Recipes from Luxembourg

I am happy to report that this week’s meal was not the comedy of errors that last week’s meal was, though that does generally make for less entertaining reading. In fact this week’s meal was actually fairly painless, so, sorry about that.

This week we are in Luxembourg, which you’ve probably heard of though I’ll bet you ten bucks you couldn’t point it out on a map. It’s in Western Europe, bordered by Belgium, Germany and France, or maybe I should say “enveloped” because this place is so tiny that it’s like a freckle on the nose of western Europe. At 998 square miles, Luxembourg is about 150 square miles larger than Jacksonville, Florida, and considerably smaller than all four of Alaska’s major cities.

 Grand-Duché de Luxembourg. Photo by Antonio Ponte.

There are more than 100 castles in Luxembourg, which automatically makes it a place I’d be keen to visit. Compare that to 600 to 700 castles in the UK and at first you might be unimpressed, until you realize that the UK has about six to seven times as many castles in roughly 94 times as much land area. So to put that in perspective, at its most generous estimate the United Kingdom has one castle every 134 square miles, while Luxembourg has one every 10 square miles. Yeah, I’d definitely like to go there someday. I love castles.

Given its diminutive stature and geographical proximity to France and Germany, I’m sure it will not surprise you to hear that Luxembourg shares many of the same culinary traditions as those two larger nations. I actually stayed away from the more French looking recipes because I wasn't game for anything complex this week. Instead I chose a pretty rustic menu:

Gequellte Grompere mat Porrettenzapp (Jacket potatoes with leek sauce)
(from Gekonnt Gekocht)

• 3 1/3 lbs medium-sized potatoes
• Coarse salt
• 4 leeks
• 4 1/4 cups sour milk or buttermilk
• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tbsp mustard (I used Dijon)

Luxembourg stuffed roast beef
(from Kochmeister)

• 3 1/3 lbs rump roast
• 6 tbsp oil
• Cayenne pepper to taste
• 2 large onions, sliced thinly
• 4 large carrots, peeled and cubed
• 4 large tomatoes
• 2 bunches parsley
• 1 tbsp butter
• 2 cups gravy 
• 10 1/2 oz cooked ham
• 10 1/2 oz Gruyere cheese
• 24 whole mushrooms
• 1/3 cup whiskey

Schuedi, the great Luxembourg sugar cake
(also from Gekonnt Gekocht) 

For the dough:

• 2 3/4 cup all purpose flour, sifted
• 2/3 cup milk
• 3 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 whole egg
• 2 1/2 tbsp sugar
• Lemon zest
• 1 pinch salt

For the topping:

• 6 tbsp butter
• 5 tbsp sugar

Let's do the beef first, because it has to go in the oven a couple of times:

First rub the meat all over with oil and season with cayenne pepper. Transfer to a roasting pan and surround with the onions, carrots and parsley. Roughly chop three of the four tomatoes and add to the pan. Melt the butter and pour over, then bake at 425 degrees until an internal thermometer reads 125 degrees (note that the original recipe said to cook for an hour, which I think would have overdone the meat). While cooking, baste with the gravy.

Let the meat rest for 10 minutes, then slice thickly.

Put thin slices of cheese and ham between each slice of meat, then tie the whole roast back together with some kitchen twine.

Pour off the juices from the roasting pan and transfer the roast back to the pan. Top with the rest of the cheese. Slice the last tomato and place the slices on the top of the roast, then scatter the mushrooms around in the pan.

Now pour the whiskey on top and cook for another 20 to 30 minutes at 425 degrees (I took mine out as soon as the cheese melted). Serve.

Now the potatoes:

First wash the leeks, then split them lengthwise and slice thinly. Leeks are always full of grit and dirt--I actually wash them when they're whole and then again in a colander after I've sliced them. Set aside.

Now mix the mustard with the buttermilk and cream, and add salt and pepper to taste. Heat over a medium flame, and then reduce heat to a simmer and let cook, stirring continually, until slightly thickened.

Meanwhile, cook the unpeeled potatoes in salted water for 20 minutes. Serve immediately with the leek sauce poured over.

And now for the cake:

First proof the yeast by mixing 3 1/2 tbsp of melted butter with the sugar, a pinch of salt and about 1/4 cup lukewarm water. Add the yeast and let sit until frothy.

