Peach Cake, German Style



Peach Cake

I have been craving a peach cake, so, the other day I bought some peaches. Then I set to work looking for a very German-style peach cake, like the ones I used to see at the cafés and bakeries in Germany and Austria.  I remembered the Rhubarb Cake cake recipe that I found at My Kitchen in the Rockies and decided to return and see if Kirsten had, perhaps, a different recipe for peach cake.  I found one immediately and after perusing the recipe, I knew I had to make that cake.  It reminded me very much of the Sauerkirsch Kuchen that I used to have at the Café Schlossgarten in Stuttgart, Germany.  And the recipe is rather unique in its process, at least unique to me.

First, I needed to make a sweet dough which I believe, in German, is Mürbeteig, a sweet shortcrust dough.  This is then patted into the bottom of a springform pan.  Then I added the skinned, quartered peaches. Next it is topped with a cream, egg, sugar, and ground almond mix.  I have no idea what this mixture would be called.  The recipe calls for a stiff cream to which sugar, a whole egg, and ground almonds are added.  This is then topped onto the peaches.  Finally, it's finished with some sliced almonds and sprinkled sugar.  The recipe from Kirsten is here: German Almond Peach Cake.  She adapted her recipe from a German blog, BaBaFo, which has the same whipped cream topping.

The cake is delicious!  I could eat it several times a day.  Indeed, I've already eaten much of it and will be buying peaches again this afternoon.  German and Austrian cakes and pastries certainly add a little gemütlichkeit to life!  So I encourage you to visit My Kitchen in the Rockies and put a smile on your face with some good, German recipes, especially those cakes.

Best Rhubarb Cake Ever



Rhubarb Cake

When I lived in Stuttgart for a year, I loved the coffee houses with their seemingly endless selection of cakes and tortes.  I especially liked the long, two hour walk through the Rosenstein Park to Cafe Schlossgarten (Castle Garden) because all that walking sparked an appetite that could only be fulfilled by a piece of the many, many cakes that lined the counter.  One of my favorites was a sour cherry cake that had just the right amount of sugar to tart taste, a moist, butter cake texture, ground nuts, and those luscious cherries.  I always had it "mit sahne," with a dollop of softly beaten whipped cream.  I can taste it still.  That cake was the elevated, pastry chef's version, it seemed, to another cake, comparable in flavors, although not always quality, that every German woman seemed to make: Obst Kuchen.  That means fruit cake, but nothing like our American fruit cakes.  Instead it was a buttery, baking powder cake with whatever fresh fruit was in season.  It was not so rich that it couldn't be eaten for breakfast, the way I prefer it, but it did make one feel a bit decadent.

So, when I ended up with a giant bag of rhubarb last week, I immediately decided that I needed to find a European style rhubarb cake recipe, or at least some comparable fresh fruit cake recipe.  I could have fooled around creating a recipe, especially given some of the cookbooks I own, but I wanted it perfect the first time.  I googled Rhubarb Cake.  I was lucky to come across one almost right away.  Some things are just meant to be.  I found this recipe which sounded exactly right, French Rhubarb Cake.  I do not personally know the blogger of My Kitchen in the Rockies, but Kirsten's blog is one I'll be reading more frequently in the future.  I love German food and to hear her stories and read the recipes from her own family is a treasure worth having.

In Kirsten's Rhubarb Cake blog entry, she says that she adapted her recipe from one found in Bolli's Kitchen.  Kirsten reports that Bolli is a German woman who lives in France.  Her blog is both in German and French which is lucky for me because I still remember enough of both to read her blog.  I had to search a bit to find out more about the original recipe.  It turns out that it comes from a fresh apple cake recipe from the River Cafe in London, Torta di mele "River Cafe."  Both bloggers use it with any fresh fruit in season. The River Cafe recipe can be found here.

Although I thought my search was over, while browsing through my copy of Cakes: Good Cook Time-Life Books, I found a Rhubarb Cake recipe similar to the ones above.  It's from Hans Karl Adam who wrote Das Kuchbuch aus Schwaben (I chose this link because it shows the book cover).  I can't believe it!  In my own bookcase I have a recipe from a cake cookbook that features the kind of cake I remember most from where I lived in Stuttgart, the biggest city in Swabia.  Coming full circle, the recipe has once more been confirmed as a keeper. Like Kirsten in her Rocky Mountain kitchen and like Bolli in her German/French kitchen, I may make slight adaptations here and there but I know that the recipe will always bring back memories of my days in Stuttgart and those lovely, old coffee houses filled with the most beautiful and delicious cakes and tortes. 

Navarin Printanier



Navarin Printanier

Nothing says springtime like a Navarin Printanier!  In French Country Cooking, Elizabeth David states that that a Navarin Printanier "...is a ragoût of lamb or mutton to which spring vegetables give special character."  But to me, it is the name, a springtime ragout, that brings forth thoughts of putting in the vegetable garden, picking the first crops of spring, foraging for perennials and wild plants, and finally eating fresh vegetables again.  Indeed, most of my summers are spent eating fruits and vegetables.  The other aspect of the traditional Navarin Printanier that brings forth springtime memories is the taste of that ragout, the combination of the turnips with the lamb and the peas is unique, and to me, special.  It's special because I love those flavors and also because my husband and I had the most delicious Navarin Printanier one year in Paris, one that I will never forget.

Elizabeth David's recipe calls for "...new potatoes, a small bunch of new carrots, and a few baby turnips...[as well as] 1 1/2 lbs. of green peas, freshly shelled...."  I'm not sure where in the world these different foods are all available in the same season, and especially in spring.  In springtime in north Idaho, the potatoes, carrots, and turnips must be bought locally or have over-wintered in the root cellar or the garden.  The peas are a "maybe" for May, although they do appear in June.  But all of that doesn't really matter because I am driven to make this dish every spring no matter where I find my vegetables.  The lamb is never a problem because I always have some locally raised lamb in the freezer.

