Himmel un Ääd met Flönz

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Wide frying pan
• •Large saucepan
• •Potato masher
• •Fish slice or thin spatula

Instructions

1. 1

   Start the onions

   Melt 20g butter with 1 tablespoon oil or lard in a wide frying pan, add the sliced onions and a pinch of salt, and cook them over medium-low heat for 25 to 30 minutes until soft, golden, and sweet. Don't rush them. Fast heat browns the edges while the middle stays sharp, and this dish needs onion sweetness to stand against the blood sausage.

   Use the widest pan you have. Crowded onions sweat in their own water, and then you wait twice as long for colour.
2. 2

   Cook potato and apple

   Put the potatoes in salted cold water, bring them to a steady simmer, and cook until almost tender, about 15 minutes. Add the apples for the last 6 to 8 minutes, just until they soften. Potatoes start cold so they cook through evenly; apples go in late because they collapse faster and should bring brightness, not disappear into paste.

3. 3

   Mash the Himmel

   Drain the potatoes and apples very well, then return them to the warm pot for a minute so surface moisture dries off. Mash with the warm milk, 40g butter, nutmeg, black pepper, the vinegar, and a spoon of the onion fat. Taste before you salt hard, because the Flönz brings salt of its own. If the apples are fierce, add the pinch of sugar, not more. Balance, not pudding.

4. 4

   Dust the Flönz

   Pat the Flönz slices dry and dust them lightly with flour, shaking off the excess. The flour is not breading. It gives the soft sausage a dry skin so it can crisp in the pan before the filling warms and loosens.

5. 5

   Fry gently

   Heat the remaining 1 tablespoon oil or lard in a clean pan over medium heat, then lay in the Flönz slices and fry 2 to 3 minutes per side until the outside is crisp and dark and the centre is hot. Runter mit der Temperatur if the casing starts to split. Blood sausage is already cooked; you're crisping and warming it, not punishing it.

6. 6

   Serve the plate

   Spoon the apple-potato mash onto warm plates, lay the fried Flönz against it, and heap the onions over the sausage and mash so their fat runs where it should. Add a small spoon of Rübenkraut on the side if you like the Köln sweetness, and serve rye bread for the last streaks on the plate. Nicht aus dem Glas, not a bought sauce. The pan gave you enough.

Chef Tips

• •Use floury potatoes, the kind that fall apart when boiled. Waxy potatoes make a tight, slippery mash, and this dish wants a loose earth under the apple.
• •Choose tart apples that hold a little shape, Boskoop if you can get them, Elstar or Braeburn if you can't. A sweet soft apple turns the mash flat.
• •Buy Flönz from a butcher who sells it fresh and thick enough to slice. Thin supermarket rounds split fast and give you more casing than sausage.
• •Rübenkraut belongs on the side, not stirred through the whole pot. Some tables want that dark sweetness, some don't, and the cook should not settle the argument for everyone.
• •Leftover mash fries well the next day in a little butter. Weggeworfen wird nichts.

Advance Preparation

• •Slice the onions up to a day ahead and keep them covered in the refrigerator; cook them when you make the dish so their fat stays fresh.
• •The apple-potato mash can be made a few hours ahead and reheated gently with a splash of milk. Keep the heat low or the apple catches on the bottom.
• •Do not fry the Flönz ahead. It loses its crisp edge as it sits, and the crisp edge is the whole point.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 615g)