Columbus Foodie

When I first met my husband, over a dozen years ago - I couldn’t stand sauerkraut. What kind of German was I? I mean, if he rinsed it a lot, stuck some apples and sweet stuff in there, I could tolerate it. But I didn’t like it. But he loved it so much, that he made it all the time. Over the years, he weaned me onto the stronger stuff. Now? I can’t get enough sauerkraut. I’ve had it in one form or another almost every day this week. Full strength. And I’m loving every second of it. But when I think of my husband, and the love we have for each other, pork and sauerkraut is the tie that binds. It’s the one dish that we’ve continued to make throughout our relationship. And now? It’s a tradition. I’m submitting this to be part of the Cooking with Love blogging event.

Pork and Sauerkraut

Whole pork loin (about 7 lbs)
6 lbs. sauerkraut

Preheat oven to 250F. In a huge Dutch oven (or covered roasting pan), place one whole pork loin (about 7 lbs - cut into smaller roasts if necessary to fit) and cover with 6 lbs. of sauerkraut. Cook for 10-12 hours (don’t peek!). Break apart roast into smaller chunks and serve with sauerkraut.

Any previous attempts at making Indian or Indian inspired food on my part have failed miserably for one reason or another - too much garam masala, wrong spice balance, etc - the final result ended up just not being very good. This Indian-inspired Cooking Light recipe is an exception - it’s very subtle, but it’s *good*. You honestly can’t tell this is a light dish. I served it with some jasmine rice and roti paratha. I’m submitting this recipe to this week’s Bookmarked Recipes event.

Indian Cashew Chicken
recipe courtesy Cooking Light

2/3 cup cashews, toasted
2/3 cup fat-free Greek-style yogurt
1/4 cup tomato paste
2 tablespoons white vinegar
1 1/4 teaspoons garam masala
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon grated peeled fresh ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper
2 garlic cloves, chopped
4 skinless, boneless chicken thighs, cut into bite-sized pieces (about 14 ounces)
2 (8-ounce) skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
Cooking spray
2 3/4 cups finely chopped onion (2 large)
2 green cardamom pods, lightly crushed
1 (2-inch) cinnamon stick
2 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1 cup organic tomato puree (such as Muir Glen Organic)
1 teaspoon Hungarian sweet paprika
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons half-and-half
Chopped fresh cilantro (optional)

1. Combine first 9 ingredients in a blender or food processor; process until smooth. Combine nut mixture and chicken in a large bowl; cover and refrigerate 3 hours or overnight.

2. Heat a large Dutch oven over medium-low heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add onion, cardamom, and cinnamon stick to pan; cover and cook 10 minutes or until onion is golden, stirring often.

3. Add chicken mixture to pan; cook 10 minutes, stirring frequently. Stir in broth, tomato puree, paprika, and salt, scraping pan to loosen browned bits. Cook 1 hour or until thick. Stir in half-and-half; cook 1 minute, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat. Discard cinnamon stick. Garnish with fresh cilantro, if desired.

Yield: 6 servings (serving size: about 1 cup)

CALORIES 340 (36% from fat); FAT 13.6g (sat 3.4g,mono 5.8g,poly 2.6g); IRON 3.2mg; CHOLESTEROL 91mg; CALCIUM 83mg; CARBOHYDRATE 18.7g; SODIUM 435mg; PROTEIN 36.7g; FIBER 3.8g

Cooking Light, OCTOBER 2008

I absolutely love sauerbraten, but definitely don’t love the 5 days total that my usual recipe takes to make. I was looking for a recipe that could be made overnight (or same day) since we had a German theme to one of our recent Sunday family dinners. This one fit the bill quite nicely. Other than subtle nuances (and I mean really subtle) in regards to the texture and flavor of the meat, it tasted nearly identical. This one is definitely easier, and equally as satisfying so I may be replacing my usual recipe with this one. Joe made a batch of spaetzle that paired perfectly. I’m submitting this recipe to Joelen’s Wine and Dine: Oktoberfest blogging event.