One vegetable that does appear in May is asparagus and we eat as much as we can.  Thus, it appears on the plate, but not mixed in with the traditional dish.  In honor of its name, I served the Navarin after a day of working in the garden, tilling the soil, planting some seeds and starts, pruning the grape vines, and all those other activities that must go into a garden for bounty in the summer.  The dish was tasted the same as I always remember it.  It's not as beautiful as I have sometimes made it.  And the photo is not the best because I had to use my phone, my usual camera appearing to be broken forever.  But no the photo could do justice to the memories of Navarin Printanier that inspire me every spring.

Spring Whimseys

At the end of spring semester, I always need to escape for a few days.  Last year, we went to Depoe Bay on the Oregon Coast.  Last week, we stayed in Canmore for three days, a short, five hour drive from where we live.  Canmore, Alberta, is located about two miles south of Banff National Park and was the location for the 1988 Winter Olympics.  I love being in the Canadian Rockies because the mountains are so majestic and so filled with wonder that the weight of responsibility falls from my shoulders, as if in a sacred place, and I feel like I am home.  It has become a regular place to visit, to get out of Dodge once in a while, and to lose myself in such overwhelming beauty.

The drive is always amazing.  Highway 95 takes us to the border at Eastport and then, for almost an hour, we travel through a narrow canyon which cuts off all phone service making one feel alone, on a beautiful drive through forest, rocky canyon walls, past Moyie Lake, and into the flats of Cranbrook. Traveling through in the early morning and in the evening a driver must be careful about the wildlife on the highway. Elk abound here.  Our next stop is in Cranbrook where I use my ATM card for some Canadian money, and then promptly spend some of it on a latté.  From Cranbrook we continue traveling north through some very historic territory.  This is the trail used by David Thompson and the fur traders in their final passage through the Canadian Rockies and south into the United States.  The town of Canal Flats is  interesting historically and geographically because the Kootenay River flows in a southern direction just east of the town.  And about 1.2 miles north of Canal Flats, at Columbia Lake, are the headwaters of the Columbia River, which flow north before changing direction, heading south into the U.S., and then flowing westward to the Pacific.  After passing the lake, we then travel past Windermere Lake, and between the towns of Windermere and Invermere David Thompson, in 1807, had Jaco Finlay build Kootanae House, a trading post for the North West Company.
As an aside, note the different spellings of Kootenay, which is the spelling used in Canada.  In the U.S. we spell it Kootenai.  In both places we find the spelling Kutenai.  But historically, this name for the Ktunaxa peoples, exists in many forms, e.g., Cootenae, Cutenai, and so forth.

We stopped in Invermere to check out the local bakery but we think it has new owners because the breads are just not as good as they were.  From Invermere it's just a quick 15-20 minute drive in to Radium Hot Springs and already, this year, road signs tell us that the Big Horn Mountain Sheep are out and about.  Sometimes they congregate in the middle of Highway 95 as it goes through Radium, creating, of course, interesting traffic jams.  We found them, still in their winter coats, just past the Hot Springs at Radium, located in Kootenay National Park.  About two miles past the sheep, we stopped to watch a black bear, about one year old, feeding on vegetation on the other side of the road.  I tried to take a photo but didn't want to stop too long on the highway, nor get out of the car so close to the bear, so, needless to say, I lost the photo.  From the Kootenay National Park we traveled into Banff National Park.  Melting snow filled the rivers and streams, turning them into an endless, emerald-green water chain.  Snow still capped the mountains but the sun shown brightly.  What a magnificent drive!  And then we were there, in Canmore, with a room and a view that lifted our eyes upwards to the peak of one of those majestic mountains. 

It is unfortunate that I cannot bring this beautiful drive to life with photos because I took some, but my camera's shutter died in Kananaskis Country halfway through our short respite.  I did manage to save a few photos of the Rocky Mountain sheep, including one who really had his eye on me.


Rocky Mountain Sheep

So there it is, a story without photos and, even worse, no camera for food photos.  However, I did check out a few websites of some of my favorite food places in Canmore so here it goes. I love some of the great restaurants in Banff, especially Le Beaujolais.  I love to have a cocktail in the bar in the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel because the seating opens into windows with incredible views of the mountains and valleys in this part of Banff National Park.  The hotel is one of the original Victorian style hotels built by the Canadian Railway to attract travelers to the trains that traversed the country.  I took my best friend to Banff when she visited from Tucson, AZ, and we really enjoyed the ambiance, as well as the food, at Ticino, and even though we lingered for hours, we never felt unwelcome or intrusive.  I have not yet tried Eden, the AAA Five Diamond Award Restaurant because $200 dinners are just not within my budget, but it certainly looks good! However, I can recommend some really good innovative and inexpensive food at several locations in Canmore.

One of my favorite places is Valbella.  It has incredible house-cured meats (the Black Forest Ham is to die for), some excellent charcuterie like sausages, patés (wild boar paté), smoked meats, salamis, and so forth.  I also like to visit the Railway Deli.  Two Austrian brothers, who once worked at Valbella, opened their own deli and restaurant, and the food is similar to Valbella but with more of the Tyrolean influence from the town they came from.  I think I had one of the best lamb burgers ever at Sage Bistro and although I consider french fries, or, pommes frites, as an ultimate junk food in which I rarely indulge, I ate an entire order of the sweet potato pommes frites which I dipped into the red pepper aioli.  I truly earned the title of "piggy" after that feast.   Other places in Canmore suit me as well, like the incredible views at the Iron Goat Pub.  Finally, like all good meals, my favorite dessert is not one on a menu, but the unique chocolate creations at Le Chocolatier.  Several years ago, I discovered their absolutely delicious Belgian chocolate bars, and on this latest trip they had, and I bought, a bite-size, dark chocolate cup filled with salted, lighter chocolate.  I also indulged in an amazing cognac chocolate, a hazelnut-cream filled dark chocolate, and the list goes on.

