What's Cooking (Take Two!)

Ah, choucroute garni. "Garnished sauerkraut" is how I'd translate the French name. The garnish traditionally takes the form of a wide variety of pig products--sausages, ham, bacon, chops--the more the merrier. Julia Child gives a very tasty-looking recipe for it in "The Way To Cook". I haven't made it yet, though. I ordered it at a restaurant in France once. An enormous plate piled high with seasoned sauerkraut braised in white wine, incorporating about 8 different varieties of sausage, etc., arrived. My first thought was the cover of B. Kliban's book of cartoons entitled "Never Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Head".

-Paul W.

I also made a big pot of turkey stock last night, following the general advice given by Chef Carey. Lots of yummy stock ensued.

I also made a big pot of turkey stock last night, following the general advice given by Chef Carey. Lots of yummy stock ensued.

Liquid gold! Enjoy!

I just used the last of mine a couple of days ago. The ensuing stock may be my favorite part of Thanksgiving.

[Jenise]

Ah, choucroute garni. "Garnished sauerkraut" is how I'd translate the French name. The garnish traditionally takes the form of a wide variety of pig products--sausages, ham, bacon, chops--the more the merrier. Julia Child gives a very tasty-looking recipe for it in "The Way To Cook". I haven't made it yet, though. I ordered it at a restaurant in France once. An enormous plate piled high with seasoned sauerkraut braised in white wine, incorporating about 8 different varieties of sausage, etc., arrived. My first thought was the cover of B. Kliban's book of cartoons entitled "Never Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Head".

-Paul W.

Funny image, Paul.

Dinner tonight: leftover choucroute, with seared Toulouse sausage from the butcher in the Melrose Market in Seattle, where we lunched Thursday.

It was clear today and in the low to mid 40's, but it felt colder. I ended up making a pot of clam chowder. Came out very nicely and was just the thing to chase off the chill.

lovely weather happening down here
friends for dinner.

Aps were
Parmesan biscuits with goats cheese, tomatoes and basil.
Oysters with bloody mary granita and water cress
Toasts with cream cheese. smoked salmon, lemon and dill
Main
Twice cooked duck, steamed chat potatoes and steamed asparagus (it is SOOO asparagus season right now.)
Dessert
Treacle tart with brown sugar ice-cream

[Jenise]

Friends coming to dinner tonight. With temps around 20 F, a braise will be perfect, so I'm going to make a goulash wherein a whole but boneless pork shoulder will be trimmed and tied (as a stand-in for the veal I wish it were) and cooked until it's extremely tender with tomatoes, peppers, paprika, caraway and other typical goulashian flavors (this is a Daniel Boulud recipe from his book Braise). It will be served with an herb spaetzle. The first course will be cold spargel topped with what I'm going to dub an "Austrian ceviche" of sliced raw scallops.

After a very successful first foray into making pretzel bread a few weeks ago, I was emboldened to have a go at making pretzel rolls. Well, it was a major FAIL. Seems I overlooked two critical step in the process...the egg wash and the kosher salt. The rolls were quite edible, but they weren't the pretzel rolls I was craving. When I disclosed my misstep to NJ, she just clicked her tongue and muttered something like "Rookie"!

I also made a big pot of turkey stock last night, following the general advice given by Chef Carey. Lots of yummy stock ensued.

Liquid gold! Enjoy!

I just used the last of mine a couple of days ago. The ensuing stock may be my favorite part of Thanksgiving.

Hm. The stock refuses to clear. I lifted some fat off the top but it's still cloudy. Can anyone help me figure out what's going on? Is it really urgent to 'clear' it?

Thanks.

Can anyone help me figure out what's going on? Is it really urgent to 'clear' it?

There is absolutely no good reason to clarify it unless you're serving a consommé or some other preparation where clarity is key (maybe turkey en gelee?). The cloudiness won't affect the taste or cooking properties, so go ahead and work your magic without worry

There is absolutely no good reason to clarify it unless you're serving a consommé or some other preparation where clarity is key (maybe turkey en gelee?). The cloudiness won't affect the taste or cooking properties, so go ahead and work your magic without worry

Thank you! Now I just have to remember where I put the eye of newt and toe of frog....

Now I just have to remember where I put the eye of newt and toe of frog....

You kitchen amateurs are SO disorganized.

Now I just have to remember where I put the eye of newt and toe of frog....

You kitchen amateurs are SO disorganized.

Well, at least I'm not using the dried stuff.

[Jenise]

Hm. The stock refuses to clear. I lifted some fat off the top but it's still cloudy. Can anyone help me figure out what's going on? Is it really urgent to 'clear' it?

Thanks.

What Tom said. As to why it happened, the cloudiness is the proteins in the bone, which are more easily released from already-cooked bones than from raw. When I make stock from already-cooked, I keep it to the gentlest simmer possible in an attempt to avoid cloudiness. The usual egg white treatment will clarify it easily, if that's your preference.

Note that clarifying the stock will remove some of those nutritious proteins that are causing the cloudiness. I'd only worry about it if I need absolute clarity for presentation purposes, as in a consomme or an aspic.

-Paul W.

