Guisado de patatas -- Potato Stew, a Pinedo recipe

It's time for another Pinedo recipe!  Today's choice is on page 114, in the Guisados or Stews section.  

My Translation

Potato stew.

         Raw potatoes are peeled, diced, fried in fat, and set aside. Onion, tomato, chopped parsley are fried, and boiling water, salt, pepper, and oregano are added. In this sauce put the fried potatoes with two or three tablespoons of grated cheese, letting them boil over a moderate heat.

My Redaction

3 pounds potatoes

5 tablespoons butter

1 medium onion

a little olive oil

1 1/4 pounds tomatoes

4 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh oregano

3/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon pepper

2 cups boiling water

3 tablespoons grated cheese, more for garnish

And butter, olive oil, and boiling water

Heat a little butter in a frying pan while peeling and cubing the first potato.  Fry those pieces over medium heat, adding a little more butter as needed to keep them from sticking to the pan.  Stir occasionally, but let the pieces sit on the pan so they develop a golden crust.  The goal is to brown them.

Once they are browned, remove them to a bowl.  Repeat for each of the potatoes.

When the last batch of potato pieces are cooking, heat a little olive oil in a Dutch oven or large saucepan.  Peel and chop the onion, then cook it over medium low heat until translucent.

Core and dice the tomatoes and finely chop the fresh parsley.  Add to the onions and continue to cook them until most of the liquid has boiled off.

Add the oregano, salt, pepper, and boiling water.  Mix well and simmer until the tomatoes are falling apart.

Add the potatoes and stir well.  Add the grated cheese.  Let simmer over low heat until the raw tomato flavor is gone and the stew tastes balanced.  Adjust the salt and pepper amounts as needed.  

Serve with a little grated cheese on top as garnish.

My Notes

I chose to use butter for frying the potatoes and olive oil for the sauce.  You can choose whatever you'd like!  I kept the amount of fat in the pan to a minimum so that I could get a good golden crust on the pieces.

I did not peel the tomatoes, but you might want to if you don't like pieces of skin in your stew.

I used grated asiago cheese, but I think cheddar, parmesan, or romano would also work well.

The sauce was thin until the potatoes were added, then it thickened to a good consistency.

The first batch, nearly done

Onions, tomatoes, and parsley, oh my!

All together now.  Let the simmer begin.

The Verdict

I served it with a little asiago as a garnish.  My guest taster would have been unhappy with a meal that didn't have meat, so I included a grilled boneless chicken thigh as a side dish.

Yum!

I really enjoyed the potato flavor in the stew.  It was like eating French fries in a sauce, which I liked.  The sauce was very mild; it was a background flavor to the potatoes.  I could taste the complexity of the tomatoes, onions, herbs, and spices, as could my guest taster.  However, we both described it as mild, not earth-shattering.  But it was still tasty!

We both added a little more salt and agreed that it would be best to let each person salt it to their taste at the table than to add more salt to the stew.  I think a little more pepper would be a good idea -- perhaps bump it up to 1 teaspoon to give it a little blast.

I'm not sure I would add the grated cheese to the stew again.  It didn't seem to contribute much to the flavor.  But adding some on top was nice.

Success!

It was not a spectacular meal, but they don't all have to be.  It was tasty, filling, and interesting with potatoes as a main base.  I see this stew as either a main dish or a side to some roast meat.

Swedish Potato Sausage

My aunt, PV, has been a cook and a foodie all her life.  She has shared some marvelous recipes with me over the years, and I admire her skill.  Recently we were talking about food, and she told me about the recipe her Swedish father-in-law taught her to make:  Swedish potato sausage.  I asked her for the recipe so I could document it.  

