Chef Klaus
Berlin Currywurst
The Berlin Imbiss counter on a plate: fried sausage cut thick, a tomato curry sauce cooked until glossy, and enough fries or bread to chase every bit.
Culinary Explorer
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Bockwurst im Brötchen
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A Berlin Brühwurst belongs in hot water, not boiling water: warm it gently, keep the skin tight, then eat it in a roll with sharp mustard.
Sandwiches & Wraps
German
Weeknight
Quick Meal
Budget Friendly
10 min
Active Time
15 min cook•25 min total
Yield4 servings
Bockwurst is Berlin weeknight food with a tavern birth certificate. A pale, plump Brühwurst, a scalded sausage, warmed and eaten with mustard, bread, and the beer it was named beside. This is not a grill sausage. Treat it like one and the skin bursts, the fat runs out, and you've bought flavour just to pour it down the sink.
Berlin and Brandenburg keep it close to the kettle and the snack counter. Elsewhere the sausage shifts: in the south it may be smokier or closer to a Weisswurst cousin, in the north it might sit beside potato salad or kraut. Im Norden anders, im Süden anders. The Berlin point is simple: hot sausage, sharp mustard, good roll, no theatre.
The technique is the dish. Bring the water up, then runter mit der Temperatur, down with the temperature, to about 75C. The sausage is already cooked, so you are heating it through, not cooking it again. Boiling tightens the casing too hard and drives out the fat. Gentle water keeps the snap, the juice, and the seasoning where they belong.
Use proper Bockwurst from a butcher if you can, pork and veal or all pork, lightly smoked if that's the local style. The mustard is sharp, the roll is crisp, and the kraut, if you use it, is warmed from the larder. Nicht aus dem Glas only when the jar is pretending to be a sauce. For mustard, the jar is its home. Schön ist, was schmeckt.
Bockwurst is strongly tied to Berlin, where the usual origin story names the pub owner Robert Scholtz and the butcher Benjamin Löwenthal in 1889, serving a new scalded sausage with strong bock beer. The name comes from that pairing with Bockbier rather than from the meat, and the sausage became part of Berlin's everyday Imbiss, the street and snack-counter table. Regional versions now vary in meat mix, smoke, and seasoning, which is why one town's Bockwurst can be pale and mild while another's is redder, smokier, and sharper.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
Bockwurst sausages
Quantity
4
butcher quality if possible
crusty Brötchen or small rolls
Quantity
4
sharp German mustard
Quantity
4 tablespoons
sauerkraut
Quantity
250g
drained
small onion
Quantity
1
finely sliced
lard or neutral oil
Quantity
1 teaspoon
bay leaf
Quantity
1
black peppercorns
Quantity
4
caraway seeds (optional)
Quantity
1 teaspoon
salt
Quantity
to taste
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| Bockwurst sausagesbutcher quality if possible | 4 |
| crusty Brötchen or small rolls | 4 |
| sharp German mustard | 4 tablespoons |
| sauerkrautdrained | 250g |
| small onionfinely sliced | 1 |
| lard or neutral oil | 1 teaspoon |
| bay leaf | 1 |
| black peppercorns | 4 |
| caraway seeds (optional) | 1 teaspoon |
| salt | to taste |
Equipment Needed
- •Wide saucepan
- •Instant-read thermometer
- •Small pan for sauerkraut
- •Tongs
Instructions
- 1
Warm the kraut
Put the lard or oil in a small pan and soften the onion until it turns glossy, not brown, because bitter onion has no business sitting under a mild sausage. Add the sauerkraut, bay, peppercorns, caraway if using, and a splash of water. Warm it gently for 10 minutes so the kraut loosens and the sourness rounds off without turning limp.
If the sauerkraut is very sharp, rinse it briefly and squeeze it dry. Don't rinse it until it tastes of nothing. The sour bite is why it is there. - 2
Heat the water
Fill a wide saucepan with enough water to cover the sausages and heat it to 75C. If you don't have a thermometer, bring the water almost to a simmer, then turn the heat down until the surface is quiet with only a few small bubbles at the edge. Boiling water punishes a Brühwurst; it tightens the casing and pushes the fat out.
- 3
Warm the sausages
Slide in the Bockwurst and keep the water at about 75C for 8 to 10 minutes, until the sausages are hot through and firm to the touch. Do not prick them. The casing is holding the juice in, and making holes in it is not cleverness. It is drainage.
- 4
Toast the rolls
Split the Brötchen without cutting all the way through and warm them cut side down in a dry pan for 1 to 2 minutes. A warm roll bends around the sausage and stays crisp at the edge; a cold roll cracks and makes a mess of the mustard.
- 5
Build and serve
Lift the sausages from the water and dry them lightly so the mustard clings instead of sliding off. Spoon a little warm kraut into each roll, lay in a Bockwurst, and stripe it with sharp mustard. Serve at once, while the casing still has its snap. Weggeworfen wird nichts: the leftover kraut goes beside potatoes tomorrow.
Chef Tips
- •Buy Bockwurst with a tight casing and a clean, lightly smoky smell. If the sausage smells mostly of garlic powder and salt, the butcher has done the talking instead of the meat.
- •Keep the water below a boil. Bockwurst is a Brühwurst, already scalded during making, so your job is to heat it through without bursting the casing.
- •Use sharp German mustard, not sweet Bavarian mustard. Sweet mustard belongs with Weisswurst; here it makes the whole roll taste sleepy.
- •A crusty Brötchen matters. Soft hot dog bread turns sweet and slack under the sausage, and then you have made a worse meal for no reason.
Advance Preparation
- •The sauerkraut can be warmed up to 2 days ahead and reheated gently with a splash of water.
- •Do not hold the sausages in hot water for an hour. Warm them close to serving, because long holding softens the casing and dulls the snap.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 235g)
Calories
465 calories
Total Fat
28 g
Saturated Fat
10 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
15 g
Cholesterol
60 mg
Sodium
1850 mg
Total Carbohydrates
36 g
Dietary Fiber
4 g
Sugars
5 g
Protein
17 g
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