On the meat'n'fruit line, this worked better yesterday than expected.
Make small meatballs out of
- pork mince
- finely chopped and softened onion
- breadcrumbs
- lemon zest
- egg
In a jug, mix
- juice from a tin of pineapple
- 2 tbsp wine or cider vinegar
- 2 tbsp dry sherry
- 2 tbsp light soy
- minced fresh ginger
- stock
Quantity depends on how much you're making, but roughly 300ml to 400g mince.
Brown the meatballs in a little oil, remove from the pan and soften some chopped peppers and a clove of garlic. Tip back the meatballs and pour in the sauce. Cover and simmer 10 min. Add mange tout, another 10, add pineapple chunks, 5 minutes. Top with toasted cashews if you like and have with either rice or noodles.
1 kg beets
2 cucumbers (I prefer English)
20 radishes (depending on size)
1.25L chicken or vegetable stock
250mL plain yoghurt or sour cream
green onions, finely chopped
1 large bunch dill, finely chopped
salt and pepper
(amounts are approximate)
Roast the beets as per the hot borshch recipe in my earlier posting. Allow to cool. Peel and grate in a large bowl. Grate and thinly slice the radishes and cucumber. Put in the bowl with the beets. (I like some sliced and some grated for textural variety. Purely personal.) Add the finely minced green onions. Reserve some of the vegetables for garnish. Add the cold broth (which you will have skimmed of the congealed fat). Mix in the sour cream and season with salt and pepper. Chill for a few hours. When serving, garnish with chopped dill and some of the reserved grated vegetables. Baltic gazpacho.
#2
Follow the directions of the hot borsch. Remove the vegetables, and mash the potatoes to produce a thicker texture. Or you can leave all the vegetables in and blitz with an immersion blender. Add the grated/chopped beets. Mix in green onions, dill, and sour cream.
Sometimes sliced hard boiled eggs are used as a garnish, as well.
It's a good idea to chill the bowls. I've seen people add ice cubes to the soup on a hot day, but I don't do that. Again, personal taste.
In hot weather, my preference is #1 for its simpler, fresher flavours and lighter texture (it's still reasonably dense).
The borsch recipe prompted me to make my simple beetroot relish today.
4 medium-large beets
1.5 cups of tawny port
1 heaped teaspoon of Chinese five-spice powder
Peel the beets. Shred the beets in the food processor, Combine the ingredients in an appropriate sized pot. Bring to the boil and then simmer until the beets are tender but not mushy. Spoon into jars. Refrigerate.
This is a dryish relish, but goes extremely well with pork and veal.
For how long does this relish last in the refrigerator? I think that it might go quite nicely on some Stilton and baguette. And when you say tender but not mushy... 20-30 minutes?
It lasts quite a while. I've used it some months after making it without any negative effects. Up to 30 minutes would be about right. Depends how fine the shred is.
I just googled "dairy free mushroom sauce" and came up with quite a few hits. I reckon your best bet would be a kind of mushroom gravy using vegetable stock.
I've just prepared Leeky salmon parcels for tea - salmon fillet, thinly sliced leeks, frozen peas (frozen mixed veg for us) and two tbsp of creme fraiche in a paper parcel. 5 minutes in the microwave. With pasta and green beans. Dead easy to prepare I'm hoping it's going to be tasty too.
Drat. I fully intended to get cream or creme fraiche when I was out, but the 25 minute wait at the pharmacy put it out of my mind.
So, how to make a mushroom sauce without either? Any ideas for mushroom-based excitement to go with venison welcomed.
I've found that plain yogurt will often do very nicely as a substitute for cream.
Aha. I do have a tub of that on hand. The other ideas seem to to introduce flour and make a sort of light roux, or cook down mushrooms and shallots and liquidise half as one would a soup.
That sounds delicious, Firenze. Where do you get your venison?
Sainsbury's. Though possibly not without looking more closely another time - out of the cardboard sleeve the steaks were revealed as minuscule, about 100g each. Although, doused in drunken mushrooms, they were sufficient.
