PA Dutch Crumb Cake クラムケーキ

Recently we visited rural Pennsylvania where my wife grew up. The trip was very nostalgic for her. One of the highlights was stopping at two regional grocery stores; Henning's and Landis. When she was a girl they were just small country stores which have grown a lot larger. (Henning's boasts 57,000 square feet). She was beside herself standing in front of the deli department stocked with all the Pennsylvania Dutch goodies such as beet pickled eggs, chow chows of all types, multiple types of scrapple. I had to remind her that  there was only so much room in the car. The real piece de resistance was the stop at Landis. Every Christmas she mail orders shoofly pie and funny cake from them. There, she stood confronted with shelf after shelf of shoofly pie, funny cake, apple sauce cake, apies pie, hard tac cake and others.  They even offered free samples with a small cup of coffee!! She couldn't resist and loaded up. Despite the mother load she brought back with her, she was inspired to make some PA Dutch dishes. This is one of them called "Crumb cake". It is not too sweet, and is very moist with interesting rough texture. I really like this cake. (Like many Pa Dutch baked goods although it is a cake it is made in a pie pan).



The name "Crumb" comes from the fact the whole cake; both top and bottom are made from "Crumbs".



Ingredients

3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2/3 cup butter
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup buttermilk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract

Directions

Sift together flour, baking power, salt, sugar and soda.
Using a pastry cutter, cut in the butter until the mixture has the consistency of course meal or small peas. (These are the crumbs for which the cake is named. )
Reserve about 1 1/2 cups of this mixture and set aside.
Combine the eggs, milk and extracts and stir into the remainder of the dry ingredients and blend. (First picture below)
Pour into 2 well-buttered 10-inch pie pans.
Brush the top of the dough w/ butter and sprinkle with the reserved crumb mixture. (Middle picture below)
Bake at 350° for 25-30 minutes or until cake is done. (Last picture).

(Pie pan filled with wet and  dry "Crumbs" mixture).

(After reserved dry "Crumbs" were put on).

(After baked at 350F for 30 minutes).

The cake is mildly sweet with a lovely moist texture. The combined flavors of the brown sugar, vanilla and almond is very distinctive but delightfully mild. The cake went so well with our espresso. The cake is so easy to make. We'll be seeing this one again.

Pa Dutch Lebanon Bologna sandwich ペンシルヴァニアダッチ、レバノンボロニアサンド

I mentioned several times that, although my wife is not Pennsylvania Dutch, she grew up in Pennsylvania Dutch country predominated primarily by Mennonites. Her childhood food memories have a large PA Dutch food component.

This time, as she was browsing through the many catalogs we receive, especially around Christmas she found "Pennsylvania Dutch Sweet Lebanon Bologna" in the Vermont Country Store catalog. She said she had not tasted this since her childhood and promptly ordered it. In her excitement she decided to share her find with her siblings who also live far away from PA Dutch country. So she ordered some for them too. When it arrived, she told me I just had to try this traditional (so I was told) sandwich featuring the bologna on pumpernickel bread.



Since we do not have traditional "Bread and Butter" pickles, she used my Japanese-style cucumber pickles.



Here is how my wife made her beloved sandwich from her childhood. First, she has to use Pa-Dutch style Lebanon (which is named after a county called Lebanon, PA, not the country located in the middle east) Bologna (#1). She is particularly fond of  a "sweet" variety shown here. Second, the bread has to be Pumpernickel bread. She lightly toasted it and let it cool down before assembling (#2) with sharp cheddar cheese slices and pickled cucumber. Since we did not have "Bread and Butter" cucumber pickles, she substituted with my Japanese-style pickled cucumber (#2)



The bread slices were generously smeared with mayo and "two" slices (I said one and half will cover the bread but was told that you do not do one and half) of the Lebanon Bologna were placed (#3). Slices of cheddar cheese and pickled cucumber went next (#4). This was capped by another slice of the Pumpernickel (with mayo smeared as well) and cut in half and served (First two pictures).

This was a rather nice sandwich. I have to admit it has a pleasant unique taste which I have never had before. My wife was in heaven. Beer anyone?

