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Brasato al Barolo (Beef Braised in Red Wine)

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January 21, 2021

Pre-pandemic my husband randomly chose a region of Italy.  Most of our meals for the month were traditional foods of that region.

In response to the pandemic, I reduced my marketing, with rare exception, to one supermarket trip once a week.  Obtaining the ingredients to create very specific regional Italian cuisine became difficult with such a shopping regimen.  Meal planning, though still Italian, reverted to dishes for which I could obtain the necessary ingredients at the supermarket supplemented by deliveries from Amazon.

Home-cured pancetta diced and ready to be cooked. Good quality pancetta can be purchased. Be sure to have it sliced thickly.

Amazon is my source for Italian flour, several types of which I use for making pasta, bread, pizza and cake.  Carnaroli rice can be difficult to obtain under the best of circumstances but is available on Amazon.  Some of the ingredients for gelato are impossible to find in retail shops making Amazon the go-to source.

Other items, like specific types of cheeses or cured meats or olives, can only reasonably come from local retail markets.  The same is true for produce and an array of other ingredients.  One marketing trip a week to a general supermarket made it impossible to gather many of the required ingredients so the one-region-a-month-cooking-and-eating regimen fell victim to the pandemic, at least temporarily.

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I made food from Piemonte (Piedmont) while our region-a-month plan was still active.  Piemonte has cows, so beef and dairy figure prominently in the cuisine.  Piemonte is also home to Barolo, among other wonderful wines.

Piemontese food does not shy away from calories or flavor!

This dish makes use of two of the stars of Piemontese cuisine, beef and wine.  The most traditional recipes call for a whole filet.  The wine is traditionally Barolo.

Fresh bay leaves have tremendously more aroma than dried ones.

There was a time when Barolo was affordable.  It is no longer a budget-friendly wine and certainly not one that I would use to braise beef in, even if it’s filet.  If you’re interested in how Barolo became so well-known, watch the movie Barolo Boys.

It’s rare to find a modern recipe that simply specifies Barolo as the red wine.  Even when the traditional name of the dish, Brasato al Barolo, is used, the wine is rarely Barolo.  Calling this Brasato al Vino would be more accurate but that name doesn’t really convey the historic context of the dish.

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I’ve made this with filet that I dutifully larded with my home-cured pancetta.  While the taste was good, the texture of filet after braising was not good, even with the larding.

After that first attempt, I decided to use a cut more commonly used for long, slow, moist cooking even if it was not as high-brow as filet.  Once I made that decision, I started doing recipe research that stretched beyond my several very traditional multi-volume sets of Italian regional cuisine published in Italy in Italian.  I discovered that other (iconoclastic English-speaing) cooks had made the same shift to “lesser” cuts of meat.

I particularly like brisket that’s been braised though a nicely marbled chuck roast would work too.

Fresh sage leaves are better than dried when it comes to flavor.

The dish was a hit when made with brisket.  Truth be told, the family didn’t care to ever have it again when I made it with filet.  With the textural change from the brisket it’s become part of our standard menu rotation.

This is a perfect dish for winter.  It’s great for entertaining as it is actually better if made the day before and reheated just before serving.

Oh, and if you actually make it with Barolo, please invite me to dinner!

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 Brasato al Barolo (Beef Braised in Red Wine)
Since Barolo is so expensive, most contemporary recipes call for another full-bodied red wine. I have used Zinfandel as well as an Argentine wine that was 60% Merlot and 40% Syrah with great success. The meat can be served without refrigerating first but refrigeration makes it easier to get neat slices. If not refrigerating, pour the hot sauce on the sliced meat and serve immediately. If you don’t have a stash of garlic oil on hand, smash two cloves of garlic and sauté in the olive oil until golden then remove the garlic.
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Course Mains, Meats
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 4 hours
Passive Time 24 hours
Servings
people
Ingredients
Course Mains, Meats
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 4 hours
Passive Time 24 hours
Servings
people
Ingredients
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Instructions
  1. Combine beef with the onion, carrot, celery, garlic, and wine. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
  2. The next day, remove the beef and wipe dry.
  3. Strain the marinade. Reserve the solids and liquid separately.
  4. Dredge the beef in flour.
  5. Sauté pancetta in garlic oil over low heat until it renders its fat and browns. Remove pancetta and reserve.
  6. Brown the beef in the rendered fat. Remove the beef.
  7. Add the vegetables to the pan and sauté until softened and the onions are translucent.
  8. Add the tomato paste. Sauté the tomato paste briefly to darken and sweeten it.
  9. Add the reserved marinade to the pan along with the bay leaves, cloves, rosemary, sage leaves, cinnamon, juniper berries and peppercorns. Bring to a boil, scraping up any browned bits.
  10. Add the beef. Season with salt. Braise till tender, partially covered, approximately 3 hours.
  11. Remove the beef and refrigerate, tightly covered.
  12. Strain the braising liquid. Discard the solids and refrigerate the liquid.
  13. When the beef is cold, slice it against the grain and put in an ovenproof pan or casserole.
  14. Skim the chilled braising liquid.
  15. Heat the de-fatted braising liquid with the reserved fried pancetta.
  16. When the braising liquid comes to a boil, remove from heat and add the Marsala. Pour the liquid over the beef, cover the pan, and heat at 350°F for approximately 1 hour.
Recipe Notes

Copyright © 2021 by Villa Sentieri, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Recipes

Sformato di Patate (Italian Potato “Cake”)

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July 13, 2020

I published a photo for this dish on my Facebook feed last week and got so much attention that I decided to actually post the recipe.

Sformato di Spinaci (spinach sformato or, if you must, spinach casserole) is a dish that garners great reverence in my husband’s family.  A while ago, I published my adaptation of the family recipe.

I make sformati out of lots of different vegetables besides spinach, including Swiss chard, zucchini, and cauliflower, among others.

Sometimes I swap out the ground beef in my husband’s grandmother’s recipe for sausage or Calabrese salame, or mushrooms.  This is a heretical act in his family but everyone still eats the sformato.  This is compounded  by the blasphemy of adding besciamella to the mix.

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Although I make several versions of potato “cakes” I never thought of them as sformati until I stumbled upon the genre while perusing Italian-language food websites.

Although I had mixed meat, such as salame or prosciutto, and cheese into the potato mixture before baking it, I had never made a layer of filling in the middle.  Doing so changes the whole character of the dish.  It really feels like a main course (or what would be a secondo in an Italian meal) rather than gussied up potatoes that should be served as a side dish (contorno)!

