Mustard-glazed ham and browned cabbage

So, about a year ago, we posted a recipe for Spiced Apple Cider with Vodka and Vanilla which we had gotten from New Scandinavian Cooking with Tina Nordström. In that post, we mentioned that she also made a mustard glazed ham with browned cabbage, and that we'd probably post the recipe soon. Well, that was about ten and a half months ago, so I guess our idea of soon is a little different than most peoples'. To be honest, there aren't many meals I enjoy more than this one, and it's really simple, so for sure give it a try.

Ham

Ingredients

• 1 ham (or portion thereof)
• Stone-ground brown mustard
• Bread crumbs
• Thin ginger cookies, crushed into crumbs

Directions

1. Set oven to broil.
2. If ham is not cooked, boil it until done. If ham is cooked, good.
3. Coat outside of ham generously with stone-ground mustard.
4. Cover top of ham with bread crumbs and crushed ginger cookies.
5. Put ham in oven to broil for about 4-5 minutes, just until the mustard and bread crumbs form a nice crust on top.
6. Remove from oven, slice and serve.

Cabbage

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp butter
• 2-3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 head white cabbage, chopped roughly
• 1/2 cup Apple Cider
• 2-3 tbsp Honey
• 2-3 tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions

1. In a skillet, heat butter and olive oil, then add chopped cabbage.
2. Sautee cabbage about 10-15 minutes over medium to medium-high heat, until cabbage is moderately browned.
3. Add apple cider, honey and balsamic vinegar, and continue to sautee until most of the liquid evaporates.
4. Salt and pepper cabbage to taste.
5. Serve next to slices of ham.

Mushroom and Sauerkraut Pierogi

We always enjoy a bit of good, hearty Eastern-European food on a nice autumn day, and these Polish dumplings are no exception. Our friend Agnieszka gave us the recipe for the dough, and the general idea for the filling, so we thought we would try it out. The result was splendid, I have to say. We had leftover filling, so we're making some more tonight :) We'll do the recipe in sections - dough, filling and sauce.

Dough

Ingredients

• Just under 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 large egg yolk (I used two moderate sized ones)
• A pinch of salt
• About 2 tbsp butter
• 1/2-3/4 cup boiling water

Directions

1. Sift flour, and then form a well in the middle.
2. Add egg yolk, butter and salt in the well.
3. Mix everything together using a pastry cutter.
4. Slowly add boiling water and mix together using a bench knife or your fingers until all flour is incorporated into dough.
5. Form a cohesive ball, and then on a lightly-floured surface, knead the dough well until it is smooth.
6. Using the bench knife, cut the dough into three parts, and form into balls
7. On a lightly-floured surface, roll each ball of dough out in turns, and cut into squares or circles, which you will then fold over the filling - we cut ours into circles about 3 inches in diameter, using a biscuit cutter.
   

Filling

Ingredients

• 1/2 bag/jar sauerkraut
• 1/2 pound mushrooms of your choice
• Thyme
• Salt and Pepper

Directions

1. Set a pot of water to boil.
2. Chop mushrooms finely and sautee in butter, salt and pepper. Drain most of any liquid that is left in pan (you can add it to boiling water if you like).
3. Drain sauerkraut and cook in skillet until most of the liquid has evaporated.
4. Mix sauerkraut in with mushrooms.
5. Take about a teaspoon of filling, and plop it in the middle of each cut-out piece of dough.
6. Fold the dough over, and pinch together the edges, making sure the dough is well-sealed.
7. Very lightly flour the outside of the pierogi.
8. Drop pierogi carefully into the boiling water, and when they start to float back to the surface, they are cooked - should only take a minute or two.
9. As they finish, scoop pierogi out of the water, letting as much drain off as possible (slotted spoon or wire scoop work well), and set aside for serving.
   

Sauce

Ingredients

• 1/2 Large yellow onion, diced
• 4 tbsp butter (use as much as you need to make enough sauce)
• We had extra mushrooms from the filling, so we used some in the sauce too
• Cinnamon, salt and pepper
  

Directions

1. Melt butter in a skillet
2. Add onion (and mushroom if you have it), and sautee until onion is translucent and starting to brown, and add spices to taste
3. Lay out pierogi on a plate, and spoon some sauce over top of them, coating them lightly.
4. Optionally, you can top with sour cream and dill.

Biscuits and Gravy

We've been on a biscuit baking kick lately, and today's batch came out perfectly, so we thought we'd make a post about them, along with a gravy recipe as well.

Biscuits Supreme

The biscuit recipe we use is based on the Biscuits Supreme recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, with a couple small modifications. It's extremely simple, uses cheap ingredients, and let's face it - fresh, hot biscuits from the oven are one of life's great pleasures.

