Winter Warmer - Choucroute Alsacienne

At least once a year, when it's cold and blustery, I find myself craving this dish, which I was introduced to as an exchange student in the French Alps. My host mother was an amazing cook, and I have very fond memories of the time I spent living there, so this dish makes me feel all cosy and nostalgic. My lovely boyfriend Patrick recently lived in France; plus we both pride ourselves on our cooking efforts, so I decided it was time to share this beautiful dish with him, and as is often the way my sis & bro-in-lo.

My sister let me steal her Year 11 book prize "French Family Cooking" by Françoise Bernard many years ago, and there is a recipe in there that I have always used as a framework:

As the translation suggests, this dish is basically sauerkraut with sausages - pork pork pork, potatoes, cabbage - but the fun is in the trip to the local butcher shop and the astonishment this dish will cause.

Essentially, I bought 2.3kg of meat:
- American smoked bacon
- British pork sausages
- A pork shoulder roast, cut in halves (in lieu of the veal knuckle)
- A bacon/ham hock, cut in halves ("yay! meaty band-saw!" cried the butcher, well I imagine)
- An Italian spiced sausage
I was unable to fit both halves of the pork shoulder and the hock in the pan, so all up I imagine it was roughly 2 kilos in the end.

I had 3 cans of sauerkraut, which made between 1 to 1.5 kg and as soon as I decided it was on, I rinsed and then soaked the sauerkraut in cold water, for the time it took to go to the butcher and grocer nearby.

I then put my large casserole on the stove with the hock, shoulder and generously diced (1" oblongs) bacon covered in water, to bring to the boil. In the meantime I peeled and halved or quartered the potatoes and finely sliced the onion. I usually omit the carrot, I find the sweetness takes away from the dish, and today was no exception (and anyway I had run out of real estate in the pan!).

Once the meats were at a boil, I took them off the heat; then rearranged, in layers: the bacon; drained (and hand pressed & untangled) sauerkraut & onion; then the pork shoulder, ham hock & spiced sausage; more sauerkraut; clove, thyme, parsley, salt, pepper, pepper, pepper and juniper berries. Then some dry apple cider instead of wine and water to cover.

There is then time to clean up the kitchen hurricane as you bring to the boil then simmer everything for just over an hour. Then it's time to remove the meat "garnish" (the French to English translation in this book is very confusing at times). I placed the hock and shoulder into an ovenproof bowl with a lid in the oven just under 100°c to keep warm, with a ladle-full of the soupy pan juices. Then back to the sauerkraut on the stove, add the potatoes and push them in until they are submerged in the soupy-juice and covered with a warm doona of sauerkraut. Boil/simmer for about half an hour. I say "boil/simmer" because in my current house the gas is either "on very flamey" or "low flame but precariously likely to suddenly go out and continue to fill the room with unburnt gas". Plus as long as you pop by every now and then, it should be fine. Some extra heat or time is not necessarily a bad thing here as the flavour just gets better and better. You can top up with water at any time to counteract the boiling.

After that, put in the pork sausages (or if you follow the recipe use frankfurters - they didn't have any that I liked the look of at the butcher by mid afternoon) and push them under the surface gently. Then plonk the rest of the meats in or on; heat for 20 minutes, then you're ready to serve (or just pop the lid on on low heat or in the sub-100 oven until all your guests are in the door, salutations and settings are done.

Get ready for a feast, food coma and family fun times! It's totally worth the effort - well, at least once a year! I split the larger ingredients to make for safer serving and then once we'd all had a go, I popped everything back in the pan together. This amount was good for all four of us to have a decent serve, and seconds, or was that thirds, plus three generous leftover serves that I savoured over the week to follow. Rye or sour dough bread to sop up all the delicious soup-juice is highly recommended! I favour apple cider with this dish, but as we all proved that night, choucroute goes well with beer, white wine and red wine to suit all drinking tastes!

Bon appétit!

Christmas Curry

I decided to take a run at the Jamie Oliver 30 minute meal "CURRY" - basically it is a vego (pumpkin, cauliflower & chickpea) number with a few nummy sides. I like that the book also calls for "BEER". The full title of the 30 minute meal is CURRY ROGAN JOSH FLUFFY RICE CARROT SALAD POPPADOMS FLATBREAD BEER. Page 80.

