Friday, November 7, 2008

Experiment: Sweet and Sour Kielbasa

3/4 lb kielbasa
1 cup of pineapple juice
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup minced onion or 1 tbl dried, minced onion
pinch of cayenne
1/4 teaspoon ginger
salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp brown sugar
1 1/2 cups chopped pineapple
2 tsp corn starch/ 1/4 cup water mixture

Cut the kielbasa into bite sized chunks and brown it and the onion in a frying pan. Remove the kielbasa and onion and deglaze the pan with the pineapple juice. Add the ginger, cayenne and vinegar. Reduce the heat to medium-low and let the sauce reduce for a minute or two. Taste and season with salt and pepper to taste (it shouldn't take much). Bring it to a low boil and slowly pour in the cornstarch/water mixture, stirring the whole time. Once it's fully incorporated and the sauce is thick add the pineapple and kielbasa. Stir to coat and let simmer for a minute or two to heat the pineapple and let the flavors mingle. Serve over rice.

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So I needed something to do with kielbasa. I thought sweet and sour might be good, since sweet is often paired with it. The experiment turned out to be a mixed bag. I liked it well enough, but my girlfriend wasn't crazy about it. She might not like sweet and sour at all though, she isn't sure since she hasn't eaten it much. I think it would have been better if I had some peppers, chow mein noodles, cashews, or some water chestnuts or something. But, it's done and there's no taking it back. I like the way the sauce came out, it was a fairly basic sweet and sour. Next time I want to try it with pork or chicken, see if she likes that better. So, here is what I did.

First, I browned the kielbasa. Did I get a decent picture of that? No. Too much steam and arm movement. I have a tripod, but it's really small. I misunderstood the measurements or something. I'm still pretty new to this photography thing. But there it is. One problem, right off the bat, is I didn't have fresh onion, only dried/minced. It worked out fine, I just added it toward the end. But I am getting ahead of myself. Once the kielbasa was browned I removed it and deglazed the pan with the pineapple juice. Then I added the vinegar, sugar, onion and spices. I let it reduce for a minute then thickened it with a corn starch and water mixture. It came out nice and thick, which makes it cling to stuff. That part was good. Then I just tossed in the pineapple and kielbasa, mixed it around and let it simmer a little more. And then that's it. I served it over rice. Like I said, I liked it well enough. It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad. I'm not sure that I'd make it again with kielbasa, but I will be making the sauce again with chicken.

3 comments:

sj said...

I think that sounds like it'd good. I like sweet and sour and I like kielbasa. The thing I like best is that you're experimenting! So many folks are afraid to try something new in the kitchen. Good on you!

Spryte said...

Oh YUM!!!

Bob said...

Thanks Jo! I've been trying to experiment more. I found myself cooking the same things over and over and figured it was time to mix it up. That's one of the reasons I started blogging, it's forced me to do new things. Otherwise I would be out of recipes by now. Heh.

Glad you like the sound of it Spryte. I'll send you my girlfriends leftovers. ;)

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