This holiday season, Meg gave me the honor of choosing our Christmas dinner. As mentioned before, during the holidays, tradition trumps common sense and we indulge in dishes that warm our hearts even if for example, they are non-vegetarian and bad for our arteries.
As I pondered this responsibility, a couple serious contenders emerged.
First up was a nice beef tenderloin. I have very fond memories of holiday's at Meg's family's house early in our relationship. One of her family's more recent traditions was serving a beef tenderloin for Christmas dinner. We co-opted this some years later when I hosted my family for Christmas and we put together a killer beef tenderloin.
My second thought was a nice roasted chicken. I perhaps miss chicken more than anything through the vegetarian year because there are some chicken dishes I really love and because when I fall off the vegetarian wagon, I usually do so with either beef or pork. So my thoughts ran to a simple roasted chicken, as we saw Julia Child demonstrate on TV in the immediate aftermath of Julie and Julia. I also had in mind the succulent and flavorful chicken I had during a working lunch once while visiting a company in Paris.
But the vision that kept coming back as I considered this serious question was pot roast. My mom used to make pot roast occasionally during the holidays when I was young. She seemed to cook it forever and it included lots of carrots, potatoes and of course at the insistence of my father, more onions than you can imagine! It was wonderful, plentiful (I was a teenager and ravenous), and delicious.
This train of thought also brought to mind some of Meg's food memories. She has related over the years how, when she was little and her family would visit her grandparents on the weekend, she would awake on Sunday morning to the comforting smell of her grandmother already preparing the Sunday meal. As we talked about this recently, Meg explained to me that sometimes, this wonderful smell was that of sauerbraten, a sour marinated pot roast from her grandfather's German heritage. Vinegar? Pot Roast? A food connection between our families?
My decision was made.
So we started hunting for recipes. We immediately found both common themes and seemingly important differences. In the end we led with a recipe from the classic and well worn Good Housekeeping Cookbook (ours is from 1963) with considerable input from our friend Chris Kimball. In American Classics, the Cook's Illustrated folks discuss the science of braising as a method for creating a tender delicious pot roast. This food novice found it interesting and useful.
So off to the races! Meg ordered a nice 4.5 lb boneless chuck roast from the Co-Op and we set about marinating it. Most of the recipes we considered contained similar ingredients though the Good Housekeeping one also included 4 sliced onions! In the marinade! Oh, I'm feeling good about this. We set up the marinade of vinegar, red wine vinegar, red wine, onions, and a bevy of traditional spices and herbs including bay leaves, cloves, juniper berries and mustard seeds. We put all this in our dutch oven and put it in the fridge, turning once or twice a day for over four days.
Finally it was time to cook! I pulled the roast out of the marinade (Wow does this smell good! Can I eat it now?) and set it aside patting it dry and removing the sliced onions from it. I then rubbed it down with flour, salt and pepper, warmed a small amount of bacon fat in the dutch oven and browned the roast on all sides.
This is my idea of heaven. The house just smelled wonderful, warm, delicious and comforting. When the browning was done, I added the roast to the combination of the reserved marinade (and onion solids!) and fresh goodies include more onions, cloves and mustard seeds. Then into the oven at 300℉ for about four hours, checking occasionally.
Unveiling the roast after four hours was a revelation! The roast was surrounded by delicious broth which I combined with crushed ginger snap cookies to reduce to a nice thick sauce for our sauerbraten.
The result was delightful. As we sat down to eat, it seemed to me that this version of sauerbraten took Meg back to Sunday afternoons in Ventnor, New Jersey and also to her mother's version. For my part, combining the delicious sour tang of the marinade with deep onion flavor in a slowly braised meat produced a delicious and comforting Christmas dinner - as well as several meals afterwards!
Buvez: I conferred with my nephew and homebrewing enthusiast Sean on a German lager to serve with this meal as I know zip about lagers. His recommendation: a good strong Dortmunder Export beer. Though the Co-Op is quite weak in the lager area, it was able to deliver an Ayinger Jahrhundert-Bier
Here's to Sauerbraten!
