Choucroute Garnie Recipe

Choucroute garnie is a classic cold-weather tour de force. Making it well requires advance planning but no special skill, and you can’t help but feel proud placing this impressive display before your guests. (This is a recipe for a crowd, on the theory that if you’re going to this trouble, why not have a crowd enjoy it?) If you don’t have a very large pot, you can do the sautéing in batches in a skillet and transfer everything to a roasting pan covered with foil for the long oven cooking. The traditional accompaniment is boiled potatoes tossed with parsley.

do ahead Everything may be made up to five days ahead and stored in the refrigerator. Before serving, reheat, covered, in a 350° oven until hot, about 30-45 minutes.

12 ounces sliced bacon, cut into 1-inch pieces
11⁄2 pounds kielbasa, cut into 1-inch pieces
11⁄2 pounds bratwurst or knockwurst, cut into 3-inch lengths
2 large yellow onions, thinly sliced
2 cups carrots, peeled and cut into 1⁄2-inch slices
8 garlic cloves, crushed
4 pounds sauerkraut, rinsed well with water squeezed out
4 long lengths orange peel
3 smoked ham hocks
1⁄4 cup dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons juniper berries
2 tablespoons black peppercorns
2 teaspoons coriander seeds
3-4 pounds boneless pork butt or shoulder
4 bay leaves
3 fresh thyme sprigs
3 fresh parsley sprigs
2 fresh rosemary sprigs
2 fresh sage sprigs
31⁄4 cups white wine (ideally Riesling)
1 cups chicken stock
1⁄4 cup chopped fresh parsley, for garnish

1 Place ham hocks in a large pot and cover with water. Add brown sugar, bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer until meat is tender, about 11⁄2-2 hours. Allow to cool. Trim away skin and fat and cut meat into bite-sized pieces. Reserve 1 cup cooking liquid.
2 Make a bouquet garni by wrapping juniper berries, black peppercorns and coriander seeds in a small square of cheesecloth. Tie packet.
3 In a large Dutch oven or other large, heavy pot, stir bacon over moderate heat to render fat and just cook through. With a slotted spoon, remove bacon and set it aside. In the residual fat, first brown kielbasa. Remove and brown bratwurst or other sausage. Remove and brown pork butt or shoulder. Be patient and brown everything well, leaving residual fat in the pot each time.
4 In the same pot with the same fat over moderate heat, sauté onions, carrots and garlic until onions lightly brown, about 20 minutes. Add sauerkraut, bacon, ham hocks, orange peel, bay leaves and the bouquet garni. Mix well.
5 Preheat oven to 300°. Place browned pork on top of sauerkraut mix. Place sprigs of thyme, parsley, rosemary and sage over top. Cover and bake until pork is very tender, about 3 hours. If serving right away, add kielbasa and bratwurst around the perimeter of pot to heat during the last 30 minutes of cooking.
6 Remove pork and set aside to cool. Remove and discard herbs, bouquet garni, orange peel and bay leaves.
7 To serve, cut pork into approximately 3⁄8-inch slices. Arrange sauerkraut on a large platter and arrange slices of pork down the middle; arrange sausages around pork. Sprinkle with chopped parsley. If you are serving potatoes and have a large enough platter, arrange potatoes around and just off the edge of the sauerkraut.
serves 10-12

Chapter 7 — Easy Entrees:Roasts

Our countdown to shipping continues with 12 more chapters to preview. You have about 16 days left to pre-order the book to receive a signed and numbered first edition of At Home by Steve Poses: A Caterer’s Guide to Cooking & Entertaining.

We have divided entrees into two sections. The first entree section is Section 3 is Easy Entrees & Condiments. Section 4 is More Elaborate Entrees. Section 3 begins with Chapter 7 — Easy Entrees: Roasts. The chapter has 19 recipes that start with Gracie’s Salt & Pepper Roast Chicken and ends with Glazed Tofu Roast with Shitakes & Spring Onions.  Section 5 features More Elaborate Entrees.

Slow-Roasted Pork Shoulder
Infused with Lime, Garlic & Thyme
This roast ends up with a crispy layer of skin on the outside and fall-apart tender meat on the inside. Most of the time here is inactive but the roast benefits from occasional basting. Serve with Spanish rice or in tortillas with chopped fresh cilantro, grilled pineapple and salsa verde.

do ahead Pork can be roasted up to three days in advance and stored, covered, in the refrigerator. Reheat, covered in foil, in a 200° oven or serve at room temperature.

