Sauerbraten

SAUERBRATEN
Marinated Beef

For my first excursion into The German & Viennese Cookbook, I went with a standard favorite. When I started this recipe, my husband objected because he thinks it’s not actual authentic (echte) Sauerbraten. However, he had absolutely no problem eating the finished product, so I’d say it’s ok.

His main objection seemed to be the lack of wine in the recipe. According to one legend, Sauerbraten was first made by the Romans and sent to the colony of Cologne, and the Romans’ recipe featured wine as the marinade for the meat. However, this legend lacks some historical accuracy.

Sauerbraten has been a popular dish in Germany for as long as history can recall. It usually calls for a tougher cut of meat (Germans don’t like to waste anything in their cooking) – usually beef nowadays, although other meats can also be used – but originally horse meat. Since tougher cuts are used, the meat is marinated for several days in either wine or vinegar according to region. Sauerbraten is traditionally served with red cabbage and some form of potato (pancakes, boiled, noodles, etc).

I decided to augment the recipe version found in the book to incorporate both regional flavors of wine and vinegar.

Sauerbraten/Marinated Beef

4lb beef pot roast

2 C vinegar

2 C water

1 large onion, diced

¼ C sugar

2 tsp salt

10 peppercorns

3 whole cloves

2 bay leaves

1 lemon, sliced

Wipe the meat clean with a damp cloth and place in a large bowl.

For my variation, instead of 2 C of vinegar (I assume white wine vinegar was intended) and 2 C of water, I substituted 1 C white wine vinegar, 1 C apple cider vinegar, 1 C water, and 1 C white wine (because I didn’t have any red). I also used ¼ C brown sugar instead of white for a richer flavor.

Combine all ingredients (except lemon) in a saucepan and heat without boiling. Pour hot liquid over meat and allow to cool. Add lemon slices and cover. Marinate in refrigerator for 4 days, turning meat once per day.

A good marinade is a thing of beauty.

I only marinated my beef for 2 ½ days and it was beautifully flavored and tender. Marinating for 4 days could only improve the flavor, but I wouldn’t recommend more than 5 days.

Remove meat from marinade and drain thoroughly. Heat a large pot over low heat and add 2 or 3 tbsp butter. Instead of butter, I used a few tablespoons of bacon fat from the Potato Salad preparations. Waste not!

 

Add the pot roast and brown slowly on all sides over medium heat. Slowly add 2 C of the remaining marinade (reserve remaining marinade for gravy). I strained all of the marinade before using it so I wouldn’t accidentally have whole peppercorns or cloves in the gravy!

Bring liquid to boiling. Reduce heat, cover pot tightly and simmer 2 ½ to 3 hours or until meat is tender when pierced with a fork. Add more of the marinade while cooking if necessary. Liquid surrounding meat should at all times be simmering, not boiling.

Mmm, it's falling apart. Yay!

Remove meat to a platter and keep warm. Set aside cooking liquid.

Melt ¼ C butter in the same pot and blend in ¼ C flour until the mixture bubbles and turns golden brown, stirring constantly.

At this point, I sadly did not have any more bacon fat, so I had to use butter, but I think using all the bacon waste really improved the flavor of the meat. Also, how great is it that I can use the same pot for this? Much better than the French constantly changing cooking vessels…

Gradually add 3 C liquid while stirring constantly. Liquid should be whatever cooking liquid and marinade remain. If reserved liquid does not equal 3 C, supplement with water.

Bring to boiling, cook rapidly while stirring, until gravy thickens. Using a whish, mix in ½ C sour cream. Cook over low heat 3-5 min until thoroughly heated.

 

This meal was an absolute success! The meat is flavorful and very tender, and the gravy is awesome! I served the Sauerbraten with Hot Potato Salad and Red Cabbage for a truly German dinner.

I’d like to thank my friends and coworkers TH, DR, and KM for tasting this creation and giving it a big thumbs up!

Have a question or a request? Put it in the comments below and I’ll be sure to respond. Fröhe essen!

Potage Saint Germain

POTAGE SAINT-GERMAIN

Green Pea Soup

Another dive into The French Cookbook produced a recipe for Potage Saint-Germain, or Green Pea Soup. The French are famous for their soups, so I figured I couldn’t go wrong with this experiment.

First, a word on the ingredients. I have no shame in saying that I used frozen peas, because I was not going to spend the time shelling fresh peas. Also, the original recipe calls for something called “chervil.” I had to Google it to figure out that chervil is a fancy relative of parsley. Again, didn’t have time for that…

Potage Saint-Germain/Green Pea Soup

1 small head lettuce, shredded
2 C shelled fresh green peas
1 C water
½ C chopped leaks (green part only)
2 tbsp fat (I used the leftover fat from the Bacon Quiche)
2 tsp chopped chervil or parsley
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper

Make sure, before you put everything in the pot, to rinse things like lettuce and leaks to get rid of the sand first – nobody wants gritty soup!

Mix all ingredients together in a saucepan. Bring quickly to a boil and cook until peas are tender.

Reserve 3 tbsp peas for garnish. Put remaining mixture through a sieve.

At first I thought they meant strain out the liquid, but then I realized they meant “sieve” like a ricer (which my Mom often uses for making applesauce). Since I don’t have a ricer, I sent it all through my standing blender. In retrospect, I may recommend using an immersion blender if you have one, because it will more thoroughly mix everything and your soup will have less chunks in it than my final product.

Return sieved mixture to the saucepan. Reheat with 2 C bouillon.

