Pato con nabos, Duck with turnips -- a Pinedo recipe

 It's time for another Pinedo recipe! (If you don't know what that is, search for the recipes with the label "Pinedo").

On page 193, I saw Pato con nabos, or Duck with turnips.

My Translation

Duck with turnips.

         Having put a casserole on the fire with a good piece of butter which, being very hot, the duck cut into pieces will be emptied into it.

         When it begins to take color, add bacon, chopped into small pieces, turnips, and two onions with two cloves, a head of young garlic, a bay leaf, and parsley.

         When everything is well browned, boiling water is poured over it and salt and pepper are added, allowing the stew to boil over a low heat so that it seasons well.

My Redaction

1/4 cup butter

one 4 to 5 pound duck, cut into serving size pieces

1 pound bacon, cut into about 1-inch pieces

4 medium turnips, washed, peeled, and cut into large, bite-sized chunks

1 head garlic, peeled but not broken apart

1 bay leaf

2 onions, one of which is studded with 2 whole cloves

2 tablespoons parsley (dried)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

And cloves

Preheat some water in a kettle.

Heat the butter in a large Dutch oven until very hot.  Add the duck pieces a few at a time to brown.  Turn them to brown both sides.  Once the pieces take on some color, remove them to a plate and add a few more pieces.  Repeat until all the pieces are browned and out of the pan.

When the duck is done, put the bacon and turnips into the pan.  Cook them until the bacon is nearly done.  Don't expect the bacon or turnips to brown much (if at all) as the butter, bacon fat, and juices from the duck produce a lot of liquid.

Remove most of the bacon/turnip mixture from the pan and into a bowl.  Leave a thin layer on the bottom.  Place several pieces of duck on top of it, and nestle the onions, garlic head, and bay leaf into them.  Sprinkle on the parsley.  Put on a layer of bacon/turnips, then another layer of duck.  Repeat until all the duck and bacon/turnip mix is in the pan. This might fill the Dutch oven! 

Pour the hot water over the top until the ingredients are covered.  Sprinkled on the salt and pepper.  Bring the water to a boil, then turn the temperature down so that the water is just barely simmering.

Cook for 1 1/2 hours, or until the turnips are tender, the duck is cooked, and the broth tastes lovely.  Adjust salt and pepper as needed.  

Remove the bay leaf, cloves, and garlic head before serving.  The onion should break up easily for serving.

My Notes

The redaction covers it all.  Here are the pictures.

They took on some color.

This is the right size.

They didn't brown, but the bacon was cooked.

Nestled, all snug in their beds.

Just add water.

Ready to slow simmer.

Cooked.  *SIGH*

The Verdict

The duck was tender.  The turnips were tender.  The bacon was a little chewy, which is how I like it.  

The broth was perfect:  rich but not too rich, flavorful without being strong.  Honestly, it was its delicateness that stood out.  The flavor was well-balanced with the meaty flavor as dominant (but not strong) and supported with the herbs and spices.  One guest taster thought it needed more salt, but the other two tasters thought it was just right.

The turnips could have been potatoes and I would not have noticed much of a difference.  They had absorbed some of the bacon flavor, which was good.

The only negative was the amount of fat floating on top.  It did not spoil the meal at all, but it was fattier than I am used to eating.

The whole dish made an enjoyable meal.  It came across as sophisticated and even classy.  I served it with some of Pinedo's French wafers, fresh grapes from my garden, and a side salad composed of chopped tomatoes, tomatillos, and sweet onions (slivered) dressed with salt, pepper, and balsamic vinegar.

Enjoy!

The leftovers were also good.  I noticed the broth became solid when chilled.  I defatted it, and that made the food even better.

Success, in a classy way!

It helped to have a bowl on the table dedicated to holding the bones as people ate their servings.

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!