My Beautiful Choucroute

(With some technical issues resolved, we carry on....  See bottom for details.)

Choucroute garnie, the classic Alsatian dish of simmered sauerkraut topped with smoked meats and sausages, is not the sort of thing I want to eat every week, or maybe even every month.  Though its name features the fermented vegetable base (choucroute is French for sauerkraut), it's a rich and meat-heavy meal, delectable when properly prepared with best ingredients, and ideal on a cold winter's evening, preferably after a few hours on the ski trails, or working in the woodlot.  We make it with great anticipation, and relish every tangy, porky bite, maybe two to three times each winter.  We make a big pot, even just for the two of us--the leftovers are even better than the first round.

Another thing I love about choucroute is that it's an ideal dish to simmer atop a woodstove. The gentle, even heat slowly renders the sauerkraut savory and tender, with still a bit of bite, and perfectly infuses the cabbage with the flavors of the meats that "garnish" it. There's some time involved in the prep, but once it's all assembled and bubbling quietly away, it's ready when you are.

If you've thought ahead to ferment your own 'kraut, choucroute garnie is a suitable reward for your forethought. You rinse the 'kraut in several changes of water to take away some of the sourness and salt, then you squeeze out as much water as you can so the cabbage is fairly dry. In a big heavy pot you've got some chopped leek, onion, and carrot sweating down in excellent bacon fat (best) or duck fat (just as good) or oil (acceptable). To this you add the squeezed-out 'kraut, then some dry white wine and chicken stock--perhaps a cup of each. I toss in a bay leaf, a couple of whole cloves, three or four crushed juniper berries, a few sprigs of thyme, a few grinds of coarse pepper. Nestle a small piece of excellent bacon in the middle of it, and let it cook, covered, for a good hour. That's the basis, and can be prepared days ahead.

Rillons marinating prior to cooking.

Then on choucroute night, I begin by browning my meats. I had a couple of chunks of our home-smoked bacon, of course, and another homemade meat item, rillons. Rillons are succulent cubes of pork belly that have been cooked a long while in pork fat and duck fat, wine and herbs, very much in the manner of rillettes, except that for rillons the belly cubes are browned first, and left whole at the end, rather than shredded as for rillettes. Both rillons and rillettes are particularly associated with the cochonailles of the Loire valley around the towns of Tours, Amboise, Saumur. Cochonailles means things made from pig; I'll have more to say about this in an upcoming post.

The golden porky loveliness of finished rillons .

The sausage components were purchased--really nice smoked sausage from Pastures A Plenty  via Seward co-op ; and kalberwurst from Louie's Finer Meats of Cumberland, Wisconsin, an institution in west central Badgerland.

After browning the meats I cleaned up the pan a bit--I like my choucroute to stay nice and light in color, and if there's too much brown stuff in the bottom of the pot it turns dark; tasty but aesthetically unappealing, to me. So the pre-simmered 'kraut goes back in the pan, perhaps with another slosh of wine, or just a bit of water to keep it moist. Then the meats are tucked in, and it cooks at a very gentle simmer for at least a half hour, or until you're ready to eat.  Oh, cook some potatoes ahead, and add them to warm in the last twenty minutes or so.

Crusty bread, a glass of riesling or pinot blanc. There it is, my beautiful choucroute:

Text and photos copyright 2012 by Brett Laidlaw
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Re technical issues: When I went into Blogger yesterday to write this post, I found I was unable to type in the main text box. The little twirly daisy symbol, that doohickey that tells you the computer is "thinking", just kept going round and round, never stopped. I could type in the title box, the labels, see a preview--everything but actually type my post. Next day, today, same deal. Fortunately I have a computer genius in the house, and Mary resolved, or circumvented, the problem by installing Google Chrome as my browser. Now all is well, for the time being. Hopefully this will be helpful information if anyone else in blog world encounters this same problem.

A Tale of Three Tarts

Nothing facilitates culinary creativity like a well-stocked larder.  And nothing is more essential to a well-stocked larder than bacon.  Cuz where do you think the word larder comes from, anyway?  Comes from lard, which is French for bacon.  You learned something today, didn't you?  You're welcome.

Actually, that derivation just occured to me as I started writing this, but it turns out it's spot on.  Here's what my Webster's New Twentieth Century Unabridged has to say:  "larder, n., [ME, larder; OFr, lardier, a larder, a tub for bacon; LL. lardarium, a room for meats, from L. lardum, the fat of bacon, lard.]" (Another thing I've just learned is that it's really hard to type and use the mouse with a big honkin' dictionary on your desk.)

