Chef Klaus
Bayerischer Wurstsalat
The Bavarian beer-garden salad that lives by the cut: thin sausage strips, raw onion, vinegar and oil, no cheese, rested long enough to taste like supper.
Culinary Explorer
A cooking platform built around craft, culture, and the stories behind what we eat.
Presssack mit Musik
Created by
Franconian Presssack is the cold board that shows the pig was respected: red or white head-cheese sliced thin, onion vinegar doing the work, rye bread waiting.
Appetizers & Snacks
German
Budget Friendly
Picnic
Make Ahead
20 min
Active Time
0 min cook•40 min total
Yield4 servings as a Brotzeit plate
Presssack mit Musik sits on the Franconian Brotzeit board, Brotzeit being the bread-and-cold-cuts meal that solves a summer evening, a picnic, or a Sunday when nobody wants another pot on the stove. Red Presssack gets its dark colour from blood; white Presssack does without it. Both are head-cheese, Sülze, gelled meat in a casing, sliced cool and sharpened with onion, vinegar, and oil.
Franconia claims this board hardest, especially around Würzburg, Bamberg, and the beer cellars, but the family is wider. Swabia and Baden have Schwartenmagen, head-cheese heavy with rind; the north eats Sülze cleaner and often with remoulade and potatoes. The words mit Musik travel through Hesse with Handkäse, sour-milk cheese, but here the music is raw onion on pork. Im Norden anders, im Süden anders. Das ist kein Bierzelt.
The dish works or fails in the onion bowl before the meat is touched. Salt the onion into the vinegar first and let it stand, because salt draws juice from the onion, the vinegar tames the raw heat, and those juices become the dressing. Oil goes in after that. Add it first and it coats the onion, so the acid cannot do its work.
Slice the Presssack cold, then let the dressed plate stand only long enough for the cut faces to take the sour edge, 15 or 20 minutes. A long soak makes the gel weep and turns the board slack. This is the old larder doing its job: head, rind, trim, blood if you choose the red one. Weggeworfen wird nichts. Erst verstehen, dann kochen.
Before mechanical refrigeration became common in rural Germany in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, pig slaughter in Franconia and Bavaria was cold-weather work, often clustered around Martinmas on 11 November. Presssack belongs to that Hausschlachtung, home slaughter: meat from the head, rind, and trim set in its own collagen, with blood for red Presssack and without it for white. The same thrift appears under other names, Schwartenmagen in Swabia and Baden and Sülze further north, while the onion dressing called mit Musik is most famously tied to the Hessian Handkäse table.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
red or white Presssack
Quantity
500g
well chilled
white onions
Quantity
2 medium
sliced paper-thin
white wine vinegar or mild cider vinegar
Quantity
3 tablespoons
cold water
Quantity
1 tablespoon
fine salt
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon, plus more to taste
sugar
Quantity
1/4 teaspoon
freshly ground black pepper
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon
caraway seeds
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon
lightly crushed
rapeseed or sunflower oil
Quantity
4 tablespoons
chives (optional)
Quantity
2 tablespoons
finely cut
dark rye bread
Quantity
to serve
German mustard
Quantity
to serve
radishes or pickled cucumbers (optional)
Quantity
to serve
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| red or white Presssackwell chilled | 500g |
| white onionssliced paper-thin | 2 medium |
| white wine vinegar or mild cider vinegar | 3 tablespoons |
| cold water | 1 tablespoon |
| fine salt | 1/2 teaspoon, plus more to taste |
| sugar | 1/4 teaspoon |
| freshly ground black pepper | 1/2 teaspoon |
| caraway seedslightly crushed | 1/2 teaspoon |
| rapeseed or sunflower oil | 4 tablespoons |
| chives (optional)finely cut | 2 tablespoons |
| dark rye bread | to serve |
| German mustard | to serve |
| radishes or pickled cucumbers (optional) | to serve |
Equipment Needed
- •Sharp slicing knife
- •Non-reactive mixing bowl
- •Wide plate or Brotzeitbrett
Instructions
- 1
Check the Presssack
Buy a firm red or white Presssack from a good butcher and keep it cold until slicing. Press a finger lightly on the cut face: it should spring back and show clear gel around the meat, not shed liquid. Cold gelatin holds under the knife, so you get clean slices instead of smearing rind and meat across the board.
