Oktoberfests are ubiquitous this month. For those not interested in the chug-a-thons and oompah bands, check out this list of alternative options.
Dixon Lambtown USA, Dixon, Calif., Oct. 3: Break out the mint jelly! Attendees can participate in such culinary slugfests as the National Lamb Ribs Eating Contest and Barbecue Cook-Off, not to mention a shearing competition and sheepdog trials. For the kiddies, there's Mutton Bustin' -- a buckin' bronco bruising of the woolly kind. The Food Network New York City Wine and Food Festival, New York, Oct. 8-11: Hosted by and benefiting the Food Bank for New York City and Share Our Strength, this festival brings the toque and the home cook together. Everyone from sous chefs to casserole queens can attend wine seminars, recipe-creation panels and cooking demonstrations. For the kiddie cook, check out the Kids Get Cooking! series. Your favorite celebrity TV chefs will be there, en masse, including Ming Tsai, Paula Deen, Rachael Ray and Anthony Bourdain, as well as culinary heavyweights such as Sue Torres, Marcus Samuelsson, Odette Fada, Daniel Boulud and David Chang.
I'm not sure how this myth got started -- I used to believe it too, before I met my husband, who grew up in Germany. Every time I tell someone I'm making schnitzel for dinner, they talk about hot dog buns and sauerkraut. Then they try to convince me that I really meant sausage and they will go as far as to ambush random passersby to help corroborate their story.
In truth, the word schnitzel comes from the German term "schneiden" which means to cut, so schnitzel means cutlet. Thus, Wiener Schnitzel is not a cut-up hot dog, but rather a "cutlet from Vienna or Wien." See how I make it after the jump.
There's something about pork that makes it the perfect wrapping and stuffing. Sizzling bacon often encircles the likes of scallops, beef, turkey and even French toast, while porcine goodness can occasionally be found in that classic junk food, pigs in a blanket.
Chef Albert Di Meglio of New York City restaurant Olana has taken it one tantalizing step further. In the above video, Di Meglio makes Sausage-Wrapped Pork -- a whole new world for the dedicated pig fan. He grabs a pork tenderloin, wraps it in a sausage filling and finally encases it with caul (a type of fat). He pops the whole thing in the oven and then slices and serves it.
Those who just can't wait till the end of the video to broaden their porcine horizons can click here for the recipe.
Fresh pasta: Every time we see it, it stops us short. Maybe it's the familiar sight of noodles after a long haul of a day. Maybe it's the swirl of tomatoes and poppy fresh fava beans, or the thought of irresistibly salty chopped sausage. Regardless, something about this Smitten Kitchen photo made us pause, mid-Web-surf, and for good reason: A quick investigation reveals that the smitten couple is actually moving and this is the last meal in their beloved old 80-square-foot kitchen. So click on over, bid them adieu as they settle into their new digs, or just sort of hang out and ponder the beauty of fresh pasta and tomatoes for a while. We won't judge.
Iron Chef, Times-style: Food section writers Kim Severson and Julia Moskin each make dinner for six for $50, and restaurant critic Frank Bruni judges.
Severson's menu, with recipes: Chili-spiced peanuts, carnitas tacos with cabbage-radish slaw and fresh tomatillo salsa, and dark molasses gingerbread with whipped cream.
Moskin's menu, with recipes: Cold tomato-cilantro soup, cheddar puffs, pasta with chicken, currants and pine nuts, tangerine-vanilla floats.
What's on the menu at the new Yankee Stadium? Noodle bowls, Cuban sandwiches and sushi. Oh yeah, and hot dogs.
Not to be outdone, Mets fans will get pulled-pork sandwiches on brioche buns, shrimp rolls and frozen custard with fresh blueberries at the new Citi Field.
Earlier, I blogged about my latest foray into collard greens. The above is the dish I came up with to have alongside it. I'm not sure why I tend to make towers of food when I get creative in my kitchen, but welcome the repetition since every one has turned out so darned good.
This one came about because I didn't have time to thaw anything big, had no bread, and didn't want to have a salad for the third day in a row. So, the one thing I could thaw quick came out of the freezer, sausage, and a small, leftover chunk of cheese came out of the fridge.
I lined a bowl with foil to make sure the potato wouldn't stick (make sure it's oven safe!), then coated the bottom and sides of the bowl with non-stick spray, and then the mashed potatoes. This created a bowl that I put my sauteed, chopped elk sausage and cheese in, before topping with more potatoes, covering with foil, and throwing it in my toaster oven for a bit to melt the cheese. When the greens were done, I took it out, opened the foil, flipped it onto a plate, and peeled the foil away.
It was quick, easy, and quite delicious paired with the collard greens. I think kidlets making mashed tater mountains have the right idea!
Earlier this week, The Kitchn delighted us by calling Slashfood "the center of all things bacon." In an effort to live up to this title, we bring you The Bacon Explosion (it works best if you imagine a wrestling announcer saying those words in a booming, echo-y fashion).
