WI 4th of JULY family memories supper

[Model35mech]

All of the meal focused on family food memories. Of course, it's the 4th in Wisconsin so supper entre was BRATs. And as this was about memories of family suppers we even went into some leftovers.

The nothing special in WI Brat was taken up notch by serving it in the center of the plate on a bed of well caramelized onions (mild olive oil and Wi butter) that had an experimental apple butter and balsamic vinegar sauce. As a kid my family raised, picked, and cooked buckets and buckers of apples into savory spiced apple butter that mom canned and stored in the basement. Tonite we used my partner's home-made canned apple butter from last fall). It was something of a 30 minute slow cook to skillet chutney. My food suspicious partner,and sometimes victim of my cooking experiments said that it was dynamite!

The right side the plate (from 1 to 5 o'clock) was an ~8 inch-long crescent composed of cross-sections of Roma tomato and cucumber with an early summer relish/crudite of green onion, radishes, baby carrot sticks and sweet pickle resting in the red and white curve.

On the left side of the plate, sharing the bed of caramelized onions was left over potato pancakes from this weeks Tuber-Tuesday.

All in all, a success and we made a food experiment into a good-food memory.

Hope your holiday family meal was also great!

[CanonRay]

1. In Chicago we always had Italian Sausage and Hamburgers

no Brats, although I like them now.

[Model35mech]

2. I love mild Italian sausages.

How do you dress them?

[CanonRay]

3. We had hot sausges, usually with green peppers

and barbecue sauce.

[chowmama]

4. Spent a lot of time in Sheboygan as a kid

It was double brats in a semmel roll, crusty enough to tear the roof of your mouth. For large gatherings, the brats were always grilled first, then thrown into simmering beer with butter and onions. If they were still a little pink, this finished them off.

The cooking started an hour or more before they were going to be served, depending on the size of the expected crowd. By eating time, there could be vats of them all ready to go. The line started early, but once they started serving, nobody ever had to wait for more to be cooked. It was a feeding frenzy.

The hot fat, beery onions and mustard on top were a serious danger to shirts, pants and bystanders. As a little kid, I learned quickly to not stand where I could get dripped on.

[Model35mech]

5. Yes, brats on semmel rolls is a WI standard.

We do brats that way at times, but my partner really isn't into brats on buns. So we regularly do versions of German Wurst Salads often long on pickled beets, cukes or refrigerator pickles. That often helps keep my diabetes away from carbs.

We've got no kids, or crowds to please picnic style, so on special occasions we can steer toward things that also have a pleasant visual presentation on a prepared plate Seems my experimental cooking often starts with an idea of how things will look on a plate.