Not-so-tipsy cooking with Riesling
The supermarket a block from my apartment has been renovating. Back when they were replacing the shelves, they put some of their odds and ends on massive discount, and I picked up a pile of sauerkraut. The sauerkraut needed sausages, so I asked about which to get at the farmer’s market.
At the market, after first pointing out the bratwurst and the smoked sausages, a farmer regaled me with instructions, ones that were very specific in the requirement for Riesling as the braising liquid. Later, in conversation with friends, I was advised to use a slow cooker and that the more pork I put in it, the better it would be.
I found some inexpensive and meaty slices of hocks to up the pork content of the dish when I was getting a cooking apple and some caraway seeds for flavour. A further trip took me to a wine shop, where I found that all the Riesling was in bottles too tall for my fridge.
Back home, I drained most of the brine out of the sauerkraut, and poured it into my slow cooker. I cut up the cooking apple and my smoked sausages, then also added them to the pot. In went the caraway seeds, a bay leaf, and the pork hocks. Topping it all was a bit over a third of the bottle of dry Riesling. I set the slow cooker to low, then sampled some of the wine.
They say that you shouldn’t cook with a wine you wouldn’t drink, and it was a very drinkable wine. While my dinner was braising (and I still had a dinner’s worth left in the bottle), I went out for a walk, taking advantage of the early spring warmth.
Later in the evening, I pulled everything out of the slow cooker and split it into portions. One for dinner, four for future lunches. Since I only had three slices of pork hocks in it, I reserved them for lunches. The dinner portion was decent, but I was told that the lunch portions would be better.
I had one of the lunch bowls earlier today, heated up along with a couple of potatoes and some seedy mustard. It was better than it was yesterday. The slice of hock in it was sweet and tender.
Sliding out the lamb bacon
As I was sliding today’s lunch bowls out of the freezer, a small pack of frozen lamb bacon came slipping out. Since it had decided that it wanted to be out, I stuck it in the fridge to thaw while I was at work. It was on my commute home that I was hit by today’s inspiration, to turn it into a breakfast bread topping. Instant smørebrød, just add bread.
In addition to the lamb bacon, I also had some cheese, mushrooms, and parsnips in my fridge. The mushrooms had dried out, and were a smaller portion than I wanted, so I beefed them up with some dried ceps from my pantry. While the mushrooms were soaking, I cut and roasted the parsnips. After they softened, I added the mushrooms and their liquor to the parsnips, topping everything with the lamb bacon slices. Back to the oven for a bit more cooking.
After the bacon was done, I split the roasted food into four portions, sacrificing one to quality control (it was tasty). I split a block of cheese between the remaining three portions, coincidentally also the number of slices of rye in my freezer. Easy food for a quick meal. Either as breakfast or first lunch.
Zeppola time
It’s now the time of the year that I find the most seasonal snacks that aren’t pumpkin-spiced whatevers, doused in peppermint. I stopped by a nearby bakery, got a slice of pizza, and saw that they had a tray of zeppole.
This is the normal time of year, here, to find zeppole. This bakery’s rendition of the treat was a bit drier in texture to those from a closer shop to home, but that did make it easier to eat without making a mess. The closer ones normally have both more of the cherry juices soaked into the pastry and more sugar coating the exterior.
Salt herring, attempt one
What may be the cheapest fish in fish counter of the supermarkets in my area is salt herring. I bought the smallest tray they had, and set about figuring out what to do with it. Fortunately for me, I have cookbooks with instructions.
This morning’s attempt was desalted herring on rye. I put the fish in fresh water yesterday morning, and pulled them out today. The desalting water was slushy after a night in my fridge of doom. After pulling the herring out of their salty bath and rinsing them, I tried to neatly fillet the wet fish. I only succeeded with the smallest of the four, the others came apart in strips.
I had been piling the strips of desalted herring on top of my slice of rye bread. The pile was too much to eat on one piece of bread, so I picked a small piece off of the pile and ate it. Even with a day’s desalting, it was still far too salty for my tastes. I moved most of the fish back into the fridge for later, had a few small pieces on rye, and washed it down with some ice cold milk. Tonight, I look at recipes in my books that use that salty fish as an ingredient.
Yay, raclette!
It was a cold, snowy, freezing rain sort of day. I went out with a walking group and walked around 12km with them. Their mid-walk food break didn’t fit my tastes, so I let myself develop a bigger appetite for lunch.
Near the end of the walk, I saw that a local cheesemonger had a raclette plate special. They have a second shop close to my apartment, so I paid them a visit for my post-walk lunch.
The raclette plate had hot, melted cheese on top of some potatoes, with some charcuterie and a salad alongside the cheese dish. The melty cheese was just what I needed after that long walk in the cold. Thankfully, the plate filled me up before I noticed the new special at the shop: café gourmand. What made that coffee the gourmand’s special was that it came with three sweets: a cookie, a canelé, and a macaron. Maybe next time, greedy coffee, next time.
Mallo Cup tasting
I occasionally pick up American sweets from a nearby shop. This time, I picked up a two pack of Mallo Cups.
Upon opening the pack, the first thing I noticed was that the top of the visible cup was not as smooth as the packet’s picture suggested; the reason for that was visible in the ingredients list: coconut. That coconut provided some texture to the smoothness of the filling. Intensely sweet, I was glad that I had some tea cut it with. I should have expected that sweetness, given how often I encounter it with milk-chocolate-based sweets.
Under the candy, there was a card with a total of 30 points that could be redeemed for various merchandise or a rebate. If I wanted to get the maximum rebate redemption for the year, assuming that each pack of Mallo Cups contains the same 30 points as my pack, I would need to plow through 417 packs to collect enough. That’s a bit much for me. Perhaps a snack bar worker taking up a collection would be able to. For the merch, it would be far cheaper for me to pay the cash price than collect enough points to redeem.
Notes on salsify
At a recent farmer’s market, one of the farmers had in her display a mysterious box of sticks. The sticks? Extra salsify from a plot she had planted for a chef. She was giving it away for free to all, under the condition that all takers report back to her on what was made and how it turned out.
I filled a small bag with the salsify, recalled the farmer’s comments on its preparation, and thought of the bag of desiccated maitake in my fridge at home. I would rehydrate the the mushroom and roast it up with the veg.
I was told that I didn’t need to peel the salsify, but all of the recipes I looked at that used it, peeled it. I peeled and cut the thickest root, and my hands got all sticky from its juices. I cut the thinner roots, ones that were too thin for me to feel comfortable peeling raw, into chunks unpeeled after washing them well. After mixing the salsify chunks with the reconstituted maitake (and what remained of the water I set the dried mushroom chunks in), I seasoned them with salt and olive oil. The pan was roasted for 30 minutes in a maybe-350°F oven (old gas appliance combined with no thermometer), stirred and had more water added halfway.
The resulting dish tastes quite rich, although the salsify chunks without their skin taste better. The skin tastes very earthy, almost like it was covered in dirt. The non-skin-salsify is far sweeter than its exterior. Like with beets, the skin is also easier to remove after cooking, to the point that I was able to free it from the roast chunks with a nibble.
Dichotomous Diatomaceous 