I'd accumulated some odds and ends and then Tam picked up Utterly Superior Bacon,* so:
Cut three medium potatoes in 3/8" to 1/2" cubes, dice one carrot and cook in salted, peppered water to cover plus a bit. Use a good-sized (2-quart) saucepan.
Chop one leek, half an onion (I had a nice red one, filled with vim and tears), a couple carrots and an Anaheim or other pepper; set aside.
Fry up two strips of bacon in a wok, frying pan or skillet; set aside and drain most of the grease, leaving a little for the next step:
A nice big kielbasa sausage, sliced in rounds about 3/8" thick. Cook in bacon grease, then drain, pat with paper towel and add to the potatoes. (Add water to cover if needed)
Saute the leek, onion and carrot in the sausage grease, adding bacon grease as needed (easy does it!). Add the pepper right before the onion goes translucent. Drain and stir into to the potato and sausage pot.
Add the rest of the bacon grease back to the pan. Take a small cabbage, cut the head in half and cut one half into 5 or 6 wedges. Sprinkle with a good sweet balsamic vinegar -- I used some blackberry-ginger -- and some freshly-ground pepper, pop in the skillet and cook, turning once. It will caramelize just a little. This goes pretty fast. (You can use plain vinegar and some sugar or even honey, but you'll have to experiment).
To serve, dish out the potato-sausage-veggies mix (it's done when the potatoes are starting to fall apart) with a perforated spoon, adding broth to taste (the broth is wonderful!); add a wedge or two of cabbage on the side, with a half-slice of bacon on top.
Save the leftovers! It's a good starter for a hearty soup.
Tamara's cat even liked the cabbage -- make that, "licked." But it was just one leftover wedge by then.
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* Bacon is not the same everywhere -- this would be "streaky" or "American style" bacon. OTOH, I suspect any good version of the various kinds and sorts enjoyed in the bacon-eating regions would do just fine. The rest of you are just going to have to improvise.
Sounds really good. But finding a good kielbasa, just like kishka, in Indiana, or at least in my neck of the woods, well you'd have better luck mining for diamonds.
ReplyDeleteEckrich sells adequate ones. I wasn't aiming for ne plus ultra perfection, just good eats.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason the local stores have started stocking bologna flavored "bacon." I suppose that goes with their bologna flavored "hickory smoked sausage."
ReplyDeleteAbout which I am much like the Geezenslaw brothers story about the waitress who kept trying to sell her customer rattlesnake.
"It tastes just like chicken," the waitress kept insisting.
"If I wanted rattlesnake I would have ordered rattlesnake," the customer finally retorted.
If I wanted bologna, it's a great deal cheaper than bacon. Or sausage.
Stranger