Now mix the flour with the egg, lemon zest and milk. Add the yeast and knead for 12 minutes. Transfer to a floured surface and shape into a ball. Cover with a clean towel and let stand in a warm place for about an hour, or until doubled in size.

Spread the dough evenly into a buttered cake pan, then let rise for another 30 minutes.

Press down gently with your thumb to make some indentations in the dough, then place shavings of the butter into the dents. Melt some butter and use a pastry brush to paint the melted butter over the rest of the cake. Sprinkle thickly with sugar.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes, or until golden. Let cool and serve.

Both the beef and the potatoes were delicious, though a bit on the rich side. I thought the cheese and ham stuffing was really different and very tasty with the beef, but I couldn't eat a lot of it. Unfortunately the dish was also a lot of wasted vegetables, because my kids don't eat vegetables. Now, I am well aware of how bad that is so I like to point out that they eat a lot of fruit at other times of the day but yeah, most vegetables are wasted on them. I loaded up my plate and so did Martin, but we still ended up throwing a lot of them away.

I don't have to tell you what they thought of the sugar cake, though. Because, cake.

Looking back it does seem like there were some complexities to this meal but next to Lithuania it was easy. The hardest part was probably just putting the roast back together after slicing it, and if you compare that to potato water soaked beach towels in the living room, well, I can guess which one you'd choose.

Next week: Macau

Recipes from Lithuania

OK, so Lithuania was a strange combination of failure and triumph. It was like the Wide World of Sports of blog nights. You know, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Yes, I am old enough that I remember that.

Lithuania, as you may know, is one of those European nations that is sort of on the fringes of the continent. It's one of three Baltic nations (the other two are Estonia and Latvia), which means that it borders the Baltic Sea in northern Europe. Despite the northernliness of it, I was surprised to learn that Lithuania actually has a pretty mild climate--it never really gets any warmer than 70 degrees, even in July, and it doesn't get much colder than 20 degrees (though those are averages, of course). My husband would love it there.

 Castle of Trakai, Lithuania. Photo by SU.

Lithuania is a former Soviet state--today it is kind of a funky democracy. It has a president, but much like the Queen of England, the office is largely ceremonial, though the president does have some foreign affairs and national security powers. She also appoints the prime minister and a bunch of other offices, and those are the people who do the actual running-of-the-country stuff.

Lithuanian cuisine is pretty similar to eastern European fare, at least in my mind. They eat a lot of barley and potatoes and other stuff that grows in cool climates, like beets and mushrooms. Influences range from Polish and Jewish to German culinary traditions (you'll find dumplings, crepes and kugel on Lithuanian menus). Here are the dishes I chose:

Baked Pork in Mushroom Sauce (Kepta kiauliena grybø padaþe) 
(from The Anthology of Lithuanian Ethnoculture)

• 2 lbs pork, any cut 
• Juice of 1 lemon 
• Powdered bay leaves 
• Salt and pepper to taste 
• 6 tbsp vegetable oil or butter  
• 3 oz dried mushrooms 
• 2 onions, finely chopped 
• 1 cup mushroom cooking juice 
• 2 tbsp sour cream 
• 1 tbsp flour 
• 4 tbsp butter 

Vedarai (Potato Sausage)
(from Eastern European Food)

For the sausage:

• 12 medium peeled russet potatoes, finely grated
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 3 tbsp butter or 3 strips bacon, chopped
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 tsp marjoram (optional)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Hog casings, rinsed three times

For the gravy:

• 1/2 lb bacon, diced
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 cup sour cream
• Black pepper to taste

Beets with Horseradish
(also from The Anthology of Lithuanian Ethnoculture) 

• 4 beets, cooked, finely grated 
• 1 cup grated horseradish root 
• 1/4 tsp pepper 
• 3 tbsp vegetable oil
• Juice of 1/2 lemon 
• Salt to taste

Lithuanian Honey Cake  
(from Natasha's Kitchen)

For the cake:

• 1/4 honey
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter
• 3 large eggs, beaten with a fork
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3 cups all-purpose flour

For the cream:

• 5 cups crème fraiche
• 5-7 tbsp confectioners sugar
• 3-6 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 2 lemons, zest

For the candied orange peel:

• 2 oranges
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 cups water

So I'm going to start with the sausage, because it was the most disastrous part of the meal. Now, here's me thinking that because I made sausage that one time, back in Belgium, that I would just be able to whip it up again, no problem. After all it's not even real sausage, it's potato sausage. I guess I overestimated myself.