Tonight I'm on a mission to use up withering onions. I've halved three, sprinkled them with thyme, and plonked half a chicken on top. I'll see where that get us (I'm hoping roast chicken with onion gravy).
We had some salmon portions which had been thawed accidentally, so yesterday evening I crusted them with lemon herb dukkah, and tray-baked them with hasselback potatoes,
herbed carrot and parsnip slices, and cauliflower and broccoli florets sprinkled with parmesan. A bit of a mish-mash of flavours, but very nice in all, followed by the remains of an apricot crumble from Friday night.
Lunch today was a wedge of leftover quiche lorraine, with a mug of curried pumpkin and sweet potato soup.
1 butternut pumpkin
3 gold sweet potatoes - known as kumera in Oz and NZ
3 carrots - for more colour as the butternut and potatoes were a little pale
Vegetable stock to cover
Can of coconut cream
2 teaspoons of Patak's korma paste
Chop vegetables and place them in pot with stock to cover. Bring to boil and cook till soft. Mash then blitz to a thick puree. Add coconut cream and curry paste. Reheat but do not boil. Serve, perhaps with a dollop of sour cream or plain yoghurt if for a formal meal.
This is a household winter favourite, which I've also dished up to many church dinners in larger quantities.
I want to make brioche on account of its extreme deliciousness. Only trouble is that all the recipes I've seen require a mixer, and I don't own one. Does anyone know a good recipe for mixerless brioche?
Today I took a frozen cheese pizza I had in the freezer in case hubby had to fix something for himself, as he no longer cooks and I covered the top with bits and pieces of unused things from the refrigerator. These included, sliced olives from a Mexican casserole dinner, two tomatoes, from making salsa,. I added a yellow bell pepper, some yellow squash, some basil and Italian sausage I had left from making pasta, and a bit of onion. It turned out to be really good, so now instead of left over bits and pieces I have left over pizza. I am counting it as progress. We have named it Frig Pizza and I plan to do it again.
Reporting back to say I am extremely chuffed with the brioche recipe. I think it could be yet improved by knocking back and re-raising, which I suppose means I shall have to make brioche again. What a shame. ☺️
The borsch recipe prompted me to make my simple beetroot relish today.
4 medium-large beets
1.5 cups of tawny port
1 heaped teaspoon of Chinese five-spice powder
Peel the beets. Shred the beets in the food processor, Combine the ingredients in an appropriate sized pot. Bring to the boil and then simmer until the beets are tender but not mushy. Spoon into jars. Refrigerate.
This is a dryish relish, but goes extremely well with pork and veal.
I now have beets and Chinese five- spice at hand. Would you say that the volume of beets, shredded, would be 3-4 cups? More? After shredding, do you drain them, or retain the juice for the cooking?
I gather from your instructions that you shred the beets in raw form. Is that correct?
Your recipe reads so simple, but so good. I look forward to using it on a number of different things. Roast pork loin. Stilton on bread. Roasted chicken things with sage. Come winter, with venison.
@Pangolin Guerre you indeed shred them raw and juice and all goes in the pot. If 1.5 cups of port is insufficient to cover the beets, top up. 3 cups sounds about right for the beets I used. It's a bit of trial and error depending upon how juicy the beets are - we are just coming out of a major drought here so the last batch of beets I used were a little drier than usual.
I've been making gingerbread with this recipe: http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/29656/chewy-gingerbread-men.aspx
for a few months, but yesterday with my in-laws coming for dinner I had a decadent brainwave - make round gingerbread biscuits and spread nutella on them before sandwiching together with double cream with vanilla paste added and whipped stiff. It was delicious. Might have benefited from some raspberries but YUM.
In a bid to extend the holidays, today I had a go at making the foie gras land speciality: croquants de Cordes. I'd always assumed they must be complicated, but they actually turn out to be fairly simple.
Roughly chop 125g whole almonds and toast them. I used a heavy frying pan for this operation which seemed to me less hazardous than the oven.
Put 230g sugar and 50g flour in a mixing bowl and make a well in the middle. Add two egg whites and mix it all together with a spatula. Stir in the almonds.