P.S. We have a funny follow-up. My wife somehow imagined that she would receive a "log" of Bologna especially as it was rather pricey but she received two 8oz packages (which was exactly as listed in the catalog). The next time I went to the local grocery store I was curious to see if  they just might carry the Lebanon bologna my wife just bought or something similar. I looked and immediately I found the very same packages of Lebanon Bologna by Seltzer's and it was orders of magnitude cheaper even excluding the shipping cost than what my wife had paid. We are sure this has been available all along but we never looked for it. My wife was a bit chagrined particularly when she took into account the additional expenses she incurred by sending it to her sibs. We had a good laugh nonetheless. She is actually glad to discover that she can have 10 packages from the local grocery store for the cost of one mail order any time she wants.

PD Noodle Mac and Cheese variation マック アンド チーズ ヴァリエーション

We had leftover barbecued chicken from the weekend, leftover Pennsylvania Dutch noodle (egg noodle) and this was a leftover control dish. This is similar to my Mac and cheese with some variations.

The below will make a 9 inch casserole.

Sauce: This is a type of Morney sauce (or Béchamel sauce with cheese). I try to make Béchamel with the least amount of fat possible. To do this I start with finely chopped onions before adding the flour. Because the flour coats the surface of the chopped onion, it will make a smooth Béchamel without much fat.

I sautéed 1 medium finely chopped onion in a frying pan (2 tbs of light olive oil instead of butter) and seasoned it with salt. I then added shiitake mushroom (optional 3 big ones, stem removed and finely chopped). After mushrooms were softened, I added flour (3 tbs) stirring until dry flour was no longer visible and the pieces of vegetable were coated with flour. I added cold 1% (instead of cream or 4%) milk at once (about 1 cup and add more later). I stirred the mixture with a silicon spatula until the sauce thickened. Since cheeses will be added and the noodles may absorb moisture, I wanted this sauce to be rather runny. I added more milk until the desired consistency was attained. I seasoned it with salt, white pepper and freshly grated nutmeg (we like lots of freshly grated nutmeg).

Cheese: We added two cheeses; sharp Cheddar (1/2 cup grated) and Gruyere cheese (1/2 cup grated). If the sauce became too thick, you can add more milk to loosen it.

Chicken: This is optional but one of the reason for this dish was to use the leftover barbecued chicken. I used about 1/2 cup of cooked and shredded chicken which was mixed into the sauce. Since the chicken was hot smoked, it added a nice smoky flavor.

Noodles: This was Pennsylvania Dutch noodle (wide noodle) cooked. I added about a cup to the chicken cheese mixture. I placed the sauce mixture with noodles into the casserole and placed it in a 400F preheated convection (toaster) oven for 15-20 minutes or until the surface started showing brown spots. I grated Riggiano Palmigiano cheese and chopped parsley on the top. I let it rest for 10 minutes before serving.

This was a quite wonderful “comfort” dish for leftover control. Often Cheddar cheese cooked too long becomes "chalky" but the addition of Gruyere and the rather loose sauce appeared to prevent this from happening. The nutmeg and smoky chicken added nice flavor. I could have added bread crumbs on the top to make crunchy surface but even without it this was a fine dish.

Auntie N's no-crapple scrapple redux スクラップル 再登場

We previously posted scrapple which is a well-known and somewhat dreaded Pennsylvania Dutch breakfast item widely served in diners in Philadelphia. The authentic recipe requires a hog's head but my wife made it from stewed pork spare ribs and since it is not made with any offal, we called it "Auntie N's no-crapple scrapple". I came across another "civilized" scrapple recipe in the Washington Post on line which does not call for a whole hog's head boiled for several days. I forwarded this recipe to her hoping she would try it--which she did.

Ingredients from the Post article:
1 1/2 pounds ground pork
25 ounces chicken broth, preferably homemade
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 cup flour, plus 1/4 cup for dusting the scrapple
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon minced shallots
1 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
1 teaspoon chopped fresh basil
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil, or more as needed (may substitute butter)

The recipe calls for ground pork. Since this is "no crapple-scrapple" we didn't want to use ground pork from the market because then we couldn't guarantee it didn't contain any crapple. So we purchased a pork butt roast and ground the meat ourselves. Grinding the pork was the extent of my contribution to the dish. I handed the prepared pork to Auntie N and she took over the preparation.