Anyway, first you're supposed saute the onion in the butter, or with the bacon (that's what I did). When the onion is soft, take it off the heat and let it come back to room temperature. Now mix the grated potatoes with the onion and add the eggs, marjoram, salt and pepper. The thickness of the mixture should be roughly equal to the thickness of ground pork. If it isn't, add some flour.

So I did all that after I dug out my meat grinder, which I've used exactly that one time, and I frustrated myself mightily trying to remember how to put it together and use it. Now, the unfortunate thing about my meat grinder is that the clamp that secures it to the work surface doesn't actually open wide enough to fit on my counter, or my dining room table for that matter. In fact the only surface that it will go on is one of those stupid little folding TV stands. So I set my TV stand up in the living room, because I figured that's where I could sit most comfortably and make sausages, and I attached the meat grinder to it and here's what happened:

As per the instructions, I stuffed the potato mixture into the grinder and turned the handle, and liquid went everywhere. It dripped out of every single crevasse in the machine and spilled all over the wobbly TV tray and onto the floor. It was an absolute mess, and by the time I filled all the casings I'd also soaked an entire beach towel in potato water.

Anyway, I twisted the casings to make links, pricked them and then boiled them in salted water, which is not what I should have done because they promptly untwisted and I was left with one giant sausage instead of a bunch of small ones (the recipe also says you can bake them at 350 degrees). Either way they should take roughly 1 hour to finish.

I kind of tried to twist them back, with limited success.

While the sausages are cooking, fry the rest of the bacon with the onion until the onion is translucent and the bacon is cooked through. Drain off the fat and then mix in the sour cream and black pepper. If the sauce is too thick, add a little bit of milk. Serve the sausages with the sour cream sauce poured over.

On to the pork:

First rub the meat all over with lemon juice, then sprinkle with the salt, pepper and powdered bay leaf. Now put the oil and meat into a casserole and bake at 350 degrees, basting occasionally. The meat is done when the internal temperature reaches 145 degrees.

Meanwhile, cook the mushrooms in boiling water and remove with a slotted spoon, reserving the cooking water. Melt the butter in a medium sized pot and julienne the mushrooms. Add the mushrooms and onions to the melted butter, then whisk in the flour. Add the mushroom juice, sour cream, salt and pepper while continuing to whisk. Turn down the heat and let the sauce thicken.

Slice the pork and pour the sauce over to serve.

OK now for the easy part, the beets:

First roast your boats in a hot oven until soft. Peel them and grate them.

Now grate the horseradish, then mix everything together. Done!

Now, for the cake. First, do some deep breathing. If you're into yoga, do that, too. This cake is complex and labor intensive. By the time I was done making it, I vowed I would never do it again ... Until my kids made it clear to me that they would quite happily eat that cake for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Here goes.

First, you're going to be making some candied orange peel. To do this, you need to peel the oranges and then cut off as much of the pith as you can (that's the bitter white part). I actually scraped mine down so I could only see orange.

It kind of took a while but it was worth it. In fact I might actually make my own candied peel next year for the Christmas cake, instead of buying it. It tasted much nicer than that uber-expensive packaged stuff.

Now boil two cups of the water and add the peel. Let it soften up for a few minutes and then drain and set aside. Next, bring the other two cups of the water to a boil and add the sugar. Reduce heat, then drop in the peel and let simmer until the peel is translucent. This should take about 30 minutes. Drain and transfer to a drying rack (I used my pizza screen because it has smaller holes so the peel wouldn't fall through). Let dry for three to four hours, then chop fine. Reserve the syrup it cooked in, not because the recipe said to but because it's yummy.

OK now mix the crème fraiche* with the lemon zest, sugar and lemon juice. Please note: don't use an electric mixer. That's what I did and my crème fraiche curdled. It was awful, though my husband did manage to save most of it by straining it. So don't use an electric mixer, instead just fold it all together. Keep tasting it until it's to your liking. It should be a little bit sour with a hint of sweet. Finally, fold in the candied peel.

