Sunday, January 04, 2009

New Years Catchup

Cooking in our holiday flat in Finnu (Wallis):


Saturday (27 Dec) Dinner: Black beans with ham
Into the pressure cooker: diced ham, sliced leek, chopped garlic, dried black beans, veggie bouillon, hot and sweet paprikas, cumin, coriander, black pepper, bay leaves, sufficient water.
Cook until done (30-45 minutes maybe when one gets it right with the pressure cooker).
Serve with brown rice.

Monday (29 Dec) Dinner: Choucroute
Cook a couple sliced leeks in a bit of olive oil until they soften. Rinse and drain 1kg raw sauerkraut. Mix into the leeks along with 10 lightly crushed juniper berries, 3 bay leaves, a grind of coriander, a good grind of black pepper, 250ml of Gewurztraminer. Nestle in some salted bacon, cut into pieces. Top with a smoked "Schufeli". Bake at 175 for 1.5 hours. Remove the Schufeli and set aside to keep warm. Bake another hour. Meanwhile boil some raclette potatoes in their skins, then peel them. Add more liquid to the sauerkraut if needed. Top with the schufeli, the potatoes, and four wienerli. Cover and bake another 30 minutes so that everything is warmed through. Put the meat and potatoes in a serving dish. Stir another good splash of gewurztraminer into the sauerkraut. 
Serve with cornichons and mustard.

Wednesday (31 Dec) Fondue
Celebrated the New Year with a nice fondue. With it we had a green salad.

Thursday (1 Jan) Raclette
No black-eyed peas and greens; instead we did a raclette. On the table: potatoes, cheese, ham, mushrooms, zucchini, bell peppers. We also had a green salad and a quick pickle I did by salting thinly sliced radish (the big black-skinned type) then adding a bit of thinly sliced bell pepper and zucchini for color and tossing the whole thing with olive oil.

Friday (2 Jan) Ueberbackene Reste, a.k.a. Garbage Gratin
The priority on our last night in the flat was to eat everything we didn't want to have to carry back with us or throw away; a perfect time for a garbage gratin.

The ingredients were: thinly sliced potatoes, Pfaelzer, and leeks; sliced wienerli; diced ham; a sauce made from milk heated for a while with minced garlic, bay leaf, nutmeg, salt, and pepper. After baking, covered, for 30 minutes at 175C, I topped it with grated fondue cheese and then put it back in the oven, uncovered, until the cheese was bubbly and browned.

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