As I pondered this responsibility, a couple serious contenders emerged.
First up was a nice beef tenderloin. I have very fond memories of holiday's at Meg's family's house early in our relationship. One of her family's more recent traditions was serving a beef tenderloin for Christmas dinner. We co-opted this some years later when I hosted my family for Christmas and we put together a killer beef tenderloin.
My second thought was a nice roasted chicken. I perhaps miss chicken more than anything through the vegetarian year because there are some chicken dishes I really love and because when I fall off the vegetarian wagon, I usually do so with either beef or pork. So my thoughts ran to a simple roasted chicken, as we saw Julia Child demonstrate on TV in the immediate aftermath of Julie and Julia. I also had in mind the succulent and flavorful chicken I had during a working lunch once while visiting a company in Paris.
But the vision that kept coming back as I considered this serious question was pot roast. My mom used to make pot roast occasionally during the holidays when I was young. She seemed to cook it forever and it included lots of carrots, potatoes and of course at the insistence of my father, more onions than you can imagine! It was wonderful, plentiful (I was a teenager and ravenous), and delicious.
This train of thought also brought to mind some of Meg's food memories. She has related over the years how, when she was little and her family would visit her grandparents on the weekend, she would awake on Sunday morning to the comforting smell of her grandmother already preparing the Sunday meal. As we talked about this recently, Meg explained to me that sometimes, this wonderful smell was that of sauerbraten, a sour marinated pot roast from her grandfather's German heritage. Vinegar? Pot Roast? A food connection between our families?
My decision was made.
So we started hunting for recipes. We immediately found both common themes and seemingly important differences. In the end we led with a recipe from the classic and well worn Good Housekeeping Cookbook (ours is from 1963) with considerable input from our friend Chris Kimball. In American Classics, the Cook's Illustrated folks discuss the science of braising as a method for creating a tender delicious pot roast. This food novice found it interesting and useful.
So off to the races! Meg ordered a nice 4.5 lb boneless chuck roast from the Co-Op and we set about marinating it. Most of the recipes we considered contained similar ingredients though the Good Housekeeping one also included 4 sliced onions! In the marinade! Oh, I'm feeling good about this. We set up the marinade of vinegar, red wine vinegar, red wine, onions, and a bevy of traditional spices and herbs including bay leaves, cloves, juniper berries and mustard seeds. We put all this in our dutch oven and put it in the fridge, turning once or twice a day for over four days.
Finally it was time to cook! I pulled the roast out of the marinade (Wow does this smell good! Can I eat it now?) and set it aside patting it dry and removing the sliced onions from it. I then rubbed it down with flour, salt and pepper, warmed a small amount of bacon fat in the dutch oven and browned the roast on all sides.
This is my idea of heaven. The house just smelled wonderful, warm, delicious and comforting. When the browning was done, I added the roast to the combination of the reserved marinade (and onion solids!) and fresh goodies include more onions, cloves and mustard seeds. Then into the oven at 300℉ for about four hours, checking occasionally.
Unveiling the roast after four hours was a revelation! The roast was surrounded by delicious broth which I combined with crushed ginger snap cookies to reduce to a nice thick sauce for our sauerbraten.
The result was delightful. As we sat down to eat, it seemed to me that this version of sauerbraten took Meg back to Sunday afternoons in Ventnor, New Jersey and also to her mother's version. For my part, combining the delicious sour tang of the marinade with deep onion flavor in a slowly braised meat produced a delicious and comforting Christmas dinner - as well as several meals afterwards!
Buvez: I conferred with my nephew and homebrewing enthusiast Sean on a German lager to serve with this meal as I know zip about lagers. His recommendation: a good strong Dortmunder Export beer. Though the Co-Op is quite weak in the lager area, it was able to deliver an Ayinger Jahrhundert-Bier
Here's to Sauerbraten!
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