How to Cook your Favourite @_DiningCar Classics at Home
When I started my blog two years ago, I didn't see us all trapped at home and all European borders closed. On my Corona page I have been cataloguing the carnage on the European railways.
The dining cars were the first services that bit the dust. In sidings all over Europe, dining cars are standing empty, their cooking ranges cold.
Now. As we are all mostly at home and have lots of time on our hands, how say we do some cooking? Perhaps bring that dining car magic (and I don't mean the microwave) home to our own tables?
With the help of my great friend @_DiningCar I am now starting a series on how to cook your favourite dining car classics while #StayingAtHome.
If you haven't met @_DiningCar yet, check out his Twitter channel. You can also find pictures from his exploits on Flickr.
The things I do for you
Now more than ever, I go to great lengths for you, my reader. I could have easily slapped together any old recipe and video and thrown them at you. It would have taken me two days, tops. Instead I painstakingly sought out workable recipes, tried them out myself and took my own photos. It took more than three weeks.
Polish Dining Car at Home. WARS: Żurek (sour rye and sausage soup)
Polish WARS dining car. Courtesy of @_DiningCar.
Poland has one of the best dining cars in Europe. Most of the cooking is still done to order.
Żurek is fermented rye soup and one of the signature dishes in the WARS restaurant car, as found on Polish trains and the Moscow-Paris and Moscow-Nice expresses.
If you want to do it properly, you'll need to go to a Polish food shop and get a bottle of Żurek sourdough. Or ferment some rye flour with water and garlic for 4 days beforehand.
One of WARS's signature soups, Żurek. Coutesy of Martin Pavlík.
Żurek recipe
Żurek is so ubiquitous in Poland that everyone has their own way of making it. I have tried quite a few recipes before arriving at this one by Polish food blogger Magda from skutecznie.tv.
I made this for Żurek for Easter Sunday lunch and fed it to my Polish parents-in-law. I know the difference between polite praise and genuine, and their praise was genuine and profuse. So this recipe is proven.
Cooking time: 30 minutes (apparently. It took me 90 minutes). Makes 2 litres
Żurek ingredients
For the recipe in Polish, click here. Below, find my English translation.
- 500 ml żurek sourdough (you can get this in East European shops in bottles, or make it yourself.
Polish shop in Scarborough
To make 1 litre of your own Żurek sourdough, mix well six spoons of rye flour with boiled, lukewarm water. Add three crushed cloves of garlic. If you have a crust of sourdough bread, put this in too. It helps the fermentation get going. Leave to stand in a warm place (not direct sunlight) for 3-4 days. Stir once again on the first evening. (I had only two days. Here is what I did: I made it all as described, but added a tablespoon of rye sourdough starter {don't judge me}. This kickstarted the fermentation. Then I kept the liquid in warm intensive care. It was ready just in time.)
Home made Żurek sourdough
- 1 bay leaf
- 3-4 grains of allspice
- 4-5 grains of black pepper
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 l water
- 2-3 dried mushrooms.
(can be left out, but they do enrich the flavour somewhat) - 400 g sausage:
– 250-300 g Polish white sausages ("biała kiełbasa" (white sausage) is the original Polish word. If you can't get Polish, see if you can get something German.)
– 100-150 g smoked, cured sausages ("swojska, wiejska kiełbasa" in the original Polish, which means home-made, country sausages. These are usually quite coarse and smoked. Even if you use simply 400g of white sausages you'll be fine)
Sausage comment: Poland has a rich sausage culture and myriad varieties available nowhere else. I have browsed UK-Polish cooking fora. Polish people cooking żurek in England use either very good cumberland sausages or German bratwurst obtainable in Lidl and Aldi. Bangers won't do. In the USA, I really don't know what would be best, but I would aim for high quality and high meat content. I was cooking this in Germany. It goes without saying that my Polish shop was sold out of both ready-made żurek sourdough and biała kiełbasa just before easter. I used Munich White Sausages (Münchner Weisswurst)
- 100 g smoked bacon
- 1 medium onion
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1-2 tsp of majoram
- 1/2 glass of sour cream or śmietana. You want something between 10-25% fat. The best stuff is available in East European shops.
- 1 tbsp flour
- salt and pepper
- hard boiled egg (one per bowl of soup is good)
- optional:
– 2 tbsp of horseradish, either freshly grated or from a jar.
– potatoes (diced)
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First make the broth by boiling sausages
Żurek method
1. Put the white sausages into a saucepan. Add the bay leaf, allspice, peppercorns and salt. Add water, bring to the boil and leave on a small flame with the lid on.
Let cook while you dice the onions, country sausages and bacon and fry them.
2. Now prepare the fried ingredients.
Peel and dice the onion. Cut the bacon into strips or dice. Chop the country sausage into fattish half-moons or dice.
bacon and onions ready to go
3. Heat frying pan, add the bacon and wait till it starts to render fat. If using dried mushrooms, travel back in time to half an hour before you started cooking and soak them. Add mushrooms. Stir frequently until the pieces start to colour.
4. Add the onions and fry until they become translucent. Then add majoram and crushed garlic. Stir and fry for a few moments, until the smell of garlic starts to waft up. Turn off the heat.