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When serving sformato di patate, I often start with soup and end with a salad… unless it’s a meal for which I developed a new gelato flavor to try! (This happens once, if not twice, per week… the gelato, not the sformato!)

This recipe calls for prosciutto cotto (cooked ham).  This is not the cured ham that we simply call “prosciutto” in English.  It really is just a cooked ham.  Typically, it would not be smoked.  I have successfully made this with good quality ham from the deli counter as well a fully-cooked lightly-smoked ham from the meat counter.

Since the cheese is smoked, I find that smoked ham works as well as un-smoked ham though the former is more traditional.

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 Sformato di Patate (Italian Potato "Cake")
Italian prosciutto cotto is not smoked so the most traditional ham would be unsmoked but since the cheese is smoky, I’ve occasionally used a lightly smoked ham and gotten fantastic results. If the ham is not sliced very, very thinly, cut it into batons about the size of wooden matchsticks. I’ve chosen to keep this recipe in the metric measures that I use. You can click the button below to change to American measures. Feel free to round the quantities up or down a bit.
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Course Meats
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 90 minutes
Passive Time 15 minutes
Servings
people
Ingredients
Course Meats
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 90 minutes
Passive Time 15 minutes
Servings
people
Ingredients
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Instructions
  1. Peel the potatoes. Dice and cook in salted water until they can be easily pierced with a fork but are not falling apart.
  2. While still hot, pass the potatoes through a ricer and allow to cool until they are comfortable to touch.
  3. Combine potatoes with eggs, Parmigiano and milk. Mix well. Add salt and pepper to taste.
  4. Butter a 22 cm springform pan and coat with fine dry breadcrumbs.
  5. Press about 60% of the potato mixture onto the bottom and up the sides of the pan.
  6. Layer the prosciutto and scamorza inside, making two alternating layers of each.
  7. Top with the remaining potato mixture and smooth the top.
  8. Sprinkle the top with breadcrumbs and dot generously with butter.
  9. Bake at 350°F for approximately one hour, until golden, adding the rosemary sprig to the top of the sformato after about 20 minutes of baking.
  10. After an hour, the internal temperature should be close enough to 165°F that it will reach that temperature while it rests.
  11. Remove from the oven and allow to cool approximately 15 minutes before removing the sides of the pan and serving.
Recipe Notes

Copyright © 2020 by Villa Sentieri, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Porchetta: A Festive Pork Roast from Italy

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February 14, 2020

Porchetta is roast pork, but it’s no ordinary roast pork.  In its most traditional form, it is made from a whole pig, well-seasoned, and slowly roasted.

Porchetta can be found throughout Italy at festivals and street fairs, such as the one in Bagni di Lucca that I attended this past August.

Porchetta, made from a whole pig, at a festival in Bagni di Lucca.

Though there is some debate, Porchetta probably originated in Lazio in Central Italy.  Lazio is the region where Rome is located.

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Seasonings vary with the region and often include some combination of garlic, rosemary, fennel, and black pepper.  Some regional variations include chopped entrails or liver in the mix.

Perhaps the most unusual version of Porchetta that I’ve encountered is made at the Italian Culinary Institute in Stalettì, Calabria.  It is seasoned with salt and a large amount of truffle puree!

Chef Juan and Chef Chris about to carve a truffle-laden porchetta at the Italian Culinary Institute.

Most of us are not going to roast an entire pig which raises the question of what cut or cuts to use.  This is especially important as much of the mouth-feel of porchetta derives from the combination of fatty and lean meat inherent in using an entire pig.

One solution, that makes for an elegant presentation, is to roll a slab of pork belly around a lean pork loin and tie it.  This strategy allows one to cut neat slices that contain both lean and fatty meat.

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Another solution is to use a cut of meat that inherently contains about 20% fat.  A pork shoulder fits the bill nicely.  The bone must be removed and the thickest parts of the meat butterflied before being seasoned and tied.  This cut of meat doesn’t create consistent slices as does the pork-belly-wrapped-around-a-pork-loin method.  It does, however, create supremely succulent meat, more so that the pork loin that’s encased in the pork belly.

A porchetta vendor in Rome. (Photo by Alessandro Pinna – Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34665585)

I lean towards the “pulled pork” version of porchetta, so slices aren’t really important to me.  I always opt for the boneless shoulder method and pull the cooked meat apart in large chunks.  Given the chance, though, I’d like to try a whole pig.

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 Porchetta
The seasonings in this version of Porchetta closely adhere to what is used in central Italy. Be sure to spread the seasoning very evenly on the meat before rolling and tying.
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Course Mains, Meats
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 1 hour
Cook Time 10 hours
Passive Time 2 days
Servings
persons
Ingredients
For the initial seasoning
Final seasoning and cooking
Course Mains, Meats
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 1 hour
Cook Time 10 hours
Passive Time 2 days
Servings
persons
Ingredients
For the initial seasoning
Final seasoning and cooking
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Instructions
For the initial seasoning
  1. Crush fennel seeds in a mortar. Reserve.
  2. Puree the garlic and olive oil in a small blender jar.
  3. Add the crushed fennel seeds, salt, black pepper, rosemary, chile and enough olive oil to make a paste.
  4. Rub the paste over what will be the inside of the roast once it is rolled and tied.
  5. Roll up roast and tie with butcher’s twine.
  6. Put the tied roast, fat side up and seam down, into a non-reactive roasting pan and cover with plastic wrap.
  7. Put the cover on roasting pan (or cover tightly with aluminum foil) and refrigerate for 2 days.
Final seasoning and cooking
  1. Remove the pork from refrigerator about 60-90 minutes before roasting.
  2. Using a mortar and pestle, grind the fennel seeds.
  3. Add garlic and salt to the fennel and crust into a paste.
  4. Add black pepper and rosemary. Combine well.
  5. Rub spice mixture over the top of the roast.
  6. Pour the white wine into the bottom of the roasting pan.
  7. Cover the pan and roast at 250°F, for 10 hours, occasionally basting with pan juices after about 5 hours.
  8. Uncover the pan for the last hour of roasting. If necessary, but usually not, add a bit of water to the pan.
  9. Remove the roast from the roasting pan and place it on a serving platter. Pull the roast into chunks.
  10. Skim the fat from the pan drippings. Drizzle the pan drippings over the meat.
Recipe Notes

Copyright © 2020 by Villa Sentieri, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Recipes

Spiedini (Italian Skewered Meat and Vegetables)

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November 20, 2019

Spiedini means skewers.  By extension it also refers to food cooked on skewers.

Zia Fidalma’s spiedini ready to be served. The extra cut-up vegetables were roasted along with the spiedini.

