Choucroute Garnie

Rinsed and squeezed sauerkraut braised in wine, with each meat added at its own time rather than all at once.

Pork. Not vegetarian — contains a sausage whose meat the source does not name, lard, lardons, which are pork, pork.

Ingredients

For the sauerkraut

• 1.5 kg sauerkraut
• 150 g smoked lardons
• 2 onions, sliced
• 500 ml dry white wine, Riesling or similar
• 250 ml stock
• 2 teaspoons juniper berries
• 1 teaspoon caraway seeds
• 2 bay leaves
• 4 cloves
• 2 tablespoons goose fat or lard
• black pepper

The garnish, in order of going in

• 1 smoked pork hock
• 500 g smoked pork belly, in one piece
• 4 Montbéliard or other smoked sausages
• 4 Strasbourg sausages or frankfurters
• 8 small waxy potatoes

Method

1. THE SAUERKRAUT IS RINSED AND SQUEEZED, and how much depends on your sauerkraut rather than on a rule. Taste it raw: aggressively sour and salty, rinse it twice in cold water; mild, once is plenty. Then squeeze it DRY in handfuls. Unrinsed, two hours of reduction concentrates the sourness until nothing else can be tasted; over-rinsed, you have braised cabbage. Tasting first is the only way to get it right.
2. EACH MEAT GOES IN AT ITS OWN TIME, which is the other half of the dish. A hock needs two hours and a frankfurter needs fifteen minutes in water that is not even boiling. All in together, either the hock is raw or the sausages have burst and gone mealy. The order is the recipe.
3. AND THE DELICATE SAUSAGES ARE POACHED SEPARATELY, off the heat, not braised. Dropped into the pot they split and leak into the sauerkraut.
4. NO SALT IS ADDED AT ANY POINT. Sauerkraut, lardons, smoked hock, smoked belly and smoked sausage. There is more than enough already and two hours of reduction concentrates it.
5. Sauerkraut tasted raw, then rinsed once or twice accordingly, and SQUEEZED DRY in handfuls.
6. Goose fat in a large casserole. Lardons and onions softened 10 minutes.
7. The sauerkraut added and turned through the fat 5 minutes.
8. Wine, stock, juniper, caraway, bay and cloves added. Pepper. NO SALT.
9. THE HOCK buried in it. Lid on, into a 160C oven for 1 HOUR 30 MINUTES.
10. THE PORK BELLY added. A further 45 MINUTES.
11. THE SMOKED SAUSAGES added, pricked once each. A further 20 MINUTES.
12. Meanwhile the potatoes boiled separately in salted water until tender, and kept warm.
13. THE STRASBOURG SAUSAGES put in a pan of water brought to just below a simmer, off the heat, 15 MINUTES. Never boiled.
14. The hock and belly lifted out and carved. The sauerkraut piled on a warm dish, the meats and sausages arranged over it and the potatoes round the edge. Mustard on the table.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under France · All recipes