Auntie N wrote: While I used the basic ingredients from the Post article I put them together differently based on previous experience making scrapple. I browned the pork in a saucepan then added the broth bringing the mixture just to a boil. I added the garlic and shallots. In a separate bowl I combined the cornmeal and flour. I slowly added the dry ingredients to the pork broth mixture whisking briskly to prevent lumps. As if making polenta I stirred the mixture until it got very stiff and pulled away from the sides of the pan. Then I added the old bay seasoning, chopped fresh thyme and basil as well as salt and pepper to taste. I poured the mixture into a bread loaf pan to cool.

To cook, I sliced the pieces that were about 1/2 inch thick, lightly floured the surface and pan fried them on medium high heat for about 5 minutes a side.

The pieces cooked up very nicely with a pleasing crust outside and soft center. It turns out that this is a much more refined scrapple than the one I am used to. While it had a pleasing pork taste it was not as permeating as the more traditional recipe. In addition the various herbs and spices are a very good combination in their own right but not the intense rustic flavors characteristic of traditional scrapple (which in fact many people don't entirely appreciate). If you are one of those people this is a nice variation and worth trying.

Chow-chow pickles チャウチャウ ピクルス

In the food section of Washington Post online, I found a recipe for scrapple (a fairly "refined" version) and sent it to my wife. Since she created Auntie N's no-crapple scrapple, I thought she would be most interested in this recipe. As she was looking through the scrapple recipe, she also came across a recipe for a dressing which is based on (store-bought) "chow-chow", Pennsylvania Dutch pickles.  Although she is not Pennsylvania Dutch, she grew up in the Pennsylvania Dutch country. She tells me that chow-chow was ubiquitous and appeared everywhere. It was even served in the school cafeteria.

Chow-chow is one of the classic Pennsylvania dutch "Seven Sweets and Seven Sours" which by tradition should be included in every dinner served to company. The seven sours included: pickled vegetables (such as pickled cauliflower, beets, or cabbage), coleslaw, dill pickles, green tomato relish, meat jelly and spiced cucumbers in addition to chow-chow. (For those who are interested the sweets included: jelly (currant or apple), apple butter or apple sauce, preserves such as quince, candied watermelon rind or wild strawberry, two or three pies such as schnitz, shoofly, funeral or montgomery and cheese cake). As a kid, my wife particularly liked chow-chow because she could pick out the veggies she liked best from the wide selection that made up the dish. Although my wife knew chow-chow as exclusively PA dutch, we found out that it is also a southern dish. The Pennsylvania version, however, is said to be much sweeter than the southern.  Over the years my wife has looked for but never found a recipe that reproduces the chow-chow of her childhood.  She searched on line and found this one based on an old Pennsylvania dutch cookbook from the 1930's.

Vegetables: Red and yellow pepper, cut in strips (one each), Cauliflower (one head, separated into small florets), celery (two stalks cut in to 3 inch buttons), green beans (on hand full), corn (kernels from 2 cobs, uncooked), kidney beans (one 15 oz can), black beans (one 15 oz can), Lima beans (one package, frozen thawed) (picture below upper left). The cauliflower and beans were precooked by steaming.

Pickling liquid: She used sushi vinegar (1 cup), (this is obviously her modification--sushi vinegar is not traditional to Pennsylvania Dutch cooking. She said she used it because it is milder than the traditional cider vinegar), sugar (1 cup), water (1 cup), kosher salt (2 Tbs.), ground turmeric (1 tbs), black pepper corns (1 tbs), cinnamon stick (one), whole all spice (1/2 tbs). She simmered these ingredients in a pot for about 30 minutes. (top right picture).  

Then she strained the syrup to remove the spices. She poured the strained syrup back into the pot and added whole bay leaves (3), hot red peppers (dried, 2), yellow mustard seed (2 tbs), celery seeds (1 1/2 tsp) and simmered the mixture for another 10 minutes. 

She arranged the vegetables in a glass baking dish (top left picture, since we did not have a glass pickling jar) and poured the hot liquid over the vegetables, stirred well and covered. After it cooled she put it in the refrigerator. The recipe said 'wait at least a week before serving. Because of the way these pickles were made they are considered "refrigerator pickles" meaning that they should be kept in the fridge and will not last more than a couple of weeks. The traditional PA dutch method is, of course sterilized, "heavy duty" canning.

