Have you ever seen the movie "Julie & Julia" with Amy Adams and Meryl Streep? Well, consider this my fun adaptation of that journey but with a twist. For Christmas a few years back I received a 3-ring binder in all its blue plastic glory that had contents worth more than gold. A piece of paper guarded the contents with its simplistic drawings, but each hand drawn and with significant meaning. The "Red Butte" that guarded my great-grandparents's ranch, the vintage stove, a red highway sign, and the iconic green swing that nestled underneath the great big tree in the front lawn. Even ZM is homage to a patriarch of my ancestry whom I've never met but have yearned to learn of as much as I can. Hell, even the cat shaped cookie jar has deep symbolic dual meaning to me as it relates to memories of my time with my paternal family in my younger years. Now for the gold. The morsels of history, happiness, and love that is contained in the 3-ring binder are family recipes that have been handed down from my 3x great grandmother, to my great-grandmother and now to me. She and my grandmother collected these recipes for all our family to share and now I am sharing my #journeytothepast and exploration of my #familyhistory and #heritage through these recipes.
I believe there are 63 recipes in all, ranging from #depressioneraeats to #oldcountry standards, from drinks to deserts from years gone by. Food brings people together and now it brings me on a journey that I am excited to embrace while making memories and continuing on in traditions while creating #healthyalternatives for my lifestyle needs. Let me tell you one thing. There are always ways to change, update, adapt, or "make better" but I wanted to also stay true to tradition. There are reasons why these recipes have been carried down through so many generations. So here I am, your resident Scrappy Gidget prepared to dive head first into this glorious journey and share my experience with you...
Now, the moment you have been waiting for....
GidgetRoots - Episode 1: Porcupines
No silly, not the animal (although hmmm. I wonder what that would taste like? Chicken?) "Porcupines" or "Porcupine Meatballs" are ground meatballs with rice added. The name is attributed to the cooked rice poking its little edges out from the ball of meat after it has cooked, resembling that of the distinctive little creature. According to multiple online sources, the origin of this recipe originates from the Great Depression era where rice was cheap and meat was often hard to come by. The addition of the rice made the meatballs larger and more filling.
To take a fun modern and #healthyalternative #PCOSfriendly twist on this recipe, my great-aunts and I tried the recipe four ways.
1) Traditional way with rice & ground beef
2) Semi-Traditional way with rice & ground elk (my Aunt made a good point saying she would have guessed wild game would have been used during the Depression era because it seems it would have been easier to come by via hunting then obtaining ground beef - we may never know the truth!)
3) Semi-Non-Traditional with cauliflower & ground beef (most readers should know by now the cauliflower substitute for rice phenomena)
4) Non-Traditional way with cauliflower & ground elk
Easy enough, right? Well, we thought so too! :-P
Here was the journey we went on while making this recipe:
First, there were only 3 of us for dinner so we weren't going to go with the 1.5 lbs of ground meat for each version. (We already had plenty of leftovers so I am glad we didn't!). So we started by guestimating the amounts of meat we were going to use if dividing the recipe by fourths.
We had a 1 -lb pkg of ground beef and used that as a guide, although I feel as if we ended up using about 1/2 lb for each version.
Second, I think chopping of the onion was the easiest step because once chopped, you just eye-balled the onion pile into 4 approximately identical amounts and there you have your four portions for each version. DONE.
Third, does cauliflower equate to the same amount of rice? It won't expand the same way, but does that necessitate more volume? Also, how do you divide 1/4 cup into fourths? 1/16 (please if you have an easy way of measuring THAT let me know! :) )
Fourth, how much sauce? Seriously, the original recipe calls for "1 can tomato soup or you can use tomatoes that have been cut into fine pieces or you can use both". Okay.... well.... how does one split a single can of tomato soup 4 ways? We ended up using about 3 cans of Campbell's condensed tomato soup and adding water until we had enough sauce (we at least were able to that part easily!)
Once we figured out those small problems, it was fun and easy to mix up each version of the recipe: rice & beef, rice & elk, cauliflower & beef, cauliflower & elk, adding the equal piles of onion portions to each version mix.
Once well incorporated, we formed the mixtures into schmedium meatballs and set them out on a platter, methodically knowing which version went where. (If you are not familiar with my jargon, schmedium is a combination of small and medium).
