A Ruthenian Christmas: A kielbasa story in words and pictures

First of all, let me say that not every post on TrueGrub is about healthful food. Today we're going to talk about some decidedly high-fat, high-sodium stuff that happens to be a traditional holiday favorite in my family.

Second of all, let me say that I'm not Ruthenian. (We'll get to the subject of Ruthenia in a moment.) But my wife's family is Ruthenian, and I'm the cook in my household, so I've had the duty and privilege of preparing some traditional Ruthenian dishes for the holidays.

Now, about Ruthenia... Ruthenia is a place. Or, rather, Ruthenia was a place. Scholars -- and members of my wife's extended family -- don't agree on exactly where it was, but it was clearly somewhere in Eastern Europe. Wikipedia describes it better than I could.

Suffice it to say that my in-laws say their ancestry is Ruthenian, and their holiday tradition includes kielabasa. Kielbasa with brown sauerkraut, to be precise, which I prepared yesterday.

It began with a visit to the Union Pork Store in Union, NJ last weekend. These two photos show just a fraction of the huge assortment of sausages and other products offered there.

 

 

 

I purchased three links of kielbasa, roughly five pounds total. I'm not a kielbasa expert, but I know there's more than one kind, and I know that I usually buy the kind known as krajana, which is coarse-ground. Another customer, who appeared to be an elderly Eastern European lady, tried to talk me into the fine-ground version, which, if I understood her correctly, is called mielona. I was almost persuaded, but in the end I stuck with the familiar krajana.

 

The first thing I did when I got home was to seal the kielbasa tightly in a large plastic bag. If this step isn't taken, the refrigerator and everything in it will reek of garlic!

 

 

 

On Christmas Eve, I liberated the kielbasa from its plastic prison...

 

 

 

...and assembled the other two ingredients for my dish: sauerkraut and slab bacon. The sauerkraut was a couple of two-pound bags or ordinary kraut from the refrigerated section of my local supermarket. The bacon came from the Union Pork Store. The variety and quantity of bacon aren't critical. I had about a third of a pound.

 

I diced the bacon...

 

 

 

...and cooked it in a nonstick pan until slightly crispy.

 

 

 

Then I drained some, but not all of the grease. I drained as much liquid as possible from the sauerkraut and added the kraut to the pan. I cooked it for several minutes, stirring occasionally, until golden. This combination of smoked pork and light caramelization produces the "brown sauerkraut" that's key to the dish.

 

 

 

Next, I sliced the kielbasa. I like to cut half-inch slices on the bias, which provides plenty of surface area to encourage mingling of the juices from the kielbasa and the kraut. You can see the coarse texture that characterizes krajana kielbasa.

 

 

 

Then it was just a matter of combining the brown sauerkraut and the kielbasa slices in a couple of aluminum baking pans.

 

At that point, since I wasn't planning to serve the kielbasa until the next day, I stored the pans in the refrigerator. On Christmas Day, I brought them to my sister-in-law's house (once again safely wrapped in a large plastic bag). She heated the pans in a 350-degree oven for about an hour.

The kielabasa was just one part of a multiethnic holiday meal that included mushroom soup, Italian-style antipasto, ham, pierogies, green beans, carrots and babka. The feast was enjoyed by all, Ruthenians and non-Ruthenians alike.

Happy holidays and good eating!

 

Hanover frozen rice and beans

Can it be? I believe I've found a food product that's tasty, inexpensive, nutritious and convenient.

My local Shoprite stocks Hanover brand frozen Brown Rice, Black Beans, Peppers & Onions in a steam-in-bag.

The ingredients list is just what the name of the product implies: cooked brown rice (water, brown rice), cooked black beans, green and red peppers, onions.

The 10-ounce bag contains two servings, each of which has 160 calories, 1 gram of fat, no saturated fat, 45 mg of sodium, 8 grams of dietary fiber, and one gram of sugar.

Just throw the bag in the microwave, and it's ready in four minutes. With a little salt and pepper, it's quite tasty.

It usually costs about $1.50. This combination of low cost, low fat, low sodium, high fiber, easy preparation and decent flavor is hard to beat!

The only thing I wonder about is whether some of the nutritional benefits of brown rice and black beans are lost when they're pre-cooked and frozen. This Askville post suggests that rice's nutritional qualities do suffer from pre-cooking. This post, on the other hand, suggests that they don't. And here's a video comparing cooked vs. dried beans, although it focuses on canned beans, not frozen. None of these sources seems authoritative.