After waiting a week my wife tasted the chow-chow...she was ecstatic!! This was the traditional taste of her childhood that she had been looking for all these years.  She was so excited she called me at work to tell me the pickles were a success. She said that the minute she tasted them she was instantly transported back to her childhood--summer picnics, dinners at friend's houses, cafeteria lunches, community suppers at the firehouse. As she said, Proust really knew what he was talking about with those madelaines.  

This is a very mild pickle with a pleasing sweet and sour taste. If truth be told, it is a little too sweet for me (my wife says that she probably liked it as a child because it was sweet--she said she still likes it a lot). All the additional spices give it a distinctive depth of flavor. The veggies are still very crisp and the diversity of ingredients makes it very interesting. Chow-chow is sometimes referred to as "the end of summer pickles". It includes such a variety of vegetables because these are all the veggies that are left over from pickling individual vegetables from the summer harvest. I suspect my wife will be making this again. It is certainly worth the effort.  

Boeuf Bourguignon 牛肉の赤ワイン煮

Sometimes we come across a wine that is OK but we would rather not drink (life is too short). Sometimes after returning the wine to the bottle, we classify it as a "Wednesday" wine-- meaning that although it wasn't good enough for dinner on Sunday, no matter how bad it may have tasted on Sunday, by Wednesday that wine (or any other wine for that matter) would taste good. In other cases the wine can not even classify as a Wednesday wine. We had one such bottle of wine and the only thing left to do was make beef stew. This dish probably does not qualify to be called "Bourguignon" since the wine was not burgundy but Chilean Cab. I did not look up any specific recipe. My recipe has some apparent deviation from the classic (if such a thing exists); one is not using bacon since I do not find too much difference in the end result except adding more fat. I did not have regular button mushrooms (we don't particularly like them), so I used fresh shiitake instead. Lastly, I did not have pearl onions or cippolini but  I did happen to have parsnips. Despite these deviations, the end result was quite good (allow me again to self boast).

Beef: I happened to come across some very reasonably priced beef for stew and bought it (about 2.5 lb). I suspect this could have been rump roast or round but I'm not sure. I salted and peppered the beef cubes and dredged in flour. In a large Dutch oven (or stock pot), I added light olive oil (3 tbs) on medium flame and browned the beef cubes in two batches so that all the surfaces get nicely browned and crusty leaving brown bits ("fond") on the bottom of the pan (#1, below).

Wine: Any semi drinkable dry red wine would do. I used the wine that failed to classify as even a Wednesday wine  (1 bottle or 750ml) as I mentioned above but, of course, you could use Burgundy.

I removed the beef from the pot and covered it with an aluminum foil and set aside. I added finely chopped onion (2 medium), garlic (5 cloves), celery (3 stalks and leaves) to the pot and sauté for 5-6 minutes. The moisture from the vegetables helps dislodge  the "fond" but I further deglazed it with a small amount of red wine to make sure all the "fond" gets incorporated. I added back the beef with the juice accumulated on the bottom of the plate and added the remainder of the red wine. 

Bouquet garni: I did not have fresh thyme. I initially made BG from two stalks of celery, 4 bay leaves, 3 sprigs of parsley, 2 stalks of fresh rosemary tied with a butcher twine, but, at the end, I decided to remove all the solids from the cooking liquid.  I really did not have to make BG and could have just thrown in everything. I also added 5-6 whole back pepper corns and dried thyme (1/4 tsp). I did not add any liquid but wine. When it came to a boil, I skimmed off the scum that formed on the surface. Then turned down the heat to simmer. I put the lid on and cooked for more than 1 hour (#2).

Vegetables: It is important to cook vegetables separately, not in the wine with the meat. The acidity of the wine appears to prevent starchy vegetables such as potatoes from getting cooked properly (i.e. they never become soft). I combined the meat and vegetables after both were properly cooked. I cooked the vegetables in salted water in a separate pot which included potatoes (6 small Yukon gold, peeled), carrot (3 medium, cut in 1 inch rounds), parsnip (3 small, cut in half inch segments) (to cook everything together, give the potatoes a 15 minute head start). If I had pearl onion or cippolini, I would have cooked them in water or chicken stock until they were soft or the liquid mostly evaporated. Then I would have sautéed them in butter to brown the surface before adding to the stew. For the shiitake mushrooms, I cut them into large chunks (6 large), sauteed in butter and deglaze with a small amount of brandy (be careful of flare ups). The cooked vegetables were drained immediately and set aside in a bowl.