Again, when I went to the cited page in the book for the bouillon recipe, I decided I was not about to go to all that trouble today just for pea soup. Instead, I took two beef bouillon cubes, 2 C water, and the rinds from the Gruyére cheese and cooked them together until the cubes had dissolved, then removed the rinds.

Just before serving blend in and heat thoroughly 2 C cream. Garnish with reserved cooked peas.

The resulting soup is this very pretty green concoction. However, it tastes like it's missing something. As I was finishing it, post-cream, I tasted it and decided to add another tbsp of bacon fat and more salt and pepper. The flavor of leak is almost overpowering the other flavors in my soup, but that may be because I used part of the white of the leak (the leaks I could find in the grocery store had almost no green parts to them).

As I said before, I would recommend using an immersion blender, adding more salt and pepper, and only using the greens of the leak (although I will continue to protest about how wasteful these French recipes feel!).

On the whole, though, this is a nice, refreshing vegetable soup that paired nicely with the Bacon Quiche.

Have a question or a request? Put it in the comments below and I’ll be sure to respond. Fröhe essen!

Quiche au Lard

QUICHE AU LARD

Bacon Tart

Sunday morning and the hubby and I needed brunch, so I turned to The French Cookbook for my first antique recipe: Quiche au Lard, or for those of us who speak English, Bacon Tart.

Well, good thing we didn’t have any plans on Sunday! French cooks must LOVE to wash dishes. Since we’re only a family of two right now, I don’t have that many mixing bowls, pans, or other implements. Unfortunately for me, though, French cooking involves a ton of steps and multiple cooking vessels and utensils.

First, I had to make the pastry for the quiche crust. Pastry dough is simple enough:

Pate Brisée/Pastry for Tarts

1 ¾ C flour
1 tbsp sugar
¼ tsp salt
½ C butter
4-6 tbsp cold water

Mix dry ingredients together in a bowl. Using a pastry blender (or a fork), cut in the softened butter until mixture crumbs.

Mix in 1 tbsp of water at a time until the dough gathers into a ball.

I don’t know what it is about dough, but if you

look at it, you just know when it’s right.

  Isn’t it beautiful?

Roll the dough out on a floured surface. Be sure to maintain circular shape during flattening. Roll out to 1/8 in thick. Loosen pastry from surface with knife or spatula. Lay pastry over pie pan and shape to fit.

After shaping the pastry to my pie pan, I had some extra pastry bits leftover. Since I hate to waste, I turned them into twists, coated them in egg wash, and sprinkled them with cinnamon – yum!

Next came the frying, cutting, and mixing to make the tart fillings:

Quiche au Lard/Bacon Tart

6 slices bacon or salt pork
6 oz (1 ¼ C) Gruyére or Swiss cheese
2 C milk
3 eggs
½ tsp salt
¼tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp pepper

Cut bacon slices in half, brown, and set aside. (I like to keep the drippings from my bacon in a ceramic mug in the fridge – you never know what you might need it for!)

Cut cheese into cubes and set aside. Scald milk. Beat eggs together with seasonings. Slowly add milk to eggs, stirring vigorously to avoid scrambling the eggs.

Arrange bacon slices in bottom of pastry shell and arrange cheese cubes on top of bacon. Pour milk/egg mixture over bacon/cheese to fill pastry shell.

Bake at 450oF 10 min. Reduce heat to 350oF and bake 25 min longer. Serve immediately.

 

I have a confession to make. I overcooked my quiche. On purpose. I just can’t stand the look of gooey, runny, undercooked eggs! So I cooked it at 350oF for more like 45 min to 1 hour before it was set to an acceptable level where I would be willing to eat it. But boy, it’s really good! The cheese got all melty and yummy, the bacon adds just enough of a savory note, and the pastry is beautifully flaky. We enjoyed the quiche and some Pea Soup for brunch, and again warmed up the next night for dinner. Delicious, and a resounding first successful foray into the antique recipes!

 

Have a question or a request? Put it in the comments below and I’ll be sure to respond. Fröhe essen!

Ingredients 'n Things

So, as my husband and I begin to peruse our trove of recipe books to choose the first few bites, we've encountered some daunting foes: strange ingredients like MSG, veal, SPAM, snapping turtle... You get the idea. At this point, we plan on staying as true to the recipes as possible without sickening ourselves -- if something we make is just too objectionable, we have a dog!

However, since I know not everyone wants to shop for MSG or veal, as I post the recipes I will also suggest alternative ingredients for the sake of convenience, allergies, and just the "ick factor."

Hello!

Hello and welcome to Essen Girl!

My mother-in-law gave us a box of antique cookbooks on our last visit home. Inspired by other food bloggers (including "Julie and Julia"), I plan to cook my way through each of the 50+ books! I have loved to bake since I was a child, and I have loved to cook since meeting my husband and beginning to experiment in the kitchen with him. From lighting pizzas on fire to pairing steak with hand-picked wild blueberries, I'm up for anything!

"Essen" is the German word for "food." Since I'm German by heritage, and because so many of these cookbooks deal with world cuisine, it seemed a fitting name for my blog.

I will not necessarily be cooking my way from cover to cover in each of the books, but rather sampling dishes in whatever order seems best for our family meals. If you'd like to view the cover-to-cover version of each of the cookbooks with my posts, please refer to the top navigational bar where I have listed each cookbook. On each cookbook's page, you will find links to the different sections of each book, and from there you will be able to access the posts in publication order rather in the order I post them.

Come on a culinary adventure!