04 November 2017

La choucroute du mois de novembre

I don't really have anything new to say about choucroute garnie. That's salt-cured or fermenté  (with no vinegar added) cabbage (sauerkraut) cooked with onions, carrots, and aromatic herbs and berries in white wine. Salt-curing or brining thinly sliced cabbage for 4 to 6 weeks makes the sauerkraut much more nutritious than fresh cabbage, and easier on the digestive system. Choucroute is full of vitamin C, for example. And it's delicious. Here's a link to past posts.


And here's one new thing about choucroute garnie that I can share. It's a recipe from the French food encyclopedia called Le Larousse Gastronomique. I have a 50-year-old edition of the book (1967) that I bought 30 years ago, but now I also have an electronic (PDF) version (2007) that I downloaded a year or two ago. Here's the recipe from the 2007 book, publication of which was overseen by the noted chef and restaurateur Joël Robuchon.

Choucroute  à  l'alsacienne

Bien laver 2 kg de choucroute crue à l'eau froide, puis la presser et la démêler avec les mains.

Préchauffer le four à 190°C. Éplucher 2 ou 3 carottes et 2 gros oignons, couper les premières en petits cubes, piquer les seconds de 1 clou de girofle chacun. Mettre dans une petite mousseline 2 gousses d'ail épluchées, 1 cuillerée à café de poivre en grains, 1 cuillerée à dessert de baies de genièvre et nouer.

Enduire de graisse d'oie ou de saindoux le fond et le bord d'une cocotte. Y étaler la moitié de la choucroute. Ajouter les carottes, les oignons, la mousseline et 1 bouquet garni, puis le reste de la choucroute, 1 jambonneau cru, 1 verre de vin blanc sec d'Alsace et suffisamment d'eau pour mouiller à hauteur. Saler légèrement, couvrir, porter à ébullition sur le feu, puis cuire 1 heure au four.

Loger alors dans la choucroute 1 palette de porc fumée (moyenne) et de 500 à 750 g de poitrine fumée ; couvrir, porter de nouveau à ébullition sur le feu, puis remettre au four. Après 1 h 30 de cuisson, retirer la poitrine et ajouter 1,250 kg de pommes de terre. Cuire encore 30 min.

Faire pocher 6 à 8 saucisses de Strasbourg à l'eau à peine frémissante.

Lorsque la choucroute est cuite, retirer la mousseline, le bouquet garni et les clous de girofle, et rajouter la poitrine pour la réchauffer pendant 10 min. Dresser la choucroute dans un grand plat et la garnir avec les pommes de terre, les saucisses et les viandes coupées en tranches régulières.

I've reformatted the recipe to make it easier to read. Here's a translation:

Alsatian-style Sauerkraut

Rinse 2¼ lbs. of brined (salt-cured) raw sauerkraut in cold water. Squeeze out excess water and untangle the sauerkraut with your hands.

Preheat the oven to 375ºF (190°C). Peel 2 or 3 carrots and 2 large onions. Cut the carrots into small cubes. Prick each onion with 1 whole clove. Wrap 2 peeled garlic cloves, 1 teaspoon of black peppercorns, 1 tablespoon of juniper berries in cheesecloth and tie it into a bundle with kitchen twine (or use a spice ball).

Grease the bottom and sides of a pot with goose fat or lard. Spread in half of the sauerkraut. Add the carrots, onions, the cheesecloth bundle, and an herb bouquet. Then put in the the rest of the sauerkraut, 1 raw ham hock, 1 glass of dry Alsatian white wine and enough water to barely cover the sauerkraut. Salt lightly, cover, bring to the boil on the stove, and then cook for 1 hour in the oven.

Add and push down into the sauerkraut 1 a medium-size piece of smoked pork shoulder and 1 to 1½ lbs. of smoked belly (slab bacon). Cover the pot, bring it to the boil again on the stove, and then put it back in the oven. After 90 minutes, remove the bacon and add 2½ lbs. of small potatoes. Cook for another 30 minutes.