I wish I had known that (about the etymology, not the awkward dictionary) when I was writing this essay I recorded for Wisconsin Life on Wisconsin Public Radio,"The Importance of Bacon" (a variation on a chapter in the cookbook).  In light of the faddish frenzy that has arisen around bacon in the last couple of years, I'm sort of ambivalent about my role as evangelist of smoked pork belly, but that WILife essay is something of a defense and apology for my position, which I'm happy to expound upon further here.

What disturbs me about the bacon craze is, 1) The seemingly indiscriminate approach, which implies that all bacon is good, without distinguishing greatness from dreck, and 2) The culture of gluttony it seems to promote.

Now, at some level, the appeal of bacon is so great that even the worst bacon is good.  But the watery, chemical-laden supermarket bargain bacon, made from pork that comes from who-knows-where, is only good because the sledge-hammer combo of salt, smoke, and fat can disguise many flaws.  Set next to really good, natural bacon, from well-raised pigs, it looks like exactly what it is:  rubbish.  When I'm cutting bacon from one of my home-smoked slabs, I'll often taste a sliver of the "raw" stuff; I don't think you'd be tempted to do that with the $1.89-a-pound product from Bob's Food Barn.

And as for the gluttonous, drooling, stuff-your-face attitude, the bring-on-the-fat, over-the-top, clog-my-arteries, please, approach, well, I feel that's wrong at so many levels, I'm just going to let it go at that.

Pizza night chez Trout Caviar last week perfect illustrates why I glorify bacon, and other rich and wonderful products of our region--they are splendid when used in a balanced approach to cooking and eating.  Combined with good bread (the crust), savory vegetable elements (onion, sauerkraut, leek, potato), a delightfully satisfying whole results, in which you can have your tart and eat it, too, literally--one recipe's worth of Bacon Onion Tart (p. 108) provided Mary and me with dinner for two nights, and a happy hour snack, to boot.

The recipe in the book has you divide the dough in half for two tarts; I did mine in thirds.  Tart #1 was the traditional tarte flambée or flammekeuche, the Alsatian classic topped with crème fraîche, onions, and bacon. 

For tart #2 I rinsed about a cup of sauerkraut (make your own via Trout Caviar, p. 222!), squeezed it quite dry, and sautéed it in a bit of duck fat with a small leek sliced.  That mixture was combined with crème fraîche, and got a sprinkling of grated Wisconsin havarti cheese (I'm on a havarti kick recently, thanks to the Stettler Cream Havarti from Decatur Dairy  in Brodhead, WI; we get it at Renee's shop in Connorsville ).

And for tart #3, I sliced a small potato as thin as I could; I spread some crème fraîche over the dough; placed the potato slices on top; scattered one thick slice of bacon in fine dice over the top; added a handful of Wisconsin "gruyère" (Roth Kase).

The tarts baked at 525 for, what, five or six minutes.  You just watch for the crust to brown and the toppings to bubble.  With a salad, a glass of riesling--voilà.  Little better on a cold January evening; get in a brisk walk or a turn on the skis as the sun drops down through streaks of gray and pink.  Sip a glass of that crisp, tart, fragrant wine as you work on putting your tarts together.  Something else that really heightens culinary creativity is knowing whom to steal ideas from, and I raid the Alsatian larder regularly.

And here we are back in the larder:  I decided to make this dinner mid-afternoon of the same day, and didn't have to go out for a single thing  Bacon, onion, leek, 'kraut, cream, cheese, the dough makings--these are things we almost always have in stock.  If I hadn't had those particular cheeses, I'd have used something else, or left it out.  If my 'kraut crock was running low, I'd have taken out a packet of blanched, frozen garden kale, and used that.  I'm not opposed to recipes, the dear knows, but I prefer to think in terms of methods of preparation, rather than hard and fast rules or lists of ingredients.  There aren't many recipes that can't stand a certain amount of substitution or variation--and who knows, by adding your own twist, you might just come up with your new favorite dish.  The spud 'za pretty much stole the show in this instance; it will find a place in the regular rotation.

One quick note on crème fraîche:  You can buy this product at co-ops and better grocery stores.  For the recipe in the book, I suggest just mixing sour cream and heavy cream half and half.  If you have more time, you can produce a homemade version by mixing sour cream and heavy cream--a tablespoon or two of the former for each cup of the latter--and setting the mixture in a warm place--your oven with the light turned on, for instance--overnight.  The next day it should be nice and thick and tangy.

