[Sca-cooks] Yet another German Feast

[Jonathan and Rebecca Barber]

> 
> --- Jonathan and Rebecca Barber <barber at runbox.com> wrote:
> 
> > Menu and recipes for comments at http://pages.ivillage.com/misanthropic777/id10.html
> > 
> > > Ru commented:
> > > > Sauerbraten
> > > Oh. Recipe? Is there proof this is period?
> > 
> 
> Quick question.  Why did you opt to roast the joint of beef, and add the marinade as a sauce after
> roasting?  Traditional Sauerbraten finds the meat braised in the marinade, and your period recipe
> seems to indicate that it should be boiled in the broth.  Both versions are moist-heat cooking
> methods, so I was just curious as to why you chose to prepare it using dry-heat (roasting).  Was
> this a presentation choice?  

Partially a presentation choice, partially because we have only 6 burners but 6 full sized convection ovens (making oven roasting an easier choice) and partially because the smell of the marinade was overpowering.  We marinated the meat for 2 days for our first test and were really worried it would be too strong.  As it happened it wasn't at all; almost too weak.  However the scent when you opened the bag knocked you on your butt and we were worried that cooking it in the marinade as well would completely overpower the food and make it unpalatable to most modern diners.

I may try braising it in the oven when we do our next test cook (at altitude) to see how it does, although I worry that the differences in altitude and the use of a convection oven as opposed to a regular one for the actual feast will cause issues.  Since the biggest difference appears to be the boiling point of liquid I'm not sure if trying to braise in the convection ovens would cause all the liquid to evaporate, leaving no sauce.  As it was I had to add beer to the  sauce to ensure that there was enough....

Ru