Choucroute Garnie (Garnished Sauerkraut from Alsace) Recipe
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Category: |
Category: |
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Ingredients: |
Ingredients: Sauerkraut (the fresher the better!) about 6 cups
Onions 1-2 sliced thinly
Carrots 1-2 sliced thinly
Apple 1 cored and sliced (no need to peel it)
Vegetable oil for browning
White wine
Smoked ham hocks (2 meaty ones)
Assorted brats or other sausages of your choice
(about a dozen altogether)
Optional: some bacon crumbles
Bouquet Garnie (the following ingredients tied up in
a small cheesecloth sack or large square of
gauze):
3 garlic cloves, 2 bay leaves, 1 tsp.
peppercorns, 1 Tbsp. juniper berries (dried and
usually found with the spices) ....or a little gin
instead of the juniper berries works fine!, 3
cloves, 3-4 sprigs of thyme (other options
include: 1/2 tsp. caraway seed, 5 coriander
seeds, and 1 Tbsp. cumin seeds)
a dozen small potatoes
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Directions: |
Directions:1. Using a large, cast iron roaster or a heavy Dutch oven, brown onions, carrots and apples in a little oil for about 15 minutes. (Use goose fat if you want to be totally authentic!)
2. Add rinsed, well-drained sauerkraut and about 2 cups of wine (and bacon bits if desired). Also a little salt and pepper to taste. Stir well and then bury the ham hocks and bouquet garnie in the sauerkraut. Cover with a tight fitting lid and put in a 350º oven for about 2 hours. Check mid-way through cooking time to be sure there is sufficient liquid, and add a little more wine if not.
3. Take it out of the oven after 2 hours and remove the ham hocks. Return the sauerkraut to the oven and let the ham hocks cool a little. Then remove the meat from them and stir the pieces of ham into the sauerkraut mixture.
4. In hot oil brown all of the sausages. (unless they
are pre-cooked)
5. Nestle them into the sauerkraut. Lay about a dozen or so small potatoes (leave skins on) on top of the entire concoction and return it to the oven for about another 45 minutes.
6. Finally, using a large platter heap the sauerkraut in the center and place the potatoes around the edge. Cut sausages in half to make more manageable serving sizes, and pile them artistically on top of the sauerkraut.
7. You can put the whole platter into a warm oven to keep it hot for about 15 minutes.
Serving suggestions: Serve with several different mustards, some crusty bread, and lots of good Alsatian wine (Gewurztraminer or Riesling are good). No salad is needed, but I serve small bowls of homemade applesauce on the side. For dessert? How about Auntie Jo's German Apple Cake? |
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Number Of
Servings: |
Number Of
Servings:6 |
Preparation
Time: |
Preparation
Time:1-2 hours |
Personal
Notes: |
Personal
Notes: This recipe originally comes from Alsace, France (on the French-German border) where it has been eaten for hundreds of years. (That is where my ancesters on my mother's side were from.) I became interested in making it and researching it after eating it in Alsace. Originally it was made using corned beef instead of sausages. This recipe is a compilation of choucroute recipes gathered from the internet. This dish has many variations (French and German). This recipe should be a springboard to your own experimentation, but it does come very close to what we ate in Alsace.
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