Readers, if you have information about the nutritional characteristics of pre-cooked frozen rice or beans, please comment.

Skier's sustenance

Greetings from Winter Park, CO, where I'm fortunate to be enjoying a few days of skiing. Needless to say, exercising outdoors when the temperature is 4 degrees can work up an appetite. Also needless to say, ski areas' on-mountain restaurants aren't renowned for the quality of their food. Today's lunch was a pleasant exception.

I grabbed a quick meal at the Club Car restaurant at Winter Park Resort's Mary Jane base area. I chose an item called "The Brat." According to the menu, the bratwurst is locally made and nitrate-free. It was served with sauerkraut, mashed potatoes and a piece of baguette.

The brat wasn't especially salty or garlicky. If I'm not mistaken, the dominant spice was cloves. Really, the sauerkraut was the star of the show. It also was not too salty. It was garnished with paprika, which I found both unusual and delicious. The mashed potatoes and bread weren't anything special, but provided much-needed calories on a ski day.

The larger question is how to find decent food when skiing. Often, the first step is to avoid the cafeteria. Although far from fancy, the Club Car is a table-service restaurant. The prices are higher than in the cafeteria, but not by much. The brat was $11.95. An ice tea set me back another $3.25. With tax and tip, the whole meal cost about $19. Not cheap, but at the same resort, a burger, fries and soda at the cafeteria can cost $17, and the quality is awful.

There's certainly good food, even gourmet food, to be found at ski resorts, but my focus is on something that can be consumed quickly so I can get back on the slopes, for under $20. In that category, the brat hits the spot.

Cheese at 33,000 feet

On a recent flight from Phoenix to Newark, I didn't expect delicious food, and I didn't expect free food, but I also didn't expect cheese food!

The menu offered a small selection of snack boxes. I chose the "CaféSnack," which was supposed to include Swiss and Gouda cheese.

When the food arrived, I discovered that it actually included Glacier Ridge Farms brand "Gouda style pasteurized process cheese food, gouda-type flavor" and "Swiss style pasteurized process cheese food, swiss-type flavor."

So this was something similar to cheese, but with a few more adjectives -- and a few more ingredients. In addition to cheese, each package contained water, sodium phosphate, calcium proprionate and salt.

It didn't taste awful, but I would have preferred just plain cheese. Cheese isn't terribly perishable, but perhaps there's a good reason it's not practical to serve on a commercial flight. I decided I'd try to find out.

According to Cheese Market News, (yep, no kidding!), Glacier Ridge Farms is the brand name for a line of products manufactured by Dairyfood USA of Blue Mounds, Wisconsin. Their website has a helpful "contact us" form, where I submitted this question:
Hi. I recently ordered a CafeSnack snack box on a US Airways flight, which included Glacier Ridge Farms Gouda style and Swiss style pasteurized process cheese food. These tasted pretty good, but I noticed from the name and ingredients that they're not just cheese. I'd appreciate any information you can share about why US Airways offers this product rather than regular cheese.

The "contact us" form on the US Airways website was a little more challenging to use: I had to divulge my phone number, address and flight details. Still, I was able to submit a similar question there.

If I get a reply from Dairyfood or US Airways, I'll be sure to update this post.

Sad About Slaw: Beware the Deli Counter

I thought I had found a food product that was affordable, tasty and healthful. My local Shoprite's deli counter offers a salad they call "vinegar and oil cole slaw." It's chock full of shredded cabbage and carrots, and while it's clearly not low-fat, its oil-and-vinegar dressing seems lighter than that of mayonnaise-based slaw. I figured it might be high in sodium, but I assumed it was otherwise a good nutritional choice.

Last month, I decided to find out what this product is really made of. The adhesive label printed at the deli counter gave the name "Blue Ridge Vinegar & Oil Slaw." A Google search led to several online grocery sites offering Blue Ridge's conventional mayonnaise slaw, some of which listed the ingredients. But I had no luck finding the ingredients for the vinegar and oil version.

Eventually, I used the "Contact Us" page at shoprite.com to email an inquiry about the product's ingredients and nutrition facts. To Shoprite's credit, a Customer Satisfaction Manager (yep, that's his title!) replied within a few days. Here's the response in its entirety, except that I've omitted the manager's name and contact information to preserve his privacy.