On this past trip we stayed primarily in Canmore, with a day's trip through the Bow Valley and into Kananaskis Country.  Other times we have driven to Lake Louise, and even on to Jaspar.  We've explored the canyons off of Hwy. 95, stopped to view some lakes, hiked along trails, and, of course, watched some of the wildlife.  On this trip I thought about visiting Rocky Mountain House, another David Thompson historical site, but we weren't staying long enough for that extra trip.  It's located outside the National Parks, north of Canmore and west of Red Deer.  I'll save that for another time.  Instead, I rested, took it easy, and arrived home with a happy heart.

A Busy Winter and Spring

Wow, I cannot believe that summer is just around the corner.  I haven't written in a long while and in looking over my past posts, I see that I completely forgot to post at least two of my blog writings.  My bad!  From teaching to research to applying for a full time position, I just let go of blogging times.  But it did not mean that I haven't been focused on food.

From smoking various cuts of meat to trying out new recipes to ordering "something different" kinds of meats to cleaning out the freezer, I have been busy.  Unfortunately, I never took the time to take some photos and I think the lack of photos led to a lack of blogs.  Not good. 

I followed acookblog, grand winner of A Year of Charcutepalooza, on his grand prize winning journey to France and have followed his blog ever since.  I still follow a number of the Charcutepalooza bloggers in a year of making charcuterie that I will certainly never forget.  Because I also can the produce from my garden every year, I have become a faithful follower of Mrs. Wheelbarrow as well as others in the canning trade.  I have become a walking/talking advertisement for two Charcutepalooza sponsor/blog supporters, Food52 and PunkDomestics, and I just placed another order to D'Artagnan, another Charcutepalooza sponsor.  D'Artagnan offers some great cuts of wild boar, an animal, if it lived in my neck of the woods, would turn me into a hunter in seconds flat.  I love the flavor of wild boar!

For my birthday, in April, my dear bff and talented chef, Mark, helped me make my birthday dinner.  Yes, I usually make my own because that is my birthday gift to myself.  But I miss cooking with Mark so for a birthday present, I asked him to help me.  We made an absolutely delicious tropical fruit stuffed pork loin that was a big hit with everyone.  We added a corn, tomato, and arugula salad which was sooooo good.  We served it all family style and also added fresh, roasted vegetables to the menu.  Finally, we topped it off with my homemade yellow plum ice cream, served in tuile cups, and topped with a blackberry/cabarnet sauce.  It was so delicious!  Everyone was blissfully satiated.

The Charcutepalooza smoking challenge made me realize that I really needed something better in a smoker and I went with the Bradley Smoker.  One of my favorite smoked food items is fish, especially trout.  Because trout are popular with fly-fishing fanatics in our local rivers, I decided to become a fly-fishing woman.  My husband taught me to fly fish years ago, but it became forgotten knowledge until recently.  My cousin, Mike, in Maine, a certified fly fishing instructor and Maine guide, sent me a fly-fishing rod and reel for my milestone 60th birthday.  Now I have to do it, especially since my Bradley Smoker beckons me daily to smoke some fish!  Luckily, I have my local friend, Red, who is an expert and I can't wait to wade into the Moyie River to fly fish with her.  Our mutual friend, Steve Jamsa, took this great photo of Red fly fishing in the Moyie, and I think it should be the poster for fly fishing in the West.  What do you think?



What with fly-fishing, an early, wet spring, and a garden that, at the moment, looks like a rain forest, I expect food to focus large on the horizon.  Given that I'm still just a part time instructor at the local community college, I'll have lots of time to give to cooking, food, and all the beauty present in my neck of the woods.

Queen Of The Leftovers

Spaghetti Carbonara?

I know, you can't really see the eggs, but they're in there.  Along with some duck breast prosciutto scraps taking the place of bacon/pancetta or whatever other flavorful, salty, cured meat is hidden in that spaghetti.  After slicing our Duck Breast Prosciutto we ended up with scraps because, wow! that prosciutto warms up quickly!  I froze the scraps and later, while drooling over some cookbook photo of spaghetti carbonara, I decided to turn those leftover duck prosciutto scraps into an exciting dinner based on the traditional favorite, Pasta Carbonara.  The prosciutto provided a nice fatty, salty flavor for the pasta.  I sauteed some locally raised shallots in the fat before adding the spaghetti and local fresh eggs.  And it tasted divine even if the photo didn't do it justice.  I wish I had cracked one final fresh egg over that hot dish.  Delicious. You see,  I could never let those sliced prosciutto scraps go to waste...they had potential as "leftovers."

And that is one of the reasons that I think one description of me could be "Queen of the Leftovers."  I actually feel, sometimes, like some reincarnated memory of the Great Depression, a memory that comes from a farmer, from the kind of family in which my Grandma was raised in upstate New York.  I know that she was poor and the effect was a thriftiness that lasted all her life.  Somehow, she passed some of that on to me, especially when it came to home life.  I am a re-user of household stuff.  Old T-shirts become dust rags, old, but still good fabric becomes patches, old sheets cover my crops in possibly freezing weather, old towels have numerous applications, and the list goes on.  I don't make rag rugs, but I really like the idea of them.  But I digress, because what I'm really, really good at is food leftovers.  Leftovers as meals.


Wild goose breasts in pork fat

My husband complains that we never have first overs.  He thinks I scout the neighbors for leftovers.  Sometimes he's right.  Last year, my friend, Mark, gave me six wild goose breasts that an acquaintance had given him.  Since they were skinned, I knew they would be drier than usual so I had to think of a good way to use them.  What process could be better than to confit them?  I didn't have any goose fat but I sure had a lot of rendered pork fat so it was an easy task turning them into confit. After a month in the fridge, we tried two of the goose breasts and they were still dry. Unfortunately, they also had some buckshot in them.  I thought about tossing them but that thrifty saver inside of me said "no, let them sit longer in the fat."  We tried them again at three months and they were still somewhat dry but the next two had no buckshot.  My hopes rose.  Finally, after six months we tried the last two and they were moist and delicious.  My husband's had one piece of buckshot but it didn't take away from how good the goose breasts tasted.  Dang good leftovers from friends!