*Note: Crème fraiche is super expensive, and super easy to make. The day before you make this cake, mix 5 cups of heavy cream with 2/3 cup of buttermilk. Cover it with a clean towel and let it sit out overnight in a warm place. In about 12 to 18 hours, you will have crème fraiche.

OK now put the sugar, honey and butter in a medium pan and heat gently until melted and blended. Use a low flame so you don't scorch the ingredients. Remove from the heat and add the eggs, but keep whisking as they go in, otherwise the heat from the melted butter will scramble them.

Now whisk in the baking soda until well incorporated, then add the flour in 1/2 cup increments. Fold it in gently--when the texture is a bit like Play Dough it's ready.

Cut the dough into 8 equal sized portions. It's important to do this while it's warm. Trust me on this one, because I didn't believe the author when she said that and I let mine cool down. When cool, it's really difficult to roll out.

Which brings me to the next part: rolling out. Flour a rolling pin and a large surface and roll each piece out into a circle with about a quarter inch thickness. Use a nine inch plate as a template to make sure all the circles are exactly the right size. Save all those trimmings--you'll be using them later. Unless you literally can't make your circles large enough because you were dumb and tried to do all of this with cold dough.

Are you tired yet? Next you'll be baking each circle at 350 degrees for four or five minutes on a sheet of waxed paper, until golden. When done each circle should resemble a sort of large, thick tortilla. Let them cool separately on a wire rack. Keep going until you've baked them all.

Now bake all those little scraps, if you have any little scraps. Put them in a food processor and pulse until you get some fine crumbs.

The home stretch: spread 1/3 cup of the crème fraiche mixture on each cake piece. Top with the next piece, pressing down, and repeat. Keep going until you're out of layers, then frost the sides with the leftover crème fraiche mixture, unless you curdled all yours and don't really have enough left over to do that.

 Now dust with the breadcrumbs and refrigerate overnight. Or don't--it's a lot moister once it's absorbed some of the crème fraiche, but pretty delicious the day you make it, too.

I didn't have enough crème fraiche to frost the whole thing.

Here's what we thought. But wait, first I have to say that between grating potatoes and grating beets and grating horseradish by the time I was done with this my arms ached so badly I could hardly lift them. So now that you know just how out of shape I actually am:

Beets are my new favorite thing, so I loved the beet salad with the grated horseradish. Yum. And I enjoyed the pork, too, with the mushroom sauce. It was basic, but basic in a nice, hearty way. The sausage was, meh. It had a lot of potential but it was an awful lot of mess and trouble for what basically amounted to some mashed potatoes in a sausage casing. If I did this again, I would definitely use more bacon. A lot more bacon.

Now, I bet you wanted to know what we thought of the cake. It was a ton of work and like I said I swore I would never do it again, but you know what? I would totally do it again. It was that good, and worth the work for sure. Anyway now that I got all the kinks worked out I'm pretty sure I could make it a lot more quickly next time. And I promised my kids there would definitely be a next time.

Next week: Luxembourg

Recipes from Lorraine and Alsace, France (Part Two)

OK, so the bad news is, I missed last week's posting because of spring break. So I am officially about five weeks behind in actually posting all the meals that I cook. Gah.

The good news is, I already told you about Lorraine and Alsace, France in the last posting. Because remember? This was a two part entry. The whole "I cooked that meal two years ago and forgot about it" thing.

Paysage de l'Aisne, France. Photo by Franck Vervial.

So instead of telling you more things about Lorraine and Alsace, France (if you missed the info you can check out the last entry), I'm just going to dive right into what I cooked:

Coq a Riesling 
(from Interfrance)

• 3 1/2 pound chicken, cut into pieces
• 1/3 cup unsalted butter
• 4 shallots
• 4  garlic cloves
• 1 cup Riesling wine,
• 1/2 cup chicken stock
• 1/2 lb large mushrooms, quartered 
• 1/4 cup brandy
• 1/2 cup heavy cream or creme fraische
• 1 1/2 tbsp all purpose flour
• Pinch freshly grated nutmeg
• Salt and pepper to taste

Alsatian Cheese Tart
(from Epicurious)

• 1 puff pastry sheet, thawed
• 1/2 cup whole-milk cottage cheese
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 6 bacon slices, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch pieces
• 1/3 cup onion, thinly sliced
• 1 tbsp freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Alsatian Apple Tart
(also from Interfrance) 


For the dough:

• 1 1/3 cup all purpose flour,
• 1/2 cup cold margarine,
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 tbsp baker's sugar
• 1/4 cup cold water
• Pinch of salt.