Sauerbraten
recipe adapted from A Taste of Ohio History: A Guide to Historic Eateries and Their Recipes (Taste of History) by Debbie Nunley and Karen Jane Elliott

3 to 4 lb. chuck roast
1 large coarsely chopped onion
3/4 c. chunked celery
3/4 c. chunked carrots
1/2 c. vinegar
1 c. red wine
1 c. water
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. crushed gingersnaps
1 tbsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/2 tbsp. allspice
1 bay leaf
1/2 to 1 c. sour cream, as desired

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place chuck roast in a Dutch oven. Put all remaining ingredients except sour cream in roaster with the roast. Cook 2 to 3 hours until roast is tender. Remove from the oven. Take roast and vegetables out of broth. Stir sour cream into broth. If mixture is too thin, stir in additional crushed gingersnaps to thicken to a gravy consistency. Slice roast. Serve on a large platter with vegetables. Drizzle gravy over top; serve remaining gravy in a gravy boat. Serves 8 to 10.

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Joe’s Spaetzle
recipe courtesy Joe Hyduk

3 c. flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
2 eggs
1/2 c. hot water
3 tbsp. beef base (optional)
1 tsp. salt
1/2 stick butter
1 onion, chopped

Mix flour, baking powder, and salt in stainless steel bowl. Scramble eggs and add to mixture. Mix beef base with water and pour into bowl. Mix until you have a firm but loose dough. Add water or flour to make mixture right.

Boil 4 quarts of salted water (rapid boil). Add dough by the scant teaspoon into water. Once it floats wait 3 minutes more and then remove from water. Cool.

In a skillet melt butter, add onions and spaetzles; brown to a delicate crunch. Serve warm.

Unlike a lot of folks in Columbus (who are still without electric and have lost entire freezers worth of food), I still have a very full freezer (I would have been so up a creek without a paddle if my electric had gone out). I’ve been trying to plan meals around the stuff in my freezer and pantries. Let me tell you, I’m counting my blessings and seeing the windstorm as a wakeup call - eat out of my stores at all cost, because I have just too much stuff that’s completely perishable in the case of power loss (plus, I’d like to make ice cream - it would help if I actually had enough room in my freezer to do so!)

This lamb shoulder came from the lamb Paul and my mother butchered at the Meet Your Meat workshop we did at 2Silos back in June. Pieces of cut up lamb quarter have been in the freezer since then, and this was the first cut we used. Yummy, even though we butchered the butchering a bit, so to speak. Ras el hanout is one of my favorite spice blends, and it works wonderfully in this dish - it’s both spicy and sweet at the same time. Not spicy in a hot kind of way, either. Just a nice combination that really stood out. I wasn’t crazy about the boxed Armenian rice we served with it, next time around, I’ll make some lentil rice or couscous from scratch to accompany it. I’m submitting this as part of the Deep Freeze Summer Challenge 2 blogging event hosted by Mele Cotte.

Mrouziya (Honey Spiced Lamb)
recipe courtesy Mimi’s Cyber Kitchen

4 lbs. lamb shoulder, cut into large chunks
3 tbsp. ras el hanout
2 to 3 cups water
1/2 c. vegetable oil
2 tbsp. smen (aged butter) - or substitute 1 tbsp. olive oil and 1 tbsp. butter
1/2 c. honey
3/4 c. raisins, plumped in warm water and drained
1 c. (5 oz) whole blanched almonds, toasted
Hobz Belboula or other crusty bread for serving

Preheat the oven to 325F. With your hands, thoroughly coat the meat with ras el hanout. Set the meat in a heavy cast-iron pan or an enameled casserole with a heavy lid. Add the water, the oil, smen, and honey. Cover tightly. Bake until the meat falls off the bones, 3 to 4 hours.
With a slotted spoon, transfer the meat to an ovenproof dish and keep warm. Skim the fat from the sauce. Place the casserole over medium-high heat and add the raisins. Cook, stirring, until the sauce attains the consistency of maple syrup, 10 to 12 minutes. Return the meat to the sauce. Stir to coat and heat through.

