World Cup Food Challenge: France - Choucroute Garni

The problem with having drawn France in the World Cup Food Challenge is deciding what to cook.  Some of the countries taking part in the world cup have a limited culinary history.  When looking up dishes for Honduras I came across Carne Asada on four or five separate searches, the decision was made for me.  The French though have more iconic dishes in their culinary canon to lay siege on most of the rest of Europe, never mind the rest of the world.

Choosing Confit de Canard as my first dish was a no brainer.  I'd been looking for an excuse to cook it for ages.  Assuming that France would get out of Group E I had already been looking for inspiration for Tonight's Menu.  I originally thought that tonight would be the night that I knowingly tried horse for the first time.  Since horsegate I have been looking for an excuse to cook an equine supper and as the French love cheval I decided to give it a go.

I asked my butcher if he could source me some horse and sure enough he said that he could.  I'd decided that I wanted to cook Daube de Chevaline, a slow cooked stew that required some shoulder meat.  This was available but once you added on delivery to the butchers it was close to £25 for a couple of pounds of meat.  Horse was off the menu.  Next on my hit list was Blanquette de Veau, but sadly the time consumed in a fruitless horse chase ate up all of my veal ordering time too. 

Having tried and failed to get hold of the ingredients for two classic and refined dishes I decided to go a bit more rustic and cook Choucroute Garni.  This mountain of a meal has a place in the folk lore of Z's family.  Holidays to France weren't complete without a table bursting pile of sauerkraut festooned with various sausages, hams and pork.

My choucroute has a base of cabbage braised in white wine with onions, bacon, celery, caraway, mustard seeds, and juniper berries.  This was served with a Toulouse style sausage, belly pork and a joint of cured pork collar that were cooked separately and then added to the choucroute to warm through before serving.  I also cooked a load of new potatoes but there wasn't enough space on the serving plate to include them in the photograph.

I'll be honest, as meals for two people go this was excessive.  We managed to eat half of the collar, one of the belly pork slices and a third of the sausage.  There is plenty of cabbage and potatoes left too.  The collar will be part of some pea and ham soup.  The sausage will appear on sandwiches and pizza later on this week.  The rest will become soup-croute.

In case you are wondering, the stork garnish is one of Z's strongest memories of the holidays.  She and her brother used to collect them.  She now thinks that they were just put on every kids meal not just the choucroute, but we couldn't resist having one for old times sake.

Cabbage Bake

There is very little that is inspiring in a blog post entitled "Cabbage Bake".  In fact I had considered calling this post something else just to get your attention, but if you have made it this far, please stick with me, I hope you won't be disappointed.  The fact is, during my blogging hiatus* we've cooked this dish on more than one occasion, so it feels only right that it gets a look in. 

Now, I'm not the kind of person that will revisit a dish unless it's worth eating, so that should tell you something.  I can't remember the exact details on the night we first cooked it, but tonight we had good reason to look up the recipe again in Russian, German & Polish Food and Cooking by Lesley Chamberlain.  That reason was being in possession of a whole savoy cabbage that we needed to eat before another one turned up a couple of days later.

But why bother buying another cabbage if you already have one?  Well, since giving up Supermarkets for Lent we have been using the excellent Market Delivered service to get fresh fruit and vegetables from Kirkgate Market on an almost weekly basis.  We have found that the secret to veg boxes is to wait until the order has turned up and then meal plan.  As we're still not clear of the "hungry gap" in the growing season, cabbages are turning up in most boxes, so using them is always on our minds.

We often steam cabbage, to have as a side veg, or add it to stir fries and curries, but this week we had managed to neglect our cabbage altogether.  Our need to get it eaten was therefore high, before it became that most horrible of things, wasted food.  We needed a recipe that would use it all not just a few leaves and that is where the cabbage bake comes in.

The shredded cabbage is cooked in a little stock until just soft, drained, seasoned and spread into an oven proof dish.  The cabbage is topped with a layer of sliced tomatoes and then baked for 30 to 40 minutes.  Nothing could be simpler.  We happened to have a pack of kielbasa sausages that I'd picked up from our local Lithuanian store, so we chopped them up and added them to the cabbage before adding the tomato lid.  I know that makes calling this a vegetarian dish a flight of fancy, but trust me, it works just as well without the meat.

*it's been over seventy days since my last post.

Olympic Food Challenge: Great Britain

Way back in April, when the initial draw for the Olympic Food Challenge took place, a kindly soul* suggested that since I had drawn Great Britain I should cook a four course meal.  The idea being that each course should represent one of the home nations.  Of course I laughed off the idea as sounding like far too much work.