Now that the meatballs were prepared, it was time to move onto the sauce. Right, the sauce. do you remember a paragraph ago me asking how much sauce? Well, my aunt had great advice on this one; "Let's do it like they did and guess until it looks right." So we did. Opened a couple cans, added a couple cans of water mixed together, divided that into four pots/pans "kettles" (as was referenced in the original recipe) and started to heat up. We decided to use the third can and additional water because it didn't seem with them all divided to be enough liquid in each cooking vessel.
Once the soup mixtures started to bubble, we added the meatballs to each designated location. As person of order with librarian education background, I devised an easy ABC system; cauliflower up front, rice in the rear, cow on the left, elk on the right, come on soups lets fight, fight, fight! And to avoid cross-contamination we used four different spoons to stir and rotate the meatballs. (All joking aside, my aunts were amazing hostesses for allowing this project to dirty so many things!)
After about 10 minutes we added the random 2 Tbs of rice to the rice concoctions, and 2 Tbs of cauliflower. This seems to have been done to help substantiate the volume of sauce and food consumption. It will cook through and help make one feel more full for longer and prepare one for a long afternoon of hard work (e.g. ranch, farm, labor, etc.)
Once the rice was cooked through we added a rue slurry of soup and flour to each kettle to thicken the sauce a bit. Don't worry, we have not contaminated anything. We ladled a scoop or two of the sauce for each batch mixed with flour and returned to the kettle before rinsing and repeating the process. Finally, once the sauce was a good consistency we were happy with it was time to serve up our contenders. Two brown bowls were used for the beef duos and two cream coloured dishes were used for the elk doublet.
We paired the porcupines and hedgehogs (that is what I am now going to affectionately call the cauliflower versions of this recipe) with a beautifully crafted romaine salad with peas and radish, and delicious refreshing citrus infused tea.
Let the games begin.
First, the traditional beef & rice. YUM! I found this version to be creamy, delicious and although the beef porcupine itself was lack luster in the seasoning department, it was a decent bite nonetheless.
Next up, elk & rice. WOAH really yum! This had the same creamy and slightly acidulous (but in a good way) flavor from the soup, the porcupine was delightful with a bold heartiness from the wild meat but balanced by the rice and soup.
Third on the list, the beef & cauliflower. This hedgehog was magnanimous with balance in comparison to the rice counterpart. The soup was good, the flavor to me seemed to be more sweet and I don't know if that is because we didn't use the exact same amount of salt and pepper or if it was because the cauliflower added a natural sweetness from the vegetable that helped elevate the sweetness from the tomato in the soup. (No I am not a food critic, I am just writing what I felt).
Last but not least, elk & cauliflower. BAZINGA! Winner winner elk dinner! This was by far my favorite combination. The hearty earthiness of the elk brought paired with the slightly sweeter (to me) cauliflower tomato sauce to bring about a delicate umami sensation not achieved by the other versions.
I hope you have enjoyed this article/episode and also hope you will continue this journey alongside me.
Don't forget to follow me on Instagram @Scrappygidget for more content, live updates on this journey and other food/craft/happy moments that may inspire you to do the same!
NEXT 'EPISODE' / CHAPTER: "Grandpa's Podvarak"
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ORIGINAL RECIPE:
PORCUPINES
- 1 1/2 LBS hamburger
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 Tbs shortening (we omitted)
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 1 small onion chopped
- 1/4 cup uncooked rice, plus 2 Tbs
- 1 can of tomato soup (not listed in ingredients but mentioned in directions)
- In a large kettle (cooking pot), put in some water, depending on how much of the sauce you want. Start with 1 Tbs of shortening, add 1 can of tomato soup or you can use tomatoes that have been cut into fine pieces. Or you can use both. Add salt and pepper to taste and about 2 Tbs of uncooked rice. Bring to boil.
- In a bowl - put 1 1/2 to 2 lbs. of hamburger. Add 1 medium finely chopped onion and about 1/3 c. uncooked rice, salt and pepper. Mix well.
- Make hamburger into medium size meatballs and add to the boiling sauce, stirring frequently to keep rice from burning. When the meatballs and the rice are done, thicken slightly with a little flour and water.
This recipe is from my Granny and Great-Grandma - Bopka (Babcia, Babka)
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