Alsatian Choucroute

Here are two recipes and a nice write-up, from Culinaria: France (2004):

Every village in Alsace is said to have its own recipe for choucroute...a delicious meal made with fermented white cabbage which is served under an impressive mountain of mixed sausages, bacon, salted shoulder, smoked ham and potatoes. Enjoyed with a jug of beer, a glass of Riesling or Sylvaner wine, choucroute is synonymous with Alsace. The pale green white cabbage heads are decidedly larger than normal ones available in the shops. Magnificent examples can reach up to 15 pounds (7 kg) and are known as quintals d'Alsace, Alsatian hundredweights. They are mainly grown in the north of the region in and around Krautergersheim and are harvested between July and November. The outer leaves and the heart are removed. The cabbage is shredded as finely as possible. Today this is generally carried out automatically in a choucrouterie. Years ago there were people who made a living going from door to door offering their services to shred the cabbage, because every family laid down their own supplies for the winter. When the season is in full flow there are still cabbage cutters who demonstrate their skill in the markets and the characteristic smell of freshly-cut cabbage fills the air. To make sauerkraut, alternate layers of cabbage and salt are laid out in tall earthen pots or wooden barrels. If large quantities are to be produced, concrete or plastic tanks are used. Juniper berries often add extra flavor. The layers are pressed together - in domestic use with a wooden lid, with a stone placed on top - and the pots or barrels are sealed and made airtight. The salt draws moisture from the cabbage and forms brine, which protects it. Depending on the temperature, fermentation takes three to eight weeks to transform the cabbage. It loses half of its weight, but the process makes it easy to keep for a longer time. It has also become a healthy and easily-digested food, thanks to various trace elements and vitamins. Before the age of sterilization, deep-freezing and vacuum-packing, sauerkraut guaranteed the population of the country adequate supplies of Vitamin C in winter. Consequently it provided ideal nourishment for seafarers and protected them from scurvy. It must be crunchy, light-colored and have a pleasant smell. The local saying is absolutely right: "Sauerkraut is only good when it has been re-heated seven times." Cabbage comes from China. The workers that built the Great Wall were kept in good health by eating fermented cabbage. Mongols and Tatars later introduced it to Europe, and in the Balkans fermented vegetables have a long tradition. Alsatians have liked sauerkraut since the Middle Ages and one suspects that they are able to enjoy it so much because there is always so much pork appetizingly served with it: smoked and green bacon, smoked pork shoulder...kasseler or schiffala (pickled and smoked pork shoulder)...boiled pork, knuckle of pork and liver dumplings, bratwurst (frying sausage), blutwurst (blood sausage), smoked sausage, knackwurst (little Strasbourg sausages), and fleischwurst (made with finely minced pork); it is just coincidental that new sauerkraut finishes its fermenting process at the same time as local meat production. Choucroute à l'ancienne Traditional Sauerkraut To serve 8: 4 pounds, 6 ounces (2 kg) fresh raw sauerkraut 2 bacon rinds 2 carrots 2 onions 1/2 teaspoon peppercorns 1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds 2 garlic cloves 4 cloves 12 juniper berries 2 bay leaves 1 sprig of thyme 1 knuckle of pork 2 finger-thick slices of streaky ham* 1/2 bottle of dry Riesling wine 4 smoked Montbéliard sausages 21 ounces (600 g) Schiffala smoked pork shoulder 4 pairs knackwurst (little Strasbourg sausages) 1 boiled Morteau sausage *(Ron's note: I think they meant to say "streaky bacon" here, see procedure below.) Wash the sauerkraut in a sieve under flowing water, pull it apart and press out the water. Arrange bacon rinds on the bottom of a large cast iron pot. Add half the sauerkraut. Clean the carrots and peel the onions, cut into pieces and spread on the sauerkraut. Sprinkle the peppercorns evenly over it. Tie the remaining spices with thyme in a muslin bag and add to the vegetables. Add the pork knuckle and bacon and cover with the remaining sauerkraut. Pour on the wine and 1 cup (250 ml) of water. Cover the pot well, place in the oven and cook for about 2.5 hours at 355 degrees F (180 degrees C). Place the smoked sausage and smoked pork shoulder in the pot under the sauerkraut. Cook for another 30 minutes. Place the Strasbourg knackwurst and boiled sausage on the sauerkraut and cook again for 20 minutes. Remove the muslin bag. Serve the sauerkraut with meat and sausages. A well-cooled Sylvaner or Riesling wine goes well with this dish. Choucroute Maison Homemade Sauerkraut To serve 6 to 8: 1 pickled pork knuckle (demi sel) 2 finger-thick slices of streaky bacon 1 teaspoon peppercorns 1 Cervelat sausage 3 to 4 pairs of Strasbourg knackwurst sausages 3 pounds 5 ounces (1.5 kg) fresh raw sauerkraut 3 tablespoons goose drippings 3 onions 2 bay leaves 10 juniper berries 3 cloves 1/2 bottle dry Alsace Riesling Rinse the knuckle and the bacon, place in cold water with peppercorns and simmer at a low temperature for 75 minutes. Add the boiled sausages and knackwurst and simmer for another 20 minutes. Wash the sauerkraut in a sieve under flowing water, take it apart and press out the water. Heat the drippings in a cast iron pot. Peel the onions, finely chop them and lightly braise. Add the sauerkraut, bay leaves, juniper berries and cloves. Pour on the Riesling and add water until the sauerkraut is completely covered. Cover and cook at a low temperature for 40 minutes. Pile up the sauerkraut on a large plate. Cut the knuckle and bacon into pieces and the Cervelat sausage into pieces and surround these with the small sausages. Serve with boiled potatoes. In Alsace, they drink beer with this.