For the filling:

• 2 lbs Golden Delicious apples, peeled, cored and quartered
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup bakers sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 pinches cinnamon
• 3/4 cup heavy cream or half and half

To make the chicken, first season the pieces with salt and pepper. Now melt 4 tbsp of the butter in a heavy skillet over a medium flame and saute the chicken until golden on all sides.

Pour off most of the fat and add the shallots and garlic. Saute for a couple of minutes, then add the brandy and set it on fire. Shake the pan gently until the flames die down. Try real, real, hard not to burn your kitchen down.*

Now add the mushrooms, wine and chicken stock. Let the liquid start to boil, then reduce the heat and cover the pan. Simmer for 30 to 40 minutes or until a meat thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the thigh reads 175 degrees (165 is a safe temperature, but I think the texture of dark meat is really unpleasant if you only cook it to 165).

OK now take the chicken out of the pan with a slotted spoon and place it on a serving platter. Turn up the heat and let the cooking liquid boil. When it has reduced down to about a half cup, add the cream and stir until the sauce thickens a little. You can also add a tablespoon of melted butter mixed with some flour if it doesn't thicken up enough. Serve the chicken over egg noodles and top with the sauce.

* Please note that I almost burned my kitchen down. The flames were really big and I was trying to take pictures of them with one hand and shake the damned pot with the other. Even though this is a pretty standard French cooking technique, I do not condone or recommend actually lighting your food on fire unless you really know what you're doing, because if you burn your kitchen down you will blame me. You have been warned.

OK now for the cheese tart:

First heat your oven to 400 degrees. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the pastry sheet until it is about 12 inches square. Place on a baking sheet (I also crimped the edges of the dough so the cheese mixture would stay put).

Put the cottage cheese, sour cream, salt and pepper into a blender and pulse until smooth.

Now cook the bacon over a medium flame until it begins to brown. Don't let it get crispy. Remove from heat and set aside.

Spread the cheese mixture over the pastry like you would with a marinara sauce if you were making a pizza. Leave about 1 inch around all four edges.

Now scatter the onions over the tart, sprinkle the bacon on top, then add the Parmesan cheese.

Put the tart in the oven and bake until golden (20 to 25 minutes). Cut up into pieces and serve.

And finally, the apple tart.

First blend all the pastry ingredients except the water with your fingers until the mixture looks like fine bread crumbs.

Gradually add the water until the mixture starts to turn into a crumbly dough. Don't overdo it, but eventually you should have a smooth ball. Dust it with a little bit of flour and wrap it in plastic wrap, then place it in the fridge for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 425 and butter a 10 inch tart pan. Lightly flour a surface and the roll the dough out until it's a large circle. Line the pan with the dough and prick it all over with a fork. Return to the fridge for another 10 minutes.

Now cut each apple quarter into four slices and place neatly over the pastry, overlapping the slices as you go. Your tart should look something like this:

Bake for 15 minutes. While the tart is baking, make the filling:

Whisk the eggs together with the sugar, vanilla and cinnamon. Add the cream. When the tart has finished baking for 15 minutes, pour the filling over the top of it and return to the oven.

Bake for an additional 30 to 35 minutes. When the apples are tender, the tart is done.

So I'm sure you'd like to know if I preferred this to the frog's legs, and since I do enjoy trying new foods but I'm not a snob about it, I will not pretend that I liked the frog's legs any better than the chicken. I mean, they were the legs of a slimy creature who lives stagnant water, right? I did like the flavor of them, but when you eat frog's legs there's always that voice in the back of your head that goes, "ew."

Anyway I liked the chicken, and yes I would probably choose it over frog's legs in the future. It had a sweet flavor from the Riesling and like many French dishes, was pretty mild in flavor, but quite rich. The cheese tart was yummy--I guess it was basically just a French pizza--but my kids missed the red sauce. And cottage cheese isn't really their thing, even though it was cleverly disguised.

The apple tart was yummy and looked very pretty when it was done. Again, not really different than a lot of other apple desserts I've had, but still yummy.

OK onwards.

Next week: Lithuania