After the beef became tender, I removed the meat to another container and strained the remaining simmering liquid to remove all solids pressing to extract all the juice. I put back the liquid in the pot (The liquid was now nice dark burgundy color and slightly thickened. I switched to a smaller pot at this point), added back the beef and the vegetables (#3). I simmered it for another 30 minutes (#4).

We tasted a little of the stew but we did not eat it immediately (because we had fresh tuna we had to eat that evening). I put the pot in the fridge after it cooled to room temperature. The next day, I reheated it on a low flame and adjusted the seasoning with salt and pepper. I served this with Pennsylvania Dutch noodles and green beans. The result was well worth the effort. The beef was fork tender and flavorful and the sauce is very rich and with layers of velvety flavor (may I say unctuous?). We really liked the parsnips in the stew. They added a slight sweetness.

The obvious choice of libation was a good red wine. We had this with Flora Springs Winery, Flora's Legacy, Cabernet Sauvignon 2006. This is a solid Napa cab, not too fruit- or vanilla-laden but with complex black fruit upfront with a nice backbone of tannin and went so well with this dish. Perfect!

Pork Cutlet ポークカツレツ

This dish is looking into a bit of history on Japanese "Western" dishes. This dish may look like "Tonkatsu" トンカツ but this is the predecessor of Japanese tonkatsu and called "poku katsuretsu" ポークカツレツ and it is closer to Western "cutlet" than tonkatsu. ("katsu" in "ton-katsu" is a short for "katsuretsu" but you do not say "tonkatsuretsu" to mean "tonkatsu"). When a famous and pioneering yoshoku restaurant, "Renga tei" 煉瓦亭 in Ginza, opened in 1895 (it is still in business today), started serving Western cuisine to Japanese, they had to make some modifications to the original Western dish to accommodate Japanese taste. These variation reportedly formed the basis of Japanese "yoshoku". For example, instead of sautéing breaded thin pieces of meat in a small amount of oil or butter in a frying pan as Western cutlets are usually prepared, they deep dried them as though making tempura (another foreign derived Japanese dish which was introduced to Japan from Portugal much earlier). They also used pork instead of veal for this dish. This eventually became tonkatsu トンカツ using pork fillets or chops rather than thinly pounded meat.

I used a pork fillet cut into small medallions (1 inch thick) and then pounded very thin. I also used some end pieces and trimmings of pork fillets (this time I used mostly trimmings). I breaded them in the standard way; seasoned with salt and pepper, dredged in flour, dipped in egg water and coated with Panko bread crumbs (left upper in the image below). I used a small amount of light olive oil (less than quarter of an inch deep) on medium low flame as seen in the right upper of the image below. After a few minutes, I turned them over and fried the the other sides until browned and the meat was done (few more minutes, left lower image below) and drain excess oil (right lower image below).

I served this with Pennsylvania Dutch noodles and steamed broccoli. On the side I put, Japanese hot mustard and tonkatsu sauce. Because the breading/meat ratio is different from tonkatsu, this tastes different from tonkatsu. It is dominated by the crispy crust and is very good in its own right. Leftovers make a mighty fine sandwich particularly if the mustard/tonkatsu sauce is used on the bread.

We had this with a decent Napa Cab from wine reseller Cameron Hughes wine called "lot 200". Cameron Hughes supposedly buys excess "juice" from "famous", "big-name" wine makers (mostly Napa) and bottles it under his label with a simple designation of a "lot number". We first tried CH wines after reading a WSJ article. The idea is that the original big name wineries get cash they needed but do not ruin their reputations by fire sales of their wines. We consumers get a good deal and CH makes money in the process. So everybody wins. We tried a few CH wines and most of them are decent and worth the price. This lot 200 is one of the higher priced CH wines and is a classic Napa Cab with a medium body. Not quite a high-end Napa but a very pleasant wine. Only problem with CH wines is, when you find something you like, you can never go back and buy the same wine again.