Pancetta, shrimp, and fava bean pasta

During my year of Charcutepalooza I found many uses for the leftover portions of a bigger dish.  Pasta dishes came easy to me.  I love the combination of a salty, cured meat product with shrimp, roasted, ground fennel seeds, hot pepper flakes, and a vegetable.  Using the pancetta seemed a perfect combination to the shrimp and fava beans resulting into a complimentary blend of textures and assertive flavors.  Some extra heavy cream pulled everything together as well as leaving a light but luscious coating on the pasta.

Head cheese made it into several different soup dishes including Yellow split pea and Navy Bean soups. I also loved using it for Head cheese hash. To me there is some unexplainable affinity between poached eggs and head cheese, so that became an easy Sunday breakfast.

Sausage, by far, is the easiest leftover.  I love the choice of the various kinds of sausage I made last summer during the year of Charcutepalooza.  With all those choices calling to me from the deep freeze, I knew we would be eating lots of sausage this past year.   From cabbage stuffed with merguez sausage, to mac 'n cheese with garlic sausage, to Italian sausage sandwiches, to pasta sauces filled with a variety of sausage flavors to just plain sausage on the barbecue, all that homemade frozen sausage is wonderful to have in the freezer and it certainly fulfills my junk food obsession for sausage.  Plus, aren't I using leftovers....

I make stock out of any leftover bones, fat, and meat.  I save herbs from my garden and use them all winter.  I do have some fresh herbs in my sunroom, including rosemary, bay, and lemon verbena, all plants that I have to over-winter indoors.  I can jams, jellies, chutneys, pickles, butters, sauces, and even dried morels.  And it doesn't stop there.  After using a nice, fresh vanilla bean in my version of David Lebovitz's poached pear dessert for the Charcutepalooza finale I had to save the vanilla bean.
 

Spicy vanilla bean sugar

After removing it from the liquid, I allowed it to sit for several days until it dried.  I assumed it had become infused with the other flavors .  For the leftover version of all that spiciness, I stuck it in a canning jar filled with sugar. After a month of infusing all that spicy goodness into the sugar, I could already catch the heady aroma of that dessert.  I figure that by saving the spicy infused vanilla bean it means I can pick up my crown for Queen of the Leftovers.  And wow! that sugar sures tastes good in my morning bowl of oatmeal....


Spicy sugar oatmeal



Wishing For Tomatoes

Tomatoes for roasting

These tomatoes are what I'm longing for.  It is now February and we've endured weeks on end of either 20F or 30F weather.  It has also been a rather "brown" winter without much snow- only enough to not melt on our few sunny days.  The remaining snow, and any melted snow, now freezes everyday which requires ski poles, skill, guts, or those little chain ice-walkers.  I'm beginning to feel like a cow yearning for the fresh grass of springtime.  I keep looking for signs of chives, usually the first green to grow in my garden, and so far my search has not been fulfilled.  I think I'll order seeds and let the growing begin.

Yes, I've been absent for the past month or so.  Fall semester barely ended before Christmas and when that happens my favorite holiday seems to whoosh by.  I spent most of my vacation time updating classes and preparing for the spring semester.  I also worked voraciously on my book business.  Then my computer caught a virus so I spent several days performing a system recovery.  Actually, the recovery part was easy but all the updating was tedious.  My next computer will definitely be an Apple.

I have not stopped cooking.  For Christmas eve dinner I made sugo d'anatra, a duck ragu.  I'm still missing the skin that I assumed would be on my locally raised ducks and I thought the ragu would at least keep the duck moist.  It did and it was delicious!  For Christmas, since there were only four of us for dinner, I cooked my locally raised chicken, from the same source as the chicken I used for that time-consuming but fully-worth-it Chicken Galantine.  That is something I never would have made without Charcutepalooza.  And it was so good, that I will definitely make it again!


Spicy Noix de Jambon

Right after Christmas I also bought another pork leg and proceeded to make some new noix de jambon.  I made three "real" noix de jambon, then I experimented with roasted, ground fennel with garlic as well as a spicy jambon.  I made two each of both ideas on some smaller cut noix.  The fennel became too gritty so next time I would do it with whole, fresh fennel seed and garlic, although I'd be worried about bacteria forming because of the raw garlic.  For the spicy noix de jambon I coated it with Spanish smoked paprika and cayenne.  Needless to say it was hot and delicious.  The three regular noix also turned out yummy.
I've been rummaging through the freezer, cleaning out those products with expiring dates.  Needless to say, I'm just about out of sausage so that is on the calendar.  I've added leftover pork pieces (from the not-so-capable butchery of two pork legs) to risottos and pasta dishes.  I even added some pork, instead of beef, to a wintry batch of borscht.  The borscht did much more than double duty because I used up last summer's beets, carrots, and cabbage as well.  With some duck breast prosciutto scraps I made a carbonara and the list just goes on and on. 

My birthday is coming up in April and I'm already thinking about a Chicken Galantine....  We'll see.  Usually for my birthday I give myself the gift of making a very difficult dessert that I haven't made before.  One year I even made Sherry Yard's six layer Dobos Torte that she made for one of  Wolfgang Puck's famous Oscar parties.  Wow!  That was not only delicious but also great fun!  I don't know what will happen this year but the ideas are simmering on my brain's back burner....galantine, pork pie, head cheese....

The Charcutepalooza Finale: Choucroute Garnie



Choucroute Garnie

Growing up we always had our dinner together at the kitchen table.  We had no dining room so the kitchen table had to accommodate all six of us.  Having three younger brothers and living during a period of traditional gender roles, I often ended up being my mother's helper, whether cleaning the house, folding laundry, or cooking something.  My mother was never big on cooking and we pretty much had the same things for dinner every week.  Variety came from some of the first fast food joints, the local Italian pizzeria, and dinner with friends.  Of course, I wasn't a very big eater so I didn't really care about what was set in front of me.  I liked the ubiquitous spaghetti that was my Italian grandmother's recipe, but aside from that my mom usually made something very New England like pot roast, or very easy like biscuits with chicken gravy (thank you Campbell's Soup).  But there was one dish that my Dad loved, and I learned to love it too, and that was pork chops, potatoes, and sauerkraut oven-braised in a covered casserole dish.  My mom served it with gravy and I hesitate to think of where the gravy came from.