Potato Sausage

5 pounds potatoes -- peel and grind

2 1/2 pounds ground pork shoulder

2 1/2 pounds ground beef chuck

2 or 3 medium onions -- grind

5 tablespoons salt

1 1/4 tablespoons pepper

1 1/4 teaspoons allspice

Beef casings (also called beef rounds), enough to make at least 10 pounds of sausage

Kitchen twine 

Cut the casings into 16-inch long pieces. Rinse the salt from them (inside and out), then soak them in fresh lukewarm water for at least ten minutes.  

Mix the potatoes, pork, beef, onions, and spices well.  

Fill this mixture lightly into the beef casings, recognizing they will expand when cooked.  Tie the ends with the twine.  Or you can skip tying them off and just leave a one-inch overhang on each end.  Do not prick the sausage.

Heat water with one tablespoon salt in a large kettle.  Bring the water to a simmer.

Add the sausages.  Simmer them for about an hour; do not boil them!

Let the sausages cool in their broth.  Then store or freeze them in their broth.

To serve the sausages, reheat them by simmering them in their broth.  Remove the filling from the casings before eating.

My Notes

My wonderful, amazing daughter volunteered to help me, and it turned out having two people made the work much easier!

I used three medium onions that weighed about two pounds total.  

I ground the meat, then the onions, then the potatoes.  Everything was put into a large canning kettle so I had room to mix them with the spices.

Beef

Pork

Onions

Potatoes

Spices on top

All mixed together.

Casings ready to go

Fortunately, I have the sausage stuffing attachment for my mixer's grinder.  It was easy to slide a casing over the tube, tie off one end, then have the grinder push the stuffing into the casing.  My daughter put the mixture into the grinder, and I was in charge of regulating how fast the stuffing went into the casing.  This is when having two people was very important.

About a pound of filling

Casing is on the tube.  Ready to be tied and filled.

In all, we used 12 casings, and they weighed on average 16 ounces each.  We tied off all but one because we wanted to try my aunt's method of leaving the ends open.  Thus, we had twelve pounds of sausages.  Hooray!

Once the sausages were made, we cleaned the kettle then heated the water in it.  I filled the kettle about half full of water.  This was plenty to cover all the sausages for cooking.

In the beginning

After about an hour of simmering, I noticed the sausages were floating instead of sitting on the bottom of the kettle.

Floating sausages

Once the sausages had cooled, I saved one out to taste.  The rest went into bags for freezing.  Each sausage was individually packaged with about 1 1/2 cups of its broth.

To reheat, I put the sausage in its broth in a pan and brought the broth to a simmer.  I covered the pan and simmered for about five minutes, then flipped the sausage and let it simmer another five or so minutes.

The untied sausage, reheating

My aunt emphasizes you should never fry or boil these sausages.  Simmer them for the initial cooking and again when they reheat for serving.  Also, the beef rounds are not digestible.  You must cut them open and scrape out the stuffing to eat it.  (A spoon helps remove the stuffing.)  Discard the casing as it is just a cooking vessel.  (Just like haggis!)

The Verdict

It was good!  The texture made us think of a corned beef hash, and the flavor was meaty with the onion, allspice, salt, and pepper as a good supporting cast.  The potato added its distinctive flavor but also made the sausage lighter in texture than a solid meat mixture would be.  It was a soft main course.

Success!  I look forward to eating the rest of them.

The main course

I served toast with it, so sometimes we ate the sausage as it was (by the forkful) and sometimes we spread it on the toast.  Both were good.

Later, I opened the casing of a cooked sausage and browned the mixture.  This was also a good way to serve it.  (Tasted great with a side dish of onions and apple chunks cooked in butter and spiced with pepper, cinnamon, and salt.)

My aunt says this is considered an authentic Swedish recipe, but noted there are spicing variations.  She has made this many times and finds the allspice, pepper, and salt mix "quite pleasing to my taste buds!"

After stuffing the casings, there was meat mixture left in the grinder and the tube, so we took that out and fried it as patties while the sausages were simmering.

