Chef Klaus
Berliner Kartoffelsalat
The capital's creamy potato salad, built on warm waxy potatoes that drink the dressing before mayonnaise binds the bowl, with pickle, onion, and egg doing the sharpening.
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Kasseler mit Sauerkraut
Created by
Kasseler works because you don't cook it like fresh pork. Warm the cured, smoked loin gently, then let the kraut carry the sour, fat, and smoke.
Main Dishes
German
Weeknight
Comfort Food
20 min
Active Time
1 hr 10 min cook•1 hr 30 min total
Yield4 servings
Kasseler mit Sauerkraut is winter larder cooking, especially strong around Berlin, Saxony, and the middle of the country, where cured smoked pork and a crock of kraut could feed a table without ceremony. It belongs on a weeknight as easily as a Sunday, because the work was already done weeks earlier in the curing, smoking, and fermenting.
The regions argue in the usual useful way. Around Berlin and Saxony you see lean Kasseler Rücken, the loin, sliced over kraut; further south a shoulder or neck piece gives more fat and forgives a longer pot. Some cooks sweeten the kraut with apple, some keep it sharper with only wine and onion. Im Norden anders, im Süden anders, and nobody needs a beer tent to settle it.
The rule is simple: don't boil the Kasseler hard. It is cured and smoked already, so a rolling pot drives out the moisture and leaves you with salty pink wood. Warm it gently on top of the sauerkraut, covered, until the meat is hot through and still juicy. The kraut can simmer; the pork should only be carried by that heat.
Taste the sauerkraut before you do anything to it. If it's lively and clean, use it as it is. If it's brutally salty, rinse it once and stop. Nicht aus dem Glas if you can help it, but if a jar is what you have, cook it properly with onion, apple, juniper, and stock. The jar doesn't get the last word.
Kasseler is usually traced to a Berlin butcher named Cassel, who is said to have popularised the cured and smoked pork cut in the late nineteenth century; despite the name, it is not named for the city of Kassel. Sauerkraut is older larder work, tied to the lactic fermentation of cabbage that let German households carry vitamin-rich vegetables through winter before refrigeration. The pairing shows the practical logic of the German table: preserved pork and preserved cabbage made a full meal long after the fresh garden had shut.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
Kasseler Rücken or Kasseler Kamm, cured smoked pork loin or neck
Quantity
800g
in one piece
sauerkraut
Quantity
800g
drained, rinsed only if very salty
onion
Quantity
1 large
finely sliced
tart apple
Quantity
1
peeled, cored, and grated
lard, bacon fat, or neutral oil
Quantity
2 tablespoons
dry white wine
Quantity
150ml
pork stock, chicken stock, or water
Quantity
250ml
bay leaf
Quantity
1
juniper berries
Quantity
6
lightly crushed
caraway seeds (optional)
Quantity
1 teaspoon
sugar (optional)
Quantity
1 teaspoon
floury potatoes
Quantity
500g
peeled and cut into chunks
butter
Quantity
1 tablespoon
salt and black pepper
Quantity
to taste
German mustard
Quantity
to serve
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| Kasseler Rücken or Kasseler Kamm, cured smoked pork loin or neckin one piece | 800g |
| sauerkrautdrained, rinsed only if very salty | 800g |
| onionfinely sliced | 1 large |
| tart applepeeled, cored, and grated | 1 |
| lard, bacon fat, or neutral oil | 2 tablespoons |
| dry white wine | 150ml |
| pork stock, chicken stock, or water | 250ml |
| bay leaf | 1 |
| juniper berrieslightly crushed | 6 |
| caraway seeds (optional) | 1 teaspoon |
| sugar (optional) | 1 teaspoon |
| floury potatoespeeled and cut into chunks | 500g |
| butter | 1 tablespoon |
| salt and black pepper | to taste |
| German mustard | to serve |
Equipment Needed
- •Wide heavy lidded pot or Dutch oven
- •Instant-read thermometer
- •Sharp slicing knife
Instructions
- 1
Taste the kraut
Taste the sauerkraut before rinsing it. Good kraut should be sour, not harsh and salty; rinse it only if the salt bites harder than the cabbage, because washing away all the brine throws away the flavour the fermentation built.
- 2
Start the base
Warm the lard or bacon fat in a wide heavy pot and cook the onion until soft and pale gold. Don't brown it hard; browned onion pushes the kraut sweet and dark, while this dish wants clean sour cabbage carrying smoke from the pork.
- 3
Braise the kraut
Add the sauerkraut, grated apple, wine, stock, bay, juniper, and caraway if using. Stir well, cover, and simmer gently for 35 minutes. The apple softens into the kraut and rounds the acid without making it taste sweet, which is the point. If the pot dries out, add a splash more stock; Weggeworfen wird nichts, and that cooking liquor is part of the dish.
Use pork stock if you have it. Bones and rind belong in the pot, not in the bin, and they give the kraut a deeper body than water can. - 4
Warm the Kasseler
Lay the Kasseler on top of the kraut, cover the pot, and keep the heat low so the kraut murmurs rather than boils. Warm the pork for 25 to 35 minutes, turning it once, until it reaches 63C in the centre if it was sold raw cured and smoked, or until fully hot through if it was sold cooked. Runter mit der Temperatur: hard boiling tightens cured lean pork and dries it out.
- 5
Cook the potatoes
While the pork warms, boil the potatoes in salted water until they break easily under a knife. Drain them well and return them to the hot pot for a minute so surface moisture leaves; wet potatoes dilute the butter and make the plate taste flat.
- 6
Rest and season
Lift the Kasseler to a board and rest it 5 minutes so the juices settle instead of running out under the knife. Stir the butter through the potatoes, then taste the kraut and adjust with black pepper, salt only if needed, and a pinch of sugar only if the cabbage is too sharp. Würzen, Fett, Salz zum Schluss, because the cured pork has already brought salt to the pot.
- 7
Slice and serve
Slice the Kasseler thickly across the grain and set it over the sauerkraut with potatoes alongside and mustard on the table. Spoon a little of the kraut liquor over the meat. Schön ist, was schmeckt.
Chef Tips
- •Ask the butcher whether your Kasseler is cooked or raw cured and smoked. Cooked Kasseler only needs warming; raw cured Kasseler must reach 63C in the centre, and both are ruined by a hard boil.
- •Kasseler Rücken is lean and tidy for slicing. Kasseler Kamm, the neck, has more fat and tastes deeper, so use it if you want the kraut to drink up more pork flavour.
- •Don't bury the sauerkraut under sugar. Apple is enough most days; sugar is a correction for kraut that is too sharp, not a new sauce.
- •Serve with boiled potatoes for a weeknight or Kartoffelpüree, mashed potatoes, on Sunday. The potato is there to catch the sour pork juices, which is practical work.
Advance Preparation
- •The sauerkraut can be braised one day ahead and reheated gently; it tastes rounder after a night in the refrigerator.
- •Slice leftover Kasseler cold for bread with mustard, or warm slices gently in leftover kraut liquor. Don't fry it dry in a bare pan unless you want salt and regret.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 620g)
Calories
590 calories
Total Fat
29 g
Saturated Fat
11 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
16 g
Cholesterol
125 mg
Sodium
3030 mg
Total Carbohydrates
41 g
Dietary Fiber
8 g
Sugars
10 g
Protein
45 g
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