Text and photos copyright 2012 by Brett Laidlaw

Choucroute

This really is an interesting moment in American culinary history. You have, on the one hand, an explosion of sushi, Thai restaurants taking over as the neighborhood café, fish tacos in fresh warm torillas with mango salsa as commonplace to our young people as the seasoned ground beef in crunchy Old El Paso shells kind were in my youth*.

And then, there are those of us who rhapsodize over sausage and bacon served atop fermented cabbage. Choucroute garnie, simmered sauerkraut served with pork in its several guises--smoked, cured, as sausage--is one of the best known Alsatian dishes. If the 'kraut is treated well, thoroughly rinsed, squeezed dry, gently simmered with good wine and aromatics, and if the meats are best quality, the potatoes good and sweet, it can be transcendent, humble as its individual parts may be--Franco-Teutonic synergy on a plate.

But if the 'kraut is indifferent, too sour, salty, or mushy, the sausage and bacon dull industrial products, it can be an utter gut-bomb, not to put too fine a point on it. It's all in the preparation, and the ingredients.

So let's aim for the former version, the transcendent one. If you can start with homemade sauerkraut, that's half the battle. If you don't have that, you can still make something wonderful. Some German or eastern-european markets make their own and sell it in bulk. Failing that, you may find good quality "artisan" 'kraut in jars in the refrigerated section of the grocery store (near the fresh pickles); and then, the stuff in plastic bags will do, too, if the rest of your ingredients are top-notch. If all you can find is canned 'kraut, though, I would choose a different dish for dinner tonight.

(And here's a little tip: You can help your 'kraut along by adding some finely shredded fresh cabbage. In fact, this is good even if you start with excellent 'kraut.)

When I say "transcendent" in describing choucroute, I mean transcendent in a hearty but surprisingly light way, a reassuring, comforting, but also intriguing sort of way. The cabbage will keep a mild crunch and sourness, but will be enriched by the wine, stock, and bacon, and made aromatic by spices that might surprise you in so Germanic a dish--juniper, cumin, coriander, clove. All that plays off against the meats, rich, salty, and smoky. It really is a wonderful dish, just the thing to buck up one's spirits in these waning (we hope) days of a very long winter.

Which is not to say I would turn up my nose at a nice plate of sushi....


In Alsace this dish is often served with a veritable mountain of meat atop the cabbage, an absurd sort of lollapalooza sundae of fresh and cured sausages, ham, smoked pork shoulder, bacon fresh and smoked. I used just homemade bacon and sausage in this more manageable version for two. Use whatever top quality pork products you can find. A piece of good bacon for simmering in the choucroute is the one thing I wouldn't omit or substitute.

(A confession: The choucroute pictured in this post is not the most beautiful I have ever made. After I browned the sausages and bacon, I thought it would be a good idea to deglaze the pan with a little water and add that juice to the 'kraut. The result tasted fine, but it turned the cabbage dark brown, when what you want is nice whitish 'kraut. A word to the wise....)

Choucroute Garnie
serves two, generously
8 ounces sauerkraut
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1 tsp butter
1 tsp oil (grapeseed or canola)
1/3 cup + 1/2 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup chicken stock
1/4 cup water
3 or 4 sprigs fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
4 whole coriander seeds, or a good pinch ground
1/8 tsp whole cumin seeds
2 juniper berries, crushed
1 whole clove
1/4 tsp coarsely ground black pepper

6 to 8 ounces smoked slab bacon
2 to 4 sausages, fresh or smoked, as you prefer (I used fresh in this version)

Rinse the sauerkraut thoroughly in two or three changes of water. Drain well and then squeeze it to remove most of the moisture. Taste the 'kraut. If it still tastes very sour, or too salty to your taste, rinse it again. It should be just a bit sour, and then more of the sourness will dissipate in the cooking.

In a 10-inch skillet with a lid (or similar size saucepan), melt the butter and add the oil. Add the onions and sweat them over medium heat for a few minutes. Add the sauerkraut and the spices, the 1/3 cup wine, stock and water. Nestle the piece of bacon into the center. Bring to a boil, then turn down to a slow simmer, cover, and let cook for about an hour, checking occasionally to make sure there's still a bit of liquid in the pan. Add a bit of water if necessary.

After an hour, remove the bacon and cut in into four thick slices. In a separate pan lightly brown the bacon on both sides, and brown the sausage, too, if you like. Return bacon and sausage to the sauerkraut, along with 1/2 cup of wine. Cover again and simmer another 20 minutes.

Serve with boiled potatoes, crusty sourdough bread, grain mustard, and a glass of cold riesling.