Transfer meat to a shallow platter and garnish with the toasted almonds. Serve with extra sauce on the side, and warm bread.

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I used a store-bought jar of ras el hanout, but if it’s not something that’s readily available in your area, you can also make it from ingredients you probably already have at home. Here’s a recipe for the spice blend, also found at Mimi’s Cyber Kitchen:

Ras el hanout (Moroccan spice blend)

“There must be as many recipes for ras el hanout as there are spice vendors in Morocco. The name itself, which translates as “top (or head) of the shop,” refers to the best combination of spices the seller can provide. Si Brahim, our spice vendor in Azemmour, incorporates thirty-four spices, dried roots, so-called aphrodisiacs, and other mysterious and unusual items. I prefer to use Naima Lakhmar’s more easily prepared, less elaborate recipe. She toasts all her ras el hanout ingredients before grinding. You can usually find blade mace, dried ginger root, and dried turmeric root in Middle Eastern markets.”

Makes about 1/4 cup

1 teaspoon allspice berries or 1-1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1 whole nutmeg or 2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
20 threads Spanish saffron
2 teaspoons black peppercorns or 1-1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper
1-1/2 teaspoons blade mace* or ground mace
1 three-inch cinnamon stick or 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons cardamom seeds or 1-1/2 teaspoons ground cardamom
2 two-inch pieced dried ginger or 2 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons salt
1 two-inch piece dried turmeric or 1 teaspoon ground

If using whole spices, put all the ingredients in a nonstick pan over medium-high heat and toast, stirring constantly, until the mixture emits a pleasant aroma, 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool. (This first step is not necessary if using commercially ground spices.) Using a mortar and pestle or a spice grinder, reduce the ingredients to a fine powder. Sift to remove fibrous elements. Place in a tightly sealed container and store in a cool, dark place, or in the freezer.

*Blade mace, also called mace blades, is the lacy, scarlet aril covering the nutmeg. It turns light brown as it dries. It is better know in its powdered form as ground mace.

My mother passed along some of my Oma’s recipes, and although I can translate them in bits and pieces, I’m having a bit of trouble with some of the words. I’d love to be able to make some of her dishes, so if anyone can help out, I’d be truly appreciative.

I’ve consolidated all of the handwritten recipes into a downloadable PDF file which is right here. Thank you, everyone, ahead of time, for whatever help you can provide.

But before I get to the mains, let me just give you a peek at the finished meze platter. Isn’t it pretty?

So anyway - the main dishes. I was planning on making stuffed eggplant anyway, and I knew I wanted to stuff SOMETHING into those beautiful miniature sweet peppers that Mrs. Rhoads gave us to try last weekend, so I ended up stuffing the meat mixture for the eggplant into the peppers as well. It actually went better with the peppers than it did with the eggplant! We call these “stuffed pepper poppers”. All the flavor of a stuffed pepper in one bite. Here’s a view of them before they went into the toaster oven:

We baked them at 375 for 30 minutes with a little bit of water in the bottom of the dish and they came out perfectly. But not to be outdone, we also did the typical Turkish presentation, which is in a hollowed out eggplant. We served both with manestra minus the meat. Tasty, but it really needed the saucy side dish.

Stuffed Eggplant (Patlican Karniyarik)
adapted from Recipe Hound

4-5 smaller sized eggplant (like graffiti or Italian, or smallish conventional)
1 lb. ground beef
1 lb. ground lamb
1/2 c. tomato paste
2 medium or one very large onion, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
Pinch of mint
Dash of ras el hanout
1/2 stick butter
2 tbsp. freshly chopped parsley
2 plum tomatoes, sliced into thin rings.

Peel the skin of the eggplant in stripes. Cut in half lengthwise and scoop out the flesh without breaking the skin. The eggplant halves should look like 2 boats.

Brush eggplants with olive oil, and grill eggplants on all sides until lightly browned. Place in a roasting pan, hollow sides up.

