Seafood Choucroute

By Florence Fabricant

Published November 22, 2011

  • Phil Kline for The New York Times
Media 1 of 1
Total Time
1 hour
Rating
4(25)
Comments
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Bold, bracing sour beers like gueuze, kriek and lambic will slice right through a meal from aperitif to cheese, stymied only at dessert. They’ll stand up to fat, juicy pork and will welcome all sorts of seafood, like clams and oysters, smoked salmon, grilled bass, and skate in a saline caper butter. You also cannot go wrong with the Alsatian sauerkraut classic, choucroute garnie. But consider making that dish a clever showcase for fresh and smoked fish, with the typical pork at a minimum. Years ago, I loved the fish choucroute at Au Crocodile in Strasbourg, France, with a dry riesling. Back then, who knew from sour beer?

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Ingredients

Yield:4 servings

  • 2 ounces slab bacon, diced

  • 8 sea scallops, patted dry

  • 1 cup chopped white ends of leeks

  • 4 cloves garlic, sliced

  • 1 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored and cut in 1-inch dice

  • 1 smoked trout, skinned and boned

  • 1 cup gueuze, kriek or other sour beer, preferably blond

  • 1 ½ pounds sauerkraut, drained and squeezed dry

  • Salt and pepper

  • 12 small (2-inch) white potatoes, peeled

  • 12 mussels, scrubbed

  • 2 fresh trout fillets, about 6 ounces each, skinned

  • Juice of ½ lemon

  • 1 tablespoon chopped tarragon

Ingredient Substitution Guide

Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Place bacon over medium heat in a 4-quart stovetop casserole that can go to the table. When lightly brown, remove and reserve, leaving fat. Raise the heat to high, add scallops and sear briefly on both sides. Remove. Reduce heat to low, return bacon to the pan, add leeks and garlic, and cook until softened. Stir in the apple, cook about a minute, then add the smoked trout, broken into chunks. Add beer, bring to a simmer, stir in sauerkraut and season with salt and pepper. Tuck scallops into sauerkraut. Cover and simmer 20 minutes.

  2. Step 2

    Meanwhile, bring a pot of salted water to a boil for potatoes. Simmer until tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Drain and return to the pot. Cover to keep warm.

  3. Step 3

    Tuck the mussels into the sauerkraut around the edges of pot. Cut the fresh trout in 2-inch pieces and place on top of sauerkraut. Sprinkle with lemon juice. Cover and cook about 6 minutes, until mussels have opened and fresh trout is opaque. Scatter with tarragon and serve from casserole with potatoes on the side.

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Comments

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Dave

This recipe seems to want you to murder your scallops: Sear them in fat and then steam/braise them for an additional 20-30 min. I would skip the long braise in the kraut and just add back the seared scallops in the last 5 min of cooking. Scallops are delicate and sweet, I wouldn’t over cook them unless that’s the actual texture this dish is going for.

Joseph Doakes

I like choucroute; I like all of the kinds of fish in this recipe; cooked it exactly as specified, and both my wife and I thought the combination of flavors in the final stew were quite a mismatch, as if they couldn't figure out what they were doing in the same dish. We didn't finish, and I won't be making it again.

Jennifer Rollison

after all that time in the oven, those scallops will be rubber.

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