Ingredients

• 2 cups sifted all-purpose flower (we like unbleached white)
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1/2 cup butter (actual amount may vary)
• 3/4 cup milk

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 450 Fahrenheit
2. Sift all dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.
3. Cut in the butter with a pastry cutter until it resembles coarse crumbs. I don't usually measure the butter, I just keep mixing in a bit at a time until the texture seems about right. If you slice thin slices of butter to cut in, it will mix more easily than if you slice chunks.
4. Make a well in the middle of the bowl, and pour milk in all at once.
5. Using a fork, mix milk with dry ingredients by stirring, until loose flour is incorporated and dough is chunky.
6. Form dough into a ball, and on a lightly floured surface, knead about 15 strokes.
7. Roll or press out dough to about 1/2 inch thick, and use biscuit cutter or glass to cut biscuits. Reform dough and re-roll as needed until you've used it all.
8. I personally love eating the remnants, they're quite tasty :)
9. Lay biscuits out on baking sheet, and bake for around 15 minutes, until tops and sides are light golden-brown. If you like a shiny top, you can brush the tops with some cream periodically as they bake.

Buttermilk Biscuit Variation:

For buttermilk biscuits use the same recipe and steps as above but use 1tsp less baking powder, substitute buttermilk for the milk and add 1/4tsp baking soda

~dave

Yummy lovely sausage gravy

The gravy is also quite simple and easy to do. We like using a good quality pork sausage, but you could also use mushrooms, spices and a good bit of butter if you wanted to make a vegetarian gravy. Now I know this may not be the most helpful thing, but i never measure this recipe.

Ingredients

• Cream
• Milk
• Butter
• 1 lb pork sausage or mushrooms and spices
  
• Flour
• salt and pepper
  

Directions

1. In a skillet over medium-high heat, brown the sausage thoroughly. If using mushrooms chop them and saute in butter with sage, salt, pepper, garlic, and any other spices that strike your fancy.
2. Once the sausage is browned, if it is lean and there are little drippings, add a healthy amount of butter, at least a few tablespoons. You'll need the butter or sausage drippings for the next step.
3. Once the butter or drippings are hot sprinkle flour over the meat/mushrooms. I probably use a couple tablespoons. Just enough to lightly cover the pan contents. Now stir and cook till the flour has absorbed the liquid and begun to brown and stick to the bottom of the pan, but not burn.
4. Now add the milk and cream slowly, stirring all the while to ensure no clumps. I use half milk and half cream. again, I'm not sure of the measurement, but i make sure the meat/mushrooms are covered well. (If you add too much you can just cook it down.)
5. Cook it down, stirring constantly, till it's pretty thick and bubbly. Taste it to see if you need more salt and pepper. All done!
   

~trina

Hungarian Cabbage Rolls

We saw that we had missed the Polish festival in Portland the other day, and it really got us in the mood for some good, hearty, Eastern European food, so we decided to make one of our favorites - cabbage rolls. This is loosely based on a Hungarian Cabbage Roll Recipe that we modified a bit, and added sour cream at the end for a bit of Lithuanian flare. Here we go:

Ingredients:

• 1lb pork sausage
• 1lb ground beef, 20% fat
• 1 teaspoon salt (as needed)
• 1 egg raw
• 1/2 cup rice crushed
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 large cabbage
• 1 tablespoon paprika, sweet
• 1 1/2 teaspoons paprika, hot
• 1/2 cup onion minced
• 1 teaspoon white pepper
• 1 teaspoon thyme
• 2 cans whole peeled or crushed tomatoes
• Soup stock as needed

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350-375 Fahrenheit
2. Core the cabbage
3. Fill a large pot with water, salt the water and bring to a boil
4. Boil the cabbage until the leaves are pliable and can be pulled apart
5. Peel off enough leaves for the rolls you want to make
6. In a large bowl, mix together the meat, rice, onions, spices and egg by hand, making sure they are well-combined
7. Line the bottom of a baking dish with chopped cabbage
8. One at a time, take a cabbage leaf (or leaves, if they are small), and wrap a ball of meat mixture in it so the meat is completely covered
9. Place each roll into the baking dish, leaving a little room in-between if possible
10. Spread tomatoes over and in-between cabbage rolls. If you bought whole tomatoes, crush them by hand as you're doing this
11. Season as desired with salt and pepper
12. If the juice from the tomatoes doesn't look like it will be enough liquid, you can add a little bit of soup stock, so that the cabbage rolls are nearly covered in liquid
13. Place baking dish in oven, and cook for around an hour. You can add some more stock or tomato juice partway through if it looks like it's drying out.
14. Once the cabbage rolls are finished cooking, lift them out onto a plate or shallow bowl, spoon the sauce over them, and add a hefty dollop of sour cream.

Radish sandwiches

This makes a really great snack or appetizer if you happen to have some radishes on hand, or they are available at your supermarket. It's really simple and very tasty. Think of it as kind of an autumn version of cucumber sandwiches :)

Ingredients:

• 1 baguette
• 1 bunch radishes
• butter
• large grain sea salt

Instructions:

1. Cut the baguette into thin slices, about 1/2 inch thick.
2. Butter each slice.
3. Thinly slice the radishes and arrange the slices on top of the bread slices.
4. Lightly sprinkle the slices with sea salt to taste. If you used salted butter, you may not need extra, just try it and adjust to your liking.