This was also very tasty:  the exterior was a little crunchy and the interior was soft, so it was like eating meaty hash browns.  My only criticism is that it was too salty -- and that is easily fixed by adjusting the recipe.  I think that someone who didn't want to deal with stuffing beef rounds could make this filling (with less salt) and freeze it in small amounts, then fry it before serving.   A bonus recipe!

Lyonnaise Potatoes

I have a lovely book, Dining on the B&O -- Recipes and Sidelights from a Bygone Age, by Thomas J. Greco and Karl D. Spence.

ISBN 13:  978-0-8018-9323-0

Published in 2009 by The Johns Hopkins University Press and written in association with the B&O Railroad Museum, it is a compilation of recipes used on the B&O Railroad dining cars, many of which came from other sources and contained notes from the chefs who used them.  The authors believe they were compiled in the 1930s or 40s, with the chef notes added possibly in the 1950s.

I like what the authors said about the company's attitude:  "The Baltimore and Ohio viewed its passengers as friends and family and did what any good host would do:  strove to make them feel welcome aboard its trains." (pg. 3)

Apparently it worked:  "The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was noted for its dining car cuisine and service.  The Dining Car and Commissary Department rarely turned a profit, but the railroad believed that if it provided superior dining and impeccable courtesy, it would attract passengers, shippers, and investors." (pg. 3)

What amazes me is the description of the kitchen.  "Entrees were prepared from scratch in a kitchen that occupied a space about 16 feet long and only 7 1/2 feet wide. ... The kitchen was a marvel of efficiency, with only a few feet between the oven, broiler, charcoal grill, and steam table on one side and the icebox, sinks, and vegetable storage on the other.  No space was wasted..." (pg. 3)

The recipe I decided to try was originally taken from Charles Fellow's The Culinary Handbook, published in 1904.  It is considered "the first purely American institutional cookbook" because Mr. Fellows attempted to reduce the French influence in the American kitchen.  He focused on "no-frills mid-western cooking methods."  (pg. 9)  His book can be downloaded here:  http://ia700506.us.archive.org/8/items/culinaryhandbook00felliala/culinaryhandbook00felliala.pdf

Lyonnaise Potatoes (pg 111 in the B&O book)

Cold boiled potatoes, either minced or sliced thinly, seasoned with salt and pepper, mixed with a little chopped parsley and fried onions; fried with butter in the form of an omelet.

Chef's Comments
Ingredients for 4 servings

2 Potatoes, boiled, cold
3 tablespoons Butter
1 Onion, 1/4-inch dice
4 tablespoons Parsley, fresh, chopped fine
Salt and Pepper, to taste

Peel the potatoes and place in a pan of cold water.  Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer for 10 - 20 minutes, depending on the size.  When the potatoes are tender, drain them thoroughly and cool.  Then mince or cut into thin slices.

Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium-high heat and fry the onions until they are soft and beginning to turn translucent.  Add the potatoes, chopped parsley, salt, and pepper to the pan and fry, turning with a spatula until evening browned.  

This recipe can be made without simmering the potatoes, but the frying time is a bit longer.  Add the onions and potatoes to the pan at the same time, cover, and lower the heat for 10 minutes or so, then add the parley, salt, and pepper.  With the pan covered, cook until brown and tender.

Dried parsley can be substitutes for fresh; cut the amount to 2 tablespoons.  If the potatoes seem to be getting too dry while cooking, add a little more butter to keep them nice and moist.

I updated the recipe just a little:  Instead of boiling the potatoes, I microwaved them until they were cooked through.  Then I chilled them in the refrigerator.  This was done a few days before I needed them.  It seemed to me that the point was to start with cooked potatoes, so boiling, baking, and microwaving were all valid options.  Also, I didn't peel the potatoes.

So basically I started with cooking the onions and proceeded from there.

Slow cooking makes them sweeter

Once they were starting to look translucent, and smelling heavenly, by the way, I added the rest of the ingredients.

I noticed I needed to scoop carefully with a spatula and turn the potatoes to keep them from breaking up too much while cooking.