Line a baking sheet with nonstick paper and use a teaspoon to dole out little piles of the mixture. They need to be spaced out well- the croquants will spread quite a lot. Bake at 180° for about 15 minutes until browned and set. Wait until they are completely cool to remove them from the paper.
They are sweet and light and crispy and delicious with your coffee.
I'm sadly at the age where crispy nut biscuits join the swelling ranks of Things That Are Risky, along with crackling and sourdough toast. Life is cruel.
Tonight's Cuisine Squidge is likely to be cod and prawns lightly sautéed in butter and finished with wine and crème fraîche. With chups.
I'm one of the many who started baking bread during the C-19 lockdown. I've never used yeast before, so I thought that I'd try soda bread, because it's idiot proof (see what I did there? Har har.). I've got into the habit of making it Friday evenings to have with morning coffee/tea on the weekends.
Basic recipe:
Preheat oven to 400F/200C
Sift together:
4 1/2 cups/520g flour
3 Tbsp/40g sugar
1 tsp/ salt
1 tsp baking soda
Into the dry ingredients cut in 5 Tbsp very cold butter, until it resembles coarse bread crumbs.
In 1 3/4 cups/425mL buttermilk beat one large egg. Add this to the dry ingredients. Knead together. The dough comes together quickly.
On a baking sheet (I line it with parchment paper, but you could use oil instead) form the dough into a boule. Form a cross on the top of the boule with the back of a chef's knife. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for ca. 45 minutes, depending your oven. My gas oven requires about 50-55 minutes for this.
For variety I experimented. My inspiration was Sicilian/Friulan (yes, opposite ends of the boot). A friend of mine is married to a Greek, and she said it reminded her of a bread she had on Crete. To wit:
Soak a cup of raisins in dry white wine for about an hour.
To the dry ingredients, once blended together with the butter, add:
the revived raisins
ca. 1 heaping Tbsp coarsely crushed fennel seeds
grated zest of one orange
Revive 2-3 tsp saffron in 2 Tbsp hot water. Add to the milk/egg mixture.
Proceed as with the basic recipe.
NB.: (1) I find that my bread is cooked but a little too moist for my preference. After letting it rest on a rack for about 10 minutes, I cut it into quarters, and put it into a 300F oven for about 10 minutes to 'dry it out' slightly.
(2) I like it on its own, but it takes butter very nicely, and if you want a preserve on it, I find that apricot preserve goes very nicely with the fennel seed.
(3) Tea or coffee in the morning, but in the evening - wine. White wine goes best, but a Malmsey or Bual madeira are good if you tend to sweeter flavours.
My mother made soda bread practically every day. I have no recipe, because she had none. It was two handfuls of flour, one of sugar, tsp baking soda and as much buttermilk as was needed. (I'm not sure there was any butter and certainly no egg). She usually added sultanas, or by way of variety, treacle, or chopped apple.
It was sliced and buttered and taken with a cup of tea pretty well any time of day.
I'm currently making anything that involves courgettes/zucchini. Courgette lemon cake, courgette chocolate cake (both delicious), marrow, lemon and ginger jam, stuffed courgettes, and so on. I have a recipe for courgette bread which is a kind of quick bread, with cheese in. That is next on the list to make.
I accidentally bought some corn flour (too fine for the intended polenta) so tomorrow's project is Portuguese cornbread. Perfect friend to the roasted carrot and ginger soup that I'll be making.
@la vie en rouge those almond biscuits sound delicious -- I wonder if I could make them with pecan nuts?
Realised this morning that we have no jars of marmalade available in the local shop, no oranges, and I shall have to make lemon marmalade using small lemons from my drought-stricken tree if I want marmalade this year. So I am boiling up about 20 lemons, have squeezed out some juice and put pips into a muslin bag. Fingers crossed.
I'm currently making anything that involves courgettes/zucchini. Courgette lemon cake, courgette chocolate cake (both delicious), marrow, lemon and ginger jam, stuffed courgettes, and so on. I have a recipe for courgette bread which is a kind of quick bread, with cheese in. That is next on the list to make.
