Beer-braised sausage and kale

This is an odd take on gruenkohl und pinkel that I made even odder by making a few poor choices interpreting ambiguities in the recipe. I do think it has promise though, so I'm going to post about it anyway.

To back up a step, what's gruenkohl and pinkel? Well, it's beer-braised sausage and kale--Didn't you read the subject line?--and the name is pretty much the recipe, although I understand you can optionally add a slice of ham. It's a northern Germany thing and sounds appealing enough that I would have made it just like that if I didn't have a blog to fill up.

The unusual version I attempted comes from Dave Copeland, Salon.com's food writer, who has added some possibly ill-advised Italian elements which I've de-emphasized in my version.

Ingredients:
1/2 pound raw sausage, German or Polish would be best, but use your judgment, casing removed
1 medium white onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound kale, washed, de-ribbed and torn or cut into largish pieces
12 ounces dark beer
1 pound dried pasta [I used fresh which maybe could have worked if it wasn't my falling-apart spinach pasta], something thick and chewy would probably be best.
1 Tablespoon mustard [I used prepared mustard, but I see now that the recipe just says "mustard". A full Tablespoon of dried mustard is a whole lot, isn't it? I think he means prepared mustard. But not the strong yellow sort I used. Something more mellow would be best.]
salt and pepper
1 cup grated Parmesan [The combination of Parmesan and dark beer does sort of work but I'm not at all convinced it's the best choice for the job. Most beer/cheese recipes that I've found use cheddar, but not many use dark beer. Still probably a better bet than Parmesan. I could see blue cheese and dark beer, too, maybe.]

1. Heat a little oil in a Dutch oven or large pot over medium high heat and brown sausage, breaking it up. Remove to a bowl.

2. Add onions to pot and sauté until softened, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook briefly until aromatic, then add kale. Toss kale to get it all somewhat wilted. When there's enough room in the pot, return the sausage and add the beer. Bring to a boil, turn heat to medium low, cover and cook until kale is tender, 15-20 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, cook your pasta to al dente.

4. When kale is cooked, stir in salt, pepper and mustard. Add the cheese. When the cheese has melted into the beer, add the pasta and simmer until finished cooking, 1-2 minutes.

Served garnished with a little more cheese and maybe some more mustard too.



The batch I made ended up a weird mishmash of flavors that didn't really work too well. I think you can pretty much tell that just by looking at it. The Parmesan and the mustard particularly don't mesh and the mushy fresh pasta was a huge mistake. But, like I said, I think there's some promise here. I did like the sauce the beer and cheese formed and it did compliment the kale nicely. The kale itself was cooked well and I could see the textures working with a different sort of pasta. So avoid my mistakes and you'll probably enjoy it. Or just add kale to a standard beer cheese soup instead; That might be nice.

Pumpernickel bread

Something a little different this week--more different than I expected, really. There's a fair range in pumpernickel recipes on-line. I think that's part due to the variation between bakers you usually find and part due to variation across Europe. Most agree that the central components that make bread pumpernickel are molasses, cocoa and caraway seed which, frankly, seems just a wierd as the white-chocolate and salmon recipe I made a few days ago but it's been around long enough to become traditional so nobody argues with it.

The recipe I settled on is German and has an interesting technique. First you make a batter and then add extra flour to turn it into a dough. I really don't see what's to be gained by it, but I'm willing to try it to find out.

To start, here's the basic recipe. It's for two loaves but I halved it to make just one fairly small one.

2 packages active dry yeast
1/4 C. unsweetened cocoa
2 T. sugar
1 T. caraway seed
1 1/2 t. salt
3 C. rye flour
2 C. water
1/4 C. molasses
1/4 C. butter
3 C. sifted all-purpose flour
Shortening (or Pam spray)

In large bowl, stir together yeast, cocoa, sugar, caraway seed, salt and 2 cups rye flour; set aside.

In 2 quart saucepan over low heat, heat water, molasses and butter until very warm.

Using mixer at low speed, gradually beat molasses mixture into yeast mixture until well blended. Increase speed to medium; beat 2 minutes. Add remaining 1 cup rye flour. Increase speed to high; beat 2 more minutes.

Stir in enough all-purpose flour to make a soft dough. Turn out dough onto lightly floured surface. Knead until smooth and elastic about 5 minutes.

Place into greased large bowl, turning over dough so that top is greased. Cover with towel and let rise in warm place until almost doubled, about 45 minutes to an hour.

Punch down dough. Divide in half. Cover and let rest 5 minutes.

Shape each half into a round loaf. Place 4 inches apart on greased large baking sheet.

Cover and let rise until almost doubled, 45 minutes to an hour.

Diagonally slash each loaf, crosswise, 3 times.

Bake in 375°F oven for 20 minutes. Cover loosely with foil; bake 15 minutes more or until loaves sound hollow when tapped.

Immediately remove from baking sheet. Brush tops of hot loaves with shortening. Cool on racks.

Yield: Makes 2 loaves
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Following the instructions left me with a rather dense stiff dough so I added a bit more water and gave it ten minutes to absorb before kneading.

Usually I let the machine knead for ten minutes, but I've begun to suspect I've been overkneading and the tight gluten strands are keeping my doughs from forming the large irregular holes that I've been trying for. I don't actually want that in a pumpernickel, but overkneading is overkneading so I left it at five minutes. Anyway, it had started climbing the dough hook at that point so it was probably time to quit.

The result was still pretty dense but that's probably right for pumpernickel, too. I had reduced the yeast from a full packet since I'm using "highly active" instead of just plain "active", but the first rise was very slow so kneaded in another teaspoon for the second rise. I also added a bit more water as the recipe called for a "soft" dough which it really wasn't. Still, kind of a wierd-looking dough.

The next issue was what to do about the baking. The recipe calls for a short time at a low temperature, but I've been having so much success with the high-temperature dutch oven method I think I'm going to stick with it and see what happens. It involves checking in after a half hour so I should be able to modify it as I go along if necessary.

I checked it after a half hour and the thermometer made a wet squishing noise as it went in so not quite done yet. After twenty more minutes it had started burning on the top but the center was barely above 200 degrees. I gave it another seven minutes, the temperature was above 205 and the aroma had started to get a bit carbony so it was time to take it out.

That's not the prettiest loaf around.



At a closer examination, the exposed grain looks more like cake than bread. I'm rather curious what I'm going to see when I cut it open.

I'm relieved to see that's it's pretty normal inside. A fine tender crust; not chewy at all, as you'd expect from the large percentage of low gluten rye flour and the short knead time. The flavor is quite a respectable pumpernickel: the scent of the caraway drifting over a sweet richness that the cocoa and molasses contribute to without coming quite to the for. My immediate impression is a good quality restaurant dinner roll.

That's after cutting away the unfortunately burnt crust, though. That result explains why most recipes call for using a loaf pan. I wonder if I could heat my dutch oven and then drop a loaf pan into it. I wonder if there would be any point. The purpose of the enclosed baking is primarily to improve the crust so probably not. I'll have to remember that next time I'm making a non-crust-centric loaf.