POLISH STEW and Murder

Clicking my heels together!   Everything turned out well for yesterday's dinner party . . .

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Cocktail:  Robbie Burns:  Whisky, Sweet Vermouth, Benedictine

Appetizer:  Chicken Almond spread on fresh Whole Wheat Bread Fingers

Polish Hunter’s Stew:  based on Pork:  the Good Cook Techniques & Recipes by The Editors of Time-Life

Baked Potatoes with Sour Cream

Perfect Green Beans:  see previous blog:

http://eleanorstadnyk.blogspot.ca/2012/09/purple-beans-from-anastasias-garden.html

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POLISH HUNTER’S STEW  (serves 6)

Fresh pork rind:  cut it off the pork roast and render it a day ahead or early in the day.  Reserve the fat for the recipe.  The shkvarki can be added to fried potatoes (or discarded).

Shkvarki

2 lbs sauerkraut

3 cups boiling water

2 tbsp lard

1 lb boneless pork roast (cut in half to make 2 pieces about 1 ½ inches thick)

¼ lb bacon (in one piece, if possible. . .   You could use 2 ounces of salt pork as part of this.)

 

4 ounces chopped onion (a small onion)

3 tbsp rendered fat (or substitute 3 more tbsp lard)

3 tbsp flour

½ cup tomato sauce (for a stronger tomato flavour, make half of this tomato paste)

¼ tsp pepper

½ lb garlic sausage

1.       In a large saucepan,  add the boiling water to the sauerkraut and simmer covered for one hour.

2.       Put 2 tbsp lard in a large frying pan or Dutch oven, over high heat,  and brown the pork and bacon on all sides.  Drain off the extra fat.

3.      Add the sauerkraut to the meat and cook over low heat for 40 minutes.

  

4.       Cut the meat into cubes and return to the pan.

5.      Chop the onion and cook for 10 minutes in the rendered fat (or lard).  Stir the flour into this and cook another 2 minutes.

6.      Stir the flour-onion roux into the sauerkraut along with pepper and tomato sauce.

7.      Peel the garlic sausage (or not) and add to the sauerkraut.

You can leave it at this point until 30 minutes before serving.  Reheat covered in the oven. The temperature can be anywhere between 350 and 450.   (I heated it at 450 because I needed that temperature for roasting potatoes wrapped in foil.)

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For history enthusiasts,  I also can recommend the FALL OF EAGLES:  we watched one of the episodes last night -- a murder-suicide committed in the late 19th century by the heir to the throne of Austria Hungary.