Himmel und Erde

Two kinds of apple, the earth one and the sky one, mashed and stewed on one plate.

Not vegetarian — contains a sausage whose meat the source does not name.

Ingredients

1 kg floury potatoes, peeled and quartered
600 g bramley or other cooking apples, peeled and sliced
100 ml water
2 tablespoons sugar
120 ml milk, warm
60 g butter
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
400 g blood sausage, in thick slices
2 onions, sliced
1 tablespoon oil

Method

TWO KINDS OF APPLE, THE EARTH ONE AND THE SKY ONE, MASHED AND STEWED ON ONE PLATE. The name is the recipe and its article explains it: it ALLUDES TO EARTH APPLES, A SOUTHERN GERMAN NAME FOR POTATOES, AND SKY APPLES, MEANING APPLES FROM TREES. Heaven and earth, and both of them apples.
SO THE TWO HALVES ARE COOKED APART AND NEVER MIXED. Mash the apple through the potato and you have a sweet purée; keep them side by side and each mouthful can be taken in whatever proportion the eater likes.
THE POTATOES WANT TO BE FLOURY AND THE APPLES SHARP. A waxy potato will not take the milk, and a sweet apple leaves the plate with nothing to cut the sausage.
BOIL THE POTATOES IN SALTED WATER AND DRY THEM IN THE PAN. Thirty seconds over the heat after draining drives off the water that would otherwise thin the mash.
MASH THEM WITH WARM MILK AND BUTTER, NOT COLD. Cold milk stiffens the starch and the mash goes gluey.
STEW THE APPLES SEPARATELY WITH THE WATER AND SUGAR. Ten minutes, lid on, until they collapse but still show their slices. Not a purée: the texture is part of the contrast.
FRY THE ONIONS SLOWLY UNTIL DARK AND SWEET. Fifteen minutes. They sit between the two halves and belong to neither.
THE SAUSAGE IS FRIED LAST AND FAST. Thick slices in a hot dry pan, two minutes a side, until the cut faces crust. Longer and it breaks up.
PLATE THEM IN THREE SEPARATE HEAPS WITH THE SAUSAGE ON TOP. The article has it FREQUENTLY SERVED WITH SLICED BLOOD SAUSAGE, and the Rhineland spelling it records, Himmel un Ääd, is how it is written where the dialect is spoken.

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 Germany · All recipes