04 November 2012

Fall food

It's definitely autumnal around here now. Leaves are falling everywhere. Temperatures are chilly. And it's raining. We've had about two inches (50 mm) of rain over the past three or four days.

At times like this, my thoughts turn to fall and winter foods. One of them is choucroute garnie. That's "fermented" cabbage (salt-cured) rinsed and then cooked slowly with white wine, carrots, onions, bay leaves, and juniper berries. It's served with smoked and salt-cured meats including brined pork shoulder or belly, Montbéliard, Frankfort, or Strasbourg sausages, and — the way I make it — smoked chicken. Oh, and steamed new potatoes.

Half a smoked chicken, a saucisse de Montbéliard, and some chunks of brined and
simmered pork shoulder "garnish" the sauerkraut, onions, and carrots.

Did I ever tell you that one of my main reasons for coming to live in France was — is — the food?

All the sausages I mentioned above are available in all the markets and supermarkets, along with many others. Montbéliard sausages are similar to the saucisses de Morteau that I posted about a few days ago. They come from the same region and are smoked the same way, but more lightly. The sausages themselves are 100% pork, and they're skinnier than Morteau

One kilogram of choucroute crue — raw sauerkraut — ready
to be rinsed, blanched, and cooked.

The sauerkraut itself is something I buy in its raw form. You can buy it pre-cooked in either Alsatian riesling wine or even champagne, but I prefer to cook it myself. The raw product has to be rinsed and blanched to remove excess salt. Then you just simmer it in white wine with herbs, spices, carrots and onions. It's a long, slow process, but the result is worth it. I make a big batch, because the choucroute improves with each re-heating and lasts as long as a week.

By the way, the same kinds of ferments lactiques, or milk cultures, that cure raw cream and turn it into French crème fraîche, which I wrote about yesterday, are the ones that transform raw cabbage into delicious, healthful, digestible choucroute. Fine ferments, I think.

23 comments:

  1. Even though, just like wine, I put carrots in everything I possibly can, I’ve never seen them in any “choucroute” that I’ve ever had in France. Maybe it’s a new trend?

    Now, it’s not yet six in the morning and I’m craving choucroute!

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  2. CHM, the recipe I follow (from the 1970s) calls for one carrot but I put in six, because I like them, they're inexpensive, and they're good for your vision (sans parler de mes fes... euh... cuisses roses).

    See this link... one carrot. Not enough, à mon avis.

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  3. We grew white cabbage one year in the UK and had so much that I decided to try my hand at Sauerkraut.
    The slicing was tedious, to say the least... but two large heads filled a 9 litre stockpot. I then emptied that and refilled it... layering the cabbage with the salt.
    It was covered with greaseproof paper, then an old sheet [washed, of course] and a selection of weighty objects. It was then left for the bacteria to do their stuff.
    The result was terrible to look at when the weights were removed... but the book said it should look like that... once the old sheet, covered in blue mould, was removed... and binned... and the 'crust' removed... the remainder was fine, smelt of cabbage, etc... so I bottled it, packing it in tight and topping off with the remaining liquid from the bottom.

    Washed and cooked it was just like I knew sauerkraut... coming from a family that had quite a lot of Germanic blood in our veins, we ate it fairly regularly... but always as a side veg.

    Pauline doesn't like it, though.

    I tried lactic fermentation on runner beans and french beans... worked, but flavourwise... a total, abysmal flavour... crunchy, salty green bits aren't beans!!

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  4. I forgot to mention...
    My mother also made instant 'sauerkraut'... thin sliced cabbage cooked in a salty mix of equal parts water and vinegar, with peppercorns and a bay leaf... then left overnight, drained and served. Tasted very nice... the bay leaf removed, the peppercorns, usually white, were mini-bombs in the mix.

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  5. I love choucroute garnie (sans carotte), and fortunately here in Maine we have a couple of the best sauerkraut producers in the world. One of them, which has been in business in rural Maine for something like 80 years, is so good that they have orders from Germany! And while we can't get Montbeliard or Toulouse sausages, there is a German sausage maker in Massachusetts that makes sausages that rival anything I've had in France or Germany. Now if only there were more Alsatian wines available.

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  6. No kidding? Food is of interest to you, Ken? :)

    My favorite colleague, the German teacher across the hall (who is American but lived in Germany for a number of years), is interested in creating a recipe-reading unit for her upper-level German classes, like the one I have made for my French 4s. So, I asked her, "Are there really a lot of great traditional German recipes that you can use?" And she burst out laughing, and said, "NO!" *LOL*. Not to diss German cuisine (because I'm sure there are plenty of yummy German recipes out there), but this did make me really realize how fabulous and varied and rich the resources are for French cuisine.

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  7. Ken, I just clicked on one of your links, which brought me to 750g.com... I clicked on one of the recipes, and it was for a Tarte Tatin à la tomate cérise. It looks fabulous! Ever tried it? I might! I have a bunch of cherry tomatoes sitting around that I don't know what to do with.

    They had a quick little video about making it here.

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  8. Thank you for the link.

    According to my research — and as I suspected — the Traditional Alsatian Choucroute [AOC or AOP ?] doesn’t have any carrot in it. Out of ten recipes I checked, only one — 750g — have carrots and apples!

    This being said, you can put whatever you want in anything you cook. Sometimes you have to be inventive and so much the better. If you like the final product because it is good, then that's what counts.

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  9. Hmmm, I haven't had sauerkraut in quite a while.

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  10. CHM, does Alsatian choucroute really have the AOC or AOP or IGP designation? I bet those recipes don't have smoked chicken in them either. Tant pis pour eux...

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  11. I was just kidding. As far as I know there is no such "protection." Tough!
    Maybe some day if people keep putting carrots and chicken where it doesn't belong. LOL

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  12. P.S. Why don’t you call that awful decoction Choucroute à la Ken? MDR

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  13. Or "Choucroute Saint-Aignan"... it might catch on?

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  14. Tim, only with Catholics. What about us heathens?

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  15. Well, there are some advantages to not living in Alsace, I guess. I call it Choucroute garnie à la Loir-et-Cher.

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  16. It looks like as of last Thursday, Choucroute Alsacien is on its way to an IGP:
    http://alimentation.gouv.fr/choucroute-alsace-igp

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  17. Now with Choucroute à la Loir-et-Cher you're safe in view of the impending IGP for carrotless and chickenless choucroute. They should also ban Montbéliard and Morteau which are not Alsace natives.

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  18. Those Alsatians obviously have no idea what they're doing. How do they think they're going to get an IGP for choucroute garnie w/o chicken and carrots?

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  19. CHM, I distinctly remember that you ordered choucroute à la toulousaine last summer at a restaurant near Blois. Convergence of ingredients from SW and NE in the Centre?

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  20. Judy, thanks for the link to the tatin de tomates video. Too bad tomato season is over. Next year...

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  21. Bob, I think that carottes de Créances already have an IGP. If choucroute d'Alsace gets one, I don't see why the two products can't be cooked together. Or do 2 IGPs cancel each other out?

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  22. 2 IGPs plus an AOP = 1 AOC. At least until the EU says otherwise. Ken, don't you sleep? I just realized what your time is.

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  23. Couldn't sleep. Doesn't happen often. So here I am. Now I realize that my chouchroute is not à la Loir-et-Cher but à la Lorraine. Easy mistake to make.

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