Kasseler mit Sauerkraut

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.