There is evidence that humans cooked food on skewers as far back as 300,000 years ago in an area that is encompassed by present-day Germany.

It’s an ancient cooking method.  So, it’s not surprising that food cooked on skewers is found almost everywhere.

Zia Fidalma cutting sausage for spiedini at her home in Benabbio.

During my month of cooking in Tuscany with Zia Fidalma this past August, spiedini were on the lesson plan.

But first, there was the shopping.  Onions and peppers came from the weekly market in Bagni di Lucca.  Pork and sausage came from her favorite local butcher.  Pancetta tesa came from yet another vendor.  The pantry staples, including olive oil from her own olive grove, were on the ready at home.

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The sausage that Zia Fidalma used is Salsiccia Toscana, Tuscan Sausage.  It does NOT have fennel seed.  What it DOES have appeared to be a mystery, at least temporarily.

Pancetta Tesa produced in the Garfagnana area of Tuscany.

Butchers in Italy who make it say they don’t know because they buy the spice mix from a company.  Whether or not this is completely true is also unknown, to me at least.  Requests from friends and family in Tuscany also came up empty-handed.

A Google search, in Italian, turned up more useful information.  As expected, there is a range of ingredients.  Every recipe has salt and pepper.  Most have garlic (minced, chopped, or in one recipe, rubbed on one’s hands before one mixes the sausage!).  Many have a bit of wine, both white and red are called for.  I found one recipe that indicated that finely minced sage could be added if desired but NOT fennel!

Ingredients ready to be skewered in Zia Fidalma’s kitchen.

So, basically, Tuscan sausage is very sparingly flavored with salt, pepper, garlic and maybe a bit of wine.

For a traditional Tuscan taste for these spiedini, purchase (or make) an “Italian” sausage without fennel and without red pepper or paprika.  (Note, there is no such thing as “Italian” sausage in Italy.  Like most foods in Italy, sausage is hyper-local and varies from region to region, province to province, and often town to town.)

Zia Fidalma’s spiedini ready to be cooked.

Nobody is going to complain, however, if you use sausage with fennel seed as I had to do when I was unable to find sausage without fennel after trying four markets in Santa Fe.

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Pancetta tesa (sometimes called pancetta stesa) may be more difficult to find than the correct sausage, however.  Pancetta tesa is flat, not rolled.  It is better to use for spiedini because it is easier to cut into shapes that facilitate skewering.

On the same day that I made spiedini with Zia Fidalma, we looked at a house for sale in her village. I’m still smitten by the house and the views and the idea of spending summers there!

While you might spend 30 to 45 minutes cutting up the meat and vegetables and threading them on a skewer, the cooking process is easy.  Feel free to experiment with the herbs, but I’ve called for the herbs that are most commonly used in Tuscan cooking.

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 Spiedini (Italian Skewered Meat and Vegetables)
If you want a more elegant look, take the time to cut the ingredients to the same size, approximately 1-inch squares. For a more homestyle appearance, as shown in the pictures, some variability is fine as long as none of the pieces is extremely large or small. The exact sequence of how to skewer ingredients is up to you but I have provided a suggestion that worked well with the quantity of ingredients I had.
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Course Mains, Meats
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 45 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Servings
people
Ingredients
Course Mains, Meats
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 45 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Servings
people
Ingredients
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Instructions
  1. Cut each link of sausage into four pieces.
  2. Cut the pork into 24 pieces.
  3. Cut the pancetta tesa into 36 pieces
  4. Cut each pepper into 12 pieces.
  5. Separate the onion into layers and cut 36 pieces of onion about the same size as the pepper pieces
  6. Thread the meat and vegetables onto 12 skewers in the following order: Pepper, Pancetta, Onion, Pork, Pepper, Pancetta, Onion, Sausage, Pepper, Pancetta, Onion, Pork.
  7. On the bottom of a shallow roasting pan large enough to hold the skewers in a single layer, put the rosemary, sage, bay leaves, oregano, juniper berries and garlic.
  8. Put the skewers on top. Season generously with salt and pepper. Drizzle with olive oil.
  9. Roast at 400°F until the meat is cooked, approximately 20 to 30 minutes, basting occasionally with the oil from the pan.
  10. Arrange the skewers on a serving platter. Pour the oil over top being sure to add the cooked herbs and garlic. Serve immediately.
Recipe Notes

Copyright © 2019 by Villa Sentieri, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Recipes

Cotechino with Lentils

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January 2, 2019

Cotechino is not a food I grew up eating.  It entered my food canon through my husband’s family, Northern Italians all!

Over the years we’ve melded together our different family traditions.  Although there’s some variability from year-to-year based on travel plans and invitations to the homes of family and friends, our usual sequence goes something like this.

Cotechino purchased at Eataly in Los Angeles. We had one on Christmas Eve and two on New Year’s Eve. The last one is in the freezer waiting for my return from Italy.

Pasta Ascuitta on Christmas Eve harkens back to my childhood when Christmas Eve dinner was a groaning table full of seafood at Aunt Margie and Uncle Joe’s house.  Pasta Ascuitta was only one of many dishes, including Baccala cooked in Tomato Sauce with Green Olives, Braised Stuffed Calamari, Breaded and Fried Cod, Spicy Mussels in a Garlicky Tomato Sauce, and on and on and on.  Mostly, now, we have a quiet Christmas Eve dinner with my in-laws at which we serve Pasta Ascuitta and call it quits!

That means somewhere else over Christmastime we have to fit in Baccala since it is a favorite of my in-laws.  This year we had it several days before Christmas.  I bought the baccala at Eataly in Los Angeles (on the second of my two trips to secure a visa for my three-plus months in Italy that start in early January).  It was truly the best baccala I have ever had.

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My family didn’t have any specific traditions for what was served on New Year’s Eve but New Year’s Day always saw Pork, Sauerkraut and Sausage with Dumplings.  That meal, repeated in one fashion or another in most homes in Johnstown, PA, pays homage to the original German founders of the town.

Somewhere around New Year’s Day my mother-in-law would make Cotechino with Brovada.  Brovada is turnips that are fermented in grape pomace left over from crushing and pressing grapes for wine.  Since Brovada is unobtainable (in my experience) in the United States, my mother-in-law would pickle turnips in red wine vinegar to create a reasonable substitute.  The turnips are peeled and shredded before cooking.  Brovada ends up tasting remarkably similar to sauerkraut.

