Reading this thread got me to thinking about other traditional New Year’s Day fare.
Around my house, it’s always saurkraut and either pork roast or spare ribs on New Years. I am located firmly in the Midwest but there is a lot of southern influenced cooking here. I’d guess as many people here eat the black eyed peas & hocks as the pork and saurkraut.
I love legumes of all sorts. I love ham hocks too but on New Years we have to have the kraut.
Let me share my kraut secret. Brown sugar. Don’t ewwwww.
I put the meat in the bottom of the pan, then add kosher salt and a handful of cracked peppercorns. Next add carrots, potatoes, onions, then cover with kraut (the fresh kind in the bag) Then add about a cup or so of brown sugar over the whole thing. Bake for about two or three hours depending on size and quantity.
The kraut turns out sweet and tangy and you will not eat it any other way after you taste it like this.
I think you’ve just described choucroute. I’ve made something similar, using smoked pork chops and knockwurst. Yum yum yum…served with marble rye and strong mustard.
I grew up in Cleveland, where the household tradition was simply to eat pork on New Year’s Day to insure good luck. After I grew up and started my own traditions, I moved on to black-eyed peas (cooked with pork, of course) and a mess o’ greens (to being money in the new year) in order to hedge my bets.
Nothing wrong with brown sugar in sauerkraut, but I believe you’re overdoing it a little. Here’s the way I do it…
Rinse and drain 3 quarts of fresh sauerkraut. The kind in the bag is fine, but it’s better if you can get it scooped from the barrel.
Place in the pot with 5 slices of thick, lean bacon, or an equivalent amount of smoked pork neckbones, ham hocks, whatever. Add 2 sliced onions, a tablespoon of brown sugar, a bay leaf, 2 teaspoons of caraway seed, i cup of grated potato (to thicken it), and plenty of freshly ground black pepper. Pour in any sort of cheap pilsener-style American beer until just visible through the kraut. Cover and simmer gently for 2 hours. Sausages may be cooked in the kraut for the last half-hour or so.
This, of course, is GERMAN-style kraut. For Alsatian choucroute, replace the caraway with a dozen juniper berries, leave out the sugar and potato, and use white wine (mixed with water) instead of beer.
Yeah a cup does sound like a bit much. I am one of those intuitive cooks who hardly ever measures anything and then doesn’t have the first idea how to tell someone how to make the damn dish. My mom is the same way; I had a devil of a time learning how to make chicken and dumplings because of it.
I got the brown sugar idea from a Julia Child cooking segment. Usually when I am making a pot of pork & kraut, it is a fairly large one so maybe a half cup sounds more like it.
I forgot to mention as far as collard greens go, there are a couple of canned brands that are seasoned and really really good. Sylvia’s Soul Food and another I can’t think of the brand name. It features a brown label with an old black man on it.
Oooopsie…two other differences between German and French sauerkraut I left out…
An Alsatian likes lots of garlic in his kraut. Add five or six chopped cloves to the pot. He’ll also expect to find a bird, or a piece of one, in the choucroute. Duck or goose or pheasant is wonderful, but some dark meat of chicken is acceptable and economical.
I’m not big on collards…tomorrow’s New Year greens are a bunch of spinach, a bunch of mustard, and a bunch of dandelion. If there were going to be more people at table I’d add turnip greens and chard and escarole and maybe some kale.
A big pot of beans (navy, mixed, or blackeyed) with a ham hock is much preferred, thank you. Especially if accompanied with butter and honey drizzled cornbread. ::drool::
Have never been able to get past the smell of saurkraut, let alone eat it. Even the thought of it… EEEWWW… no ta!
The traditional meal for my family on New Years day has become some type of pork (usually either a pork roast or a ham) , blackeyed peas (for luck) cooked with a nice hunk salt pork, baked cabbage ( for money) . Cornbread or rolls and some type of cake or pie.
Since someone asked last year so here is how you make baked cabbage Cut the heart out of the cabbage, fill the hole left with seasoned butter or margarine, wrap in foil hole up and place in a pan with some water. Put in the oven at 350. It takes a while (1 1/2 to 2 hours. ymmv) to cook but it’s yummy and one of the few ways my family will eat cabbage without complaning.
Find a Hungarian to cook it.I had a neighbor made pork and sauerkraut in the oven and that kraut tasted nothing like the commonly associated tart smell/ bouquet of a can or bag of the stuff.
Not sure how many Hungarians are in Nottingham… It must be a secret recipe cos I’ve never smelt or tasted anything so foul. Will have to see if we can find someone to change my mind.
