Braunshweiger

In my last 2-4 trips up north I have checked out the local butchers and meat counters for Braunshweiger - a German liverwurst that seems popular in the northern part of the state. All of the versions I have encountered include corn syrup, which I seem to react to, so I have been unable to actually consume any. But then I got a copy of an amazing cookbook from the library: The New Midwestern Table. The cookbook is a lovely homage to midwest cooking, and includes numerous (non-paleo) delights like Michigan pasties, jello salads and an entire section of potatoes and onions. She also has recipes for wild rice/manoomin, deviled eggs (that she heats at the end?!), beet pickled eggs, cucumber salads, and pickled fish. She runs the gamut of Scandinavian, German, and Russian (Nebraskan Runza's - which are bread pies filled with meat) and they all seem to be really good looking recipes.

And - she has a recipe for Braunshweiger! With no corn syrup (or any sweetener for that matter). I followed her recipe pretty precisely, except for leaving out the garlic (I seem allergic), swapping vermouth for sherry, and using just a bit more liver than she calls for. Traditional Braunshweiger seems to be about 40% pork liver, and her recipe is only about 20%. I happened to have 3/4 pound of liver and used it all (bringing the liver total to 25%). It is important that you have fresh liver, because it gets bitter as it ages by the day. I bought frozen pork liver from the Seward, which is frozen fresh and was very easy. I just defrosted it in the fridge the day before.

I actually did not grow up eating braunshweiger, but in my recent fandom of liver in every variety, (and pork belly), I was fairly convinced that I would like this. It turned out great. I didn't wait for it to chill all the way before digging in, and it was more pate-like. But once it thoroughly chilled, it was like the braunshweiger of my imagination where you could cut slices. I ate mine on paleo crackers with some dijon mustard. Yum.

Homemade Braunshweiger
Based on the recipe from The New Midwestern Table
2 tsp fine sea salt
2 tsp freshly ground pepper
1 1/2 pounds fatty pork (I used half pork belly, half pork shoulder)
8 oz slab bacon (I used regular bacon)
12 oz fresh pork liver
1 T pork fat or ghee
2 T salted butter
1 large onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, sliced (I didn't use these!)
6 T dry sherry or vermouth
1/2 c heavy cream
1 tsp grated nutmeg
2 tsp dried marjoram
1/2 tsp ground allspice
Pinch of cayenne pepper
1/3 c shelled pistachios (or pecans or walnuts)
Dijon mustard (for serving)

1. Combine the salt and pepper in a small dish.
2. Cut the pork and bacon into 1" cubes and put them in a wide bottomed 2 quart pot. (The pot should fit the meat in one layer, although a little double up is okay.) Add water just to cover and 3/4 tsp of the salt/pepper mix and bring to a simmer. Cover, reduce the heat, and cook at a slow bubbling simmer until the meat is very tender when poked with a fork, about 3 hours. *I was leaving the house, so did this step all in a crock pot on high heat for 4 hours. It worked great.
3. Uncover and drain, reserving 3/4 c of the mixed juices and fat. Cover the meat and chill. *I had A LOT of juices/fat left, which will make great soup stock. I did reduce the liquid a bit by simmering it on the stove for 30 min or so. It wouldn't be necessary, but I wanted to get extra flavor in there. It still left me with an extra 2 c or so of soup stock.
4. Meanwhile, prepare the liver. Rinse the liver and blot it dry on an old dish towel or paper towels. Cut into 1" cubes (mine from the Seward was already chopped that way?!). Heat a large cast iron skillet over med-high heat and add 1 T pork fat/ghee. Season liver with a bit of the salt/pepper mixture. When the fat is hot, add the liver and sear on all sides until browned on the outside, but pink inside - about 5 minutes. Transfer the liver to a wide bowl.
5. Add the butter and diced onion to the skillet. Season with more of the salt/pepper mixture and cook over medium heat until the onions are sweet, golden, and tender - about 20 minutes. Add the garlic slices (if using) and cook another few minutes until softened. Add the sherry and simmer until it is reduced and "clings saucily to the onions." (I found this descriptor totally accurate and compelling! It did cling saucily!) Add the cream and simmer until thickened, about 3 minutes. Pour the onion mixture over the liver in the bowl, cover and chill in the fridge until very cold.

*I did the previous steps one day, and just chilled everything together in a big bowl overnight. The next stage is to grind and process the meat. She uses a grinder attachment on her stand mixer - but I don't have a stand mixer, so did everything in batches in my food processor. The goal is to really grind the ingredients to a paste - however you do that - and almost "whip" in some liquid. The food processor worked great - it's just that the mixture is quite thick and paste-like and gets a bit sticky.I use that method below.

6. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
7. To remaining salt/pepper mixture, add nutmeg, marjoram, allspice, and cayenne.
8. Grind/process the meat in 3 batches in a food processor, drizzling part of the reserved liquid and part of the spice mixture into each batch. As you process each batch, empty the paste-like product to a large bowl. Once all of the meat is processed and paste-like, but also a bit fluffy from the processing - mix it all together to incorporate all of the flavors. I used a big wooden spoon, but you could also use a hand mixer. Taste the mix (I ate mine as is - it is all cooked - but you could also fry a little up) and adjust salt and pepper as desired. I needed to add another teaspoon or so of salt.
9. Scoop the mixture into a lightly buttered glass or metal 9 x 4" loaf pan. Smooth the top and press nuts into the surface. Set the loaf pan in a larger baking pan and pour hot water into it to reach halfway up the sides of the loaf pan, making a water bath. Bake until the internal temp reaches 150 degrees, about 50 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool to room temperature. Then unmold the loaf, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill deeply.

*Mine did not "unmold" super easily - I went a little too early while it was still warm. I sort of reformed it back, but was nervous it would not hold its shape as it chilled on the front porch. It mostly did. I ended up cutting it in half and just wrapping up half in parchment paper.

Paleo Corned Beef with kraut, pickles, and 1000 Island

I went on a spontaneous Superior Hiking Trail adventure last weekend, which turned out to be great and also had quite the large Plan-Reality-Gap. After leaving the car at the end point and biking down 61 to the start point, My Charming Companion and I set off hiking a bit late in the day. After a couple of hours, and thinking "we must have just missed that first camp site" - we came upon said first campsite and were somewhat astonished that it had only been 2 miles. We proceeded to camp there because going another 2 miles to the originally planned spot on Bear Lake would have meant arriving after dark. I found my lack of "hiking-mile" comprehension totally amusing, because even after reading in the guidebook to plan a mile an hour, I thought for sure we were going faster than that, and also that much more time had passed than actually had. ?!

After descending into a valley that was filled with really wet wood, dinner was cooked over a fire that was kept alive by ongoing deep breathing onto the fire and lots of birch bark - which sort of extended the hilarity of the evening. Thankfully there were copious amounts of dead birch trees all around us, so there was no shortage. As I was falling asleep that night, (after washing off with my bandana and a pan of water so that my body no longer stuck to itself and anything else it touched), My Charming Companion turned to me and said, congenially, "You're crazy if you think I am going to hike 10 miles tomorrow!" which is what would have had to happen in order to get to the car at the end point, and which I was still totally considering. Again, so funny because 10 miles doesn't sound far in a whole day, but based on those 2 miles in, omg! Really far.

Instead of 10 miles, we decided to leave our packs where we were and hike a 4 mile loop to go swim at the camp spot on Bear Lake. There were lots of wild berries along the way, and the swimming was lovely. We then picked our packs up again and hiked the same 2 miles out that we had come in on the evening before. All of this took most of the day (you might think that 4 miles without packs would be pretty easy, but still no! There were steep climbs and it was hot), and was followed by a bike ride back to the car, parked at what we could call the "endpoint" but what was now just a place where the car was parked so we could bike 8 miles there and back on each end of the hike. ha! I still find it all quite funny. My Charming Companion decided that his actual hiking distance was best calculated by dividing how far he thinks he can hike by 4, whereas my calculation was to divide by 2 (I had lower mileage expectations to begin with).

Wild Blueberries! so tiny.

In the end I feel excited to go on some more weekend hiking trips (I bought the book from the Trail's main office in Two Harbors) - this time utilizing some new found tenets:
1. Consider parking at one place and do a loop. Fun!
2. Calculate actual hiking mileage according to new formula so as to at least approximate something bordering a realistic distance.
3. Pack extra food in case you "choose" to stay another night (I use "choose" quite loosely here. It seems more likely that an extra night would choose you)

This is the lake we swam in, after hiking up out of it!

One other highlight of the weekend was stopping at Northern Water Smokehaus in Duluth for lunch. We shared a delicious smoked lake trout basket with scallion cream cheese and gluten free toast (made At Sarah's Table - though to go grain free you could get cucumbers in lieu of bread), and also bought some corned beef to take home for dinner. Omg -- this dinner! I am not sure where to buy corned beef in town, but I am planning to try making my own sometime later this fall and will post it when I do. However you procure some - this pile of meat with homemade fixings is to. die. for.

Assemble your ingredients: sliced corned beef, cucumber pickles and sauerkraut (ideally with caraway), and some homemade 1000 Island Dressing - see below. You want to heat up the corned beef, but very very gently since it is so tender and already cooked. I put a little bacon fat with part water/part pickled onion juice (you could use any pickle juice, or just water) to heat in a medium saucepan. When it boils, turn it to low to simmer, and gently put the corned beef mound on top. You are essentially steaming the corned beef so that the fat becomes translucent. Cover the pot to steam, and turn meat over after 3-4 minutes to get the other side. Again: be gentle to keep the slices intact! After both "sides" have cooked for 4 minutes or so, it should be nicely heated and ready to serve with the tasty sides. I had mine with sauteed green beans. YUM!

For 1000 Island Dressing: mix together about 1/4 c. homemade mayo, 2 T tomato paste, 2 tsp mustard, some cider vinegar, and a good amount of salt. You could put diced pickles in there too, but since I was eating mine on the side, I skipped it.  I have not had 1000 Island in years - this turned out so delicious that next time I will make extra for some future salad dressing!

Pile o' meat with pickles, kraut, dressing, garden tomatoes, and green beans.