So, when the December Showing Off challenge was announced, my mind enthusiastically wrapped itself around the idea of Choucroute Garnie.  From 1984-1985, I lived in Stuttgart, Germany which is only about seventy miles from Strasbourg, the capital of Alsace, the home of Choucroute Garnie. The people of Stuttgart speak Swabian, which, like Alsatian, is one of the Low Alemannic dialects. As in Alsace, the people of Swabia (Stuttgart and the surrounding area), pay much attention to cured meats. Indeed, every town contains a Metzgerei, a butcher's shop where charcuterie is found in abundance.  My husband and I loved the food.  When my parents visited in the summer, my husband and I took them to Strasbourg for some Choucroute Garnie and three of us ordered it.  My mom ordered some chicken dish and I wondered if she hadn't really liked the pork chops and sauerkraut that she made so long ago.  I had made Choucroute Garnie a number of times in my adult years but this was the first time I would be tasting it in some fancy restaurant in Strasbourg. I don't remember the name of the place but it was very close to the cathedral.  It may have been Maison Kammerzell.  The food tasted sublime and exceeded my expectations.  I don't remember all the meats served with it, I only remember devouring most of it.

Having spent this past year diving with great expectation and fun into the Charcutepalooza challenges, I began to do some research on the history of Choucroute Garnie in order to serve an authentic dinner.  I also wanted to regale my guests not just with wonderful food but also with anecdotes about Choucroute Garnie like how the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, when in Paris, ate it every day at the Rotonde in Montparnesse.

I also wanted to explain how this very German style dish came to be found in France. Alsace's location, west of the Rhine River and backed by the Vosges Mountains, made it a strategic place for both countries, as its history reveals. At the end of the Thirty Years War in 1648, Louis XIV annexed the area into France where it remained until the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, when Germany took over Alsace.  After World War I, the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 gave the territory back to France. With the rise of Nazi power in Germany, Hitler annexed Alsace in 1940, but at the end of World War II, the area was returned to the French government.  Although this history of sovereignty must have been exhausting for the citizens of Alsace, it also seemed to bring out the best of both countries when it came to food.
As for other trivia about Alsace, that famous song "Les Marseillaise," known by many for its timely occurrence in the film Casablanca, was composed in Strasbourg.  A number of famous people have come from Alsace, including such illustrious chefs like André Soltner and Jean-Georges Vongerichten.  Marcel Marceau, the famous French mime came from Alsace as did Marie Tussaud of wax museum fame.  Also, according to the Saveur Cooks Authentic French cookbook, Alsace is known for its many starred Michelin restaurants.  As I remember from my year in Stuttgart, it is an interesting area because several close borders, including not only France and Germany, but also Switzerland and Austria, exchanged sovereignty, visitors, neighbors, friends, and family throughout its history.

I set the date for the Charcutepalooza final meal for the Sunday after Thanksgiving.  With the end of the semester and all its extra work looming in front of me, I wanted to give myself plenty of time!  I invited six, close friends who had been following and reading and hearing about my charcuterie escapades throughout the year.  They also had sampled some of the challenges.


Hors oeuvres

I wasn't quite finished with the final set up when my guests arrived, so my hors d'oeuvres table wasn't ready, but I quickly set out all the hors d'oeuvres, thus beginning an evening of showing off my newly acquired charcuterie abilities.  All the hors d'oeuvres had been made in advance and only needed to be displayed and eaten.  The day before I had done some preliminary preparations like making bread and sauce to serve with all these delectable charcuterie tidbits. In a blatant attempt to bribe the judges, I baked a loaf of Michael Ruhlman's Classic Rye Bread with Caraway Seeds and a boule of Bob del Grosso's Alt-Sourdough Technique bread in which I substituted some of the bread flour with rye flour and added some caraway seeds.  They were both delicious!  I had once been served pork rillettes with a Sauce Gribiche at Santé Restaurant & Charcuterie in Spokane, WA, so decided to do the same at my Charcuterie dinner, using the recipe from The Lutèce Cookbook.  For the charcuterie, I served thinly sliced noix de jambon, pork confit, melon squares wrapped in duck breast prosciutto, Anne Burrell's Bacon Wrapped Dates Stuffed with Manchego but wrapped them with pancetta instead, and a pork paté, as well as some cornichons and olives.  Both the hors d'oeuvres and the entree were served with coarse ground mustard and Dijon mustard.  We had to force ourselves to stop eating all the hors d'oeuvres in order to save room for dinner.


Choucroute Garnie

I compared a number of recipes for Choucroute Garnie in order to figure out some of the correct meats and spices. In the end, after looking at recipes from  Julia Child to Anthony Bourdain to Jeffrey Steingarten to André Soltner, I decided that I would pretty much follow the recipe from Soltner's Lutèce Cookbook.  I deviated slightly depending on what meats I had on hand and what I could make.  After smoking some ham hocks and frankfurters, which turned quite dark and smokey because the Brinkman Smoker doesn't have an interior thermometer, I received an early Christmas present: the Bradley Smoker.  I was able to use the ham hocks after boiling them a bit and changing the water for another simmer.  The frankfurters weren't too bad and had to be used because time was slipping away.  But, using my new Bradley Smoker,  I was able to make a delicious, stuffed sausage, Saucisses Montbéliard (a simple, garlicky sausage often used in Alsace in Choucroute Garnie).  I also made some pancetta, the salt cure, but made it flat so I could cut some large cubes to cook with the choucroute.  I had a small, fresh ham that I ended up brining, after which I cut it into manageable chunks, gave them a quick sear in rendered pork fat, then put it all into the choucroute as well.  I also added the cubed pancetta pieces, pork hocks, Riesling, onions cooked in pork fat, some of own chicken stock, juniper berries, cloves, caraway seeds, and bay leaf, covered the casserole and roasted it as 325F for an hour and a half.  Finally, I added the frankfurters and Saucisses Montbéliard which had been simmered lightly,and the boiled potatoes (from our garden) so that all the flavors would blend.