Thanks, Jenise and Paul. We used some of the stock tonight, clouds and all, with a pile of root veggies and the last of the turkey meat.

About 9 cups left.

Still quite cold here, so tonight I made green lentils with wine braised vegetables. The veggies included mushrooms, parsnips, carrots, celery, and onion, and I heated up a kielbasa for whose who wanted to go carnivorous to place atop their stew (which ended up being everyone). The meat was hardly necessary, though, as the lentil dish was complex, hearty, and a nice winter warmer.

A Laura Calder recipe I saw on her show. Browned bone-in pork chops are cooked between the bottom and top layers of red potatoes,and lots of onions. I added fresh garlic, and fresh rosemary in place of her juniper berries. Her recipe also calls for a splash of wine over the casserole and later into the cooking beef broth added to the dish. She peeled her red potatoes, I left the peeling on. Serving this with home made applesauce and Brussels sprouts, halved and cooked in browned butter.

Browned some panko in olive oil. Removed that from the skillet and sauteed some onions with some crushed red pepper in some more oil for a few minutes. Added some capers, some lemon zest, and a couple of cans of sardines. Cooked that until the sardines melted down into a pasty consistency. Tossed all of that with some rather different pasta - long tubes about a quarter inch in diameter. Then added the bread crumbs and a bunch of chopped parsley.

This came from a Bittman article on the NYT website, but we have a bunch of cookbooks with minor variants of this recipe in them. It's a good pantry meal, assuming you keep canned sardines in your pantry.

The pasta was from a German manufacturer, I think. It came from a new "international market" that opened up near here. They have one building the size of a normal supermarket that has produce, soy sauce, rice, noodles, other Asian sauces, frozen foods, and cold beverages. There's another adjoining supermarket-sized building with fresh meat and seafood, a tortilleria, cheese, deli meats, and many aisles of canned and bottled items from Mexico, the US, and the former Soviet Union. (The wine section is a hoot - they carry "Uncle Joe" wine which features a portrait of Stalin on the label.) There's a bakery and food court next to this building. There's a bunch of stuff there that I've never run across before. We'll be going back.

Afraid I could never stomach buying the "Uncle Joe" wine. I can't get beyond Stalin having butchered more people during his career than even Hitler. Second on the killer list only to Chairman Mao. Although it's hard to beat Pol Pot, who killed a greater percentage of the people he had control over by far, compared to the other three.

-Paul W.

Afraid I could never stomach buying the "Uncle Joe" wine. I can't get beyond Stalin having butchered more people during his career than even Hitler. Second on the killer list only to Chairman Mao. Although it's hard to beat Pol Pot, who killed a greater percentage of the people he had control over by far, compared to the other three.

-Paul W.

I was pretty astounded to see that. I'm not a marketing person, mind you, but it just seems to me that they could do better in branding their product then using the visage of one of the most reviled mass murderers of the last several hundred years. They say it was his favorite wine, but I'm not looking to Stalin for wine recommendations.

Pork lo mein tonight. For the "roast pork" I got a take-out order of "boneless spare ribs" (which means Cantonese-style generic pork bits seasoned with hoisin sauce, five-spice powder, and a few grinds of black pepper, sliced thin, and broiled as one would spare ribs). I added this to a stir-fry of thin-sliced onions, boiled and drained lo mein noodles, soy sauce, oyster sauce, thin sliced vegetables (in this case celery, pea pods, dried shiitake mushrooms (soaked in boiling water for 1/2 hour, then drained, squeezed dry, and sliced thin). shredded scallions, bean sprouts), with the shredded "boneless spare ribs" added for the last minute of cooking.

It's my recreation of a pork lo mein I fell in love with at a local Chinese fast food outlet. It was one of these places where you could look into the kitchen to see the food being prepared, so I was able to note their ingredients and technique.

Maybe not particularly authentic, but damn tasty. My Chinese comfort food.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Paul, that sounds excellent! I took a pkg of chicken thighs out of the freezer this morning with no idea what I'd end up doing with them. Chicken and Dumplings came to mind, but you described your dish so thoroughly I'm now tasting, and wanting, Chinese.

Last night a I made a very good and comforting baked spaghetti. Very simple and easy. Organic hamburger browned, onions, and garlic, crushed red pepper, Turkish Oregano, s & p. I then put together a sauce made from a mushroom and tomato sauce made by an Italian friend our son knows, who jars it for family and friends. I also added a cup of my home made and frozen marinara sauce. I wanted a more mushroom flavor, so I sautéed a mix of Trumpet Royal, Forest Kameko, Maitake Frondosa. and Velvet Pioppini, until nice and golden and added a little white wine, then mixed into the sauce. This was simmered for about 30 minutes, then allowed to sit for a few hours in the fridge. 1/3 of the sauce was layered into a 13x9 dish, cooked spaghetti went on top, then grated cheese. (I wanted to use up small chunks of Havarti, Gruyère, Smoked Gouda, so I used it all. Another layer of sauce, pasta, cheese, then the last layer of sauce and cheese. A sprinkle of parmesano reggiano and baked until puffed and golden. Heaven! Served with crusty garlic baguette bread and an arugula salad with green onion and avocado, with almond oil and champagne vinaigrette