Tonight I have cooked a four course meal, one course for each of the home nations that make up The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland**. 

Starter: Wales - Glamorgan Sausage

I suppose the obvious choice for a light Welsh starter would have been rarebit but I have always had a soft spot for Glamorgan sausages.  For a long time they loitered as a poor vegetarian option on pub menus but I think they are due a come back.  Caerphilly cheese, leek, breadcrumbs, parsley and thyme are mixed together with some beaten egg and formed into sausages.  These are then coated in breadcrumbs and shallow fried.  A very simple and very tasty starter.

Fish Course: Scotland - Smoked Salmon and Oatcakes

Anyone who knows me may well be surprised that I have not picked haggis as the Scottish part of the British meal.  Well, haggis season starts today***, but even if I had managed to shoot a wee beastie this morning, it would still need to be hung for a couple of days before we could eat it.

The other thing synonymous with Scottish cuisine is smoked fish.  From Arbroth Smokies to Cullen Skink, smoked fish gets everywhere.  As we're eating four courses I decided to keep the fish course light and opted for smoked salmon with oatcakes.

Main Course: Ireland - Bacon Chops with Braised Cabbage

I did a fair amount of research for Ireland****.  I wanted to do the kind of dish that turns up on family dinner tables not a cheffy reconstruction, so I was happy when I was told I had to make boiled bacon with cabbage and potatoes.

Those of you who have been following the Olympic Food Challenge may have felt a little queasy earlier this week when we cooked pigs trotters.  We were certainly unsure about how they would turn out.  In fact, we were so unsure that I had bought emergency bacon chops just in case we had to throw the meal in the bin.  Surprisingly we ate the trotters and the chops ended up in the freezer.

Tonight they have been briefly pan fried, not boiled, and finished in the oven.  The cabbage was then braised in the bacon pan to make sure they benefited from the bacony goodness that was left behind.  Served with boiled new potatoes, this is not the most glamorous meal I have cooked in the last two weeks, but it is one of the best.

Dessert: England - Trifle

This was the first dish on the menu.  I love trifle.  Not the hundreds and thousands topped jelly-fest, but the sherry soaked, fresh fruit filled and almond topped grown up version.  We would normally make a huge trifle but as we are going on Holiday tomorrow we decided to make these two dainty individual trifles.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is that.  Nineteen dishes, nineteen countries, nineteen days and one challenge.  The Olympic Food Challenge has opened my eyes to ingredients that I have never heard of before.  I have braised more food in two weeks than I have previously.  I have also met, and found a huge amount of admiration for, a group of food bloggers who have helped me cross the finishing line. Thanks for joining me over the last nineteen days.  Thank you for cooking, for blogging and for reading.  And thank you for your support.

*Yes Dan, you!
**I really am a sucker for a challenge!
***The Glorious 12th is not just for grouse.
****I asked J, the 29 year old receptionist at work, who happens to be of Irish decent.

Olympic Food Challenge: Tanzania - Duck Dar es Salaam

The next stop on Tonight's Menu's round the world tour, as part of the Olympic Food Challenge, brings us to Tanzania.  More specifically the city of Dar es Salaam.  Dar es Salaam was the capital city of Tanzania until 1974 when that honour was passed to Dodoma.  Even though it is no longer the capital it is still the centre of power and home of the Tanzanian Government*.

Duck Dar es Salaam is a dish which is served whenever there are special guests to entertain.  There's only Z and I eating tonight, but we're special enough.  The recipe I found states that curry powder is optional, but to my mind without it, all we're having is braised duck.  I did a little more research and discovered that the standard mix of spices for the region contains equal measures of cardamom, turmeric, ginger, cinnamon and dried chilli flakes.

The spices are fried with some onion and chopped tomatoes until the vegetables are soft and the aromas of the curry powder fill the room.  The duck (we used duck legs, not a whole duckling cut into portions) was then added to the pan until it took on a little colour.  A litre of water was then added to the pan and it was left to simmer for half an hour.  At that point I added half a green plantain and half a yellow plantain.  We'd never had plantain before, so I wanted to see what they tasted like and what the differences in texture were.  With this in mind I also fried some of the green and yellow plantains as a taste comparison. 