Before Frank and I started spending New Year’s in Palm Springs, we would host a New Year’s Eve dinner at Villa Sentieri at which we served Cotechino as the appetizer course.  Although Cotechino is typically served with Brovada in Friuli, it is served with lentils in most of the remainder of Northern Italy.  I always opted for lentils for the New Year’s Eve dinner, leaving my mother-in-law to make it a second time with Brovada.

Many of our traditions got up-ended this year.  For Christmas Eve dinner we had Cotechino with Sauerkraut!  My mother-in-law did not make Brovada this year and said she preferred to have the Cotechino with Sauerkraut rather than Lentils.  I used the sauerkraut portion of my recipe for Pork with Sauerkraut.  It was a great combination.  I also made Dumplings just because everything is better with dumplings.

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That means we didn’t have Pasta Ascuitta on Christmas Eve for the first time in I-don’t-know-how-many years!

The cotechino with sauerkraut and dumplings we had on Christmas Eve.

Even though we didn’t host New Year’s Eve dinner this year, I was assigned the task of making the first course for the dinner hosted by our friends John O’Malley and Bob Reddington in Palm Springs.  I jumped at the chance to make Cotechino with Lentils.  The Cotechino came from Eataly in Los Angeles, and like the Baccala, was excellent.

As I’m writing this blog on the first of the year, and contemplating what to make for dinner today after a holiday season marked by over-consumption and with no time to recover before leaving for my three months in Italy on January 7th, I think we may just have Spaghetti with Garlic, Oil and Red Pepper.  Pasta Ascuitta will need to wait for another year!

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 Cotechino with Lentils
The lentils make a wonderful dish on their own without the cotechino. The lentils are better if made a day or two in advance and refrigerated. For added flavor, let most of the broth evaporate during the first 30 minutes then add enough of the cotechino cooking water, skimmed of fat, to make the lentils loose but not soupy. If the broth has salt, it may be necessary to reduce the amount of salt called for in the recipe. Save the fennel fronds to garnish the cotechino, if desired.
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Course Appetizers and Nibbles, Mains, Meats
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 3 1/2 hours
Servings
people as an appetizer
Ingredients
For the Lentils
For the Cotechino
Course Appetizers and Nibbles, Mains, Meats
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 3 1/2 hours
Servings
people as an appetizer
Ingredients
For the Lentils
For the Cotechino
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Instructions
For the Lentils
  1. Cut off the stalks of the fennel before dicing.
  2. Reserve the fennel fronds for garnishing.
  3. Sauté the carrot, onion, fennel, and garlic in the olive oil in heavy-bottomed Dutch oven until the vegetables begin to soften, approximately 15 minutes.
  4. Add the broth and bay leaf. Boil gently, partially covered, for 15 minutes.
  5. Meanwhile, rinse and drain the lentils.
  6. Add the lentils to the broth. Bring the lentils to a gentle boil, partially covered, and cook approximately 30 minutes, adding salt and pepper after the first 15 minutes.
  7. If making the lentils in advance, remove them from the heat, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate.
  8. When ready to serve, bring the lentils to a gentle boil with enough of the cotechino cooking liquid, or water, to loosen them but not make them soupy. Cook until tender but not mushy, approximately 10-15 minutes longer.
  9. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.
For the Cotechino
  1. Prick the sausages in several places using a pin. If the holes are large the casing may split during cooking.
  2. Put the cotechino in a large pot, cover with cold water, simmer, covered, approximately 2 ½ hours.
  3. Mince the fennel fronds while the cotechino cooks.
  4. The cotechino is best served piping hot as soon as is it removed from the cooking liquid.
  5. Slice the cotechino.
  6. Plate several slices of cotechino on top of some of the lentils and garnish with minced fennel fronds, if desired.
Recipe Notes

Copyright © 2019 by Villa Sentieri, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Guyanese “Cook Up” (Rice and Black Eyed Peas Cooked in Coconut Milk)

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July 13, 2018

The combination of rice and legumes (peas, beans, lentils) is common throughout much of the world.  Sometimes the beans and rice are cooked together like Cajun Red Beans and Rice, Ecuadorian Gallo Pinto or Italian Risi e Bisi.  Sometimes the beans and rice are cooked separately but served together as with Cuban Black Beans and Rice.  The combination of black beans and rice, mixed into a single dish, is traditionally called Moros y Cristianos, a not very politically correct term that translates as Moors and Christians.

Jamaican Rice and Peas is probably the most well-known version of the combination from the West Indies, a term that is typically applied to the English-speaking parts of the Caribbean.  As I’ve mentioned before, although Guyana is on the South American mainland, it was administered as part of the British West Indies and most definitely has a West Indian culture.

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Jamaican Rice and Peas is typically meatless.  It is most often made with red kidney beans.  Part of the cooking liquid is coconut milk.

The house where Ray Hugh, my college roommate, grew up and where I stayed on several occasions, Georgetown, Guyana

Cook Up, the Guyanese version of rice and peas, is most definitely not meatless.  In my experience, it is rare to have fewer than two types of meat in Cook Up.  Coconut milk also figures prominently.

I made four trips to Guyana starting just prior to my junior year in college and ending just prior to starting my internship after finishing medical school.  During the first three trips, I stayed with Ray Hugh, my college roommate, at his father’s house.

During the last trip, I was working as a physician at the public hospital in Georgetown, Guyana.  I rented a room in a private house.  That visit was scheduled to last for five months with a brief return to the States for my medical school graduation after about three and a half months.  As graduation approached, and the prospect of working long hours as an intern became more real, I decided that when I flew home for graduation I would stay put and relax for a bit before starting internship.

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I enjoy going to food markets whenever I travel, be they local convenience stores, supermarkets, open-air markets, or any other variant!  Stabroek Market in Georgetown is a roofed-over open-sided market housed in a sprawling Nineteenth Century building.  Vendors sell food and almost  any other necessity.

Stabroek Market in Georgetown, Guyana (photo: Google, stabroeknews.com)

Although the house where I stayed had a cook, she only cooked lunch, a very substantial lunch I might add!  I sometimes cooked dinner.  Stabroek Market was where I did my shopping.

Thyme figures prominently in Guyanese cooking.  There are three different herbs that are referred to as thyme in Guyana.  The first is what we think of as “regular” thyme, sometimes called French thyme.  The second is referred to as fine-leaf thyme or Guyanese thyme.  The third is called thick-leaf thyme or broad-leaf thyme.

Although there are many varieties of thyme, thick-leaf thyme is not really thyme but a semi-succulent perennial plant that has wide distribution.  Guyanese thyme, which is quite difficult to obtain in the United States may actually be a variety of oregano.  Thyme, oregano, and marjoram are all closely related.

