Vegetarian Reuben

from Jamey W. Bennett
to Daniel Larkin

Dude,
Did you once tell me that you make a vegetarian reuben?
Jamey 

from Daniel Larkin
to me 

Funny enough, I cut tofu this morning and started marinating it for ruebens tonight. Jenny’s parents are coming over for it!

I use my homemade kraut, so it’s basically the shit.  Plus, the marinade mimics slow smoked, salty beef fairly well.  It’s obviously a different flavor from a standard cornedbeef reuben, but I like the tofu just as much as any cornedbeef rueben I’ve ever had.  

The process is pretty simple.  I cut the tofu into thin slices, maybe about 1/4-inch thick, and marinate it in my special sauce (ewww) for at least 4 hours.  My sauce is **roughly** a mix of 2 parts soy sauce, 1 part worcestershire sauce, and a few slashes of liquid hickory smoke.  Then I dilute that all with water until I’m comfortable that it’s flavorful, but not overly salty.

When it’s done marinating, I cook the tofu in safflower oil on high heat until it’s brown on both sides.  I’ve found that this gives the best texture.  High heat and safflower oil.

Then I just stack it on some grilled pumpernickel bread with a heaping pile of warm sauerkraut, swiss cheese and thousand island dressing (you’ll probably do Russian dressing).

Yum.  I’m glad I was already planning on having these tonight, otherwise I would be scrambling to make it happen after writing this.

from: Jamey W. Bennett
to Daniel Larkin

That sounds great! I’ve been craving a Reuben, and we’re in the countdown to Orthodox Lent, so we just waved a 56 day goodbye to meat on Sunday. On top of that, I have a big bag of kraut in the fridge…I may hit up Whole Foods for some tofu in a bit.

Thanks!

[Update: Turns out we already posted about this in October. We’re idiots! http://twodudesfoods.com/post/11693303786/tofu-rueben] 

Sauerkraut at Home

from Jamey W. Bennett
to Daniel Larkin

Dude,
So my sauerkraut was a hit at my wedding this past weekend, even among the non-kraut-enthusiasts. I used a combination of my priest’s “50 lbs. every autumn” recipe with some techniques I found online. Basically, I used an empty sanitized brew bucket, a growler filled with water (for weight), a small plate, a knife, a kitchen scale, a rolling pin (to smash the cabbage), about 20 lbs. of cabbage, and lots of salt.

Simply put: I’d slice the cabbage (getting rid of the core) into pretty thin strips. Using my kitchen scale, I’d slice and slice until I had 3-1/2 lbs. I’d throw that into the bucket with 1 tbs. non-iodized salt. I kept this up until I chopped it all up. Every now and then, I’d stir the mix and smash it together. My arms were pretty tired by the end. I had some serious juice-age in the bucket, too.

I put the plate on top of the cabbage and pushed down until all of the cabbage was submerged in the brine, and I set the growler on top of the plate to hold it down. I dropped the bucket off in my basement and covered it with a towel. I checked it every day for a little over two weeks, and skimmed any film off the top that developed. Next time I do it, I’m going to give it another week.

The caterer cooked it, and served it up with pieces of kielbasa. It was awesome.

How’d you do your kraut? I saw you linked this about it, but I was wondering how closely you followed it.

jamey

from Daniel Larkin
to Jamey W. Bennett

I followed that recipe to a T, and it turned out amazing!  I undershot my cabbage weight a little, though, so my spices were a bit more than they were supposed to be.  But that was fine, since the caraway seed, mustard seed, and juniper are all spices that go well with kraut-esque food anyway.  

The only thing I’ll do differently is that when I periodically top off the cans to replenish evaporated water, I won’t used salt water.  I realized that the water may be evaporating, but the salt was being left behind, so I was really just salting the hell out of an already salty foodstuff.  

But again, the recipe was bangin!  I have to make a bunch this week for our Oktoberfest party in a few weeks.

German Pork Ribs!

I’m sure I’ve told you about the Octoberfest party Jenny and I are planning for this Fall.  We’ll have two 5-gallon kegs – the Octoberfest, which I entered into the TN Valley Competition (it took silver!), and the Bohemian Pilsner.  We’ll also be grilling all day. This is actually what inspired my recent crack at making sauerkraut (results still unknown).

Anyway, I’ve never used kraut for anything other than dousing a sausage, and I figured if I’m going to be making it I should find other ways to eat it.  I don’t think I can eat enough hot dogs to make it through two liters of sauerkraut.

So here’s what I did as a test.  This was just an amalgamation of other recipes and ingredients I found online.  

I bought a 24 oz can of GOOD German sauerkraut and 2 pounds of country style pork ribs.  These aren’t the rack ribs you think of when someone says ribs.  They’re much larger and come sliced individually.

I salted the ribs and browned them in olive oil in a heavy duty pot.  Set ‘em aside.Tossed in a whole onion sliced and two green apples sliced and sauteed them in the oil and pork remnants.

Once the onions were translucent, I added all of the kraut (strained and drained) I also stirred in some caraway seed, a few Juniper berries and a heaping scoop of Grey Poupon Harvest Ground Mustard.

I sauteed this mix for another minute then removed half of it.  I set the ribs on top of the mixture and covered it with the remaining half of the kraut, apple and onion mix. Then I just dumped a full 12 oz bottle of Octoberfest beer, covered it with foil and the lid and baked it for 5 hours on 275º.  In all, prep time was almost nil.  It was less than 20 minutes between opening the ribs and closing the oven door behind them.

I didn’t take any pictures because it ain’t a pretty meal to look at, but the pork melts in your mouth and the kraut/onion/apple mix is ridiculous.  I served it all with mashed red potatoes with butter, cream, rosemary and thyme. I’m thinking this is what I might make for the Octoberfest party.

TwoDudes exclusive update.  Put the leftovers spread on a hoagie roll with a generous slathering of course mustard, and you’ll be in pig heaven!