Good Morning Mr. Steve,
The Blue Ridge vinegar and oil coleslaw ingredients are cabbage, high fructose corn syrup, soybean oil, carrots, red bell peppers, vinegar, salt, water, sodium erthorbate, potassium sorbata (as a perservative), sodium benzoate (as a persevative), modified food starch (corn), parsley, calcium disodium EDTA. contains: soy.

There are a few typos, but the message is clear. More corn syrup than carrots or peppers. And five chemical additives, three of which are sodium compounds, as well as salt itself. Since the reply didn't include nutrition facts, I'm still in the dark about the precise sodium content, but it's undoubtedly high.

I don't think I'll be buying this product in the future. What I thought was a wholesome vegetable salad is more like a chemical stew.

The larger point is that the deli counter is a labeling-free zone. Most supermarket products include detailed labels with ingredients and nutrition facts in accordance with FDA guidelines. The deli counter is an exception. Unless you do some digging, you don't know what's in the coldcuts, salads and other products offered there. Buyer beware!

Fall colors

At this time of year, it's not only leaves that display beautiful colors. Some amazing hues can be found in the produce aisle, as well.

One example is these orange-and-green acorn squashes, purchased from Whole Foods.

I haven't cooked them yet. I don't expect the preparation or flavor will differ from more ordinary-looking acorn squash, but they're certainly pleasant to look at.

A second example is purple -- yes, purple! -- sweet potatoes. These also came from Whole Foods and were grown in California. In this photo, I've cut the end off one of them, so you can see that the flesh inside is purple, just like the skin.

A sign in the store suggested boiling or steaming to preserve the color, but I went ahead and baked them as I usually do with sweet potatoes: about 45 minutes in a toaster oven at 400 degrees. They were still quite purple after cooking, as you can see from this one that's been baked and split lengthwise.

The flavor was like that of orange sweet potatoes, with one odd difference: the sweetness wasn't uniform throughout each potato. I noticed one end of my potato was very sweet, while the other end was only moderately sweet, with more of a starchy flavor. My wife found the same was true of hers.

One tip for handling these sweet potatoes: they exude a deep red-purple juice when cut while raw, almost like a beet. Even after baking, some juice of the same color dripped when they were cut open. I imagine the juice could stain fabric if you're not careful. On skin or a cutting board, though, it rinsed away with no fuss.

Interestingly, both these beautiful produce items didn't come with premium prices. Each was around $1.50 per pound, a good deal considering they were a feast for the eyes as well as the palate.

Whole wheat pasta: the cardboard conundrum

"It tastes like cardboard." That was my lovely wife's assessment the last time I served whole wheat pasta. My teenage son didn't like it any better, and, I must confess, I wasn't crazy about it myself.

I chose penne rigate of a reputable brand -- DeCecco, whose refined-flour pasta is consistently excellent -- and carefully followed the package directions. Yet I found the results unappetizing. The flavor was decidedly bitter. The texture was strangely crumbly: the pasta disintegrated into small, faintly slippery morsels when chewed. With some tomato sauce, I was able to choke it down, but I really didn't enjoy it. I had better luck using it as a base for a flavorful dish of sautéed chicken thighs with peppers and onions, but it still wasn't nearly as good as conventional pasta.

Here's the strange thing: I've had whole wheat pasta in a couple of different restaurants, and it tasted better than what I made at home. Now I think I know why. I looked closely at another brand of whole grain pasta, Barilla, in the supermarket recently. The words "Whole Grain" appear on the front of the box in giant letters. Also in fairly large type, it states "EXCELLENT SOURCE OF FIBER." It's much smaller text that admits "MADE WITH 51% WHOLE WHEAT." That's in contrast to the DeCecco product, which contains only whole semolina and some vitamins and minerals. I'm guessing that the products I enjoyed in the restaurants were not 100% whole wheat.

I wonder, by the way, why DeCecco fortifies its whole grain pasta with added nutrients. Shouldn't that be unnecessary when the flour is unrefined?

I also wondered, of course, what definition of "whole grain" allows Barilla to label its product as whole grain pasta. I found some sources (such as this one) stating that the USDA's definition is -- no surprise -- at least 51%.

I'd really like to enjoy whole wheat pasta. And I'd really like it to be 100% whole wheat. Readers, if you know a brand, cooking technique or recipe that makes whole wheat pasta delicious, please comment. I want to eat something that's good for me -- and tastes better than the cardboard box it came in.