Feta Cheese

Well, we've just moved into a new apartment, and as we just took a beginning cheese-making class last week, we decided to make the first food adventure in our new place a bit of feta cheese. We got a tip on some fresh goat's milk in town, and yesterday we got down to business and made the cheese. The cheese has to sit for 5 days before eating (you'll see that later), so we haven't really tasted it yet, but we'll let you know how it is. Here's the basic process:

1. Take 1/2 gallon of goat's milk, any kind but ultra-pasteurized (the ultra-pasteurization ruins the milk for making cheese).
2. Heat milk in a pot (stainless steel or enameled) until milk reaches about 86 degrees F.
3. Add about 3/4 tsp of cultured buttermilk. Stir gently with a wisk to make sure the buttermilk is thoroughly distributed through the milk.
4. Cover and let the milk sit with the buttermilk in for about 1 hour.
5. Mix about 1/4 tsp double-strength rennet (or 1/2 tsp regular strength) with about 1/8 cup water.
6. Mix the rennet/water mixture into the milk, and stir gently with a whisk to make sure the solution is well distributed through the milk.
7. Cover again and let sit for about 1 hour.
8. After 1 hour, you should have a layer of curd formed. Cut it with a knife, and if the curd doesn't stick to the knife, you're ready to move on. Otherwise, let sit a little longer.
9. Cut the curd into cubes and let sit for about 20 minutes, to let more of the whey release from the curd.
10. Let sit for another 30 minutes, and stir gently several times during that period. It's ok to break up the curd some while stirring, but try to leave it mostly in-tact. This is to again release more whey from the curd.
11. After the 30 minutes, lay some butter muslin in a colander, and strain the cheese curd through. Keep the whey to make soup stock or for another recipe if you can use it. Make sure your piece of butter muslin is large enough to wrap up around the cheese curd into a bag.
12. After most of the whey has drained off, tie the butter muslin up into a bag, and tie around a wooden spoon or some other long piece.
13. You can use this to hang the bag of cheese curds above a bowl or above the sink, to let the rest of the whey drain out.
14. Hang and let drain for about 5 hours, until the cheese curd feels nice and solid, and the whey has pretty much stopped draining from the bag.
15. Unwrap the curd and place in a large bowl.
16. Cut the curd again into cubes, and sprinkle with about 2 tbsp flake, sea or kosher salt. Make sure as much as possible that all sides of cubes are covered. Again, it's ok if you break up the curd a bit.
17. Store salted feta in a canning jar in the refrigerator for 5 days before using.

Cheese curd after being cut, resting and being stirred.


Butter muslin in colander, awaiting cheese curd.


Cheese curd tied up in the butter muslin for draining, and initially drained whey in a jar.


Cheese curd after draining for 5(ish) hours.


Cheese curd packed in salt and ready for brining in the refrigerator.

Chickpea curry with curried chicken/turkey patties and rice

I've been wanting for a while now to start experimenting with some Indian curries, and my lovely wife just this last week picked up a couple of cookbooks at the library, so tonight we decided to try out this recipe for chickpea curry, and then Trina just kind of improvised the curried chicken/turkey patties. Everything turned out extremely well, except the potatoes were just slightly under-done.

From the book From Curries to Kebabs: Recipes from the Indian Spice Trail by Madhur Jaffrey

Serves 4 to 6 people

Ingredients

• 2 cups drained weight canned chickpeas (about 1 pound 3 ounces canned weight)
• 2 smallish tomatoes, chopped
• 2 inch piece of ginger, peeled and chopped
• 4 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 3 to 6 hot green chilies, chopped (we used 2 with seeds and it was pretty spicy)
  
• 1 cup cilantro, chopped
• 1 tablespoon ground coriander
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons peanut or olive oil
• 1 medium stick of cinnamon
• 5 whole cardamom pods
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 cup finely chopped onion
• 2 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into 3/4 inch dice

Directions
Leave the chickpeas to drain in a colander.

Put the tomatoes, ginger, garlic, chilies, cilantro, coriander, cumin, turmeric, cayenne pepper, 1 teaspoon salt, and 5 to 6 tablespoons of water in a blender and blend until smooth, pushing down with a rubber spatula when necessary.

Pour the oil into a wide, lidded, medium pan and set over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, put in the cinnamon, cardamom, and bay leaves. Ten seconds later, add the onion and potatoes. Stir and fry for 6 minutes, or until the onion is lightly browned. Add the paste from the blender. Stir for a minute. Cover, reduce the heat to medium-low, anad cook for 6 to 7 minutes, lifting the lid now and then to stir. Add the chickpeas, the remaining 1/4 teaspoon of salt, and 1 cup of water. Stir and bring to a simmer. Cover, and cook gently on a low heat for about 20 minutes (make sure the potatoes are well-cooked), stirring occasionally.

For the chicken/turkey patties
We used half ground chicken and half ground turkey, both dark meat.