For lunch today we had zucchini and broccoli soup. One rather tired large head of broccoli from the vegetable drawer chopped, two zucchini finely grated, 500ml of vegetable stock. Simmer until tender. Blitz with stick blender. Add one 400ml tin of light coconut milk and one teaspoon of curry paste and bring up almost to the boil. Serve. We accompanied it with warm buttered multi-grain rolls. it still being rather chilly here.
I made a really rather nice (and dead easy) supper dish tonight, adapted from one I found on the interweb, and think it's share-worthy.
Per person:
A few medium-sized new potatoes, thinly-sliced
1 carrot, thickly-sliced
Olive oil, salt and pepper
1 salmon fillet
About 2 tbsp crème fraîche
½ tsp Dijon mustard
About a tablespoon of chopped fennel fronds or dill
A pinch or two of dried tarragon (or fresh if you have it)
A few florets of broccoli and cauliflower, cut if large
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Line an oven tray with non-stick parchment and spread out the potato and carrot pieces, drizzling them with oil and seasoning, and cook for 20 minutes, turning halfway through.
While that's happening, mix the crème fraîche, mustard and herbs with a little seasoning.
Take the tray from the oven, set the salmon on top of the potatoes, spread the crème fraîche mixture over the top and nestle the broccoli and cauliflower among the potatoes, again drizzling with a little oil, salt and pepper.
Return it to the oven and bake for another 12-15 minutes and serve straight away.
You can change the veggies: the original had asparagus and tender-stem broccoli.
When it gets to be October, I get the desire to try making Sauerbraten again. It is a classic example of "slow cooking."
The best Sauerbraten I have ever had was from a place called Horst Gasthaus in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I have tried (and failed) to duplicate their recipe, but this one isn't bad:
INGREDIENTS
3-4 lbs. Boneless Bottom Round Roast
Kosher Salt (also known as Coarse Salt; Kitchen Salt; or Cooking Salt)
3+ cups White Vinegar
3 large Onions
3 Bay Leaves
6 Cloves
8 Peppercorns
1 tbsp Pickling Spice
4 large Carrots
2 tbsp Butter
4 slices Bacon, diced
7 Ginger Snaps, crushed
Flour
DIRECTIONS
(1) Tie beef in several places to hold its shape. Rub meat with kosher salt and place in a large stoneware bowl.
(2) In saucepan, combine vinegar, 1 onion sliced, 2 bay leaves, cloves, peppercorns, pickling spice and 1 carrot (sliced). Bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Cool and pour over beef. Meat is to be entirely covered by marinade. Obviously the precise amount need will depend on the size of the bowl and the chunk of meat. Feel free to increase the proportions of the marinade as needed. If you underestimate, no problem: just add equal parts of white vinegar and water until it covers. Then cover the bowl and refrigerate for 3 to 6 days. Turn at least once per day. The longer you marinate it the better, so aim more for 6 days (or even 7) than 3.
(3) Remove meat and dry thoroughly with paper towels. Strain the marinade and reserve. In a heavy kettle, melt butter and add diced bacon. When hot, add meat and brown quickly on all sides. Remove meat and add 2 onions (diced). Brown, stirring frequently to prevent burning.
(4) Return the meat to the pot and add marinade until it is about three-quarters up the sides of meat. Add 1 bay leaf and crushed ginger snaps. Bring the marinade to a boil. Add three carrots (whole). Cover the pot and reduce heat to simmer. Cook for 3.5 to 4 hours. If the marinade gets low, then add more from reserve.
(5) Remove meat and carrots to platter and keep warm. If needed, thicken gravy with a tablespoon or two of flour.
I have just made the marinade and I am waiting for it to cool before pouring it over the beef. it is now Saturday (Oct. 17) in the afternoon. I plan to complete the recipe on Sunday, October 25.
I was surprised to see fresh basil still available at the market last week, so decided to make pesto. Then found that pine nuts can't be had anywhere - the result of forest fires - so on a hunch I tried sesame seeds instead. It turned out really well (for my taste) and it's now on the approved list. Of course, when I asked Auntie Google about it later, it turns out that it's common knowledge.
