Category: Side dishes

Jerri’s Mom’s Cucumber Slaw

Jerri’s mother gave us a copy of the The Centennial Treasury of Recipes of the Swiss (Volyhynian) Mennonites shortly after it was published in 1974. Jerri is very fond of this cookbook because it contains recipes brought to Kansas from what is now a part of Ukraine by her grandparents and great-grandparents.

The book offers many variations of traditional foods. There is a chapter with seven different recipes for poppy seed rolls (Mak Kuchen), one of which Jerri follows pretty closely when she bakes hers as Christmas gifts every year. There are nine recipes in the chapter for peppernuts (Pfeffernüsse), none of which is as good as the one Jerri uses for the Pfeffernüsse she bakes for the holidays.

And in case you think that those Mennonite cooks brought only dessert recipes to the new world, the book has ten recipes for borscht including Russian and Swiss versions. There are 13 recipes for Beroggi (pronounced burr-AH-ghee), boiled dumplings or baked rolls filled with cheese, sauerkraut or beans and served as a main dish with a savory or sweet sauce.

When those Mennonite families emigrated to the United States, they brought with them the turkey red wheat that made Kansas the breadbasket of the nation along with seeds for the fruits and vegetables that nourished them throughout the year. Watermelon seeds from the Ukraine still produce big melons in Kansas, and their gardens were filled with onions, carrots, beets, potatoes, cabbages, cucumbers, dill and lettuce.

One wonderfully simple but delicious recipe passed down through the generations is cucumber slaw.

INGREDIENTS:

3 medium cucumbers, 7 to 8 inches long
1/4 cup chopped white or yellow onion
1/3 cup sour cream
1 scant T cider vinegar
3/4 tsp. salt
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

PROCEDURE:

Wash and remove the stem and blossom ends from the cucumbers. Peel and slice them very thinly with a kitchen grater. Put them in a medium bowl and stir in the salt. Allow the cucumbers to rest ten to fifteen minutes to draw the water from the slices but do not drain them. Clean and finely chop the onion and add it to the cucumber. Stir in the sour cream, vinegar and a dash of black pepper. Let the slaw rest for a few minutes, then stir and taste it. Add more vinegar, salt and pepper as needed.

NOTES: People have different tolerances for salt, but as Jerri’s mom was fond of saying, “Cucumbers and potatoes always take more salt than you think.” How much you need depends on the size of the cucumbers, but start with at least a teaspoon of salt.

Some cucumbers are juicier than others. If you want, drain out a teaspoon or two of water before adding the sour cream.

Incidentally, this salad is also very low in carbs; a cup has only about three grams of carbohydrates.

Pasta and Kale

Like me, kale prefers cooler climates. This may explain why I enjoy it so much, although it might just be my European heritage. Kale has been one of the most popular green vegetables in Europe for at least two thousand years. The Greeks and Romans who loved the vegetable may have brought it to northern Europe, but many food historians suspect that the Celts carried it with them when they migrated across the continent and ended up in Ireland.

Besides having a wonderful fresh flavor, kale is a great source of important vitamins and minerals. One cup of steamed kale has more vitamin C than an eight ounce glass of fresh orange juice, more calcium than a cup of milk and more potassium than a banana–all this with only 50 calories and four carbs.

During the year I spent in Germany kale was on the menus in fine restaurants, school cafeterias and neighborhood Gaststüben. You could buy it fresh at the market in front of the cathedral in Muenster even when snow covered the cobbles. Farmers just dug the kale out of the snow and sold bunches of it crisp and green to eager housewives and hungry students.

We like it steamed as a green vegetable, in soups or combined with pasta. This combination of pasta and kale is a very simple recipe, but if you make it with good smoked bacon you will have a delicious side dish or main course. We try to get fresh crisp curly kale, but you can use flat leaf kale as well.

Feel free to change the proportions of ingredients to suit your taste, but follow the recipe the first time!

INGREDIENTS:

A bunch of fresh kale (approximately 8 ounces)
4 strips of thick-sliced bacon
1/4 medium onion (2 1/2 to 3 inch diameter)
12 oz. package of pasta
Salt and pepper
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

PROCEDURE:

Cook the pasta according to the directions on the package. While the water is heating and the pasta is cooking, prepare the other ingredients.

Clean and chop the onion and wash and remove the tough stems and large center ribs from the kale. Shred the kale with a sharp knife

Cut the bacon into half inch pieces and fry it over low heat in a large skillet. When the bacon is nearly done, add the chopped onion. Cook it slowly for three or four minutes. Do not brown the onion or allow the bacon to become crisp. Remove the skillet from the heat until the pasta is cooked al dente.

Return the skillet to the heat, add the kale and toss it until it is slightly wilted. Add the drained pasta with about 1/4 cup of grated Parmesan cheese and toss thoroughly. Season lightly with salt and pepper and serve with extra Parmesan at the table.

NOTES: I prefer to use penne rigate for this recipe, but I have used rotini and macaroni. Anything except lasagna noodles should be fine.