Rather than sweat trying to find different varieties of thyme, I use “regular” (French) thyme and a little oregano and/or marjoram to round out the flavors.  Since no two cooks use the same herbs in the same quantities, and since many Guyanese cooks would just use French thyme, I think the addition of a little oregano and/or marjoram to mimic fine-leaf thyme produces a traditional taste.  However you do it, thyme  should be the predominant flavor.  Since thyme can taste medicinal in large quantities, use it sparingly at first if it’s not an herb you’re accustomed to cooking with.

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 Guyanese "Cook Up" (Rice and Peas with Coconut Milk and Meats)
There are more variations of Cook Up than there are Guyanese cooks. Consider this recipe a starting point. You can use more kinds or different meat, such as diced corned beef or pickled pork (essentially made the same was as corned beef but with pork). Typically, in Guyana, the meats and black-eyed peas would be cooked in the same pot, being added when appropriate to finish cooking at the same time. Liquid would be adjusted by sight and the rice and other ingredients added and the cooking finished. When I made this frequently, I had all the timing down and got quite good at estimating the volume of liquid in the pot. These days, I cook the different ingredients in steps, and actually measure the liquid, as described below.
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Rating: 2.42
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Course Mains, Meats, Poultry
Cuisine West Indian
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 3 1/2 hours
Passive Time 1 hour
Servings
people
Ingredients
Seasoned Chicken
Smoked Meat Broth
Final Assembly
Course Mains, Meats, Poultry
Cuisine West Indian
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 3 1/2 hours
Passive Time 1 hour
Servings
people
Ingredients
Seasoned Chicken
Smoked Meat Broth
Final Assembly
Votes: 12
Rating: 2.42
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Instructions
Seasoned Chicken
  1. Combine chicken thighs with all chicken seasoning ingredients.
  2. Mix well. Refrigerate several hours or overnight.
Smoked Meat Broth
  1. Make the smoked meat broth using the ham shanks or ham hock and water. You can do this by simmering them, covered, for 4-5 hours; cooking in a pressure cooker or Instant Pot for 60 minutes; or using a slow cooker set on low for 6-8 hours.
  2. When the broth is done, remove and reserve the ham shanks or ham hock. Skim the fat from the broth, add water to make 8 cups, and refrigerate if not using immediately.
  3. Dice the meat from the ham shanks or ham hock and reserve.
Final Assembly
  1. Dice the bacon.
  2. In a large, heavy-bottomed Dutch oven or stockpot with a tight-fitting lid, brown the bacon.
  3. Remove and reserve the bacon.
  4. Brown the seasoned chicken pieces well, in batches, in a the bacon fat in the Dutch oven.
  6. As the chicken pieces are browned, remove them to a platter.
  7. After browning and removing all the chicken, add the onions to the Dutch oven and sauté until softened. If the onions do not release enough liquid to loosen the browned bits from the bottom of the pot, add a few tablespoons of broth or water.
  8. After loosening the brown bits, continue to sauté the onions until translucent.
  9. Add the garlic and sauté until fragrant.
  10. Return the chicken to the pot with the onions and garlic. Add any accumulated juices as well as any marinade that might be left in the bowl. Add 4 cups of broth. Cover the pot and simmer approximately one hour, until the chicken is tender.
  11. Remove and reserve the chicken.
  12. Add the black-eyed peas and bacon to the pot in which the chicken was cooked along with the remaining 4 cups of broth. Bring to a gentle boil and cook, partially covered, until the peas are cooked, approximately 30-45 minutes, adding two teaspoons of salt after about 15 minutes of cooking.
  14. When the peas are cooked drain them, reserving the cooking liquid.
  15. Measure the cooking liquid and either add water or boil it down to make four cups.
  16. Return the cooking liquid to the Dutch oven along with the cooked black-eyed peas and bacon, diced pork from the broth, rice, coconut milk and 4 teaspoons of salt. Bring to a boil, stirring a few times. Put the chicken pieces on top of the rice, cover the pot, reduce the heat to low, and cook for 20 minutes without opening the pot.
  17. Remove the rice from the heat and allow it to rest for 15 minutes without removing the lid.
  18. After 15 minutes taste a bit of the rice. It should be cooked, but if not, add a bit more water and cook briefly on low heat, covered, until the rice is fully cooked.
  19. Arrange the chicken on a serving platter.
  20. Stir the rice and put on the platter with the chicken or on a different one. Serve immediately with West Indian hot sauce.
Recipe Notes

Smoked ham shanks are the boney ends of smoked ham. They have a gentle smoke flavor, just like ham. Smoked ham hocks are much more aggressively smoked and one would be sufficient for this quantity of rice.

Copyright © 2018 by Villa Sentieri, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Recipes

Chinese Roast Pork

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April 25, 2018

Throughout junior year in college I predominantly ate Chinese, West Indian, and Sri Lankan food.  To be sure, I made Italian and a smattering of other cuisines but that year was really an intensive study in three cuisines.

My roommate, Ray Hugh, was from Guyana.  His grandparents emigrated from China to Guyana around 1870.  My grandparents emigrated from Italy (on my mother’s side) and Slovakia (on my father’s side) to the United States a few decades later.

Ray Hugh in 1975 from the first page of my 1975 scrapbook

I learned a lot about Chinese food, especially Hakka Chinese, from Ray.  We also went to Chinese restaurants regularly so my palate got accustomed to the different regional cuisines of China.  We spent six weeks the summer after junior year staying with his mother outside of London.  I learned a lot about Chinese (and West Indian) food from her.

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As for West Indian, my primary influences were, again, Ray Hugh, Valrie Tracey, and Gloria Lannaman.  Though located on the South American mainland, Guyana was administered (then called British Guiana) as part of the British West Indies and it definitely has a West Indian cultural heritage.

Valrie and Gloria were from Jamaica.  I posted my version of a recipe for Valrie’s Easter Bun a few weeks ago.  If I get in the right frame of mind, I’ll post my interpretations of her recipes for curry goat and for home-salted mackerel cooked in coconut milk.  Admittedly, these may be a stretch for most of my readers but they fulfill the blog’s goal of highlighting traditional recipes from around the world.

From Gloria, I got a wonderful pot roast recipe with allspice (called pimento in Jamaica) and a shockingly pink rum punch recipe.  I still use her technique for sautéing baked ham with caramelized onions and Scotch Bonnet peppers for a quick supper or served on crackers with cocktails.   These will all appear in due course.