The duck was served with cabbage braised in beef stock with plenty of black pepper.  The duck was superb and the mixture of spices in the curry powder was both earthy and fresh.  The braised cabbage was wonderful as well.  The only problem was the plantain.  The yellow plantain was better fried and the green plantain worked better cooked in the sauce but neither added anything to the meal.  I suppose a continent of people can't all be wrong but if I'm adding a starch to a dish in future it won't resemble a banana.  I will however, be coming back to the duck and cabbage and my new found love of braising.


*if your not sure how that works just imagine Leeds as the capital of England, with the Houses of Parliament still where they are in Westminster. Sounds good to me!

Olympic Food Challenge: Andorra - Trinxat

Unless you have been ignoring me*, or you are new to Tonight's Menu, you would have missed out on my plans to eat the Olympics.  Two years ago, during the World Cup, I had the great idea to base our evening meals on one of the two nations that were playing in the evening kick off.  This opened my eyes to some great new food, which I wouldn't have otherwise discovered.  I wanted to do something similar for the Olympics and came up with the Olympic Food Challenge.

Tonight sees the start of the challenge.  I know that the opening ceremony isn't until Friday but the sport started today with the Team GB Women's football team beating New Zealand 1-0, so the challenge is on.  From my allotted list we thought we would ease ourselves in by cooking Trinxat from Andorra.

Andorra is a tiny country high in the Pyrenees mountains surrounded by France and Spain, specifically Catalonia hence the 'x' in Trinxat, which you pronounce 'ch'.  The recipe for this bubble and squeak style dish can be found here but I have tweaked it for tonight as there are only two of us and we couldn't eat an entire cabbage.

I mashed together cooked potatoes and cabbage, added fried garlic and seasoned the mixture.  The recipe asks for salty pork or bacon and I happened to have some Swillington Farm bacon, which I had been saving for a special occasion.  The bacon was fried and set to one side while we cooked the Trinxat.  The mixture was fried in the pan that the bacon had been cooked in and served in wedges with the bacon and a fried egg.  I'm not sure that this is the kind of healthy meal an athlete might tuck into before an event but I could eat this a couple of times a week.

*I wouldn't blame you

Venison Steak with Braised Red Cabbage and Roast Potatoes

After a week of not cooking, I was determined to reclaim my place at the hob tonight.  I wanted to come back with a bang, but needed inspiration.  We set off to the Kirkstall Deli Market hoping to stumble upon the one ingredient that would shape our meal.  If you haven't been to the Kirkstall Deli Market can I suggest that you give it a try.  Even today, in the pouring rain, there was a good mix of hot and cold food stalls.  Even the local allotment society had a stall and at £1 for a huge bag of rhubarb, I'm glad they were there.

The inspiration finally came from Round Green Farm.  I didn't try any of their venison burgers or sausages, which were being cooked, but the offer of two packs of haunch steaks for £10 was too good an offer to miss.  Meat in the bag, I nibbled my way around the rest of the stalls picking up more ingredients for future meals.

After the market we had a less enjoyable food trip around a supermarket.  We had planned this prior to the fun at Kirkstall Abbey and it gave us the opportunity to pick up the rest of the ingredients for tonight's meal.  I think it was the heavy rain that made me crave the comfort of braised red cabbage and who doesn't want roast potatoes?

Tagliatelle with Savoy Cabbage

I don't think I should be trusted to do the food shopping.  I always come back with things that weren't on the list.  If they were on the list I'll probably have bought too many of them.  However, I'm a sucker for an offer but not to the extent that I'd buy two chickens for £5.  I dread to think what kind of a life those two birds would have had.

It's not just offers in supermarkets that I struggle with.  I often shop at Leeds Kirkgate Market and when faced with food sold by weight I go to pieces.  I'd like to blame my age and the supermarket boom for my blind spot for weight.  I have no idea what 5lb of carrots look like.

The worst thing is when the shopping list says something like "veg".  What type and in what quantity?  This leaves me with a lot of license for choosing ingredients but if I get carried away we end up wondering what to cook.

Tonight's menu is born out of veg being on a shopping list.  I found a gem of a savoy cabbage being sold for pence on the market and duly bought it.  Having got it home I discovered that it was a tad bigger that I initially thought.  In fact, we'll be eating it for days, tant pis.

To get the ball* rolling, we're having a great little pasta dish that we unearthed the last time we had too much cabbage to eat.  Fry some cabbage and leek in butter until soft, along with some thyme.  Pour on some cream and cheese** and mix with whatever pasta shapes you have to hand.

*cabbage
**tonight we have port soaked Stilton left over from Christmas