As we have discovered, Jamie has some very big eaters for friends, and so I halved the amounts. I left out a few ingredients and also missed his carrot salad, pickled lemons and poppadoms (which we spell puppodums over here, never really thought about that before!). I added a raita as well. Somehow, between two overseas trips, an interstate trip and a massive charity dinner at my house, I seem to have come out with NO RICECOOKER anywhere in the house - which led me to run around, dilated crazy catseyes & poofy frazzle tailed, until I read in Mr Jamie's book that you can apparently cook rice some way OTHER THAN A RICECOOKER? - crazy non-Chineseses! First time ever making rice by the absorption method, felt very proud and also dirty.

I told my seestah and my bro-in-lo to come round, coz it's more fun cooking for company and having a billion leftovers, than eating alone and having a bajillion leftovers. My freezer's only small, you know. We did "present-ing" (two Capricorns in one relationship, lord help us) and had alcoholic and desserty accoutrements. Bro-in-lo responded to a last minute bat-signal and provided (very nice) beer. All in all a big success.


PUMPKIN/VEGO CURRY de Jamie by Deanne:

Boil a kettle of water and have it standing by. Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

Peel and slice an onion, add it to a large pan on high heat with a splash of kettle water and a drizzle of olive oil.

Use a pre-halved (love ya work, IGA) butternut squash/pumpkin (lengthways). Remove the seeds with a soup spoon, halve the half again lengthways (ie into a quarter-pumpkin) and chop into 1cm wedgy chunks. Jamie omits the seed bit, but I didn't find it took that much more time. Add to the pan.

Remove the tough outer leaves of a cauliflower half (thanks again, grocery store) and then cut into bite sized chunks, higgledypiggledy and chuck them in the pan, with two big handfuls of cashews. Stand and stir and stare vacantly into the pretty colours and watch as the flame transforms the outside corners of the vegies into blackened sweet spots of flavour explosion. Mmm, stir. Stir. Ahem.

Add half a teaspoon of chilli flakes, then a couple of cloves of finely chopped or minced (if only I had a garlic press on both coasts of Oz!) garlic, a generous splash of kettle water, a jar of store-bought curry paste/sauce mix (I used a jar of Korma paste I found in the back of the pantry). Open a tin of chickpeas but don't drain - just pour in the chickadees and their juices straight into the pan. Salt, pepper, stir and fire up the heat. Cover if you have a lid or don't if you only have a wok and no big pans in your house. Ahem. Stir when you remember to, add kettle water when you remember to.

RICE by Jamie's Absorption Method, or non-Chinese witchcraft, as I like to call it:

Pour a mugful of rice into a medium saucepan with a "lug" of olive oil and a few cloves, salt and pepper. If you don't have cloves, use a chicken stock cube. Ahem. Cover with two mugfuls of boiling water from the kettle (same mug as the rice ie 1:2), put the lid on and boil on medium heat for 7 minutes. Yes I did watch the clock. Then after that, take off the heat with lid still on and sit for 7 minutes to steam through.


FLATBREAD Jamie says Chapattis, I say Naan Breads, let's call the whole thing off!

Scrunch up a large sheet of baking paper under running water, flatten it out on a baking tray, layer the store bought flatbreads on top, with a spray of olive oil and a sprinkle of chopped garlic between each bready doona (or turmeric if you are Jamie). Wrap them in the paper and put them on the middle shelf of the oven at 180 degrees.


RAITA or as I was once told by a waiter in a posh resort restaurant in Alice Springs once "no, we don't have any raita sorry but this is mint and yoghurt sauce to go with your meal."

Shred/use vegie peeler/slice etc a small lebanese cucumber into unembiggened slivers.
Chop up a handful of mint.
Pour a tub of natural yoghurt on top. I used "Greek" style but in future I think I will seek out the "European" style next time, I find it more tart (no comments, thanks).


BEER

Thank your bro-in-lo profusely for complimenting your "very classy bottle opener" that was actually a freebie/stolen from a crab smashing event. No really.

Compliment your bro-in-lo on his excellent taste in beer.



Serve up, with presents on the side (a touch early this year as I'm going back interstate to my "other home" for the silly season).

Happy Curry everyone!