Pork and Sauerkraut for New Year

[Kibbee Nayee]

Having grown up in the heart of Pennsylvania, and notwithstanding my Middle Eastern ethnicity, I picked up the habit of preparing pork and sauerkraut dishes for good luck in the New Year. I have to admit, I've enjoyed many good years and many bad years, so the pork and sauerkraut doesn't really guarantee anything relating to the coming year....but then, you already knew that.

Tomorrow will be the same, with a very slow roasted pork shoulder - a riff on a Jamie Oliver lamb shoulder recipe I've used - married up with German sauerkraut that I scored in Lancaster last week.

(Aside - in addition to Lancaster's awesome collection of family-owned and -operated super groceries, along with insanely low prices and incredibly high quality, you can actually find foodstuffs you're not likely to see anywhere else. Before me in the produce section, in both large and small tubs prepared and packed on premises, were German, Polish and Country sauerkraut, all three, count 'em!)

In addition to the pork shoulder and its accompanying kraut, my slow cooker will be preparing a choucroute knockoff of bratwurst, knockwurst and kielbasa, all from Springfield Butcher, with accompanying Boar's Head sauerkraut. I like to provide variety when it comes to pork and sauerkraut.

Accompanying both dishes will be my signature mashed potatoes that are boiled in broth....very flavorful. Oh, and plenty of craft beer.

However, like turkey and stuffing, pork and sauerkraut is a dish that should be served often throughout the year, and not just saved for special occasions.

[DonRocks]

My mom was notorious for serving sauerkraut with Sunday dinner, with pork chops, with knockwurst, with most anything she cooked (she's half Croat who grew up on a farm in western Maryland). I developed a taste for it early on, and love it - the sourness is a natural palate cleanser, as well as being tasty in its own right.

Ironically, I recently had it at one of my favorite new restaurants, and it's the only dish I had there that hasn't absolutely bowled me over.

[thistle]

My family gave me a jar of Momofuku marinade for Xmas, so I'm making the recipe on the jar-pork w/ carrots, shallots, daikon (I added mushrooms) cooked in a clay pot. I had to chuck the sauerkraut in my frig the other day because it was expired (I know it's fermented, but it was REALLY expired). Tomorrow, we'll be having leftovers, collards & blackeyed peas. I hope everyone is looking forward to a wonderful new year- 2014, here we come!

[Kibbee Nayee]

For anyone interested, here are 20 New Year's traditions from around the world....

http://www.thedailymeal.com/20-new-year-s-food-and-drink-traditions-around-world-slideshow

Cheers!

[MC Horoscope]

Marinated pork shoulder with rice and gravy and black eyed peas and cole slaw (thinly sliced cabbage just salted and peppered and sprayed with vinegar, c'est tout!). A Cajun New Year's day!

[dcandohio]

I am making jambalaya with pork sausage and an oil and vinegar slaw.

[Pat]

Tonight will be:

Smoked trout crostini

Marinated black-eyed pea salad

Sous vide pork loin chops

Sauteed sherried prunes and apples

Braised garlicky mixed greens

Buttered Carolina Gold rice grits

 

There's cabbage in the salad, but I haven't eaten sauerkraut in quite a long time because of the high sodium content.  I used to like pork with sauerkraut, though.

[zoramargolis]

I haven't eaten sauerkraut in quite a long time because of the high sodium content.  I used to like pork with sauerkraut, though.

Soak the sauerkraut for a few hours in several changes of water. That gets rid of most of the salt (and a fair amount of flavor, unfortunately). Then the kraut can be braised with sauteed onions and white wine, and bay leaf, thyme, parsley, juniper berries, caraway seeds--however you like it. It's delicious, and quite different than sauerkraut straight out of the bag or jar.

[lperry]

It's cold, and I'm working through my annual New Year's closet purge, so dinner will be a simple pasta e fagioli with some Tuscan kale in there for the requisite greens.  We were out last night with friends, so we will have the champagne I bought tonight.

Happy New Year, everyone!

[deangold]

We had our usual Dim Sum before coming into work.  

[The Hersch]

A classic central European pork and sauerkraut dish, Szegediner Gulasch (German) or Székely Gulyas (Hungarian), a stew of pork, onions, sauerkraut, paprika, and caraway, typically served in a soup plate, as here, with boiled potatoes and sour cream. This was dinner a little while ago.

A very tasty dish, especially considering the level of effort required. Unlike most "regular" goulash recipes, the recipes for this tend to call for browning the meat, but once you've done that, you throw the rest of the ingredients (except the potatoes and sour cream) into the pan and stick it in the oven for an hour and a half (I did this at 300F), and maybe stir it a couple of times. (I oversimplify only slightly.) I used Bubbie's sauerkraut, which is the best I've ever found in American markets, and a very fatty piece of pork shoulder. Pork fat and sauerkraut have an uncanny affinity for each other.

[Choirgirl21]

Polish here! New Year's Day is usually the one day of the year that I make peirogies from scratch (some stuffed with potato and onion, the others with sauerkraut) and those get served with some sort of pork and sauerkraut or bigos (a traditional hunter's stew). This year I was really lazy and just heated up some sauerkraut with turkey kielbasa from Trader Joe's. Shameful, but I didn't have time to get over to the polish market since I had just gotten back into town and had also entertained the night before.

[ktmoomau]

Another Western Marylander who always ate pork and sauerkraut, but my family was Southern too, so we also always had to have greens and black eyed peas with the meal too.  This year I didn't.  We will see what happens.