A (Hashtag) Luxury Problem Solved

Or what to do with leftover champagne

The last time I posted, beloved food friends, I was pouring strawberry champagne cocktails at a high tea for Southern ladies, and like well-brought-up Southern ladies, my lady friends were too demure to drink as much as I was pouring.

Leftover champagne seems like a luxury problem, even though the champagne I used for cocktails wasn’t first-rate. I picture the night after a party at Versailles, everybody snoring on chaises longues, their wigs falling off, their corsets loosened but not off, while a maid picks up bottles half-emptied of bubbly. Leftover champagne is what happens to people who don’t use illegal narcotics and who still manage to spend too much money on their festivities.

Leftover champagne is what happens to people who don’t use illegal narcotics and who still manage to spend too much money on their festivities.

So what’s a slightly hungover carpet-bagging Yankee to do the next morning with a leftover nearly full bottle of inexpensive champagne? Should I pour it down the drain? I looked around. Giving it to the dogs in their water bowl seemed to be a bad idea. Drinking champagne without the fizz is like looking at an empty football field after your Super Bowl team lost. It’s not festive! I drank some of the leftover iced tea from the day before, and by the time the glass was empty, I had an idea.

I had a cabbage in the fridge. I also had a pork loin I was intending to cook, too. I put an apron on.

This is what it looks like when I start slicing up cabbage with a mild hangover.

I chopped the cabbage more finely than you see above, and I went to my pantry, where I found a bottle of juniper berries. This is a traditional Northwestern French ingredient for game dishes. It’s also where gin comes from. I threw the juniper berries (about a quarter cup, a tablespoon of salt, three tablespoons of powdered sugar, the whole chopped cabbage, and the leftover champagne into my crockpot. I wandered back to bed while the aforementioned ingredients bubbled on a low setting.

I threw the ingredients in my crock pot, set it on low, and went back to bed.

When I woke up, the cabbage slaw had browned slightly (if I make this another time, I might add some butter to make sure it doesn’t burn) and had acquired a vaguely nutty flavor. I added a teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg.

Here’s what it looked like. This is vaguely like a traditional French sauerkraut, une choucroute alsacienne. The Alsatian recipe would likely include a Gewurtztraminer or a Riesling white wine, not leftover champagne, but I was improvising. The Alsatian recipe would accompany pork and sausages. As it happens, I had a pork loin to cook anyhow.

Here’s what the dish looked like after I had cooked it and had added the nutmeg.

Once I finished the pseudo-sauerkraut, I got out the pork loin. I looked in the fridge. I had some asparagus that was still good but wouldn’t be in a few days. I had some small apples as well that were already part of what I intended to cook with the pork loin whenever I roasted it. I added two onions to the mix of things with which I would roast the pork.

Because Alsatian cuisine is influenced by Ashkenazi Jewish cooking, I chose to do a very un-Kosher but vaguely Ashkenazi thing with the pork. A traditional dish exists in that culture’s culinary palate that involves the mixture of apples, red wine, and honey as part of the Rosh Hashannah dinner. Of COURSE nothing about this would traditionally include pork, but something I notice in Alsatian cuisine is that the goyishe cooks of Alsace clearly lived close enough in Strassbourg to at least smell the food from Kosher kitchens, and elements of the best Kosher foods from Alsace are present also in non-Jewish cuisine strasbourgeoise.

To these ingredients — a pork loin, two chopped onions, four chopped apples, one bunch of asparagus chopped — I added salt, pepper, parsely, cumin, honey and port wine.

I therefore decided to make a honey-port glaze for the pork. I took the loin out of the package you see above, and I glazed it in honey mixed with cumin, salt, and pepper on both sides. I wanted to brown (and hence caramelize) the pork before it roasted.

You can see that the butter and oil in the pan is bubbling. The top is coated with some honey, and I coated it also with salt, pepper, and cumin (the brown powder you see here.

