just noshed right out of the jar. Superb!

I didn’t bother taking a pic of the sauerkraut – it looks a lot like the kimchi but without the colorful veggie additions.

Kimchi
½ large head savoy cabbage
2 cups brine
2 tbsp radishes, grated
2 tbsp carrot, grated
2 tbsp fresh ginger, grated
2 large cloves garlic, minced or pressed
red pepper flakes to taste
1 tbsp pickled garlic, minced or pressed

Slice the cabbage across into narrow strips. Put it in a non-reactive container (I used a soufflé dish.)

Make the brine by dissolving 2 tbsp kosher salt in 2 cups water. Pour it over the cabbage. Press cabbage down with your (clean) hands. Weight it. I couldn’t find anything quite suitable until I got the idea to fill a 1 gallon freezer bag with enough water so that it spreads itself out, completely covering the surface of the nascent kimchi.

Put the kimchi in a relatively warm place. For me that’s just on the dining room table. After 24 hours drain off the brine. Taste the cabbage. If too salty, rinse it just slightly.

Add the remaining ingredients, mix together thoroughly and press back down into the bowl. If necessary add back a little of the brine so there is liquid just over the surface of the kimchi. Re-weight it and let it sit for 4-6 days, redistributing it once a day. Then refrigerate it. It will keep a long time and in the chill of the fridge will only continue fermenting ever so slowly.

Sauerkraut
½ large head savoy cabbage
kosher salt

Slice the cabbage across into very thin strips. Layer it into a non-reactive container adding sprinkles of salt to each layer. Press it down firmly with your hands. Weight it with a water-filled freezer bag and let it sit for 1 or 2 weeks, redistributing it once a day as with the kimchi.

If, after the first 24 hours, it hasn’t exuding enough water to cover it, add a little weak brine just to cover.

I find that it is ready to eat (according to my taste) after 4-5 days, at which point into the fridge it goes.



My best word to describe the flavor the savoy cabbage brings to the party is "umami."

The best Reuben sandwiches you will never make

From wikipedia:

One account holds that Reuben Kulakofsky (sometimes spelled Reubin, or the last name shortened to Kay), a Lithuanian-born, Jewish grocer from Omaha, Nebraska, was the inventor, perhaps as part of a group effort by members of Kulakofsky's weekly poker game held in the Blackstone Hotel from around 1920 through 1935. The participants, who nicknamed themselves "the committee," included the hotel's owner, Charles Schimmel. The sandwich first gained local fame when Schimmel put it on the Blackstone's lunch menu, and its fame spread when a former employee of the hotel won a national contest with the recipe.
Other accounts hold that the reuben's creator was Arnold Reuben, the German-Jewish owner of the once-famous, now defunct Reuben's Delicatessen in New York, who, according to an interview with Craig Claiborne, invented the "Reuben special" around 1914.
A version of that story is related by Bernard Sobel in his book Broadway Heartbeat: Memoirs of a Press Agent and claims that the sandwich was an extemporaneous creation for Marjorie Rambeau inaugurated when the famed Broadway actress visited the Delicatessen one night when the cupboards were particularly bare. Some sources name the actress as Annette Seelos, and note that the original "Reuben special" sandwich did not contain corned beef or sauerkraut and was not grilled; still other versions give credit to Alfred Scheuing, Reuben's chef, and say he created the sandwich for Reuben's son, Arnold Jr., in the 1930s.

Recipes, recipes. So little time, so much food. I hadn’t planned to post this, but it was too good not to mention. If I seem a little smug about my homemade stuff, it’s because I am. Get some corned beef, cheese and sauerkraut from your market and these will be (almost) as good. Here in Denver we use a bread made by Udi’s. I don’t know how widely available it is, but a good rye will do just fine. Swiss cheese is as good as gruyere (gruyere being a kind of Swill cheese). Some mustard and/or horseradish instead of thousand island dressing is also a more than suitable substitute.