Quick questions, @Hedgehog. I gather that you've used this recipe before, so it's tried and true. (1) During the cooking, does the roast have to be turned in the marinade, or does it just lie in the bath? (2) Could I do this in a low oven, say 300ºF, for the same time? (3) What are your preferred side dishes? (4) This would be to serve 8?
I love Sauerbraten, but have never made it. I look forward to having an excuse to cooking this!
@Pangolin Guerre (1) There is no need to turn the meat during the cooking. (2) I have never tried heating with a low oven....so I don't really know the answer. (3) The traditional side dish is cooked red cabbage, but I usually just do green beans or peas. I am cutting down on starches, so I don't have a potato-based side, but mashed potatoes (covered with the gravy) would be appropriate. (4) I am horrible at estimating, but 6 to 8 is probably right.
Comments
Make small meatballs out of
- pork mince
- finely chopped and softened onion
- breadcrumbs
- lemon zest
- egg
In a jug, mix
- juice from a tin of pineapple
- 2 tbsp wine or cider vinegar
- 2 tbsp dry sherry
- 2 tbsp light soy
- minced fresh ginger
- stock
Quantity depends on how much you're making, but roughly 300ml to 400g mince.
Brown the meatballs in a little oil, remove from the pan and soften some chopped peppers and a clove of garlic. Tip back the meatballs and pour in the sauce. Cover and simmer 10 min. Add mange tout, another 10, add pineapple chunks, 5 minutes. Top with toasted cashews if you like and have with either rice or noodles.
There are two strategies.
#1
1 kg beets
2 cucumbers (I prefer English)
20 radishes (depending on size)
1.25L chicken or vegetable stock
250mL plain yoghurt or sour cream
green onions, finely chopped
1 large bunch dill, finely chopped
salt and pepper
(amounts are approximate)
Roast the beets as per the hot borshch recipe in my earlier posting. Allow to cool. Peel and grate in a large bowl. Grate and thinly slice the radishes and cucumber. Put in the bowl with the beets. (I like some sliced and some grated for textural variety. Purely personal.) Add the finely minced green onions. Reserve some of the vegetables for garnish. Add the cold broth (which you will have skimmed of the congealed fat). Mix in the sour cream and season with salt and pepper. Chill for a few hours. When serving, garnish with chopped dill and some of the reserved grated vegetables. Baltic gazpacho.
#2
Follow the directions of the hot borsch. Remove the vegetables, and mash the potatoes to produce a thicker texture. Or you can leave all the vegetables in and blitz with an immersion blender. Add the grated/chopped beets. Mix in green onions, dill, and sour cream.
Sometimes sliced hard boiled eggs are used as a garnish, as well.
It's a good idea to chill the bowls. I've seen people add ice cubes to the soup on a hot day, but I don't do that. Again, personal taste.
In hot weather, my preference is #1 for its simpler, fresher flavours and lighter texture (it's still reasonably dense).
4 medium-large beets
1.5 cups of tawny port
1 heaped teaspoon of Chinese five-spice powder
Peel the beets. Shred the beets in the food processor, Combine the ingredients in an appropriate sized pot. Bring to the boil and then simmer until the beets are tender but not mushy. Spoon into jars. Refrigerate.
This is a dryish relish, but goes extremely well with pork and veal.
So, how to make a mushroom sauce without either? Any ideas for mushroom-based excitement to go with venison welcomed.
I've found that plain yogurt will often do very nicely as a substitute for cream.
Aha. I do have a tub of that on hand. The other ideas seem to to introduce flour and make a sort of light roux, or cook down mushrooms and shallots and liquidise half as one would a soup.
Sainsbury's. Though possibly not without looking more closely another time - out of the cardboard sleeve the steaks were revealed as minuscule, about 100g each. Although, doused in drunken mushrooms, they were sufficient.
