Tonight we’re having sauerkraut, knockwurst, and mashed potatoes for dinner. My recipe is pretty simple. Chop a small onion, core, peel and chop a small apple, and put them in a pot with a pound of sauerkraut and a bottle of beer. Add caraway if you like caraway. Simmer for about twenty minutes. Add two knockwurst and simmer for an additional 15 minutes. That’s it.
Whenever I eat sauerkraut it invariably occurs to me that it’s probably the only thing that kept my ancestors alive in the wintertime. A smallish 100 gm. serving of sauerkraut has nearly 20% of your daily requirement of vitamin C. You won’t get scurvy as long as you’re eating sauerkraut.
There’s nothing magical about sauerkraut. It’s basically just pickled cabbage. The sour taste comes from lactic acid, the natural product of fermentation. If you can get ahold of some unpasteurized sauerkraut, generally sold in jars, you can get a sourer taste from your homemade sauerkraut by inoculating it with unpasteurized sauerkraut you’ve bought, a sort of sourdough process.
Although it’s generally associated with Germanic cultures, sauerkraut in one form or another is made and eaten wherever cabbages grow, from Ireland to China and as far south as Italy and the Balkans. Not all sauerkraut is chopped. Whole pickled cabbage is great if you can get it. Nothing like it for making stuffed cabbage leaves.
It just occurred to me that kimchee is Korean sauerkraut…
Of course. Somewhere around here I’ve got a good recipe for kimchee I might share. It’s hard to get really good kimchee unless you make it yourself.
Cant do sauerkraut, but wife loves it (Pennsylvania Dutch). Uncooked pickled cabbage yes, including kimchee. That said, the wife makes a pork roast in Sauerkraut for New Years that is quite good, that also includes knockwurst and is served with mashed potatoes. I scrape off the sauerkraut.
Steve
I’m gonna try that sauerkraut-knockwurst (or some such)-mashed potatoes meal. We have two go-too comfort meals hereabouts: Bangers and Smash, and hot Italian sausage and mac and cheese. SKM sounds like a nice addition to the armamentarium.
Funny you should mention hot Italian sausage and mac and cheese. The first meal I prepared for myself after my starvation period during graduate school was hot Italian sausage and gussied-up mac and cheese.
35 minutes ain’t bad for a meal as tasty as the sauerkraut-knockwurst-mashed potatoes. Cleanup is easy, too.
Intriguing. I used to pickle sauerkraut (and kimchi) regularly at home, but our current apartment doesn’t have the space to allow for such experiments (or smells). I’ve never cooked it like this though. Sounds tasty.
I thought this was a very interesting post. (and steve, if you can’t stomach the “pickleyness” of sauerkraut, read on.)
Perhaps known to most on this site, cabbage is a so called “superfood.” I’ll let anyone read up on it themselves, but it was a surprise to me a number of years ago to learn what I thought was just low nutrition content fiber.
In any event, this is a great way to do it: thick diced (quarter to half an inch) (not minced) red and green cabbage, add some diced broccoli, a diced carrot or two (not too much – carrots high in sugar) and garnish with sliced red and yellow peppers. Skip the mayo. Do vinegar and olive oil. Some would say salt and pepper. I do pepper and cumin. If you think its all too bitter, add a diced red apple, or even a hint of cinnamon. Toss vigorously and then strain to rid of any soupyness. That’s why I like thick dicing – less surface area for the dressing to cling to.
Its an orgy of many “superfoods and spices.” If any of this antioxidant, anti-cancer, blood sugar control etc has merit, you just got a healthy dose. And it really is a cornucopia of flavors.
Of course, you will need it to offset the smoked meat……