- 2
Soften the onions
Put the sliced onions in a non-reactive bowl with the vinegar, cold water, salt, sugar, pepper, and crushed caraway. Work them with your fingers for half a minute, then leave them 15 to 20 minutes. Salt pulls juice from the onion and vinegar takes off the raw burn; that onion juice is not waste, it becomes the sharp part of the dressing.
Slice the onion thinner than you think. Thick onion stays harsh and sits on top of the Presssack; thin onion bends into the vinegar and becomes the Musik. - 3
Slice it cold
While the onions rest, peel off any tough casing and slice the Presssack 3 to 4mm thick. Use one steady stroke with a sharp knife. Saw at it and you tear the gel; press too hard and you squeeze out the juices the butcher worked to set.
- 4
Add oil last
Whisk the oil into the onion bowl only after the onions have softened. Oil first would coat the onion and shut out the vinegar, so the onion stays harsh and the dressing tastes split. Würzen, Fett, Salz zum Schluss: season first, fat after, then taste for salt.
- 5
Dress and wait
Fan the Presssack slices on a board or wide plate and spoon the onions and dressing over them. Let the plate stand 10 to 15 minutes in a cool room, just long enough for the cut faces to take the sour edge. Leave it sitting for hours and the gel weeps, the slices slacken, and the board looks tired.
- 6
Serve the board
Scatter over chives if you're using them, grind on a little more pepper, and serve with dark rye, mustard, radishes, or pickled cucumbers. This is Brotzeit, the bread-and-cold-cuts meal, so don't fuss it into something it isn't. Schön ist, was schmeckt.
For a picnic, keep the Presssack chilled and dress it on site. Head-cheese is cooked and set, but it is still a perishable cold meat.
Chef Tips
- •Red Presssack tastes darker and iron-rich because of the blood; white Presssack is milder and cleaner. Both are right in Franconia. Buy the one your butcher makes well.
- •The gel should be clear and firm, not cloudy and wet. A wet Presssack has either been stored badly or cut too long before serving, and no onion dressing will repair it.
- •Use rapeseed or sunflower oil. Strong olive oil drags the plate south in the wrong way; this dish wants clean fat, sharp vinegar, onion, pepper, and caraway.
- •Bottled salad dressing has no business here. Nicht aus dem Glas: vinegar, onion juice, and oil are the sauce.
- •Serve it with rye bread and a Franconian Kellerbier, or with a dry Silvaner if you want wine. The acid in the dressing and the fat in the Presssack need something clean beside them.
Advance Preparation
- •Buy the Presssack 1 to 2 days ahead and keep it wrapped and chilled. Slice it the day you serve it, because cut head-cheese dries at the edges and weeps at the centre.
- •The onion, vinegar, salt, sugar, pepper, and caraway can stand up to 2 hours ahead in the refrigerator. Add the oil after the onion has softened, then dress the Presssack shortly before serving.
- •Leftovers keep 1 day chilled, but the texture softens. Eat them on rye with mustard rather than pretending the board will look fresh again.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 280g)
Calories
520 calories
Total Fat
38 g
Saturated Fat
11 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
25 g
Cholesterol
85 mg
Sodium
1450 mg
Total Carbohydrates
24 g
Dietary Fiber
4 g
Sugars
5 g
Protein
20 g
Where cooking meets culture.
Culinary guides, cultural storytelling, and the editorial depth that makes cooking meaningful.
Discover Culinary ExplorerMore from Brotzeit: The Bavarian Grazing Board
Browse the full collection
Chef Klaus
Bayerisches Griebenschmalz
Bavarian Brotzeit in a crock: slow-rendered pork fat, browned cracklings, onion, and apple, set firm for dark bread because the cheapest part of the pig still deserves proper work.
Chef Klaus
Bunter Leberkäsesalat
A Bavarian Brotzeit salad built from leftover Leberkäse, cheese, pickle, onion, and vinegar sharp enough to wake cold meat without turning it sour.
Chef Klaus
Erdäpfelkäs (Kartoffelkäse)
The Lower Bavarian potato spread with no cheese in it at all: floury potatoes, sour cream, onion, caraway, and enough patience to keep it loose, cool, and clean.