The best Reuben sandwiches you will never make
4 slices of your favorite bread
6 slices gruyere cheese
homemade thousand island dressing
homemade corned beef
homemade sauerkraut
butter

Slather one side of the bread with dressing. Add some cheese. Add corned beef. Add sauerkraut. Top with a bit more cheese.

Heat your griddle. Use a stick of butter to grease it. Lay on the sandwiches. Cover with foil and weight with a teakettle. Cook 4 minutes. Turn, add more butter, flip the ‘wiches and cook 3 more minutes.

Melange rules the day

Yesterday I made another version of choucroute garni. Peter had picked up two different sausages, Johnsonville brats and Boulder (CO) breakfast sausages. We did a major shopping excursion and stocked up on necessities for the next week’s menus. We had leftover homemade sauerkraut and were saving the homemade corned beef for lunch today: Reuben sandwiches.

I could have titled this posting “The best choucroute you will never make,” simply because nobody else has exactly the same stuff in the fridge. Here’s how it came together.

I boiled red potatoes and carrots until tender. I braised 4 brats and 3 breakfast links along with some fresh, finely sliced cabbage. I threw in salt and pepper and some ground caraway seed. When the potatoes and carrots were done, I combined them with the sausage, topped the whole thing with some homemade sauerkraut, and let everything merge and meld. We nearly wet ourselves when we started sucking up this succulent mix, accompanied by some coarse-grain mustard as a condiment.

Why am I writing about this without a recipe? It’s “ideas” my friends. It’s all about ideas.

By the way, the artisanal sausage from Boulder was way less flavorful than the Johnsonville brats. Chemicals be damned. Sometimes it’s about the taste! We ate far more than we intended and have slotted in Monday’s dinner to polish off the rest (and there’s still a lot of it). Buon appetito!

St. Pat's Day dinner

Having made my corned beef from a 7-bone chuck steak, it wasn’t very thick. I had to monitor the slow cooking so as not to overdo it. Turns out, unlike a piece of brisket which would have required maybe 3 hours, it needed only 1 1/2 hours to braise.

My homemade sauerkraut (cabbage plus some turnip) is a brand new flavor for me. I’m sure some would consider it too sour. Not I (said the little red hen). That book I keep referring to (“Wild Fermentation”) includes a recipe for sauerreuben, basically sauerkraut made entirely with turnips. Wow!

Potatoes, olive oil, butter, salt and pepper. That's all you need to make this beautiful galette. Melt the butter in a non-stick pan. Take it off the heat and spread the butter around cover the bottom. Use a mandoline and slice a large russett potato as thin as possible. Starting in the middle arrange the slices in an overlapping circle, using all the potato.

Put the pan back on the heat and turn it on to medium. Cook until the bottom is well-browned (maybe 10 minutes - careful not to let it burn). Shake the pan occasionally to keep the "rosette" loose from the bottom. When browned, slide out onto a plate. Melt more butter in the pan. Use a second plate to turn the galette over then slide it back into the pan and cook until the second side looks like the above photo and a knife slides easily into the thickest part. Fabulous and simple dish!

Choucroute garni

I could barely wait for my homemade sauerkraut to be ready. I gave it 10 days (the last 3 in the fridge) and then plunged in to this recipe. I kept it very simple. Few ingredients and a relatively short prep. Assuming you will be buying sauerkraut instead of making it, don’t buy it in a can off the shelf. Your supermarket should have some in bags in the refrigerated pickle area.

Also, don’t rinse it – the whole flavor profile for this dish comes from the briny liquid.

Choucroute garni
4 medium red potatoes, quartered
2 large or 4 medium carrots, cut into 2” pieces
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
½ medium onion, sliced
4 of your favorite sausages (brats are good, but Italian are not)
salt and black pepper to taste
20 oz. sauerkraut
Chicken stock if necessary
Grainy mustard and/or prepared horseradish as garnish
Bring a large pot of water to a boil with the potatoes and carrots in it. Parboil the veg for 8 minutes over medium heat. Drain and set aside.