Tonight I'm on a mission to use up withering onions. I've halved three, sprinkled them with thyme, and plonked half a chicken on top. I'll see where that get us (I'm hoping roast chicken with onion gravy).
herbed carrot and parsnip slices, and cauliflower and broccoli florets sprinkled with parmesan. A bit of a mish-mash of flavours, but very nice in all, followed by the remains of an apricot crumble from Friday night.
1 butternut pumpkin
3 gold sweet potatoes - known as kumera in Oz and NZ
3 carrots - for more colour as the butternut and potatoes were a little pale
Vegetable stock to cover
Can of coconut cream
2 teaspoons of Patak's korma paste
Chop vegetables and place them in pot with stock to cover. Bring to boil and cook till soft. Mash then blitz to a thick puree. Add coconut cream and curry paste. Reheat but do not boil. Serve, perhaps with a dollop of sour cream or plain yoghurt if for a formal meal.
This is a household winter favourite, which I've also dished up to many church dinners in larger quantities.
I now have beets and Chinese five- spice at hand. Would you say that the volume of beets, shredded, would be 3-4 cups? More? After shredding, do you drain them, or retain the juice for the cooking?
I gather from your instructions that you shred the beets in raw form. Is that correct?
Your recipe reads so simple, but so good. I look forward to using it on a number of different things. Roast pork loin. Stilton on bread. Roasted chicken things with sage. Come winter, with venison.
Should be fine.
for a few months, but yesterday with my in-laws coming for dinner I had a decadent brainwave - make round gingerbread biscuits and spread nutella on them before sandwiching together with double cream with vanilla paste added and whipped stiff. It was delicious. Might have benefited from some raspberries but YUM.
Roughly chop 125g whole almonds and toast them. I used a heavy frying pan for this operation which seemed to me less hazardous than the oven.
Put 230g sugar and 50g flour in a mixing bowl and make a well in the middle. Add two egg whites and mix it all together with a spatula. Stir in the almonds.
Line a baking sheet with nonstick paper and use a teaspoon to dole out little piles of the mixture. They need to be spaced out well- the croquants will spread quite a lot. Bake at 180° for about 15 minutes until browned and set. Wait until they are completely cool to remove them from the paper.
They are sweet and light and crispy and delicious with your coffee.
Tonight's Cuisine Squidge is likely to be cod and prawns lightly sautéed in butter and finished with wine and crème fraîche. With chups.
Basic recipe:
Preheat oven to 400F/200C
Sift together:
4 1/2 cups/520g flour
3 Tbsp/40g sugar
1 tsp/ salt
1 tsp baking soda
Into the dry ingredients cut in 5 Tbsp very cold butter, until it resembles coarse bread crumbs.
In 1 3/4 cups/425mL buttermilk beat one large egg. Add this to the dry ingredients. Knead together. The dough comes together quickly.
On a baking sheet (I line it with parchment paper, but you could use oil instead) form the dough into a boule. Form a cross on the top of the boule with the back of a chef's knife. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for ca. 45 minutes, depending your oven. My gas oven requires about 50-55 minutes for this.
For variety I experimented. My inspiration was Sicilian/Friulan (yes, opposite ends of the boot). A friend of mine is married to a Greek, and she said it reminded her of a bread she had on Crete. To wit:
Soak a cup of raisins in dry white wine for about an hour.
To the dry ingredients, once blended together with the butter, add:
the revived raisins
ca. 1 heaping Tbsp coarsely crushed fennel seeds
grated zest of one orange
Revive 2-3 tsp saffron in 2 Tbsp hot water. Add to the milk/egg mixture.
Proceed as with the basic recipe.
NB.: (1) I find that my bread is cooked but a little too moist for my preference. After letting it rest on a rack for about 10 minutes, I cut it into quarters, and put it into a 300F oven for about 10 minutes to 'dry it out' slightly.
(2) I like it on its own, but it takes butter very nicely, and if you want a preserve on it, I find that apricot preserve goes very nicely with the fennel seed.
(3) Tea or coffee in the morning, but in the evening - wine. White wine goes best, but a Malmsey or Bual madeira are good if you tend to sweeter flavours.