Preheat a 375F oven. Melt the butter or margarine in a separate pan and cook the meat, onion, parsley, tomato paste and seasonings together. When cooked, fill the eggplant shells with the meat mixture and place a few tomato rings on each one. Pour 2-3 cups water into the roasting pan, and cook in the oven for 30-45 minutes, or until the eggplants are cooked.

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In addition, we also grilled some kebabs - kofte (which wouldn’t stay on the skewer so I ended up forming into patties and putting in the fish basket), made from a spicy meat mix from the Mediterranean supermarket, and some shish kebab, in which I cut a chuck roast into cubes and seasoned it with shish kebab seasoning. Both went over the grill and came out looking lovely. Here’s the shish kebab immediately after coming off the grill:

And here’s both once they were removed from the skewer/basket and put on a platter:

So not bad for a first try. As they say, practice makes perfect!

To continue on from my meze post from yesterday, here’s the last couple I made, which required overnight chilling to blend the flavors before they could be served.

Ezme reminds me of nothing else but salsa - I think the only difference is that this recipe uses parsley instead of cilantro. But is indoubtedly tasty with kebabs, which is the way it is typically used. It is very fresh tasting, especially if you’re using tomatoes just picked from your garden.

Turkish Style Tomato Dip (Acili Ezme)
recipe from Binnur’s Turkish Cookbook

3 tomatoes, discard the seeds, very finely chopped
1/2 red or white onion, very finely chopped
1 c. parsley, very finely chopped
2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp. pomegranate paste or Grenandine syrup (I used pomegranate molasses)
2-3 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. cayenne pepper, crushed
1 tsp. sumac
Salt

Crush the onion with sumac and salt with your hands. Mix all the ingredients in a service bowl. Put aside for at least an hour (tastes better this way), then serve with any kind of Kebab.

Sumac comes from the berries of a wild bush which grows in the Mediterranean. The berries are dried and crushed to form purple-red powder. The flavor is sour and fruity. It’s mostly used with Kebabs, preferred to lemon for sourness.

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And the last meze we made was haydari, which reminds of Greek tzatziki, but with the addition of sumac and walnuts, which give it a nice tang and texture, respectively. Will also taste nice with kebabs later on….

Haydari (Cucumber Dip)
recipe adapted from WTTW 11

2 cups Greek yogurt
3 cloves pressed garlic
1 large cucumber, grated and drained
1/4 c. dill, chopped
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. granulated sugar
1/4 c. chopped walnuts

Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl until thoroughly blended. Allow to chill overnight. Garnish with sumac and serve.

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Later on this afternoon, I’ll be making the mains. Keep an eye out to see what I come up with.

I’ve been on a real kick for Middle Eastern/Mediterranean food recently, with Turkish, Moroccan and Greek food being at the top of that list. Earlier this week, when out shopping at Trader Joe’s, we stopped at Cafe Istanbul at Easton for dinner, and one of the things we enjoyed for dinner was their Appetizer Sampler, which we absolutely loved.

The Appetizer Sampler comes with a bunch of different cold salads, and I decided to try my hand at reproducing them at home. Some came very close, others not so much. But everything we made was extremely delicious and hit the spot.

Small bites in Turkey are called “meze”, and they are the equivalent of Spanish tapas or French Hors D’Ouevres. Here are the ones we tried to make at home.

First, my personal favorite, the Kisir, which is Turkish tabbouleh. Whereas most tabbouleh I’ve had has been extremely heavy on the parsley, this is the exact opposite - while parsley is in there (and a cup of parsley at that!) it’s an afterthought and not the star of the party. The flavor of this salad is complex - lots of different flavors working together here, and an incredible mouth feel. The fine bulghur wheat used in this salad reminded me of couscous, although they are two different things entirely. I was able to find the more obscure ingredients for this (the fine bulghur wheat, pepper paste, tahini, etc) at various Mediterranean supermarkets in town, namely two that are located in the Bethel Center Mall (same place that Cafe Istanbul’s other location, Cafe Shish Kebab, is located). My husband thought the addition of the hot pepper paste made it too spicy - I’m a spice wimp and thought that it was just right. If you don’t like any kind of heat in your salad, then substitute a third tablespoon of the mild pepper paste for the hot.