Separately, poach 6 to 8 Strasbourg sausages (frankfurters) in barely simmering water.

When the sauerkraut is cooked, remove the cheesecloth bundle, the herb bouquet, and the two whole cloves. Put the slab of bacon back into the pot for 10 minutes to reheat it. Arrange the sauerkraut in a large dish and garnish with the steamed potatoes, the sausages, and the meats cut into uniform slices.

My choucroute is rinsed and ready to cook, but it's only 6:30 a.m. so it's not in the oven yet. I've included some photos of my mise en place (the ingredients). I'm using a spice ball for the peppercorns and juniper berries as well as a few allspice berries and the whole cloves, and I'm putting in two bay leaves instead of a more elaborate herb bouquet. More tomorrow...


14 comments:

  1. It sounds delicious. Wish I could join you. How can you go wrong with goose fat and bacon back? Vinegared sauerkraut brings to mind the jarred stuff we ate as kids in the States.

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    1. Hi D.
      I've been cooking choucroute, here in the States, with great success for many years. The idea is to rince store-bought choucroute many times under cold water and then cook it for several hours. I'l try it again soon in the slow cooker I bought last year. My recipe doesn't call for carrots!

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    2. The vinegar supposedly stops the fermentation of the cabbage, so it's less nutritious and less tasty. I say that without having used sauerkraut bought in the U.S. for many years. From things I've read on the internet, there are non-vinegared and even raw sauerkrauts available in the U.S. but they might not be easy to find. I know that a lot of people in France buy pre-cooked sauerkraut and even sauerkraut in cans, and it can be good if it's handled right (add carrots!). Both my editions of the Larousse Gastronomique, as well as other books, call for putting carrots in the mixture. C'est une affaire de goût, n'est-ce pas?

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    3. By the way, would you be willing to share your recipe, and identify its source?

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  2. We can buy fermenting sauerkraut in our supermarket. It's sold in plastic bags which are vented so that the gasses can escape. It's labelled "Bavarian," and they've overdone the caraway seeds, but otherwise it's delicious.

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    1. That's what the Bavarian sauerkraut is? I had no idea it was different than the vinegar type that I usually buy!
      Judy

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  3. Ken, is there a difference between a marmite and a cocotte? I've been teaching that they both just refer to a big cooking pot, and I know of the use of cocotte-minute for a pressure cooker.
    Judy

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    1. I think it's mainly a matter of size. The marmite is bigger, and has taller sides — it's deep. I think it's what we might call a stock pot in America. The cocotte is smaller and has sides that are not so high as a function of its diameter. In between, there's the fait-tout or faitout, which is an all-purpose pot. That's my take on it.

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  4. Very timely. I bought just under a kilo of choucroute crue at the deli in Auchan on Thursday. The server asked me how much I wanted. I said I didn't know, so she asked me how many people it was for. I told her two people, but added that it was one person who likes choucroute a lot and one, not so much. She asked me how long I'd been in France and if I liked it. It was a fun encounter and I'll cook the choucroute tomorrow. Simon is very happy.

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    1. Hope you enjoy it. Did you get the meats and sausages to go with it? I really like it with smoked chicken, which I get at Intermarché at very reasonable prices. Have you been to any of the choucroute restaurants in Tour, Bourges, or Blois?

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  5. Thanks for the heads up chm, on washing the choucroute! As children, it was the vinegar we disliked. ;-)

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    1. I used to buy choucroute from a German deli in San Francisco. To me it was good, but I don't know if it was raw or pre-cooked.

      The two styles of sauerkraut remind me that the Korean kim-chee, a form of sauerkraut after all is said and done, comes in two styles, salt-cured and fermented, or vinegar-based and pickled. In N.C. we always ate and people still do eat a lot of foods seasoned or dressed with vinegar — beans, greens, cucumbers, tomatoes, beets, etc. — as people in France do with their vinaigrette dressings for all kinds of salads and in England where they put vinegar on fried potatoes.

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  6. We ate Choucroute last night, and guess what; I shall be eating the leftovers for breakfast in about an hour.

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