What’s Cooking?

Posted by Jeff Carter
on December 24th, 2012

Via my Instagram, Facebook Pinterest and Twitter feed, I am seeing a lot of food porn circle through the internet. It’s the time of year when people cook a lot. Family recipes. They also try new things.

This year for Christmas dinner we are making a crown roast of pork. To accompany it, we are making some red cabbage, and dressing. The dressing is my grandfather’s recipe. It’s pretty simple.

Cubed stuffing, I usually buy the sage flavored ones. One pack of breakfast sausage. one cup each of onion, celery, one cup of dried seasoned bread crumbs and then instead of water use chicken stock to wet it. We add seasoning like sage, garlic, oregano, rosemary and thyme. Black pepper and salt of course, and some garlic. I always add too much onion and a little extra celery. We are adding some water chestnuts and mushrooms this year. Some years we have put raisins in it, but it was too sweet. Cook it in an oven and keep mixing it up so it browns on all sides and intensifies.

The red cabbage is unlike any red cabbage recipe I have seen. It comes from Patricia Wells book on Bistro Cooking in Paris. It’s simple too. You take one onion and chop it up, stir frying it in the fat of your choice. We are going to use a little bacon. Then add a whole head of chopped red cabbage. Stir fry it a little. Peel and core at least three granny smith apples. Slice them thinly and toss them in. Quarter one onion and pierce it with a clove, add the four pierced quarters to the pot. Salt and pepper to taste. Add in a whole bottle of red wine. Braise it gently for three hours. Towards the end of the braise, I add just a touch of red wine vinegar. Most red cabbage recipes have caraway seeds or other traditional ingredients. I like this one because it’s really wine friendly.

The last big thing we are making is a crown roast of pork. We’ll brine it since factory raised pork is so dry. We are going to use the Wall Street Journal’s recipe.

I am sure there will be some other sides. I am going to search for a red wine to go with it all. Thinking about a high end zinfandel, but I could be persuaded to find a good barolo or barbaresco.

What are you cooking and drinking?

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