Spiced poached pear

We finished the dinner with a light dessert.  I decided to serve something both light and Alsatian.  Pear trees flourish in Alsace and are frequently used to make pear brandy.  They are also used to make the famous Alsatian fruit cake/bread known as Bierwecke.  Not having any real Alsatian pear brandy, and knowing from experience that the fruit cake is quite heavy, I decided to us our own Bosc pears to play off the pear theme and make some spiced poached pears.  I followed David Lebovitz's recipe.  I think I added too much ginger because after poaching the pears the ginger flavor dominated.  To take off that hot, almost bitter edge, I reduced the liquid with a bit of pomegranate syrup.  It tasted divine.  I served them on top of an Amaretto and Mascarpone Cream topped with crumbled, Amaretti cookies.  Then we made ample use of wine as a digestif.  We were satiated.

Noix de Jambon, Oops, Salt and Air-Cured Pork Belly

Noix de jambon

This may look like Jambon de Camont, and it may even taste like the re-named noix de jambon, but I confess, I cut all three of my noix de jambon too small, so by the time they had gone through the salt stage and the cold smoke stage, they had already lost 30% of their weight.  It made for a very easy challenge, but somehow I felt like I didn't really meet the challenge.  If I had hung them, they would have just become smaller and drier.  They certainly tasted good and, although the small and medium ones were a bit salty, they were still edible.  I saved the large one, the most edible, for my last and final December challenge.

I didn't have time (end of semester deadlines) to order another fresh "ham."  Actually, my local USDA butcher, Woods Meats, informed me that they were selling me pork leg because it wasn't ham until it was cured.  I smiled.  I've become well acquainted with them during the course of the year.  I wasn't even sure I could order more pork leg because this is the time of year when they're preparing for holidays, brining and curing their own hams, and stocking up for the winter.  I can't even buy pork back fat from them this time of year!  Luckily I have extra in the deep freeze.  Also, they only slaughter pigs on Wednesdays, so it would be another week before I could order another pork leg.  I wasn't sure what to do....  I thought about lonzino, but again, what if that went wrong as well?  And, I had never tasted lonzino.  Wonder if I didn't like it.  Oh, what to do? what to do?

Dry sausage like chorizo or saucisson sec all required too much time because of the grinding, cooling, mixing, cooling, stuffing, cooling, hanging.  I do love dry sausage and intend to make Spanish chorizo, Hungarian salami, and Saucisson Sec, but not in the midst of grading final papers, essays, and exams.

So, I turned to one of my favorite parts of the pig: the belly.  Since I couldn't get the pork back fat for lardo, why not some pork belly?  I love pork belly!  If I bought just the right size, I could make flat pancetta to use as large chunks of pork belly in the December challenge and use the rest for a small, cured pork belly - lardo with striation!  I had just enough time for twelve days of salt cure and eighteen more days hanging until November 30th.


Salt & Air Cured Pork Belly, aka Lardo

I took the pork belly out of its box in the heat controlled room with humidifier.  It looked and tasted salty and porky and lucious, but I was pretty sure that it needed more time.  It hadn't lost enough in weight (does that matter with lardo), plus I wanted that full 24 day hanging.  It's beautifully white with small striations of meat.  I believe that it becomes saltier over time, also drier, yet the fat will still dissolve almost instantly into the homemade bread I'll serve it on.


Cured pork belly on homemade rye bread

I tried it on some homemade, sourdough rye.  It's really good, but I think it will just become more and more delicious for each additional day I allow it to hang.  And after eleven months of charcuterie, I know that I need to go for the flavor.  Hurray, Charcutepalooza!

Whole Hog: Appreciation Of The Animal Who Provides Our Food

I wanted to call this particular blog "From Nose To Tail" but I wasn't sure of the copyright laws regarding someone else's title, i.e., Fergus Henderson's The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating.  It's a wonderful book, as well as a feast.  Fergus Henderson is just one of a number of recent chefs who have brought people back to the age-old appreciation and tradition of using the entire animal that sacrificed its life for our consumption.  Other chefs include Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Chris Cosentino, and others, as well as many of the people interested in sustainable food like Michael Pollan, Barbara Kingsolver, and Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon, authors of the 100 Mile Diet (the original link to their 100 Mile Diet website appears to have disappeared so I give you the Wikipedia synopsis - I did follow the original website and their year eating such a diet).  The list grows ever longer and now includes film as well.

But, back to "appreciation of the animal who provides the food."  I saw that "illuminating moment" while watching The Next Iron Chef: Super Chefs on Sunday, 10/30.  Maybe it was just my own personal Tipping Point, when I finally saw, with my own eyes, how a chef truly appreciated and knew, within his own ken, how to treat every part of an animal.

In the first part of this competition for the next Iron Chef, the chefs were teamed up in pairs.  Outside in the California countryside, they then had to make a fire with grill, butcher a small pig, and create two dishes that would win the competition.  The chefs came up with many very creative and delicious dishes.  I drooled over all of them.  But the genius, illuminating moment appeared for me while watching Chef Michael Chiarello.

Chef Chiarello was paired up with Chuck Hughes.  They made, for the first dish, a Crispy Pig's Ear Salad with Beets and Pork Cheeks. Their second dish consisted of Chili Maple Glazed Pork Chops with Pig Brain's Duxelles served on Grilled and Poached Potato with Grilled Pork Belly.  That illuminating moment came as I watched Michael Chiarello, using his hand, scoop the brains out of the pig's head and add them to the celery/duxelles mix, explaining that brains are "...creamy, voluptuous, and buttery."  He continued by adding that brains have "...great flavor and texture."  After seeing what he did and hearing his beautiful description I think something inside me changed and suddenly brains no longer held fear of kuru, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, or some other animal infestation of what, to my mind, however rational or irrational, is connected to mad-cow disease.  Suddenly, I understood that the brains, which are mostly fat, are very useful and contain that luscious porkiness flavor, and thick, buttery texture.