In the meantime heat oil and butter in a pot large enough to hold veg and sausages in (nearly) a single layer. Saute the onion and sausages for about 5 minutes, turning the sausages so that they get some color on all sides.

Nestle the carrots and potatoes into the pan, sprinkle them with salt and pepper and top with the sauerkraut and its brine. Add enough stock so that there’s about ½” liquid in the pan.

Bring to a simmer, cover the pan, and go away for 30 minutes. The potatoes and carrots should now be tender. Remove the pot from the heat and allow to cool completely. When it’s time to eat, reheat the casserole over medium heat. You certainly can eat it right away, but the flavors will develop better if it can sit. Make it day ahead and refrigerate overnight if you wish.

Serve with grainy mustard and/or prepared horseradish on the side.

Sauerkraut and duck bisque

At first blush this might sound bizarre. But with some leftovers of choucroute garni, to take care of, this idea popped into my head. I probably should have labeled this in my category of "you will never make."

So that I don’t have to keep typing that French name, I’ll refer to this as a casserole. Mine included sausages, potatoes, carrots, onions, and, obviously, sauerkraut.

Pull out all of the sauerkrant and finely chop it. Put the vegetation, along with the liquid, into a food processor and puree. If you need more liquid, add some chicken stock. Put the puree and the sauerkraut back in the pan, heat it through and taste for seasonings. That’s all there is to it.

A word about sauerkraut: mine was homemade, not something that everyone is going to bother with. Don’t buy sauerkraut in a can off the shelf. Rather, get some in the refrigerator section. It usually comes in a plastic bag. Next tip: don’t rinse it unless you feel you must. Rinsing will remove a great deal of the flavor and the juice the sauerkraut’s in is the primary flavoring of the casserole.

I had 3 oz. of duck breast left from 2 days ago. I sliced in thin and, so that it would stay pink in the center, put the slices in the bottom of heated serving bowls before pouring the bisque over them.

Homemade sauerkraut

I’ve just read a fascinating book called “Wild Fermentation” by Sandor Ellix Katz. It’s all about fermenting and curing pretty much anything you wish. There is extensive discussion of the (supposed) actual health benefits that derive from preserving foods … enhanced nutitional value, e.g.

In any case, Katz inspired me to make my own sauerkraut. The process is extraordinarily simple. It’s not my habit to “cop” a recipe from someone, but the book might be very hard to find (Denver Public Library has only a single copy), and this is worth sharing.

The container I like to use isn’t large enough for the 5 lbs. of cabbage called for. I made ½ a head of standard green cabbage (about 2.5 lbs). All I did was adjust the salt proportionally. Simple. The quantity my amount of cabbage yielded was about 32 fluid oz.

The flavor and aroma are fairly pungent, more like sour dills than a can of kraut off the shelf. We loved it.

My next Katz-inspired attempt will be Korean kimchee, something I’ve made a couple of times with only moderate success.

Homemade sauerkraut (from “Wild Fermentation” by S. E. Katz)
5 lbs. cabbage
3 tbsp non-iodized salt (4 if using kosher salt)
Ceramic crock or large bowl, plate, and something to weight the cabbage down with (brick, jug of water, etc.
Kitchen towel for covering

Chop cabbage or grate it. Layer it in your crock or bowl sprinkling with salt as you go along. You actually don’t need to use all the salt; it might must take a little longer to ferment. Use your hand to press the cabbage down forcefully (without hurting yourself or breaking your vessel) as you go along.

Top the cabbage with a plate or disk of some kind so that, after the cabbage exudes moisture over the first 24-36 hours, the weighted disk will keep it all submerged.

For that initial period cram the cabbage down every few hours and recover with plate, weight and a kitchen towel (to keep out foreign matter). Let the curing vessel sit in a warmish place while the cabbage ferments. If it doesn’t exude enough liquid to cover itself, add some brine to it (1 tbsp salt per cup of water). If it’s in a cooler place it will still ferment, just more slowly.