Turkish Kisir
recipe adapted from InterFaith Cultural Organization

2 c. fine bulghur wheat
2 c. boiling water
2 medium tomatoes, seeded
1 large onion
2 green peppers
6-7 green onions
1 cucumber
2 cloves minced garlic
1 cup loosely packed parsley
8-10 fresh mint leaves
2 tbsp. mild pepper paste
1 tbsp. hot pepper paste
3 tbsp. tomato paste
1 tsp. sun-dried tomato paste
3/4 c. olive oil
1/2 c. lemon juice
2 tbsp. tahini
1/4 c. pine nuts
1 tsp. black pepper
2 tsp. salt (plus more to taste)
1 tsp. cumin powder
Dash allspice

Chop the onion, green onions, and garlic finely. Set them aside. Chop the green peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes into tiny cubes and set aside. In a small food processor, process the parsley, mint and pinenuts until finely minced. Set aside.

Pour 2 cups of hot water on bulghur and cover it so that the bulghur soaks up the water and softens it. After 10-15 minutes (when water is completely absorbed), fluff the grain with a fork and add the pepper pastes, tomato pastes, tahini and all other spices and stir until evenly dissipated throughout the grain. Add the onions, herb/pine nut mixture, and the vegetables and mix well. Add the lemon juice and olive oil and stir. Chill before serving - the longer you wait before serving it (and the more time it has to blend the flavors), the better it is.

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My second favorite appetizer, the Yaprak Dolmasi, was definitely one of the more time-consuming recipes. Cafe Istanbul’s version is just out and out awesome (this coming from someone who usually hates vegetarian stuffed grape leaves), and the version of the recipe I got at Cafe Fernando is similar, but not quite the same. I modified that recipe a bit to add a little more sugar, olive oil, and pomegranate molasses, which gave it a sweetness that was similar to Cafe Istanbul’s. These definitely improve with age. What was just good last night is addictive today. But now I see why they charge so much for so few at these at Cafe Istanbul (they charge $6.25 for 4 of them). This makes way more than we needed - easily a good quantity for parties.

Yaprak Dolmasi (Stuffed Vine Leaves)
adapted from Cafe Fernando

1 large (1 lb. net) jar vine leaves in brine, washed with warm water and drained
4 medium onions, diced
2 c. medium grain rice, washed under cold water and drained
1 c. flat leaf parsley, chopped finely
3/4 c. olive oil
1/3 c. pine nuts
1/4 c. dried currants
2 tbsp. pomegranate molasses
1 tbsp. dried mint flakes
1 tsp. allspice
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/8 c. graunlated sugar
2 tbsp lemon salt
juice of half a lemon

Dice the onions and saute with 1/2 c. of the olive oil. When they turn translucent, add the pine nuts and saute for 5 more minutes. Add the rice and stir constantly for 5-10 minutes until the rice is translucent. Add the spices (mint, cinnamon, lemon salt, black pepper, dried currants, sugar, molasses and allspice) and chopped parsley. After another quick stir, add 1/2 c. of boiling water and simmer on low medium heat for 15-20 minutes (ours took far less time) until all the liquid is absorbed by the rice mixture. Take off heat and let cool.

Place a single grape leaf (top pointing away from you, veins facing you) on a cutting board and add about 1 tbsp. rice mixture (for bigger leaves, use more - for smaller, use less). Bring the bottom up over the rice, fold the sides inward and then roll the leaf like a cylinder. Repeat until all rice mixture is used. Set aside any torn leaves for later. When you’re done rolling, take the torn leaves and line the bottom of a Dutch oven (like a Le Creuset) to keep the stuffed leaves from burning. Place the rolled leaves in the pot, as close together as possible, making a second layer if needed. Cover with the remaining 1/4 c. olive oil, juice of half a lemon, and 2 cups water, and then invert a heat safe plate over the rolls to keep them weighted down. Bring the water to a boil, and then reduce the heat to medium low and simmer until all the water is absorbed (45-60 minutes). These are typically served cold, so chill before serving.

