Most
of my relatives came to the US from Germany, or thereabouts. And yet,
I’d never heard of Kaiserschmarrn until Tracie’s
guest post from Savannah Page the other day. We also never had schnitzel or
strudel or spätzle. We didn’t have huge pretzels or steins of beer. (We never
even learned German swear words. I had to learn important things like scheisse from my friend’s mom!)
Yes,
it was a rough upbringing.
But
we did have sauerbraten (sauer meaning “sour” and braten meaning
“brown lumps.” Or, no, wait - it means “roast meat”). It was one of my favorite
comfort-foods, which I often requested on my birthday. It’s one of those
“low-and-slow”-cooking meals where the meat ends up super tender. My mom used
to always serve it over egg noodles, and the sauce is sort of gravy-esque with
a slight sweet/sour taste to it.
At
least, that’s what I thought it was supposed to be. Until I actually went to Germany with my friend when I was
in my early 20s. One of the many towns we visited was Frankfurt, where I was excited to
see sauerbraten on the menu. (We ate at the big place in the center of this
photo.)
But
what arrived was nothing like what my mom used to make. To my disappointment,
it looked more like this:
What the heck is this? I wondered. It was okay –
but nothing like my mom’s. Where were the bite-sized pieces? Where were the
noodles? (Sadly, I’m old enough to have traveled during a time when people were
not prone to taking food-porn pictures. So, I have a photo of the square in
Frankfurt, but alas not a single shot of the plate that was served to me that
day – thus the stand-in from Wikimedia Commons will have to do. It’s too bad,
really, because we ate some darn fine food on that trip and the photos would
have been totally post-worthy on Facebook. If it had existed way back then.)
Anyway,
after many more cities and many fabulous meals on our trip, I forgot about the
whole thing by the time we got back home, until one day when I had a craving
for sauerbraten. I called my mom and asked for her recipe, which turned out to
be called “Quick Sauerbraten”. It was basically the cheater’s version – a faux
sauerbraten.
This
was a common occurrence that my siblings and I discovered when we got older.
All these recipes that my mom had that she would roll out only on special
occasions (mainly birthdays) turned out to be super easy, quick recipes. I
still remember the first time I made her birthday-celebration-worthy “Sour
Cream Noodle Bake” and I was like, “Wait… that’s it?! This was ridiculously
easy to make! It’s like a Wednesday night
meal! This isn’t anything fancy! What the hell were we believing all those
years??”
But
then, my mom had six kids.
And
we mostly grew up in the days before processed foods (Swanson TV Dinners aside)
so I guess it’s understandable that she had a lot of super easy, one-pot meals
in her repertoire.
My
sis, who married a man also of German descent, got the real sauerbraten recipe from his mom. If you want to make that,
check out Alton
Brown’s version here. You’ll need some gingersnap cookies, a roast, and 3
days (not kidding – 3 days).
But
if you’re busy (aren’t we all??) and only have a coupla hours, make the quick
version like my very tired mother used to!
It
involves buying a packet of gravy mix. I swear I had to hunt around the store
for forever trying to figure out where those little packets are. We usually eat
low-salt, healthy, home-made meals… but once in a while it’s fun to eat some
good old-fashioned comfort food!
Mom’s Quick Sauerbraten
1
½ lb. round steak (I used that
pre-chunked up stew meat that you can usually find at the store)
1
T. butter
2
c. water
1
envelope brown gravy mix (yes. I know… I
suppose you could make your own gravy… but I’m not good at that and it takes
time!)
1
T. instant minced onion (again, I know.
But 6 kids, people! I minced up a quarter of an actual onion that I had.)
2
T. vinegar (I used cider vinegar)
2
T. brown sugar
½
tsp. salt (I skipped this cuz there’s
already plenty o’ salt in the gravy mix. You do what you think is right.)
¼
tsp. pepper
½
tsp. ginger
1
bay leaf
Cut
meat into 1” squares (I actually cut them
a little smaller than how they came from the store – nice small bite-sized).
Melt butter and then brown the meat. Remove meat from the pan. [Saute the onions if you are using fresh.]
Then, add gravy mix and water to the pan and whisk together. Stir while
bringing to a boil. Stir in all remaining ingredients and add the meat back in.
Simmer at least 1 ½ hours. (I simmered
for about 3 hours, but an hour and a half works. You can also mix this up in
the a.m. and then put everything in a crock pot and let it cook all day.)
Stir occasionally.
If
sauce is runny, thicken with a bit of flour mixed with some water. Remove bay
leaf and serve over wide egg noodles.
Serves: about 4 Hantens (my maiden
name) or probably more like 6 regular people.
When not writing, JACKIE BOUCHARD loves: reading, watching movies, taking her dog on long walks, watching
professional cycling, blogging, drinking margaritas, and hanging out with her
hubby. Jackie dislikes: writing short blurbs about her life in the third
person. What the Dog Ate is her first
novel. Her new novel, Rescue Me, Maybe,
is due out in September.
Buy What the Dog Ate:
Find Jackie Online:
In celebration of In Need of Therapy's one-year anniversary and the book's Cuban heroine, enter to win a copy of the cookbook Celebrate Cuban - 100 Great Recipes for Cuban Entertaining by Three Guys From Miami. You can enter up
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CAT LAVOIE was born in the small town of Jonquière in Québec, Canada.
At the age of nineteen, she packed up her things (mostly books) and
moved to the big city of Montreal where she currently lives with her
tempestuous cat Abbie–who is both adorable and quite possibly evil.