Valrie Tracey in 1975, also from the first page of my 1975 scrapbook

As I’ve described several times, Nanacy and Reggie Rajapakse were my primary instructors in the art of Sri Lankan cooking…along with a couple of cookbooks by Charmaine Solomon, who Nanacy and Reggie knew.

For much of the summer that Ray and I spent with his mother near London, we explored the city almost every day.  We’d have breakfast, walk to the train station in New Malden, and take the train to London.  We’d be home for dinner, usually.  Lunch was frequently at a restaurant in Chinatown—you know, the Cantonese ones with roast pork, roast ducks, and other roasted animal parts hanging in the window.  That was where I honed my taste for Cantonese roast pork—minus the bright red food coloring.

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In these restaurants, lunch was a bowl of rice and some sort of roasted meat, hacked to bite-size bits with a very heavy cleaver.  There was nary a vegetable in sight.  When I mentioned to Ray, once, that a vegetable would be nice, he walked over to the chef, who was putting together everyone’s lunch right inside the front window of the store, with rows of glistening roasted meat on hooks hanging in front of him.  The chef pulled a few greens from somewhere, dipped them in a bubbling cauldron of broth momentarily, and put them in my bowl along with the rice and roast pork.  He was very gracious about it but I realized that vegetables were not the point of a restaurant like this.  From then on I was happy to eat rice and roasted meat for lunch, choosing to balance out my diet at the other two meals of the day.

The third and final picture on the first page of one of my 1975 scrap book is this picture of me

Friday, July 4, 1975 was one of the days we did not go into London from Ray’s mother’s house.  Instead, we stayed home and made hamburgers and hot dogs (well, that being England and then being then, they were bangers, really) and a few of the usual trimmings.  Ray and I along with his mother and two sisters, and his younger sister’s boyfriend, Clive, sat outside in the charming little backyard (what the Brits call a “garden”) eating.  Clive asked what we were celebrating.  I told him we were celebrating the independence of the United States from Britain.  That didn’t go over really well but he was a good sport about it.

From that summer of eating Cantonese Roast Pork in London’s Chinatown, I got home wanting to be able to make it.  Ray and I roomed together senior year as well.  That’s when I perfected my recipe for roast pork.  It involves marinating strips of pork overnight then hanging them from hooks in the oven and roasting them.  It sounds fussy, but it’s really quite easy.

Stainless steel “s” hooks are the best for hanging the pork in the oven

This Cantonese-style roast pork is totally different from Ray’s Five Spice Roast Pork, which I like equally well.

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 Chinese Roast Pork
This roast pork is not as red as the roast pork often seen in Chinese restaurants as it does not use artificial coloring. Thick-cut boneless pork chops work well. It is best for the meat to have a layer of fat to provide some moisture while roasting. The thin fat cap should not be removed. The difference in taste between Chinese rice wine, sake, and pale dry sherry is not really noticeable in this dish given the other very flavorful ingredients. Good quality Chinese rice wine can be difficult to find. I prefer a reasonably-priced, good-quality domestic Sake, such as Sho Chiku Bai. Do not use the unfiltered (nigori) sake, however.
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Course Mains, Meats
Cuisine Chinese
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Passive Time 24 hours
Servings
people
Ingredients
Course Mains, Meats
Cuisine Chinese
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Passive Time 24 hours
Servings
people
Ingredients
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Instructions
  1. Cut pork into 1½ x 1½ x 4 inch strips.
  2. Mince the garlic.
  3. Grate the ginger.
  4. Crush the star anise in a mortar.
  6. Combine the ginger, garlic, hoi sin sauce, crushed star anise, sake, soy sauce and honey. Mix well.
  8. Add the pork strips and toss to coat.
  9. Marinate the pork at least 2 hours, but preferably overnight turning once or twice.
  10. To roast, put one oven rack in the top position and another in the bottom position. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
  11. Hang each strip of pork from an "S" shaped hook on the top rack. Put a roasting pan below the pork, filled with water, to catch the drippings.
  12. Roast at 350°F for 30 minutes. Increase the temperature to 450°F and cook for another 20-25 minutes.
  13. Remove the pork strips from the oven. Slice them crosswise, approximately 1/3 inch thick. Pile the pork on a platter to serve.
Recipe Notes

Sho Chiku Bai sake is reasonably priced and good to drink as well as to cook with.

Hoisin sauce is available in Asian markets and many well-stocked supermarkets.

Copyright © 2018 by VillaSentieri.com. All rights reserved.

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Recipes

Mom’s Slow-Roasted Pork

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February 14, 2018

Growing up, Sunday dinner almost always included some sort of pasta with my mother’s long-simmered Southern Italian sugo.

The sauce was made with large pieces of pork which were always served on the side.  In addition, there might be meatballs, simmered in the sauce after being fried to a deep brown.  Sometimes, actually, much more often than sometimes, there would be veal cutlets.  This was back in the day when people didn’t really think about how veal was produced…or maybe it was produced more humanely back then.  I’m not sure.

Sometimes a pork roast would accompany the pasta.  Occasionally, though not often, the pork roast would be accompanied by potatoes and there wouldn’t be pasta on the table.

A Sunday without pasta, though, was quite unusual in my parents’ house.

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The pasta could have been homemade linguine or fettuccine, which my mother and her sister, my Aunt Margie, made on a regular basis and then dried and stored in large rectangular aluminum tins that once held baccala (salted cod).

Those tins had a myriad of uses, from protecting pasta and cookies to storing recipes and papers.  Even though they were made of an inert metal, they had to be thoroughly scrubbed and allowed to air out, uncovered, for weeks to rid them of the smell of baccala.

My mother learned her style of Southern Italian cooking from her mother, Angelina (far left). No doubt she learned it from her mother (center).

Sometimes the Sunday pasta was homemade ravioli, never was it gnocchi as my father didn’t like gnocchi.  Those were reserved for dinners when my father was out of town.

Usually, though, the pasta was dried pasta from a box: spaghetti, rigatoni, wagon wheels, fettuccine, and so forth.  Dried pasta is really a different sort of pasta with some different uses than fresh pasta (even if the fresh pasta is dried before use as mom and Aunt Margie often did).

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I know many of you have heard me say this, but roasts in our house were much more similar in texture to pulled pork than the typical French-American style of “just-how-little-can-we-cook-this-hunk-of-meat-and-say-it’s-done” type of roast.

A huge advantage of this style of cooking is that you can know in advance when it will be done because it’s really the clock that counts, not the thermometer.  I don’t like making an American style roast for a dinner party.  It makes me crazy.

I don’t get to enjoy cocktails and I don’t get to enjoy the first course because I’m focused on when the thermometer might say the roast is done.  While the temperature to be achieved is precise, the time is not.

