From there it was off to UW Provisions. I'd never been there previously, though it's where Jason grabbed that rabbit for my Hasenpfeffer. It's an assuming little joint with coolers and freezers full of meat in bulk. They had pork chops on sale for $1.59/pound or thereabouts. While there was no rabbit to be had, I did buy a ham, some of their breakfast sausage, ground beef, and a pork tenderloin. The tenderloin was enough to feed an army and was only $15. (I cut it up after I got home and got 4 goodly-sized roasts out of it.) In addition to dead animal flesh, they also sell cheese, much of it in bulk, plus #10 cans of various things, and just bulk everything. They also sell beer there but only tasty local brews such as New Glarus and Capital. With about the equivalent of a side of a cow in the trunk, we were off to Bavaria Sausage. I bought some Nurnberg brats, some beef sausage, kraut, and some of their pre-sliced rouladen hoolies. Yeah, I know I wussed out but buying pre-sliced beef saved me the hassle of having to find my sharpener and get my blade all honed. Jason suggested that, since we were on the west side of town that we head on over to the Mustard Museum. And so we did. I bought some tarragon mustard for a rabbit(?) recipe that Jason had given me, bought some funky BBQ sauce, some spicy beer mustard from a Wisconsin company, and a tin of Dave's Burning Nuts for the boys at work. We then grabbed a bite to eat before heading back to Madison. A stop at Steve's Liquor was fruitful. I grabbed some brackett from White Winter Winery up in Iron River (cherry and traditional), a bottle of Lake Louie's limited edition Mr. Mephisto's Imperial Stout, and a funky imported Belgian ale. Then it was off to our last destination together, the friendly confines of Alex Polish-American Deli over on Monroe. There I bought some garlic ham, some Hungarian spiced bacon, cabbage soup, and a poppy seed roll. Jason then drove me back to my car and I made my way to Jenifer Street Market for a few last things. While there I bought a Black Pearl Bar by Vosges Chocolate. It's dark chocolate with ginger, wasabi, and black seasame seeds...
Zwiebelfleisch is easy to make as it's basically a boatload of thinly-sliced beef strips along with a boatload of onion plus seasoning in a gravy. So the first thing I did was bust open that bottle of Imperial Stout. It was mighty, mighty tasty. At that point, I started cutting the beef into strips and chopping a whole bag of onion. The Dulcinea made her way over and started making the spaetzle batter. Prep time was minimal and, after the stout, I had the Belgian ale. Since The Dulcinea was on medication, she was not able to drink so the suds were all mine! Soon enough the cooking began.
I was doubling the recipe so into the pot went lots of lard!
Next went in all of the onion. After they cooked for a spell, I added the seasoning which included lemon peel & marjoram plus a few dashes of vinegar.
Then I added the flesh...mmm...cow flesh...and on went the lid.
After about an hour or so, it was done and I added a flour & water slurry to thicken the gravy.
I boiled the spaetzle and cleared the freezer of some half-empty bags of frozen peas & green beans.
I believe it was after dinner that The Dulcinea set to work on the Chocolate Sauerkruat cake. Maybe it just before dinner was served - I can't recall. I do remember draining and chopping the kraut, though. Here's some snaps:
I don't wanna brag, but, if I didn't know any better, I'd say it was all professionally done. The Zwiebelfleisch was very tasty indeed! It was this wonderful mélange of oniony & beefy goodness that had a great tang courtesy of the vinegar & lemon peel. Then you had the marjoram and thyme bringing up the rear palate. The gravy made the perfect, well, gravy for the spaetzle. And those hard rolls were mighty fine with slices of the Polish butter I had bought. The cake too turned out really well. One reason it was so good was that it wasn't overly sweet and rich. Just a whole lotta chocolatey goodness.
As an addendum, I want to comment on some of the other comestibles I bought but did not cosume last weekend. Firstly, there's the matter of the Black Pearl bar. At $9 a pop ($3 more than Vosges sells them for at their webpage), this is not likely to become a staple of my diet. However, it was incredibly good. The dark chocolate and the ginger go very well together and I tasted just a hint of the wasabi which was like a very faint but persistent warmth on my tongue.
I've had some of White Winter's brackett before but the two flavors I bought last weekend were new to me. The cherry variety was so-so. Maybe it was a sub-par batch but it just seemed overly bitter to me and the flavors just didn't meld into gestalty goodness like I had expected. The traditional brackett aged in oak barrels, however, was fucking incredible! (Brackett is mead made with grains - cross between beer and mead.) The grain and honey flavors came first and were very distinct. Then an umbra of oaken woody goodness settled over my palate...mmm...The Dulcinea said that it was akin to sipping a fine sherry. And at 24 proof, it gave her a nice warm feeling and a slight buzz.
At this time, I have no idea what's next on the menu. A co-worker has returned from a sojourn in Mother Russia and brought back some vodka and chocolate for me so I'm considering cooking a Russian feast to go along with the sampling of the spirits.
Anyone have a good Russian recipes?
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