Bacon, onions and sausage frying
5. Revisit the saucepan with the boiling sausages. These should be ready by now. Take out the sausages and pour the contents of the frying pan into the sausage-broth in the saucepan. Let boil with the lid on for 10 minutes.
6. Peel the boiled white sausages and cut into bite-size chunks.
7. Mix the sour cream with the flour. Make sure there are no lumps.
8. Now put it all together. Add the żurek sourdough liquid to the boiling broth (before adding give the liquid a good shake). Add the sour cream - first take a few spoons of broth and mix it into the cream, then pour this mixture into the boiling broth. Stir carefully and boil until the flour thickens the soup. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Finishing up
9. At this stage you can add some freshly grated horseradish, if you are that way inclined. I did, and I recommend it.
Serve hot with bits of sausage in it and hard boiled egg. Fresh bread goes nicely with it.
Żurek ready to eat
Żurek Video
Here is the video of Magda at work making żurek.
Slovak Dining Car at Home. Wagon Slovakia: Čiernohorský rezeň ("Čierna Hora Cutlet")
Wagon Slovakia dining car. Courtesy of @_DiningCar
Čierna Hora is a low mountain range in eastern Slovakia. The Čierna Hora cutlet was invented in Czechoslovak times by Ondrej Antovszký, the chef at the Slovak Writers' Club in Bratislava. His invention has become a signature dish of Slovak cuisine.
Čiernohorský rezeň in its natural habitat, courtesy of @_DiningCar
Everyone coming back from a rail trip in Slovakia will gush about the sounds and smells of real cooking emanating from Wagon Slovakia's restaurant cars. The clatter of pans and the pummelling of schnitzels. It goes without saying that Wagon Slovakia serve the Čiernohorský rezeň.
Čiernohorský rezeň recipe
This recipe is by Marcel Ihnačák, who is a famous Slovak chef. In the video you can see him at work. Kudos to Lidl Slovakia for making such great cooking videos.
Meta comment: The video recipe has you make mashed potato as a side. The Wagon Slovakia menu lets you choose between various sides, and so do I. As the Čiernohorský rezeň is fried, I'd recommend mashed or boiled potatoes.
Serves 6. Cooking time: 30 mins
Čiernohorský rezeň ingredients
I got a piece of loin
- 1 kg of pork loin or leg (or steaks if you're buying it ready cut. You don't want anything with bones in it)
- salt
- pepper
- 1 - 2 large potatoes
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 3 eggs
- 1 tsp of majoram
- 3 tbsp of plain flour, plus extra for dusting
- sunflower oil (I prefer lard or clarified butter) for frying
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Čiernohorský rezeň method
1. cut the pork into 1 1/2 to 2 cm slices. Lay out the slices on a chopping board. Cover with cling film and pound them with a meat tenderiser. Salt and pepper them on one side
Be sure to bash the slices nice and thin
2. Now make the batter: In a bowl, grate the potatoes on the fine side of the grater, followed by the garlic. Crack the eggs over the grated potato. Season with salt, pepper and majoram. Add the 3 tbsp of plain flour.
3. Mix well. If necessary, add a little milk or water. You are aiming for quite a thick batter, so don't go overboard.
4. Press the cutlet into the flour so it is nicely coated. Then move it on to the batter. Again, ensure that as much batter as possible coats the meat. This is why you don't want the batter too runny.
Put the cutlets first through the flour, then the batter. Fry immediately.
5. Fry on a medium heat in ample oil. I like lard or clarified butter for this job, but sunflower is fine. 2-3 minutes each side should do it, but use your senses. You want the batter nice and golden and the cutlet to feel springy rather than squishy.
Fry in plenty of oil
6. Take out of the pan and pat dry with kitchen roll. Serve with mashed or boiled potatoes.
Serve with mashed potato and grate cheese over it.
Čiernohorský rezeň video
Obviously I'm not expecting you to understand Slovak. What matters is that you see how it is all supposed to look. I love the sound of Slovak.
French Dining Car at Home. TGV.INOUI Bar: Croque Monsieur
The TGV bar. Picture courtesy of @_DiningCar
I wasn't looking forward to this. France has led the way in bad train food. However, the ever-positive @_DiningCar took me by the hand and showed me that SNCF does in fact have some edible fare. He told me about SNCF's Croque Monsieur
This is a beautiful, sliiiiightly edgy picture of the SNCF croque monsieur by @_DiningCar. I love it.
Croque monsieur recipe
So I went and looked for a croque monsieur recipe. Recipes abound, in English too, ranging from the BBC Good Food cardiac arrest to grim prison food. Some involve béchamel, some don't.
I wanted something with béchamel on top, but no faffing around with bay leaves and nutmeg (Nutmeg! FFS). In the end I decided on the following recipe as it is simple, yet authentic.
The amounts differ from those in the video. The proportions in the video are simply wrong. Some intern must have hastily googled them. You can't make roux with 100 flour/40 butter - they need to be about 1:1. I ended up with a mountain of unused béchamel, too.
Makes 4 croques monsieurs. Duration: 40 mins.
Croque monsieur ingredients
- Bread. Rustic French stuff would be nice. But white sliced is fine.
- Ham (the better, the better)
- Cheese (Comté, Gruyère or Bergkäse would be best, Emmental OK. I don't recommend cheddar - it is too heavy)
- 30 g butter
- 1/2 a red on