What is The Bacon Explosion, you ask? It is a creation of Jason at BBQ Addicts and it is a roll of barbecue flavored pork sausage, filled with crispy bacon bits and surrounded by a tightly woven bacon mat. This roll of porky goodness is then smoked and glazed with a sweet sauce. To serve, it gets sliced in rounds and presented (ideally) between two halves of a flaky biscuit.
To see the step-by-step process of how to make your own Bacon Explosion, click here.
This recipe, it's the one I've always loved. Nothing comes close to the delicious simplicity of sausage and bread stuffing, and this one has become a favorite of family and friends. I'll include the recipe as-is, and offer a list of suggestions on how to twist it below.
Bread stuffing for a 5 lb bird: Note: This is all a matter of taste. You can go for the exact amount that matches your bird's weight, or make by sight -- preparing the bread first makes it easier to determine.
Ingredients:
1 lb First Prize Sausage -- pick any good and flavorful sausage 1/2 cup minced onions 1/2 cup minced celery 1/4 cup minced parsley 10 slices of bread cubed 1 1/2 tsp Bell's seasoning 1 beaten egg
Saute sausage until crispy, drain, then rinse with water. (I usually leave out the rinse.)
Saute the onions and celery, then mix with the sausage and add Bell's.
Mix together the parsley and bread, add the saute mix, then the egg.
Squeeze and mix the stuffing with your hands until it sticks together. If it looks too dry, add some broth or water.
Cover and refrigerate until ready to stuff turkey.
Now, to spice things up:
add a variety of mushrooms to the mix
use a mix of sausages -- Mennonite, elk, etc.
use a gourmet bread and approximate the same amount
Sometimes you've just got to be crafty. I'm having a bit of a packed freezer crisis right now, and have no room for the increasingly stale flagels and bagels I bought last week. I wanted sausage, but not a sandwich. Thus Bangers and Flagels was born.
Think panzanella of the bangers and mash variety. Feeling too lazy to mash potatoes, I left that off and simply fried up a sausage, then some onions and mushrooms. (While I toasted up flagel chunks in the toaster oven.) When the mushrooms and onions were cooked to my liking, I sprinkled in some flour, mixed everything well, then poured in about a half a bottle of beer and some flavoring (like mustard). As the impromptu gravy began to thicken, I tossed in the flagels and let it all sit for a few minutes.
The beer can be subbed with the wine, booze, or liquid of your choice -- just keep in mind that the flavor remains in this dish, so don't cook with something you're only looking to get rid of.
Take a good look at this reproduction of the Mona Lisa. Don't worry, you're eyes aren't playing tricks on you. Those are slices of various sausages and luncheon meats in the background. In fact, the whole painting is made of meat. It was part of a show put on by six Russian artists to celebrate the 100th birthday of Tavr a meat processor located in southern Russia.
The artists spent three days fashioning the meaty museum of classic paintings, which also includes reproductions of Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers and Pablo Picasso's Girl on a Ball. They used 40 pounds of meat to create these canvasses fit for a carnivore. Visitors to the show were offered fresh Tavr sausages.
What's it like for artists to work with meat? Well, Aleksandr Solomko likes ham as a medium because it's soft and flexible. "The biggest trouble was to stick the sausages to the canvas. Gelatin turned out to be the best solution. It's perfectly natural and doesn't affect the taste. However, we had to rework some parts of the picture, when it started to darken after the meat spent some time in the air."
Tonight is just one of those nights I want to dig into a big bowl of this soup. When you're tired and need a comforting soup dish, this is the one to turn to. With just several ingredients and minimal chopping, I can promise you that you will be slurping this down in under 30 minutes. What's even better than eating something comforting and producing it fast? Eating something comforting and knowing that it's not bad for you. Enjoy!
I am powerless to the allure of potatoes. I adore a good link of sausage. And heck, there's nothing I'd rather do after a long week than head to a great beer joint and have my favorite oak-aged beer, Innis & Gunn.
So why haven't I ever ordered bangers and mash before? Beats me! The other night, while drowning myself in I&G, and Carolus, I had a taste of my friend's bangers and mash. It was eyes-rolling-into-the-head awesome. But it wasn't a warm mixture of flavors. Rather, they all blended perfectly together as if there's a sausage animal walking around with gravy sweat, onion hair, and potatoes inside.
Of course, I had to have a meal of my own, so last night I hunted down a tasty-looking recipe at Channel4.com. Too lazy to measure anything out, I followed the recipe loosely and came up with the great plate of goodness above. It had a much more distinct flavor than my first introduction, but it was still darned good (even without the required apples) -- the red wine flavor mixing into the bite of the sausage, onions, and potatoes.
Obviously, there are a million different ways you can prepare this dish, so share your techniques below!
I'm posting images of sausage counters the world over each weeknight (and occasionally weekend) witching hour until I run out. Please use the comments section to post links to your Flickr or personal site faves, and perhaps you'll see 'em posted here late some evening.
Take a good look at this reproduction of the Mona Lisa. Don't worry, you're eyes aren't playing tricks on you. Those are slices of various sausages and luncheon meats in the background. In fact, the whole painting is made of meat. It was part of a show put on by six Russian artists to celebrate the 100th birthday of Tavr a meat processor located in southern Russia.
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