Pork scallopini with Pennsylvania dutch egg noodle 豚肉スカルピーニとペンシルバニアダッチエッグヌードル

This is a "padding" post. (I wrote this just in case I may have a lean moment realizing I do not have much to post, so if you are seeing this post, this is such a moment). We think this is a good simple dish which is very satisfying. The noodles you see here are called "Pennsylvania Dutch Egg noodles". It is a type of pasta but Pennsylvania "Dutch" ("Deutsch" or German) people brought it with them when they migrated to North America. I am sure there must be some traditional German or Swiss noodles which resemble this noodle. Since my wife grew up in "Pennsylvania Dutch country", this is her comfort food. As a result, we often eat this as a starch dish. After boiling the noodles as per the instruction on the bag, my wife simply sautés it in brown butter and a small amount of crème fraiche (optional), (traditional recipe uses sour cream) with the addition of chopped chives, salt and pepper.

I made a sort of scaloppini or, more authentically, scaloppine using flattened pork masquerading as veal. I used pork tenderloin. After removing the silver skin and fat, I cut the tenderloin into one inch thick rounds. Using a meat pounder, I made the rounds into thin flat pieces (as thin as you can make it). If you really want to emulate the taste of veal, you could soak the meat in milk for 10-20 minutes but, this time, I skipped this step especially since we like the porky flavor. I seasoned the meat with salt, pepper, dried oregano and basil on both sides (I overdid it). I then dredged the seasoned meat in flour. In a large skillet (or a frying pan) on a medium flame, I added a bit more than your usual amount of olive oil for sauteing, since the flour will absorb the oil. I cooked the meat on both sides (1 minute each). Since the meat is very thin, it will cook very quickly. You could make a sauce but I did not, since the meat was highly seasoned. Somehow this is a very comforting (especially for my wife), basic meat and starch supper.

Auntie N's no-crapple scrapple with Pennsylvania Dutch sweet coleslaw スクラップルとペンシルバニアダッチコールスロウ

We were expecting a visiting dignitary to come to "Chez Norio" recently, Jon of EOITWJ, but things did not work out and we will have to wait for another chance. In any case, said dignitary is quoted as saying  "Now Scrapple, it's cool because you know it's full of crap, or rather is made of nothing but crap, and that's expected". In response to this statement, I let him know of the existence of Auntie N's no-crapple scrapple. So, we thought it would be most appropriate that our visitor should try her scrapple. Since it is a two-day process to make no-crapple scrapple and weekends are the only time she can do it, I asked my wife to make her specialty before we learned that our visitor could not make it. Actually, she made the best scrapple ever.

We had this as a part of an eclectic series of small dishes for the evening (mostly leftover from the weekend). The other small dishes included Yakitori-style drummetts and wings, and stewed daikon, pork spare rib (left over from the scrapple making) with the addition of tofu and broccoli. Since I had only a small amount of tofu left after the daikon, pork spare rib, tofu and broccoli dish, I made it as tofu dengaku (in a toaster oven) to use it all up. I served it with the scrapple and Pennsylvania Dutch sweet coleslaw (it may look too eclectic but, at least, it has about the same dimensions as the scrapple) as shown below.

This was the best scrapple ever! Nice mix of spices and porky flavor. Jon, you missed a good one. But don't worry there is more where that came from.

Look at this lovely mud/sewer water color. The addition of buckwheat flour really added flavors and made the color authentic but since this is no-crapple scrapple, no mystery meat or crap is in this one.

Scrapple スクラップル

Although my wife is not Pennsylvania Dutch, she grew up in the middle of Pennsylvania Dutch country in a small town near Philadelphia. While she was growing up people in her town still spoke mainly the 17th century german dialect know as Pennsylvania dutch in everyday conversation. English was a foreign language for them. She used to shop for food at Yoder's general store at the corner of 1st and Main street. As a result, many of the foods from her childhood are Pennsylvania dutch and unique to the region in which she grew up. These include pies and sweets such as shoo-fly pie, funny cake and this dish, scrapple. I was first introduced to this when we went to Philadelphia to visit her brother a long time ago while we were living in California. We had it in a small diner and I did not particularly like it then. It was unique to Pennsylvania and as far as I was concerned it could stay there. Later, when we visited one of the family's friends on their boat on the Chesapeake, they prepared wonderful scrapple which was much better than anything even my wife had before. 