After 5-7 days start tasting. You have to decide for yourself when it’s “sour” enough. For me it was about 10 days, after which I packed the sauerkraut into jars and refrigerated it.

Sausage and sauerkraut casserole

The finished product

After rummaging about in the freezer and fridge I hit on an idea to use up a long piece of frozen German sausage and the rest of a bag of sauerkraut we've been using to make Reuben sandwiches. Gosh, this was good!

Sausage and sauerkraut casserole
16 oz. German or Polish sausage
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
1/2 medium onion, sliced
½ cup chicken or beef stock
2 carrots, in bite-size pieces
8 oz. red or new potatoes in bite-sized pieces
1 tsp fennel seed, coarsely ground
1 tsp caraway seed, coarsely ground
black pepper to taste
salt to taste

1 Granny Smith apple, quartered, cored and sliced thin
sauerkraut, drained but not rinsed (enough to cover the top of the casserole)

Cut the sausage into 2-3” pieces. Heat olive oil and butter in a large sauté pan. Add the sausage and onions and season lightly with salt and pepper. Saute 10 minutes, until the sausage is browned and the and onions softened. Deglaze the pan with stock.

Meanwhile boil the potatoes and carrots in salted water until nearly done – about 12 minutes. Drain and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

The veggies and sausage await the apples and sauerkraut

Grease a casserole. Put the sausage mixture into it. Add the potatoes. Add ½ the fennel seed, caraway seed, salt and pepper. (Be judicious about the salt – the sauerkraut and sausage might be salty.) Add the broth. Scatter sauerkraut over the top, enough to cover everything.

Bake covered until hot and bubbling, 1 hour if chilled; 30 – 40 minutes if already warm.

Serve with a grainy mustard and crusty bread if you wish.

Reuben sandwich

I managed to resist eating my homemade corned beef before Peter got back from his trip. Yesterday we made Reuben sandwiches. I realized on Tuesday that I needed to get Swiss cheese and sauerkraut, two of the 4 ingredients in a traditional Reuben along with Russian dressing.

Remembering the partial head of napa cabbage in the fridge, I consulted the book “Charcuterie,” a compendium of all things cured. I was dismayed to find that the recipe for sauerkraut called for a 3-week cure. I had 24 hours! So I improvised.

Following the basic plan the book gave me I shredded the cabbage, ending up with only about 2 cups, enough surely for 2 days of Reubens. The cabbage was tossed in a glass bowl with a generous amount of salt and about ½ tsp of caraway seeds. That was it – covered it with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge. I stirred it up a couple of times over the next day. When I tasted it it was pleasantly sour and salty. I rinsed it off and dried it as well as possible. It worked very well in the sandwich.

I am not anal retentive enough to want to extend my homemade repertoire into the fields of bread and cheese making. Those items came from the supermarket.

Peter whipped up a very plausible Russian dressing using just mayo and ketchup. The bread was a new Safeway product, packaged panini bread. It wasn’t as good as what the deli counter has sold me a couple of times, but it was fine when grilled.

Reuben sandwiches
2 slices panini bread
4 slices Swiss cheese
generous helping of corned beef
Russian dressing
Homemade sauerkraut
1 tbsp butter

Layer the sandwich thusly so that it will hold together when you flip it. Of course I’m assuming that most folks, like us, don’t have a dedicated panini press – that’s why you gotta turn it.
Russian dressing, half the cheese, corned beef, sauerkraut, the remaining cheese.

Heat a sauté pan over medium heat and rub a stick of butter onto it where the sandwich will go. Place the sandwich in the pan. Cover with a piece of foil and weight it with a teakettle. Cook for 4 minutes. Set the sandwich aside while you rub the pan with more butter. Return it to the pan, turned over, for 3 more minutes weighted. Cut across the sandwich to make 2 portions.