Sauerkraut recipe & wine pairing

Salut/Hi Chris Lake,

le/on Sat, 18 Sep 2004 10:11:10 -0700, tu disais/you said:-

You've pressed a bnutton here! I love middle European - especially Hungarian

- sauerkraut recipes.

Here are a couple. Both are wonderful, both are extremely rich - don't plan a five course meal round them, and both are quite hard to pair, though I'd look to a big powerful Riesling, or Pinot Gris, maybe Gruener Veltliner.

Once you've tried hungarian sauerkraut dishes, you'll never look back!

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Koloszvári Rakott Káposzta (Transylvanian Layered Cabbage)

hungarian, main dish, pork, vegetables

1 1/2 kg sauerkraut 600 gm pork leg meat * 250 gm rice, long grain (raw) 320 ml water 200 gm pork back fat (smoked best) 150 gm smoked streaky bacon ** 250 gm gyulai sausage *** 150 gm onion; chopped 500 gm mushrooms =-and=- ) 50 gm onion; chopped ) =-or=- 6 eggs; hard boiled 1 salt or vegeta **** 1 pepper 1 teaspoon caraway seed 1 marjoram 1 oil 500 gm cršme fraœche 1 tablespoon noble sweet paprika

• The pork should either be minced (ground) coarsely or better, cut into small (1 cm) cubes.

** The bacon should ideally not be a sweet cure, but fairly heavily smoked, and cut quite thick. *** Gyulai sausages are dry, smoked and made with a fair amount of paprika. best equivalent might be small sweet chorizo sausages. **** Vegeta is a vegetable stock flavouring powder. If you can't get french style crŠme fraŒche, use a mixture of 3 parts heavy cream and 1 part yoghurt.

This dish is cooked in four parts and then assembled.

Part 1. The cabbage. Depending upon how sour the cabbage is, wash it more or less well. Very sour cabbage that has been pickling all winter will need several washes in fresh water, freshly pickled sauerkraut won't need anything more than draining. Cut the pork fat into small cubes and render them over gentle heat. When beginning to take colour, add the caraway seed and the drained cabbage. Simmer

15-20 minutes or until softened. Leave aside.

Part 2 Rice. Wash rice well and drain. Fry in a little oil until transparent. Add the measured amount of water (equal volume to that of the rice), a little salt, and cook until water is absorbed and rice is parcooked. Leave aside. Part 3 Meat. Sweat chopped onions (first quantity) in oil. When transparent, add paprika, followed immediately by a little water. Over highish heat, add the meat, pepper and salt or vegema. Stir, and cook fairly quickly partially covered, as for a p”rk”lt, (reducing the meat juices and then adding a little water as needed) until meat is just tender. Leave aside.

Part 4 Mushrooms. (or hard boiled egg). If using mushrooms, clean and trim if needed, then slice them fairly thinly. Chop the second quantity of onion. Sweat onion and mushrooms lightly peppered in a little oil, until their juices have evaporated. Leave aside. If using eggs, hard boil them, shell and cool and slice. Set aside.

Assembly and Finishing. Grease a large deep ovenproof dish. Layer the four components in 3 or 4 layers of each component, pouring sour cream over each layer, and starting and finishing with cabbage. Slice bacon and sausage fairly thinly, arrange over the last layer of cabbage. Bake in a moderate oven 350øF Mk 4 for 45 mins to an hour, covering with foil if the top starts to brown too much. Serve, with no accompaniments (except wine or beer if wished). The dish is even better when reheated the next day.

Recipe traditional, written IMH c/o Gohlam BBS Fido 2:320/116.14

Yield: 8 servings

** Exported from Now You're Cooking! v5.66 **

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Szekler Goulash

casseroles, hungarian, main dish, pork, vegetables

1 kg pork (loin and shoulder) 350 gm onions 10 gm caraway seed 90 gm lard 1 water or stock 1 kg sauerkraut, well washed 1 garlic clove 200 ml cream 1 salt 1 paprika 1 dill

Take the most juicy cuts of pork and cut it into 50 g pieces. Put the meat on to stew with chopped onions, crushed caraway seed, crushed garlic clove, which you have previously sweated with the lard. Add a little finely minced dill. Add a little water or stock and let it stew with the lid on till half done. Then add sauerkraut, mix with the meat, season with sweet paprika according to taste, and let it simmer till the cabbage is ready. Then pour in sour cream and bring to the boil again. Before serving, a tablespoonful or two of heated sour cream may be poured over it. This dish, like many other cabbage dishes, may be warmed up, and therefore lends itself very well to preserving by pasteurization.