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I love the flavor of Cafe Istanbul’s Patlican Salatasi (Babaganoush), but not the texture of it - it’s still kind of stringy which I didn’t like. So I went off on my own tangent with this one, using the original as inspiration. I adapted the recipe from Grand Circle Travel, but added some tahini to it. I enjoyed this version more than Cafe Istanbul’s - it has a nice creaminess and tanginess to it.

The hummus is pretty textbook - much like my usual, but I used a different recipe this time. Not one worth repeating as I prefer my own recipe, which I’ll blog about some other time.

Patlican Salatasi (Roasted Eggplant Salad)
recipe adapted from Grand Circle Travel

1 large eggplant
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 medium tomato, seeded and diced
1 tbsp. olive oil
2 tbsp. plain yogurt
2 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. tahini
2 tbsp. feta cheese, crumbled
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350. Slice eggplant in half lengthwise and place, face down, on lightly oiled baking sheet. Bake for 30-45 minutes, or until skin is charred.

Allow eggplant to cool slightly. Use spoon to remove pulp from each half, scooping into food processor. Discard skin. Pulse eggplant until it is finely chopped, but not so much that it is pureed. You want it to still have some texture, but not be stringy at all.

Transfer into medium sized bowl, and then add remaining ingredients to bowl. Mix well. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

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More meze tomorrow….

If there’s one recipe that brings me right back to my childhood, standing on a stool in the kitchen looking over my Oma’s shoulder, this is it. This is a dish I remember fondly, and it was one of my favorites - so much so that my Oma would have to watch me like a hawk lest I pilfer away the dumplings by eating them raw. The concept of Markklosschen (Bone Marrow Dumplings) sounds strange to most in this day and age, but it takes the best part of the cow, where all of the flavor is at, and condenses it into meatball size. I had to try to find the recipe from memory, and had a bit of difficulty (trial and error, I’ll need to keep working on it) - the fleisch bruhe (meat consomme) and fladle (egg pancake noodles) came out exactly how I remembered, but the dumpling recipe I used ended up much tougher than I remembered. If you try to replicate the dish, use this recipe for the Markklosschen instead - it sounds much closer to my grandmothers recipe than the one I used. It’s a two day process - you make the consomme on the first day and allow it to chill overnight (this lets the fat rise and harden on the surface, so you can skim it off). You make the rest of the components on the day you’re making it. It is very time consuming, but well worth making. There’s enough consomme from this recipe that you can use half for the soup and freeze the other half.

The first day is all about making the consomme - you want to get a pair of huge marrow bones (they look like this and are available at Bluescreek in the North Market for a reasonable price) and about 9 lbs. of cross-cut shanks/soup beef (I got mine through Flying J Farms at the Clintonville Farmer’s Market, with a few pounds of supplemental ones that I got on discount at Giant Eagle). Harvest all of the soft marrow from the marrow bones (if you meet resistance, leave it be) and set aside. Leave the marrow in the cross-cut shanks intact, and then proceed with the recipe from here.

Fleischbruhe (Meat Broth)
recipe source unknown - found here

9 lb Bones and meat scraps; from beef, pork and/or veal (I used all beef)
8 qt Water
2 md Onions; char-burned (not sure what that is - just used regular onions)
2 ea Parsely roots; quartered (I omitted this)
4 md Carrots; quartered
4 ea Celery stalks w/leaves; cut in chunks
2 ea Leeks; trimmed, cut in chunks
18 ea Peppercorns, black
4 ea Cloves, whole
1 ea Bay leaf
2 tb Salt

Preheat oven to 375F. Place bones and meat in large roasting pan - roast
until browned (took about an hour). Place water, roasted bones and meat in large stockpot.