To think that only a few months ago I wondered what happened to the pig's brain while simmering the head in an aromatic broth.   Later, after an email to my internet friend, blogger, inadvertent food science mentor, and Charcutepalooza judge, I did learn that brains are mostly fat. Throughout this year, my participation in the Charcutepalooza community has taught me much about charcuterie and food in general.  I doubt that I would have appreciated Michael Chiarello's usefulness with the brains, had I not learned so much this year.

If I really want to appreciate the pig I raised, the pig whose every part I need to use in appreciation for the life that pig gave to me, I need to appreciate all the body parts offered by the pig, with the same understanding that a chef like Michael Chiarello has for the animal and the food produced by its parts. And it's not just the raising, the butchering, the use of the parts, and the ability to create great dishes from the parts, it's looking at what's at hand and using it in the most efficacious and delicious way possible.  I mean, why would I throw extra butter into a duxelles when the brains are right in front of me?   Frankly,  I think that Chef Chiarello's use of the brains were pure genius.  The other chefs used many parts, but that use of the brain, for me, was the highlight. 

And you know, I think I'd love to use the brains in a celery, wild mushroom duxelles.  Wow!  I even think that the pig would smile with me.

Finally, Duck Breast Prosciutto

Duck Breast Prosciutto with Melon

Yes, I finally made the Duck Breast Prosciutto.  It was the first challenge for all the Charcutepaloozas which began in January, 2011.  I became a member of this distinguished group of bloggers towards the middle of January, if memory serves well, and so was excused from meeting the first deadline.  Instead, I had the rest of the year to make the duck breast prosciutto.  I waited until I could order it fresh, with another item I really needed from D'Artagnan.  D'Artagnan isn't anywhere near my neck of the woods, and because I try to be sustainable and local, I ended up waiting months to place that order. The rest of the time I just drooled while examining their website.  But finally an appropriate need occurred with the appearance of the September Packing Challenge, sparking my overwhelming desire to make the Duck Roulade.  So I received my fresh Moulard Duck Magret, Half Breast when I ordered a Whole Pekin Duck in September. 

I used the recipe from Ruhlman and Polcyn's Charcuterie.  It was very easy and fun to make, although I used too many wraps of cheesecloth and had to remove some halfway through.  It tastes divine, with a bit of chew, good salty, peppery flavor, and an end of pure duck flavor on my tongue!  However, I think that when I do it again, I'll take off some of the fat.  It was just too much in my mouth.  But that same fat also brings in much more flavor when fried or broiled.  Decisions, decisions....

I tried it first plain.   While picking all the veggies before the first frost hit, my husband found the mini cantaloupe in the garden.  We're not even sure how it came to be there, and, with our long, rainy, cold spring and rather cool summer, it just didn't grow much.  Because it's so small, it didn't have a burst of flavor, but it looked so cute that I had to serve it with the prosciutto.  On another occasion, I used the prosciutto with pasta.  But now I'm saving it for the last Charcutepalooza challenge.  If there's any left, I'm sure I'll use it up pretty quickly in a pasta dish, on a pizza, fried with some vegetable, or just scrambled with eggs.  However I use it, I know the taste will be all I want it to be.

Gala Chicken and Rock 'n Roll Duck

Steve Jamsa, Photographer

I couldn't wait to make the Chicken Galantine!  I had a chicken in the freezer raised and butchered by my friends, Seth and Talina.  How local and sustainable was that!  This was to be a meal that did more than meet the Charcutepalooza challenge, it also became one in which I satisfied my desires to stay local and eat sustainably.  I had accessible to me all the ingredients except the salt, peppers, Madeira, Pâté spices, pistachios, and cheesecloth.   It felt good to be able to use so many local ingredients making a dish that is so elegant and classic!

I not only made the Chicken Galantine, but, having some leftover filling, I also made a pâté.  I always have local morel mushrooms which I receive fresh and then dry myself so I reconstituted some for the galantine.  I also added pistachios to the forcemeat.  Other than those two ingredients, I followed the recipe from Charcuterie.

Removing the skin from the rest of the chicken was pretty easy, except, heeding the advise of my hubby, I cut the skin around the top rather than the base of the drumsticks.  Dumb move.  It left me with a slightly smaller piece of skin than I would have had but it all worked out okay.  I used the extra forcemeat to make a  pâté which I baked in a ramekin.  I lined the ramekin with some rendered duck fat that I had made after making rillettes and covered the pâté with foil before baking it.

Chicken Stock

I grow my own bay leaves and thyme so I added them fresh to the chicken stock.  Because I'm in north Idaho, I do have to bring the bay tree inside during the winter.  But it still thrives!  The stock was delicious and after a good straining, I poached the galantine in the stock.



Steve Jamsa, Photographer

Some friends, Steve, Diana, and Alice stopped by after work for a sample of the galantine and a glass of wine.  Steve, a professional photographer, honored my request to shoot some photos.  I offered some other goodies as well, including lingonberry preserves (like the cranberry jelly with turkey), pickled ginger, olives, crackers, cherry tomatoes from the garden, and other "small bits" as well.  Everyone loved both the galantine and the pâté.

After the work on the galantine, I had to wait a week before starting in on the Duck Roulade. Because I also work, both dishes took two days. However, at least I knew how to take off the skin properly and to cut the thighs and legs at the base!



Duck Roulade

Unlike the chicken, I had to buy a duck raised elsewhere.  Usually, I pick one up across the border in Creston, B.C.  But I decided to take advantage of the wonderful discount offered by D'artagnan to the Charcutepalooza bloggers and I ordered a Pekin duck.  It arrived quickly but, since I had ordered a frozen duck, I had the opportunity to put it in the deep freeze while I honed my skills on the chicken.