My attempt of this dish for FotW's first annual Choucroute Day - 29 September 2018 - went pretty well; I was able to get it made, and in my opinion it tasted very good. The family seemed to enjoy it as well, so that is always a bonus.

I will try to give a detailed account here; it may ramble a bit and run over itself somewhat, but I figure that's better than missing any details. If anyone has any questions or needs any clarification, please do ask so that I can provide answers and clarify this post.

Notes on some of the ingredients:

I started with the sauerkraut that I had made exactly five weeks before from 1.5 average-sized heads of white cabbage; it spent 2 weeks fermenting in my closet, then three weeks "maturing" in the refrigerator. On the morning that I finally was ready to use it, it looked and smelled great! I tested a small bit, and found that it had a great crunch and it wasn't too salty at all, with a nice, rich sourness. It was so good as it was that I almost didn't want to rinse it out for my Choucroute, but I did anyway, trusting the recipes that I was using.

Another key ingredient in my Choucroute was a small rack of loin back pork ribs that I had purchased a day or two before; following Jacques Pépin's instructions in one of the posts above this one, I made a petit salé of the ribs the night before preparing the Choucroute. Using this technique added a nice touch to the meal, in my opinion.

I had planned on using some of my home-cured-and-smoked Black Forest Bacon for this project; unfortunately, it "mysteriously disappeared," as so many of my specialty products or ingredients seem to do in a house full of kids. No matter; I went instead with the thickest-sliced, best-quality bacon that I could find in in our small-town grocery.

The "recipe" and method that I used to make this was a sort of an amalgam of the reading that I had done on this thread; it's probably not a true, authentic way to do it, but results were really nice. I prepared my Choucroute in an enameled cast-iron Dutch oven smeared with duck fat, based on my home-made sauerkraut, onions and garlic; spiced with a rustic "Old-Style" mustard from Maille, black pepper, cloves, juniper berries and a bouquet garni consisting of bay leaves, thyme and parsley. The sauerkraut was "garnished" with bratwurst, smoked sausage, smoked frankfurters, thick-sliced smoked bacon, sliced smoked ham, home-cured pork back ribs and baby Dutch potatoes (3 per person). I braised the dish in a combination of roasted chicken stock and a Montana-vinted Riesling from Mission Mountain Wineries.

After smearing the sides and bottom of the Dutch oven with duck fat, the sauerkraut, sliced onions and crushed garlic cloves (I used 4) were mixed together on the bottom, with the bouquet garni buried therein and the mustard, black pepper, juniper berries and cloves (I used 4) spread around on top. I then placed the baby potatoes (3 for each person) on top of the sauerkraut in the centre of the casserole, with the bratwursts, frankfurters and sausages arranged around the potatoes. Next, I topped everything with the bacon, some ham slices and the petit salé ribs, which had been rinsed and patted dry. Finally, I added about 2.5 cups of Riesling with a tablespoon of roasted chicken base mixed in, then covered the Dutch oven and put it into a cold oven. Purely on a guess and a whim, I set the oven for 340 degrees and 2.5 hours, then left everything alone.

This guess on time and temperature turned out to be spot-on, from what I can tell. After 2.5 hours, I removed the Dutch oven from the oven and let it rest for 10 minutes or so; when I took the cover off, this is what I saw (please forgive the bad lighting):



The aroma coming up from the Dutch oven was wonderful! I have made bastardized versions of this before, but this was the first time I've consciously set out to emulate a true Alsatian Choucroute. Seeing and smelling the results, I was very pleased; all that remained was to taste it.

The butler was polishing the china and the silver that day, so we had to make do with plastic:



Note: this photo is only to show the different meats involved; once I got it all on the plate, I realized it was simply too much, and cut all of the meats in half. I also added more sauerkraut to each plate, because it was really smelling nice; even my youngest son, who is no fan of store-bought sauerkraut, wanted more than I had originally plated, based solely on the aroma that was wafting up from my home-made sauerkraut in the casserole.

Where the meats were concerned, my idea was to go with a "per person" guess on portions (there were 4 of us eating): 1 bratwurst, 2 slices of bacon, 1 ham slice, 1 section of ribs, 1 frankfurter etc. It was a good idea, but for the sheer volume of food involved, I should have halved my expectations. Ironically, the amount of meat that I did use seemed to be just about right for the amount of sauerkraut that I had; in the final analysis, I simply should have invited 4 or six more people to dinner, and everything would have been perfect, I think. No worries - now we have plenty of leftovers for the coming week!

I truly liked this, and so did the family. Everything went together very well with seasonings, the Riesling and the smoke flavor from the meats. It was a huge meal, but very good. The sauerkraut itself - for me - was probably the best part - full of a whole array of flavours from the entire list of ingredients; however, the home-cured ribs, using Pépin's method, were very good, too, and a personal victory for me, as I had never attempted a true petit salé before. The rest of the meats and potatoes were all done very well; the bacon, which I had placed above the sausages, was not soggy, and the ribs were tender and juicy. The only thing that I might do differently next time would be to layer the ham slices below the bacon, rather than above, so that the renderings from the bacon can keep the ham a bit more moist.

I know that at least two other forum members - possibly more - were going to give this project a try; I eagerly await their results, and hope that this experience inspires more people to consider it for the future. You don't have to wait until next year's Choucroute Day - this is a perfect dish to prepare as we head into fall!

Ron

Have to laugh a bit about the seafood version, Ron. I mean, that's a long way from what started life as a peasant dish.  Monkfish, salmon, langostines, for cripes sake.