On the other hand, the Italian style of roasting eliminates all of these problems because the meat is not “just barely cooked enough.”  The collagen begins to liquefy and the roast becomes unctuous.

If you haven’t experienced this style of roast, give it a try.  If you like it, look up my recipe for Italian Slow-Roasted Chicken or Turkey for the poultry equivalent.

If you have a favorite family recipe and a bit of a story to tell, please email me at santafecook@villasentieri.com and we can discuss including it in the blog. I am expanding the scope of my blog to include traditional recipes from around the country and around the world. If you haven’t seen Bertha’s Flan or Melinda’s Drunken Prunes, take a look.  They will give you an idea of what I’m looking for.

 

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 Mom's Slow-Roasted Pork
I have an assortment of blue spatterware roasting pans which are perfect for this type of roast. I also have an array of heavy stainless steel, aluminum, and enameled cast-iron roasters. The more important issue is using a roasting pan of the right size to hold the roast without crowding (it shouldn’t touch the sides or top of the roaster) or without too much empty space. The initial cooking at higher temperature not only browns the roast, it helps it to reach the optimum temperature for collagen to break down to produce that pull-apart texture. You can easily increase the size of the roast. With a 4 to 5 pound roast, you would probably need to add another 45 minutes to 1 ½ hours to the roasting time.
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Course Mains, Meats
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 4 hours
Servings
people
Ingredients
Course Mains, Meats
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 4 hours
Servings
people
Ingredients
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Instructions
  1. Cut the garlic cloves into 3 to 4 slivers each.
  2. Plunge a paring knife into the pork at intervals to make small pockets about 1 inch deep. Space the pockets out around the roast.
  4. Put a piece of garlic and some of the fresh rosemary into each pocket.
  5. Some of the rosemary will invariably stick to the fat cap. Don’t sweat it, just try to get most of it in the slits.
  6. Put the roast into a roasting pan that is just large enough to hold it.
  7. Generously season the roast with salt and pepper.
  8. Pour the wine (or water) into the bottom of the roasting pan.
  9. Roast, uncovered, at 375°F until the roast is browned a little, 45-60 minutes.
  10. Baste with pan juices.
  11. Cover and continue to roast at 275-300°F for about another three hours, basting with the pan juices every 30-45 minutes or so.
  12. The pan juices will dry up. Be careful not to burn the bits on the bottom of the pan, but allow them to brown before adding another ¼ cup of water or so. After two or three cycles of this, the pan juices will be a luscious dark brown.
  13. Remove the roast from the pan. Allow to cool for 10 minutes.
  14. To serve, pull the roast into large pieces. Don’t even try to slice it. It’s not supposed to slice.
  15. Pour a little of the pan juices on top. Pass the rest.
Recipe Notes

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Recipes

Marisa’s Mystical Meatballs

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February 9, 2018

These meatballs are really mystical if you consider the sway they hold on my husband, his brother, and his father.  They go wild for these meatballs.

Well, wild in that very restrained Northern Italian way.

If they were Southern Italian, where a dinner conversation can seem like a minor riot, their meatball response would barely register on the scale.  It would signal almost utter disregard for the meatballs.

But that, in fact, is not the case.  The meatballs hold some sort of magical, mystical charm.

Marisa, of course, is my mother-in-law and these are her meatballs.  She considers them quite unusual, having learned to make them from her mother and basically not remembering any other relatives or friends making something similar.

And, as meatballs, they ARE unusual!

An old-fashioned ricer is still an indispensable piece of kitchen equipment. Make sure yours is very sturdy. Many new ones are not.

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But here’s a secret that I haven’t told anyone yet.  They really AREN’T meatballs.  They’re croquettes!  Crocchette in Italian.

There, I said it.  Marisa’s Mystical Meatballs aren’t really meatballs.  But everybody in the family calls them “Ma’s Meatballs.”  “Ma’s Croquettes” doesn’t have the same alliterative allure, even if it’s more accurate.

My mother-in-law and father-in-law celebrating his birthday.

When I did a Google search for crocchette, Google turned up about 1,730,000 results in 0.51 seconds.  When I searched for crocchette patate e carne (potato and meat croquettes), Google returned 1,500,000 results in 0.72 seconds.

And that was doing searches in Italian!

I found a Japanese woman who seems to have the same relationship to her mother’s meat and potato croquettes (korokke) as my husband and his family have to his mother’s.

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The meat for these “meatballs” (a word I’ll use in deference to my husband and his family of origin) is boiled before being finely chopped.  This presents a perfect opportunity to make a really nice beef broth.  You don’t have to do that, of course, but since you’re going to be boiling the meat anyhow, and since it only takes a few extra minutes to throw some aromatics into the pot, why not!

The broth from the meat for the specific batch of meatballs shown in this blog is sitting in the freezer ready to be turned into Auntie Helen’s Stracciatella, which will be coming up on the blog next month.

If you have a favorite family recipe and a bit of a story to tell, please email me at santafecook@villasentieri.com and we can discuss including it in the blog. I am expanding the scope of my blog to include traditional recipes from around the country and around the world. If you haven’t seen Bertha’s Flan or Melinda’s Drunken Prunes, take a look.  They will give you an idea of what I’m looking for.

 

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 Marisa's Mystical Meatballs
Marisa says she usually uses cross-cut beef shank for the meatballs. When we made them, she also had a piece of beef she bought for soup so we used both. In the end, we got ½ pound of cooked beef, with fat and gristle removed. Adjust the proportion of the other ingredients if you get substantially more or less cooked beef. If you want to use just cross-cut beef shank, I would try about 2 ½-3 lbs. The beef is boiled and then finely chopped to make the meatballs, giving you the opportunity to make a really nice beef broth with just a few minutes more work.
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Course Appetizers and Nibbles, Mains, Meats
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 6 hours
Servings
meatballs
Ingredients
Beef and Broth
Meatballs
Course Appetizers and Nibbles, Mains, Meats
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 6 hours
Servings
meatballs
Ingredients
Beef and Broth
Meatballs
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Instructions
Beef and Broth
  1. Cross-cut beef shank.
  2. Put the meat and all other broth ingredients in a large stock pot.
  3. Cover with abundant cold water.
  4. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, partially covered, for 4-6 hours, until the meat is very tender.
  5. Remove and cool the beef.
  6. Strain the broth and reserve for another use.
Meatballs
  1. Remove fat, gristle and bone from beef. You should have approximately ½ pound of cooked beef.
  2. Cook the unpeeled potatoes in boiling water until you can easily pierce them with the tines of a long fork or paring knife, 20-25 minutes.
  3. Remove the potatoes from the water and allow to cool for about 10 minutes.
  4. Meanwhile, mince the garlic or grate it on a microplane grater.
  5. Combine beef, parsley and garlic in a food processor. Process until finely chopped.
  6. Peel the slightly cooled potatoes. If they are too cool it will be difficult to rice them.
  7. Pass the potatoes through a ricer.
  8. Combine the beef mixture with the potatoes, nutmeg, allspice, salt and black pepper.
  9. Mix well with a large spoon or your hands.
  10. Add the lightly beaten eggs.
  11. Mix well using your hands.
  14. Form the mixture into 16 balls and then flatten them slightly.
  15. Lightly roll the meatballs in fine dry breadcrumbs.
  17. Pour ⅛ inch of oil into a large sauté pan.
  18. Heat the oil on medium-high heat.
  19. Fry the meatballs in two batches, on medium-high, flipping once, until brown.
  20. Drain on paper towels.
  21. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Recipe Notes