Cover, bring to a boil - skim foam from surface until clear. Reduce heat - cook, uncovered, 1 hour. Add remaining ingredients, recover - simmer 3 hours.

Strain broth, discarding meat scraps, bones and cooked vegetables. Cool, pour into quart or pint containers with tight lids. Refrigerate, lift fat with fork and discard. Refrigerate 2 days or freeze 3 months. Bring broth to a full boil before using. (Important: Salt and pepper to taste!)

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My grandmother used to not discard the leftover meat (she was a frugal woman), and instead (according to my mother) would serve it with boiled potatoes and creamed cabbage. Paul wasn’t too crazy for that idea so I ate what meat I could as a protein snack and gave the rest to the dogs for a treat.

Either way, after chilling overnight, the recipe produces a very flavorful consomme that gels beautifully. Just look at this wiggle:

I prepared the markklosschen early in the afternoon (again, don’t use the recipe I used - use the one I linked to above) and then rolled them out into small balls in preparation for putting them into the soup. I put them in the fridge after they were rolled out.

As I was heating up the consomme (I used about a gallon or so) on the stovetop, I started the batter for the fladle. After mixing it up, it should be a little thicker than crepe batter.

Fladle
recipe courtesy Recipe Cottage

200 g flour (1 3/4 cups)
2 eggs
1/4 l milk (1 cup plus 1 Tbsp)
1 pinch salt
Fat for frying

Mix the flour and milk, then add the eggs, and season with salt.
In a skillet, melt a little fat over medium heat. As soon as the
fat is hot, hold the skillet at a slight angle and pour in the
batter in such a manner that the whole bottom of the skillet is
covered with a thin layer. As soon as the bottom of the pancake
develops yellow spots, carefully loosen the edges with an egg
turner, then flip the pancake to cook the other side. Once the
‘Flaedle’ is done, set it aside for cooling.

If the ‘Flaedle’ is to be used in ‘Flaedle’-soup, roll it up and
cut it into very thin slices. Put into hot broth, and adjust
seasoning to taste, with nutmeg, chopped parsley or chives, etc.

(BTW, if you sweeten the batter with some sugar, and add some sliced apples, you have apfelpfankuchen (apple pancakes), another one of my favorites.)

By now, the consomme should be boiling - put in the markklosschen and turn down the heat to touch. Cook them until they float to the top and are tender inside. Think of them as compact matzoh balls and go for the same (but just a tad denser) consistency.

After frying the fladle in oil until gold-light brown, you want to cool them down and then roll them up and slice them thinly. You’ll end up with a big batch of “egg noodles”

To finish the soup, toss the sliced fladle into the consomme with the markklosschen. Ladle into bowls and serve.

Not a perfect rendition of Oma’s dish, but damn close. I’ll keep working on it. When I was talking to my mother on the phone today, she told me she found some of Oma’s handwritten recipes (in German) that she’s going to scan in and send to me to see if I can decipher them. I can’t wait! Wish me luck…

My contribution to this week’s Frugal Fridays event is a go-to recipe for us - extremely comforting, filling, and best of all, cheap to prepare. I grew up in South Jersey, in an area which had a very large Puerto Rican population, so I learned how to cook Puerto Rican food from my friends and their parents. This is an old standby for many families there.

Chuletas are so simple to make. Since the pork chops are so thin, they cook quickly - be careful not to overcook them, as they will dry out. Season liberally with Goya Sazon and Adobo, and fry in oil until browned. Serve with rice and beans.

Here’s the breakdown of the cost of making this meal:
Chuletas (thin pork chops) - 2 lbs. at .99/lb on sale = $1.98)
Vigo Yellow Rice = $1.89
Can of Goya Beans with Sauce = $2.39
Seasoning and Oil= .25

Total cost= $6.51

For an extra buck or two, you could buy ripe plantains and make maduros as well. It’s entirely up to you, though - as this meal is well-rounded and easy to prepare as is.