Cooking the Goetta - Family Tradition (Cincinnati, Findlay: appliances, home, live)

[kjbrill]

Today is goetta cooking day.

The son and DIL have come up to help in the preparation. We have the beef ribs and pork roast on the stove and cooking. We have come to the point we like veggies ground into our goetta, so the onions, celery, and carrots are also in the pot. This will take a few hours so we are relaxing now.

The wife prepared a nice pot of spagetti sauce and 2nd pot of meatballs for lunch. They are slowly heating now.

Once the goetta meat is cooked, it is done when it falls off the bone, we set it aside to cool and start the pin oats to cooking in the meat stock, after straining all of the veggies and bones out.

Then we get out the Kitchen Aid mixer with the meat grinder attachment. This has to be one of the greatest home appliances ever created. Ours is well over 40 years old and just keeps trucking. A couple of years ago I made a mistake and cracked the housing of the meat grinder right in the middle of making a batch of goetta. I went over to Meijer, bought a new meat grinder attachment, and finished my goetta at home. How many home appliances can you say that for? A compatible meat grinder for a 40 year plus appliance?

We will finish the goetta today and divide it out into aluminum dishes like you might prepare meat loaf in.

We have a another batch of meat for another daughter and SIL to come up and make a 2nd batch of goetta. For those who have never had true homemade goetta, too bad. Look up a good recipe and tell the kids we are going to make this.

[Ohiogirl81]

Sounds like a fun day with the family. Reminds me of my mom and aunts making pasta in my grandmother's kitchen, with us kids getting in the way and Gram supervising the whole process (including chasing us kids out of the kitchen!). We called it the "pasta assembly line".

Enjoy!

[kjbrill]

Finished grinding the meat, have cleaned up and put the Kitchen Aid attachments away. The son is still stirring the pin oats, having to listen to his mother barking 4 cups of broth to start with, another 4 cups 20 minutes later, then 2 cups at 20 minute intervals for a total of 16 cups. Once the oats have soaked up enough liquid the long handled metal spoon will stand straight up they are done and can be combined with the meat. I just heard him say this might take 4 hours. Her response was yes it might, but if you turn up the heat and scorch them I will make you start over. No burnt oats in my goetta.

We had homemade spaghetti sauce and meatballs for lunch. No the spaghetti itself was store bought, we like the thin style.

Once the goetta is done we will think about supper. Likely to center around a carryout pizza. You are right, a very good family oriented day. We basically told them they better come and actually participate in marking a batch of goetta before we croak and they have no idea how to prepare it. Thankfully they are also getting old enough to appreciate how to carry on family traditions. The DIL is writing down everything we do. She is a good cook in her own right, but her Italian background did not include a course in how to make goetta.

The wife shipped off a bag of Dorsel Pin Oats to our daugher in Hawaii at Pearl Harbor Naval Base. She will be having a party to introduce the wives how to whip up a batch of goetta next week. To help them get acclimated, she will be feeding them five-ways using the Skyline Chili we put in the box along with the Dorsels. The soldiers at their former base in Oklahoma loved it and she is sure the ones there will too.

[kjbrill]

We finished up the goetta last night. Took about the typical 6 hours start to end and yielded 8 aluminum loaf pans out of the batch which is also typical. Getting ready to fry some up now before the Bengals game starts. Goetta is any any meal dish for us, breakfast, lunch or dinner.

[flashes1]

I had previously thought it was goetta, as in goetta cheese. I never knew it was a meat product. I once heard a couple co-workers discuss eating it at a downtown restaurant, but I thought it was a type of cheese sandwich they were discussing. I think they were saying the Red Fox on Walnut St had good goetta.

[kjbrill]

Originally Posted by flashes1

I had previously thought it was goetta, as in goetta cheese. I never knew it was a meat product. I once heard a couple co-workers discuss eating it at a downtown restaurant, but I thought it was a type of cheese sandwich they were discussing. I think they were saying the Red Fox on Walnut St had good goetta.

