Sauerkraut and Sausages
Time: 2 hours | Serves: 4–6 Nature: Neutral | Flavor: Sour, Salty
Recipe Source: Travis Kern
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon cooking oil
- 4 links sausage (bratwurst, kielbasa, or other similar sausage)
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 medium white onion, sliced thin
- 1 medium to large tart apple (Honeycrisp, Pink Lady, Granny Smith), peeled, cored, and sliced thin
- 2 lbs sauerkraut, drained and rinsed
- 12 oz medium brown beer
- 1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds
- Black pepper, freshly ground
- 12 small red potatoes
- Salt
Directions
Brown the Sausages: In a large, heavy-bottomed skillet with a lid, heat oil over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add sausages to pan and cook until deeply browned on both sides. Remove from pan and set aside.
Build the Flavor Layers: Reduce heat to medium and add the butter to the pan. Once melted, add the onions and apples and cook until slightly softened. Scrape the bottom of the pan while stirring to lift the browned bits from the sausages.
Stew the Kraut: Once the onions and apples have softened, add the rinsed kraut, beer, caraway seeds, and a couple cracks of black pepper to the pan. Make sure to thoroughly scrape the bottom of the pan to lift any sticky bits. Nestle the browned sausages into the pan so they are surrounded by kraut, reduce heat to low and cover. Simmer at least 30 minutes, periodically checking to make sure nothing is sticking or burning. Add some water if the kraut is too dry.
Prep the Potatoes: While the kraut is stewing, bring a medium pot of strongly salted water to boil. Add the potatoes and cook until a fork passes easily through the center of the potato, about 20–25 minutes. Drain in a colander and serve warm.
Ideas for Serving
Load your dinner plate with freshly boiled potatoes, a pile of kraut, a sausage link, and some good quality mustard. The mustard serves to cut the greasiness of the sausage and to make the starches and fats more digestible. Don't skip it. Often we serve this dish with a simple green salad of arugula dressed with olive oil and salt.
On Probiotic Foods
More attention is being given in the US these days to fermented foods like sauerkraut and yogurt, with people touting their benefits to gut health and other measures of good living like energy and mental focus. While fermented foods are colonized by probiotic organisms like Lactobacillus that can help us digest better, those creatures also transform the foods they occupy, producing new enzymes and carbohydrates that add to the diversity of our diets and our available nutrition. When cooked, those organisms do not survive, but the positive transformation of the foods remains. So try your probiotic foods in all forms, cooked and raw, to gain access to interesting flavours and textures as well as the organisms themselves.