Enjoy!
It was sliced and buttered and taken with a cup of tea pretty well any time of day.
Realised this morning that we have no jars of marmalade available in the local shop, no oranges, and I shall have to make lemon marmalade using small lemons from my drought-stricken tree if I want marmalade this year. So I am boiling up about 20 lemons, have squeezed out some juice and put pips into a muslin bag. Fingers crossed.
For lunch today we had zucchini and broccoli soup. One rather tired large head of broccoli from the vegetable drawer chopped, two zucchini finely grated, 500ml of vegetable stock. Simmer until tender. Blitz with stick blender. Add one 400ml tin of light coconut milk and one teaspoon of curry paste and bring up almost to the boil. Serve. We accompanied it with warm buttered multi-grain rolls. it still being rather chilly here.
Per person:
A few medium-sized new potatoes, thinly-sliced
1 carrot, thickly-sliced
Olive oil, salt and pepper
1 salmon fillet
About 2 tbsp crème fraîche
½ tsp Dijon mustard
About a tablespoon of chopped fennel fronds or dill
A pinch or two of dried tarragon (or fresh if you have it)
A few florets of broccoli and cauliflower, cut if large
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Line an oven tray with non-stick parchment and spread out the potato and carrot pieces, drizzling them with oil and seasoning, and cook for 20 minutes, turning halfway through.
While that's happening, mix the crème fraîche, mustard and herbs with a little seasoning.
Take the tray from the oven, set the salmon on top of the potatoes, spread the crème fraîche mixture over the top and nestle the broccoli and cauliflower among the potatoes, again drizzling with a little oil, salt and pepper.
Return it to the oven and bake for another 12-15 minutes and serve straight away.
You can change the veggies: the original had asparagus and tender-stem broccoli.
The best Sauerbraten I have ever had was from a place called Horst Gasthaus in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I have tried (and failed) to duplicate their recipe, but this one isn't bad:
INGREDIENTS
3-4 lbs. Boneless Bottom Round Roast
Kosher Salt (also known as Coarse Salt; Kitchen Salt; or Cooking Salt)
3+ cups White Vinegar
3 large Onions
3 Bay Leaves
6 Cloves
8 Peppercorns
1 tbsp Pickling Spice
4 large Carrots
2 tbsp Butter
4 slices Bacon, diced
7 Ginger Snaps, crushed
Flour
DIRECTIONS
(1) Tie beef in several places to hold its shape. Rub meat with kosher salt and place in a large stoneware bowl.
(2) In saucepan, combine vinegar, 1 onion sliced, 2 bay leaves, cloves, peppercorns, pickling spice and 1 carrot (sliced). Bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Cool and pour over beef. Meat is to be entirely covered by marinade. Obviously the precise amount need will depend on the size of the bowl and the chunk of meat. Feel free to increase the proportions of the marinade as needed. If you underestimate, no problem: just add equal parts of white vinegar and water until it covers. Then cover the bowl and refrigerate for 3 to 6 days. Turn at least once per day. The longer you marinate it the better, so aim more for 6 days (or even 7) than 3.
(3) Remove meat and dry thoroughly with paper towels. Strain the marinade and reserve. In a heavy kettle, melt butter and add diced bacon. When hot, add meat and brown quickly on all sides. Remove meat and add 2 onions (diced). Brown, stirring frequently to prevent burning.
(4) Return the meat to the pot and add marinade until it is about three-quarters up the sides of meat. Add 1 bay leaf and crushed ginger snaps. Bring the marinade to a boil. Add three carrots (whole). Cover the pot and reduce heat to simmer. Cook for 3.5 to 4 hours. If the marinade gets low, then add more from reserve.
(5) Remove meat and carrots to platter and keep warm. If needed, thicken gravy with a tablespoon or two of flour.
I have just made the marinade and I am waiting for it to cool before pouring it over the beef. it is now Saturday (Oct. 17) in the afternoon. I plan to complete the recipe on Sunday, October 25.
I love Sauerbraten, but have never made it. I look forward to having an excuse to cooking this!