4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 head garlic, broken into cloves and peeled
2 medium onions, peeled and quartered
4 limes, halved and seeded
5-7 pounds boneless pork butt or shoulder
2-3 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon coarsely ground pepper
6-8 generous fresh thyme sprigs

1 Preheat oven to 200°.
2 Place pork in a shallow roasting pan. In a small bowl, combine chopped garlic, salt and pepper to form a paste. Rub mixture all over the roast, working it into some of the natural crevasses in the meat. Place onions in roasting pan and lay pork over onion. Tuck some thyme sprigs into the crevasses in the meat as well and place some under and around the roast. Squeeze limes over the roast and add lime halves to the pan, cut side down. Cover loosely with aluminum foil and poke some holes into the foil. Roast until meat collapses, about 10-12 hours. After several hours, occasionally check roast to make sure there is some moisture left in the pan. If not, add a little water. Baste occasionally with the juices.
serves 8-12

Ingredients
Cheaper Eats: Slow-Roasted Shoulders
One of the joys of winter weekends in the Northeast is that there’s no yard work to do. No weeds to pull, no lawn to mow, no leaves to rake. And because it’s cold outside, you don’t mind having your oven on inside. These are ideal days for meat shoulders. Shoulders are inexpensive because they have lots of connective tissue, fat and marbling, and require long cooking to break down the fiber that makes the cut tough. Very slowly roasting a beef, lamb or veal shoulder at around 200° for six to eight hours with lots of aromatics and just a little liquid produces a deliciously succulent product that essentially collapses onto itself as it cooks. The technique is similar to braising, but it produces a more concentrated flavor. It also fills your home for hours with fragrance and anticipation.

A note about the book’s colors: Maria Demopoulos, our Art Director has designed a gloriously and smartly colored book. I have used today’s post to imperfectly demonstrate the use of color. It’s far better in the book! Color is used to help you know where you are in the book and helps to make it a “guide.” Each of the seven recipe sections is distinguished by a different accent color and that color. That color is used for the type of the recipe titles, the ingredient list and at the bottom of the left handed pages we let you know what section you are in and the right-hand page tells you what chapter you are in. All notes – both side and bottom are purple throughout the book. Part 1’s accent color is purple.

Tomorrow: Easy Entrees: From the Grill

Slow-Roasted Pork Shoulder Infused with Lime, Garlic & Thyme Recipe

This roast ends up with a crispy layer of skin on the outside and fall-apart tender meat on the inside. Most of the time here is inactive but the roast benefits from occasional basting. Serve with Spanish rice or in tortillas with chopped fresh cilantro, grilled pineapple and salsa verde.

do ahead Pork can be roasted up to three days in advance and stored, covered, in the refrigerator. Reheat, covered in foil, in a 200° oven or serve at room temperature.

4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 head garlic, broken into cloves and peeled
2 medium onions, peeled and quartered
4 limes, halved and seeded
5-7 pounds boneless pork butt or shoulder
2-3 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon coarsely ground pepper
6-8 generous fresh thyme sprigs

1 Preheat oven to 200°.
2 Place pork in a shallow roasting pan. In a small bowl, combine chopped garlic, salt and pepper to form a paste. Rub mixture all over the roast, working it into some of the natural crevasses in the meat. Place onions in roasting pan and lay pork over onion. Tuck some thyme sprigs into the crevasses in the meat as well and place some under and around the roast. Squeeze limes over the roast and add lime halves to the pan, cut side down. Cover loosely with aluminum foil and poke some holes into the foil. Roast until meat collapses, about 10-12 hours. After several hours, occasionally check roast to make sure there is some moisture left in the pan. If not, add a little water. Baste occasionally with the juices.
serves 8-12

Ingredients
Cheaper Eats: Slow-Roasted Shoulders
One of the joys of winter weekends in the Northeast is that there’s no yard work to do. No weeds to pull, no lawn to mow, no leaves to rake. And because it’s cold outside, you don’t mind having your oven on inside. These are ideal days for meat shoulders. Shoulders are inexpensive because they have lots of connective tissue, fat and marbling, and require long cooking to break down the fiber that makes the cut tough. Very slowly roasting a beef, lamb or veal shoulder at around 200° for six to eight hours with lots of aromatics and just a little liquid produces a deliciously succulent product that essentially collapses onto itself as it cooks. The technique is similar to braising, but it produces a more concentrated flavor. It also fills your home for hours with fragrance and anticipation.