Copyright © 2018 by VillaSentieri.com. All rights reserved.

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Slow-Cooked Pork Roast with Sauerkraut and Sausage

2 Comments

December 29, 2017

I grew up in Johnstown, PA. The town was founded by a Swiss German immigrant, Joseph Schantz in 1800. Over the years, in various documents, recorders anglicized his last name, most commonly rendering it “Johns,” a name the family ultimately adopted. The name of the town was ultimately changed from Schantzstadt to Johnstown.

Johnstown Panorama (Photo by Greg Hume)

I can’t say there was much of a noticeable German influence when I was growing up in the 1950s to 1970s, except for one: New Year’s Day dinner.

Regardless of one’s ethnic background, the most common dinner on New Year’s Day was “Pork and Sauerkraut.” It was commonly acknowledged that this was a nod to Johnstown’s German heritage. And, much like black-eyed peas in the South, was viewed as a way to bring good luck to the coming year.

As you might expect, recipes for pork and sauerkraut vary. Sauerkraut and a large cut of pork are, obviously, essential. Sausages of some sort are common, as are dumplings.

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The recipe that I use is close to what my mother made except that I enhance the seasonings in the sauerkraut along more Germanic lines, with onion, carrot, apple, and juniper berries. My mother’s was more basic and similar to the way the Slovak side of my family prepared sauerkraut. My cousin Angie, of Italian heritage, added a brown gravy to hers, which also has Germanic roots.

The Inclined Plane goes from downtown Johnstown to the suburb of Westmont (Photo by Greg Hume)

Long and slow cooking is essential as much for pull-apart-tender pork as it is to mellow out the sauerkraut. Among Central and Eastern Europeans, sauerkraut tends to be cooked for several hours to tenderize it and tame its sour bite.

Kielbasa was a favorite sausage in our house and was always included in pork and sauerkraut. It was always locally made and never procured from large national meatpackers. Often times, other sausages, such as bockwurst or bratwurst, would also be added. But kielbasa was king in pork and sauerkraut and, in the sausage pantheon, second only to hot Italian sausage in our house.

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The kielbasa that we ate on a regular basis was made from pork, or pork and beef, but venison kielbasa was common too. The first day of deer-hunting season was a public school holiday. You can imagine the importance of venison.

Some of the hunters would have their venison (or some of it, at least) turned into kielbasa, flavored with garlic and smoked. I remember on several occasions going with my father to have work done on the car in late December. The service station had a big platter of meats, cheeses, and pickles laid out for customers to nibble on. Among the offerings was venison kielbasa made from a deer that the owner of the service station had shot.

One of my resolutions for the new year is to find a small, artisanal purveyor of kielbasa that’s as good as what I remember from childhood.

If you have a favorite family recipe and a bit of a story to tell, please email me at santafecook@villasentieri.com and we can discuss including it in the blog. I am expanding the scope of my blog to include traditional recipes from around the country and around the world. If you haven’t seen the post on Melinda’s Drunken Prunes, it will give you an idea of what I’m looking for.

 

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 Slow-Cooked Pork Roast with Sauerkraut and Sausage
Saueraut from the refrigerated section of the market is usually of better quality than canned, especially if the sauerkraut is from an artisinal producer. Draining the sauerkraut and rinsing it well under cool water will produce a more mellow taste. If you want dumplings with this (and who wouldn't?), remove the meat from the pan and keep warm while cooking dumplings on top of the sauerkraut on the stovetop. See the notes section below for my recipe for dumplings.
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Course Mains, Meats
Cuisine German
Prep Time 20 m
Cook Time 6 1/2 hours
Servings
people
Ingredients
Course Mains, Meats
Cuisine German
Prep Time 20 m
Cook Time 6 1/2 hours
Servings
people
Ingredients
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Instructions
  1. Cut the cloves of garlic, top to bottom, into approximately 4-6 slivers each.
  2. Pierce the pork around the outside about 1 inch deep with the tip of a sharp knife.
  3. Insert slivers of garlic into the slits
  4. Season the pork generously with salt and pepper.
  5. Brown the pork in a heavy Dutch oven using the oil.
  6. Add white wine, cover tightly, and transfer to oven at 350°F.
  7. After one hour, reduce heat to 225°F.
  8. Slice the onions in half top-to-bottom then cut crosswise into thin slices.
  9. Shred the carrot on the tear-drop side of a box grater.
  10. Cut the apple into small dice.
  11. After the pork has been cooking for a total of about 3 hours, drain and rinse the sauerkraut.
  12. Slowly sauté the onion in the butter or bacon fat until caramelized, approximately 20 minutes.
  13. Add the shredded carrot and diced apple and sauté until heated through.
  14. Add sauerkraut, juniper berries, caraway seeds, bay leaf, and black pepper to taste.
  15. Add water and bring to a boil.
  16. Add the boiling sauerkraut to the pork after the pork has cooked for a total of four hours (1 hour at 350°F plus 3 hours at 225°F).
  17. An hour later nestle the kielbasa and other sausage into the sauerkraut.
  18. Continue to cook, covered, until the pork is fall-off-the-bone tender. Approximately 1-2 more hours.
  19. Remove the pork and sausages.
  20. Skim fat from the top of the sauerkraut.
  21. Put the Dutch oven on the stove and cook dumplings on top of the sauerkraut if desired.
  22. Meanwhile, pull the pork into big chunks. Keep the pork and sausages warm.
  23. Serve the sauerkraut in a separate bowl, or use it to surround the pork and sausages.
Recipe Notes

This is where you can find my recipe for dumplings.

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