Posts Tagged ‘pork’
pork ‘n peppers with polenta
I love and loathe spring. The flowers and thawing is all well and good, but the flip-flopping weather is enough to drive anyone mad.
We had 90°+ temperatures last week only to have it plummet to 40° this weekend. It’s cold salads and iced coffee one day, oatmeal and hot cocoa the next.
Dinner like this, however, seems to fit in any weather. The thing that grabbed me the most was the use of anchovies in the sauce – one of my favorite and most underused ingredients out there. The crisp peppers and fresh rosemary make the whole dish very refreshing with the delicious briny sauce, and by putting it on thick, cheesy polenta, it’s still rich and satisfying. Half spring freshness, half hearty winter fare: perfect for our split personality weather right now.
kluski kapusta po (noodles with cabbage)
Ok, this dish did not start as kluski kapusta po at all. I had this recipe of ribs cooked in cabbage and kraut bookmarked for ages and realized I had all the ingredients except the actual ribs (which were on sale at my grocer) and cabbage, which is also cheap, so I went ahead and made it.
And sadly, I was glad I didn’t spend much money on the dish. It wasn’t bad per se, just good. Okay. Fine. The cabbage-kraut mixture was surprisingly mild (see: bland) and the ribs were nice and tender, but really fatty. The (small amount) of meat I did get off them was very tasty, but it’s one of those dishes where you have to eat a little bit of everything in one bite for the dish to work. The components on their own were just okay, but together pretty good. So an idea came to mind.
I decided to make an omnivore version of kluski kapusta po, a traditional Polish noodle-cabbage dish where onions and cabbage are cooked in butter and tossed with hot noodles. For my version, I shredded the pork, heated up the cabbage-kraut mixture, stirred in some sour cream, and then tossed the mixture with hot egg noodles. And it finally worked! So I thankfully don’t have to tag this a failure – more like a salvage. Victory is sweet! (and delicious!)
