Frankfurter Würstchen mit Kraut

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Wide pot with lid
• •Instant-read thermometer, optional but useful
• •Wide sauté pan or shallow saucepan
• •Mixing bowl for potato salad

Instructions

1. 1

   Cook the potatoes

   Put the scrubbed potatoes in cold salted water, bring them up gently, and cook until a knife slides in cleanly, about 20 to 25 minutes. Start them cold so the centres cook through before the skins split. Use waxy potatoes because they slice cleanly for salad; a floury potato falls apart here and turns the bowl pasty.

2. 2

   Dress them warm

   Drain the potatoes, save a small cup of the cooking water, and peel them while they are still warm enough to take the dressing. Slice them into a bowl. Stir the diced onion, hot broth, vinegar, mustard, salt, and pepper together, then pour it over the warm slices in two additions, folding carefully so the potatoes drink without breaking. Add the oil last, because oil coats the potato and would block the broth if it went in first. Würzen, Fett, Salz zum Schluss.

   Let the salad stand 15 minutes, then loosen it with a spoon of reserved potato water if it tightens. Weggeworfen wird nichts, and potato water gives gloss without making the salad oily.
3. 3

   Warm the kraut

   Melt the lard or warm the oil in a wide pan and soften the sliced onion until it turns sweet at the edges, not brown. Add the grated apple, caraway, bay leaf, sauerkraut, and broth. Cover and cook gently for 20 minutes, stirring once or twice, until the cabbage is hot through and the apple has softened into the sharpness. Taste before salting. Sauerkraut carries its own salt, and the reserved brine is there if it needs more bite.

4. 4

   Heat the sausages

   Bring a wide pot of water to a boil, then take it off the heat and let it settle to 75 to 80C. Slide in the Frankfurter Würstchen, cover the pot, and leave them for 8 minutes. Do not boil them and do not prick them. The casing is the keeper of the juice; break it or boil it hard and the sausage gives its smoke and fat to the water instead of to you.

5. 5

   Serve the plate

   Lift the Würstchen out with tongs and set two on each plate with a mound of kraut and a scoop of warm potato salad. Scatter chives over the salad, put mustard beside the sausage, and add rye bread if you want the plate to stretch. Serve at once, while the skins are still taut and glossy.

Chef Tips

• •Buy true Frankfurter Würstchen if you can: slim smoked pork sausages in sheep casing, usually sold in pairs. If the label says raw, this recipe changes; raw sausage must be cooked through according to the butcher's instruction.
• •A thermometer makes this easy. Without one, bring the water to a boil, turn off the heat, wait two minutes, then add the sausages and keep the lid on. The water should tremble only when the pot is moved.
• •Use raw sauerkraut from a barrel or refrigerated bag when you can. A sweet cooked wine-kraut in a jar has already made the seasoning decisions for you, and usually not good ones. Nicht aus dem Glas.
• •Do not rinse the kraut unless it is punishingly sour. The acid is part of the dish, and a little apple rounds it without turning it sweet.
• •Broth-dressed potato salad is best warm or room temperature. Cold refrigerator potatoes close up and taste flat, so bring leftovers back to the room before serving.

Advance Preparation

• •The kraut can be cooked up to 2 days ahead and reheated gently with a splash of broth; cabbage tastes better after it has sat overnight.
• •The potato salad can be made 2 hours ahead and held at room temperature. Add chives just before serving so they stay sharp and green.
• •Heat the Würstchen last. Made ahead, they wrinkle and lose the taut bite that makes the dish work.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 510g)