Recipe Karoly Gundel "Hungarian Cookery Book"

MMed IMH c/o Gohlam BBS 2:320/116.14

Yield: 6 servings

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the recipe sounds great, but its the pickling that i was actually looking for.. ;) or do you just buy your sauerkraut at the store?

and what about wine?

thanks Ian ..chris

thanks for your recipe Tom, for some reason though, i don't think chardonnay is the way to go, i was thinking something along the lines of an alsacian pinot blanc, but thanks for the input

..chris

"Ian Hoare" skrev i melding news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com... Hi Ian A small question - What's the difference, if any, between Sauerkraut and choucroute? Anders

Salut/Hi Anders

le/on Sun, 19 Sep 2004 21:02:47 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

In principle - none. Sauerkraut is the Germanic name for a salt pickled cabbage. Choucroute is probably the Alsatian version of the same word, and this has been adopted into the French language. In practice, Sauerkraut is often reserved for german(ic) preparations made from this pickled cabbage, while Choucroute is reserved for French/Alsatian dishes, which can be quite different.

Salut/Hi Chris Lake,

le/on Sun, 19 Sep 2004 08:16:21 -0700, tu disais/you said:-

I always buy raw sauerkraut (under the name of Choucroute cos I live in France) in the store. I did once try to pickle my own, it stank like the devil and then went bad, so I had to throw out the lot. Not a successful experiment (:-{

Like wot I said in my earlier reply.

||Here are a couple. Both are wonderful, both are extremely rich - don't plan ||a five course meal round them, and both are quite hard to pair, though I'd ||look to a big powerful Riesling, or Pinot Gris, maybe Gruener Veltliner.

No Difference; one is just French for to'ther.

I don't think wine is the best beverage for sauerkraut. A stout Czech or German Bier, perhaps, but not wine.

Is it? Then I am sorry. But what normally is served here as a classic sidedish to roast pork (Schweinsbraten) puts me off. Don't know why it works in Hungarian circumstances ;-)

M.

Salut/Hi Michael Pronay,

le/on 20 Sep 2004 05:02:00 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

Well.... this is not really on topic, but as the correct treatment of Sauerkraut can turn it from a harsh sour subtance which kills all wines stone dead, to an unctuous tasty delight which - without being exactly wine friendly - will allow you to drink a decent white with pleasure, I will stretch a point and explain.

First, when cabbage (usually white, but you can also use the same fermentation process with red cabbage and even with turnips) is fermented, the process takes some few weeks. This used always to be done at about this time of the year, to give a store vegetable for winter use. At the end of this time (distinctly smelly), the sauerkraut is quite mild. It can be cooked as it is, and even without rinsing, and end up delicious. As the sauerkraut is kept, it becomes more and more sour and stronger and stronger in taste. By late April, when cellars are warming up and very early vegetables begin to be picked again, the saurkraut is so strong that you have to rinse it several times and then blanch it in boiling water before using it, if you don't want your taste buds to be done violence to.

I have often noticed that in Germany and in Austria, sauerkraut as served, is far sharper than either in Alsace or in Hungary. I suspect that this is due to two factors, using it when it is more fermented and not rinsing it very thoroughly. There are two possible further factors. How long it's cooked and what with.

Cooked plainly, especially with some rather sharp white wine, will give a pretty aggressive vegetable. It has to be said that the acidity DOES cut through the fattiness of roast pork or the palmipeds such as duck or goose, but you have to be able to accept it. I rather share your dislike of very sharp sauerkraut.

However, sauerkraut has a remarkable affinity with fat and cream. Alsatians have discovered the former, and when they cook choucroute garni, incorporate several fatty cuts of pork, and then cook the cabbage a long time with them. The fat calms and lubricates the cabbage dramatically. The two hungarian dishes whose recipes I sent up, not only use fat to tame the cabbage, but then use generous quantities of cream as well! This utterly transforms the vegetable, and allows it to reveal itself as one of the great inventions of Central Europe.

However, in both Choucroute Garni and the Hungarian dishes, although they don't specify it, it is assumed that you know how to treat sauerkraut. If it's fresh young new season sauerkraut, then all you have to do is to squeeze it as dry as you can, before cooking it. If it's a few weeks old (taste) drop it into a large container of cold water, swirl it briefly around separating the shreds, then take it out and squeeze dry. For older sauerkraut (around Christmas and January) two good washes and squeezings are needed. After that you may have to blanche it as well. To do so:- after two good washings, drop it into a large excess of boiling water, bring back to the boil and cook fast 2-3 mins, then strain, and refresh with cold water, before squeezing dry and cooking.

My guess is that the sauerkraut that you've had has been cooked to give a sharp cabbage, which is rather the taste in Southern Germany (I don't remember how we used to have it in Austria), which is why you've not liked it.

Hope that helps!