For some reason, my wife wanted to make scrapple from scratch. The traditional recipe is made of scraps gleaned from the traditional fall hog slaughter (the Pennsylvania Dutch did not waste anything). The first recipe my wife read calls for a whole hog's head hacked in half (Although I may have the skill to do it, I would have refuse, if asked. Fortunately, she did not ask.) and boil it for long time and all the meat and bits are then removed from the hog's head and made into a loaf containing cornmeal, buckwheat flour and many spices. Since my wife has been making polenta in a loaf form and we really like it, she must have thought this is an interesting variation. Instead of a hog's head, she first boiled pork spareribs as though she was boiling the hog's head but the result was a bit disappointing with a sort of tired meat flavor. So she made some adjustments and perfected her recipe. We eat this most often for breakfast but sometimes for lunch over the weekend. We also enjoyed this as a part of Izakaya feast for evening. I will hand to my wife for the recipe and how to properly fry (sauté) it to get optimum crispy outside and creamy inside. Here, we served scrapple with a fried egg.

This is a very "sanitized" version of this dish because it does not use any pork offal or scraps. Start with 4 or 5 country style spareribs. Parboil for about 5 minutes. Put into a pyrex baking dish with some onions and carrots, a bay leaf and several pepper corns. Cover the ribs half way with boiling chicken stock. Cover and place into a 350 degree oven and cook for 1 1/2 to 2 hours (until the meat is tender and falls off the bone).

Remove meat from the bones and remove any excess fat. Chop the meat into very fine pieces but do not grind. Take 3 cups of chicken stock add 1 tsp sugar, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 bay leaf, 1/2 tsp dried sage, 1/4 tsp margoram, 1/8 tsp mace and several grinds of pepper. Boil for a while until the liquid has been infused with the taste of the spices. Strain the liquid, remeasure to get 3 cups total and put back into pot. Meanwhile mix 3/4 cup corn meal with 1/4 cup buckwheat flour until they are uniformly mixed.(The recipe can also be made with just 1 cup of cornmeal if buckwheat flour is not available. The buckwheat however seems to result in a finer texture and adds an additional element to the final flavor). Bring the infused chicken stock back to the boil. Lower the heat and slowly whisk in the cornmeal mixture. Keep stirring for about 5 minutes as it thickens. Toward the end add about 2 cups of the meat and continue stirring until the meat is completely incorporated (you shouldn't be able to distinguish any individual pieces of meat) . Turn the mixture into a loaf pan which has been rinsed in cold water (the water keeps the mixture from sticking).

After the scrapple has cooled (usually over night), it is ready to be cooked. Turn out the loaf and slice into 1/2 inch pieces. (The final cooking makes the difference between really good and really bad scrapple. The thickness of the piece is important to get just the right combination of crispy to creamy soft. If the pieces are too thick the overall texture is too mushy and much less pleasant.)  Lightly coat the pieces in flour with salt and pepper added. Heat several tablespoons of peanut oil in a saute pan on medium high heat (peanut oil is best because of its high smoke point). Put the pieces in the pan making sure that the sides of the pieces don't touch each other. Let 'er rip on that fairly high temperature with out touching for 5 minutes. This forms the nice crunchy crust. Lower the heat slightly and turn the pieces over and again let it cook undisturbed for another 5 minutes. (At this point the pan may be smoking a bit but don't let that bother you if it looks like it is getting too hot turn down the heat slightly.) If it looks like the first side needs more of a crust turn the piece back over and cook a bit longer. Drain the pieces on paper towels. 

The scrapple can be cut into individual pieces and frozen. If it has been frozen don't thaw before cooking. Just go ahead a dredge the pieces and put them in the pan. It will thaw in the cooking process and the cold keeps the interior creamy. 

The traditional way of eating this is with maple syrup but we like to eat it plain served with a fried egg on the side. It has a lovely porky spicy flavor and the crunch of the crust with the smooth creaminess of the inside is wonderful. Again there are many variations on this recipe. Some add liver, some add much much more pepper. This is a rather tame version but we like it.