How long have you lived in Cincinnati and are still confusing goetta with gouda cheese? I thought I personally put enough goetta threads out here each year to inform everyone. Just kidding. Glier's, over in Covington is the undisputed goetta champion of Cincinnati, producing over a million lbs a year. In a pinch I will eat it and not complain too much. You can find Glier's in virtually any market in Cincinnati, usually in tubes in the sausage section.

I looked at the Ref Fox Grill's online menu and they did not mention goetta. That does not mean they do not have it as a seasonal item.

If you search through the forum, you will find other references to the availability of goetta from small producers. I understand Eckerlin's Meats in Findlay Market has a good product. And there are others around town. Quatman's Cefe here in Mason has a small deli case which they sell bulk items from. I bought 2 lbs of goetta there a couple of weeks ago, I believe the producer is somewhere out on the west side of Cincinnati.

You said my description of goetta is it is a meat product. I would more classify it as a sausage and cereal product. Even though we only use 2 lbs of pin oats per batch versus 5 lbs of beef ribs and 5 lbs of pork, the pin oats contribute at least 50% to the bulk.

One thing which turns a lot of people off from goetta is the color. Once cooked and combined it is basically a light grey - not the most appetizing appearance, kind of anemic. Then you fry it in a skillet until it forms a brown outer crust.

Some tips; if it is very light grey in color it is heavy on the oats cereal - little meat. Obviously less expensive to produce. If it fries up in a skillet with a brown crust, it has about the right proportion of meat to fat content. If it just sticks to the bottom of the skillet, you have the temperature too high.
If it just sits there and will not form an outter skin or crust, you do not have goetta just some cereal byproduct.

How do you serve goetta? Just about any way you want to. Some people want to treat it as a side serving with the traditional breakfast of eggs. My opinion, you can have eggs any day of the week. Goetta - no unless you are satisfied with store bought.

My favorite? Fried goetta with toasted bread, I can take either white or lite rye. Give me a mound of fried gotta and a pile of toasted bread. Take the bread, put a fork-full of goetta on top, and then douse it liberally with coarse ground black pepper. Stick it in the mouth and enjoy.

[flashes1]

Originally Posted by kjbrill

How long have you lived in Cincinnati and are still confusing goetta with gouda cheese? I thought I personally put enough goetta threads out here each year to inform everyone. Just kidding. Glier's, over in Covington is the undisputed goetta champion of Cincinnati, producing over a million lbs a year. In a pinch I will eat it and not complain too much. You can find Glier's in virtually any market in Cincinnati, usually in tubes in the sausage section.

I looked at the Ref Fox Grill's online menu and they did not mention goetta. That does not mean they do not have it as a seasonal item.
.

I aspire to try it in the next month....and I'll report back. I remember a couple co-workers talking about it a few months ago.....and I thought it was after we were at the Fox....but I could be wrong....but their goetta discussion totally went over my head because I thought it was a type of cheese sandwich. I'm looking forward to sinking my teeth into it.

[gentlearts]

My daughter married a Blue Ash boy, so she has learned to make it. I think she only uses ground beef or venison in hers. They are coming for Christmas so maybe I'll make some for my son in law.

[Ohiogirl81]

Originally Posted by flashes1

I had previously thought it was goetta, as in goetta cheese. I never knew it was a meat product.

Well, that's debatable.

[kjbrill]

Originally Posted by Ohiogirl81

Well, that's debatable.

Whether you like it or not, it is a meat product. Some people are turned off by its appearance and cannot get past that. Some do not like the texture or the taste. Myself and my family grew up on it. Even my Italian daughter-in-law finally succumbed and now says she likes our homemade variety, to the point she participated in preparation of a batch last weekend. If you look at the ingredients there is not much to complain about, cooked and ground beef and pork, some spices, in our case a few veggies such as onion, celery, and carrots thrown in for some additional flavor, cooked oats, and ground pepper. So what's to complain about? No MSG, riboflavin, soy concentrate or any other of the dozens of chemical derivatives found in prepared foods in the store.