The directions, "until evenly browned", I interpreted as "Let sit in the skillet until they smelled good and were crusty" and that was a good decision!

The Verdict
This dish is not pretty to look at.  It does not contain fancy ingredients.  But it sure is tasty and was a marvelous side dish to the Paper Pork (see the July 1, 2013 post).

The onions make the dish.  Because they are cooked so much they are sweet and add little blasts of oniony flavor to offset the blander potato.  I was concerned at first about using an entire onion with only two potatoes but that is just right.  You need lots of onion here!

The butter keeps everything moist and the salt and pepper give it a needed kick.

Normally I fanatically put tomato ketchup on anything potato-related (not baked, though!) and was surprised to discover this dish didn't need it.

So "Success", definitely.  I think it would be a good accompaniment to any robust meat dish because it will not compete with it.

It seemed that Lyonnaise Potatoes would be good also with paprika or bacon or ham added to it.   

Potato Soup from the 1950s

I was fortunate to inherit my grandmother's copy of Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book.  I think it is a second edition but I can't tell because some of the front pages are missing.  I know it is not the first edition because I purchased a replica reprint on its 50th anniversary, in 2000.

The two editions look about the same (the picture is of my grandmother's book) but the first edition has an alphabetical index by chapter and my grandmother's book has a standard index.  I find the standard index much more convenient; I can look up all recipes for say, potatoes, at once instead of having to check each chapter.

Speaking of which, I had a bag of potatoes in my pantry that needed to be used.  This, my friends, is how women used to cook all the time -- What do I have and how can I use it?  What is in season?  There was not a lot of running to the store to get the latest trendy ingredient or deciding what to cook based on how you felt on the spur of the moment.  So in this spirit, I decided to try Betty C's simple recipe for potato soup (it being a wet and blustery day).

****

Potato Soup (page 371)

"The homey, old-fashioned kind."

Saute' gently in 2 tbsp. butter...

   1 tbsp. grated carrot
   1 tbsp. scraped onion

Stir in ...
   1 tsp. salt
   1/4 tsp. celery salt
   1/8 tsp. pepper
   2 cups hot milk
  1 cup mashed or boiled potatoes put through a coarse sieve

Cook 20 min., stirring occasionally.

Amount:  6 servings.

*****

I used the fine holes on the grater for the carrots and, instead of scraping the onion (which I find messy), I finely chopped them.  It seemed like a lot of butter for my tastes but, when I considered that I'd be using non-fat milk, I was fine with it.

I boiled the potatoes unpeeled for about 20 minutes, until they were tender all the way through.  I pierced them with a cooking fork to check.  They were drained and cooled for a while and then I peeled them.

The recipe called for 1 cup of mashed potatoes.  I cooked four potatoes knowing that it was too much.  No problem!  I can always use the remainder for some other dish, like a gratin. I ended up using two. (They were all pretty small potatoes.)

I admit to not using a sieve but I stirred it for awhile to break up the potato bits.  When I cooked it for 20 minutes, I kept the fire as low as possible and stirred it more often once the soup started steaming.  This got the soup nice and hot and also blended the flavors.

The Verdict:  Yum!  It smelled good, making me want to taste it.  It was interesting to look at, with the carrot and onion bits, the pepper, the small lumps of potato, and the butter floating on top.  It was tasty and a little bit creamy -- would be more so if I had used whole milk as they would have in the '50s, I think.  I'm not a fan of celery salt but I used it anyway and was pleasantly surprised at the flavor.  I think it is just right.

By the way, "6 servings" would work if this was a soup course before a bigger meal.  I don't think I would get more than 2 servings if soup was the main focus of the meal.  If you like chunky potato soup, you could use some of the extra cooked potato, cut into small dice, to make it that way.  I think it would also be good with some cheddar cheese melted into it. I had it "as is" for lunch with some saltine crackers and a sliced apple.