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* Actually, that was pretty exotic fare, back in the day, on North Eden Drive in paradisiacal Eden Prairie. Homemade tacos and those Appian Way pizzas in a box were what we had for international flare. I must have been destined for a life full of fermentation--I am transported as I write this, remembering the smell of the pizza yeast reviving, liberated from its tiny foil envelope. Well, Proust had his madeleine, and to each his own!

And as far as the fish tacos go, I'm going to take it up as a challenge to come up with a Trout Caviar/Bide-A-Wee rendition once the trout season opens; all local, no ahi or mangos need apply.


Text and photos copyright 2009 by Brett Laidlaw

Bienvenue en Alsace

Keeping the northern table interesting through the winter can be a matter of looking at familiar ingredients in different ways, or of looking at different places on the globe. Looking between the 45th and 50th parallels and traveling east across the Atlantic, we find ourselves in...France! Lucky us. Of the regional cuisines we can choose from, we've got Bretonne , Normande, Auvergnate, Tourangelle, Savoyarde, and today's stop, where we'll remain for the next couple of posts, Alsace, in the northeast corner of La Belle France.

The beauty of this approach is not only that we get to try delicious Alsatian "pizza" topped with crème fraîche , onions, and bacon, and succulent simmered sauerkraut served with savory charcuterie; it also gives us a chance to learn about working in imaginative ways with the limited winter larder. The cuisines of these regions are a great deal older and more sophisticated (for all that they might now be labeled "peasant food") than Jell-O salad and hot dish. There's a wealth of knowledge here about making the most of what we've preserved or cellared from last year's harvest.
With its blend of German heartiness and French refinement, Alsatian cooking provides a great template for cooks in the upper midwest, or other northern climes.

We were in Strasbourg a couple of years ago, and picked up a cookbook called La Cuisine Alsacienne Traditionelle. It didn't seem like such a find at the time, a bit "Better-Homes-and-Gardenish," but the more I look into it, the more I like it. This recipe for tarte flambée is a fairly literal translation of the recipe from that book.

Tarte Flambée (Flammekuche)serves 3 to 4

1 cup warm water
1 tsp active dry yeast
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups (approx.) unbleached all-purpose flour
optional-- 1/4 cup whole wheat flour as part of the 3 cups
1 ounce (2Tbsp) softened unsalted butter

Pour the warm water into a large mixing bowl, and sprinkle in the yeast. Let stand five minutes. Add the salt and half the flour, mix. Add the butter in small pieces, mix. Continue adding flour a bit at a time until the dough is too stiff to mix with a spoon. Turn the dough out onto a floured counter and knead, adding flour as required to keep the dough from sticking, for one minute. Even if the dough isn't perfectly smooth, set it aside, dusted with flour, for 10 or 15 minutes.

Knead the dough again for just a couple of minutes. After the dough has rested it shouldn't take much kneading to achieve a smooth, elastic dough. Return the dough to the bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise at room temperature one to two hours; or, place it in the fridge for a longer, slower rise, taking it out an hour or two before you want to bake the tarte.

For the topping:

3 medium onions, chopped
2 tsp butter
2 tsp grapeseed or canola oil
freshly grated nutmeg
4 ounces best quality slab bacon1 cup crème fraîche, or 3/4 cream mixed with 1/4 cup sour cream
1 egg
salt and pepper

Sauté the chopped onions in the butter and oil for a few minutes, until they are soft but not browned.

Slice the bacon into 1/4-inch slices, and then cut the slices into 1/4-inch little sticks, or "lardons."

Mix the crème fraîche with the egg and a good pinch of salt, a few grinds of black pepper, and a few scrapings of nutmeg.

Preheat your oven to 500 F. Prepare the dough: This amount of dough will make three or four tartes--I originally made two larger tartes, but smaller ones would be better. Keep in mind the size of your oven and/or baking stone--you may only be able to bake one or two tartes at a time. For four tarts, divide the dough in four, then stretch and/or roll the dough into roughly 8-by-10-inch rectangles. If you're using a baking stone, place the dough on cornmeal-dusted peels. If you don't have a stone, place the dough on cornmeal-dusted baking sheets.

Spread the cream mixture on the rectangles of dough. Spread the sautéed onions on top of that, and sprinkle the bacon lardons evenly over the top.

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until the crust is well browned and the cream bubbling. Serve with a salad, like carrotes rapées , and plenty of cold Alsatian wine, such as riesling or pinot blanc, or the Alsatian blend known as "gentil."


Text and photos copyright 2009 by Brett Laidlaw