I first browned both sides of the pork over a high flame so that it would quickly caramelize (but not fully cook) it. I then removed the pork and poured in (over a low flame — don’t burn yourself or your kitchen!) four cups of port wine. Once the alcohol had boiled off, I put the pork back in with the other ingredients.

Now that the pork is browned, the pan is deglazed with port wine, and the asparagus, apples, and onions are all in the pan under the pork, it’s time to close the lid on the roasting pan (or cover it with foil) and put it in the oven....

I added some parsley and covered the pan. I put it in the oven for 90 minutes at 325 degrees. Here is what it looked like when it came out of the oven:

This pork roast is ready to plate.

Because my husband loves it when I cook pork, even though it was dinner for just the two of us, I decided to make it look extra fancy. I boiled down the pan juices with some corn starch (and a pinch of sugar) to make it into a port glaze, and I put it on a fancy platter:

If I were serving this in a French formal dinner, I would call it roti de porc mielleux au port avec son mirepoix d’asperges, pommes, et oignons.

I served the cabbage I stewed in champagne with juniper berries as a side dish. My husband ate most of this platter in the photo. I had a luxury problem — leftover champagne, and I had a pork loin and some vegetables in my fridge. I solved the luxury problem in a pan-European culinary way. Before you toss anything out in your kitchen, provided it is still edible or drinkable, consider how you might use it in a new creation. Your imagination is the only limit.

May all your problems be luxury problems, and may they be few in number.

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Groceries and recipes

Shopping list for this menu

Wine

This newsletter edition presumes leftover champagne, but you really could just buy some Riesling, which is a lot less expensive — one bottle.

Port

Produce

1 bunch of asparagus

2 onions

4 apples

1 head of cabbage

Spices and baking goods

Dried juniper berries

Nutmeg

Cumin

Parsley

Cornstarch

Powdered sugar

Vegetable oil

Meat

1 pork loin (about 3 pounds)

Bread

I made biscuits as a side out of a can. I am adding it to the shopping list.

This grocery list is for one dinner only, plus a good amount of leftover pork and port wine. If I were making this with a fresh bottle of Riesling, rather than leftover champagne, I would have a glass or two left in the bottle. It costs about $75 at my grocery store today. It has some luxury ingredients. Of course, if you have some of these ingredients already, your grocery bill will be lower.

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Recipes

Alsatian crockpot sauerkraut

3/4 bottle of Riesling (or leftover champagne)

1/4 cup of juniper berries

3 tsp. Grated nutmeg

Put all the ingredients in the crockpot and cook on low for about 4 hours. Hangover optional.

Roast pork in a honeyed port wine glaze with apples, asparagus, and onion

1 pork loin, 3-4 pounds

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

4 apples, chopped

2 onions, chopped

1 bunch of asparagus, chopped

3 tbsp. Cumin

1/2 cup of honey

4 cups of port

3 tbsp. Cornstarch

Salt and pepper to taste

• Set the oven at 325 degrees.

• In a roasting pan over a high flame on a stovetop, add the vegetable oil to heat.

• Slather the pork loin in honey, cumin, salt, and pepper.

• Brown on both sides, then remove from the pan.

• Lower the flame, and add 3 cups of the port. Scrape the bottom of the pan as the alcohol boils.

• Turn off the stovetop. Add the asparagus, onions, and apples to the roasting pan. Put the roast on top.

• Cover the roast and put it in the oven for about an hour and a half.

• When you remove the roasting pan from the oven, once the pork is cooked, drain the liquid from the bottom in the pan and put it in a sauce pan. Heat it.

• In a cup or a small bowl, combine the cornstarch and the last cup of port. Stir until it is a consistent mixture without lumps. Pour into the heated pan liquids.

• Stir until the liquid becomes a glaze thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon. Taste and see if you would like to add a bit more honey or cumin.

• Slice the roast. Spoon the port glaze over the meat. Serve with the vegetables as a mirepoix to accompany the meat course. (And I served the Alsatian crockpot sauerkraut with the roast as well).