Duck skin ready for freezer



Duck skinned

I invited two friends for Duck Roulade dinner, my neighbor, Gary, and my best friend and chef, Mark.  Mark arrived with several bottles of Elsa Bianchi Malbec from Argentina.  He always knows how to put a meal over the top!  I really enjoyed the wine and thought it went perfectly with the duck.  For dinner, I also served mashed potatoes and parsnips along with buttered pole beans, all from my garden.  It was delicious!  Everyone loved the duck roulade and it was a lovely closing to this time-consuming challenge.  And I was very, very happy that it all turned out so yummy!

Pâté en Croute: Success and Failure

English Pork Pie

This is my success: the English Pork Pie from Charcuterie.  My husband and I had it for dinner and found ourselves acting rather piggy when we reached for seconds.  The pie was delicious!  I loved the saltiness of the meat, accentuated by the bountiful addition of smoked ham.  I used my own chicken broth in the meat mixture.  I did use the fine dice of the meat grinder but it still appeared a bit "rustic," although the texture was not like burger meat. The crust was pure butter, one of my favorites, and besides, store-bought lard contains the addition of "fake" fat.  Yuck!  What happened to pure lard?!  Actually, I do have a huge bag of pork fat in my freezer but it isn't rendered yet.  I guess I'm waiting for the "Confit" challenge....

Freezing equipment

I wanted this to be a success so my grinding equipment spent the night in the deep freeze.  I had already put together my mise en place: cooled onions and garlic in one bowl, diced ham in another bowl, pork shoulder in large dice mixed with the spices, chicken broth measured in a cup, and the ice bowl ready to go.  I ground the pork with the small dicer, added the chicken broth, and mixed in the ham.  Then, the pork mix went back into the refrigerator to stay cool.  Later, I made the dough, put it in the fridge to cool, and in the afternoon assembled my English pork pie.


In the oven

About an hour or so before dinner, I popped it in the oven.  I thought it looked kind of pretty in a very English Pork Pie kind of way.  I had a bit much crust, but after a problem with my original Pâté en Croute (see below), I didn't want to lose all the luscious fat again.

My dinner slice

The meat does not look as ground as it actually is because it's still warm, no aspic holds the ground meat together, and I used more than the required amount of ham (one of my weaknesses).  It was so good!


Notice how the meat hasn't shrunk hardly a bit from the pastry dough.  That made me very happy.  I did bake the pie on parchment, just to be sure it didn't stick to the pan.  Julia Child recommends lightly greasing the baking sheet underneath the pastry, so I thought I'd be safe with the parchment paper.  The paper did slide right out from underneath the pie later on when it had cooled.  Notice how I lost a bit of the fat, but not much.

The English Pork Pie is my success.  Unfortunately, I rather failed at the Pâté en Croute, which was too bad because I had been so very excited about it!

As soon as the announcement for the September Packing Challenge appeared, I immediately knew I would do the Pâté en Croute, because I had a wild boar tenderloin to substitute for the pork tenderloin.  I couldn't wait to begin.

I didn't have a proper terrine, so I substituted with a terra cotta loaf pan.  Everything seemed to go well - I even felt comfortable making my own chimney.  And into the oven it went.  I could smell the cloves in the spice mixture first and the aromas were heady.  But by the end of the cooking process, when the fat had broken through the pastry dough in I don't know how many places, panic mode set in.

My first thought was "get rid of the excess fat so it doesn't end up hardening around the outside of the pastry dough."  Wrong.  Do not throw out the delicious fat, even if it does spread a bit onto the crust because by pouring some of the fat out, I also poured out flavor and binder.  This a major mistake and, it turns out, I made several.

I sautéed my wild board tenderloin about a minute or so too long and it became dry in the oven.  The forcemeat was not packed tightly enough around the tenderloin.  My dough did not cover the pâté correctly and I didn't use enough egg wash.  Plus, it broke around the chimney funnel.  I also think I may have used a bit too much ground clove.  The entire pâté had shrunk too much from the crust.  The pâté was a bit dry because I decided not to use the aspic since I didn't know where the crust was leaking.

Pâté en Croute

It may look good, or, at least acceptable, but this was the next morning after the pouring-off-the-fat error.  After several tries, I managed to release it from the pan - of course, upside down.

Notice the fat on the bottom of the pastry...which is why I poured out some of the fat...to the detriment of the meat.  Luckily, I also managed to turn the whole thing right side up.


Now, that looks better, even without the chimney.

Then I cut my beautiful pastry encrusted forcemeat and my heart sank in direct relation to the space between the meat and the pastry.  I felt like crying.  But first I had to taste it.

It had a pronounced clove flavor that was too much over the top. I liked it, but it should have been more in the background.  The pork, minus that lovely aspic I made, tasted almost dry.  The boar tenderloin was definitely dry.   Woe was me!  What to do, what to do. 

I'm the kind of person who, given lemons, makes lemonade, so, first, I cut the tenderloin out of the pâté, for other uses (in risotto, in a ground pork mix, and shaved for a sandwich).  I saved some of the crust and the meat for occasional snacking.  The rest of the meat I cut into manageable pieces, pressed into a mini loaf pan, poked it about a thousand times with my cake tester, and then poured some of the aspic over the pâté.  It became much more moist and the flavor was lush, filling the mouth with flavors from a fairly recent but also remote rural past.

In the end, the pâté tasted rather good.  The aspic lent flavor and fat.  It didn't look particularly beautiful after such abuse, but it still tasted fine.

I have made pâtés and terrines in the past, but never one covered in pastry.  I'm not a big pie eater and for many years I always thought of crusts as just extra calories.  But I've learned much from actually doing the Charcutepalooza challenges and in the future, I'll be using these techniques and making this charcuterie much more often.  It isn't just a means of preserving food; rather, it has its own elegance and flavors that take me, at least, to other realms of possibilities.