Choucroute

Ingredients

• 500 g piece kassler
• 4 knackwurst sausages
• 1 kg potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks
• 2 large onions, peeled and finely sliced
• 1 cup rinsed and drained sauerkraut
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 thyme sprigs
• 2 whole cloves
• 1 tbsp juniper berries, lightly bruised
• 1 litre (4 cups) water
• mustard, to serve

You will need to begin this recipe 1 day ahead.

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 100°C.

Place the whole kassler in a heavy-based casserole pan. Add the knackwurst, potato, onion and sauerkraut.

Tuck in bay leaves and thyme around the pan, then sprinkle cloves and juniper on top. Pour over the water.

Cover and bake for 8 hours or overnight. Check for seasoning, and add any salt or pepper in the last hour of cooking.

Pile on plates with each person receiving some of each of the sausages, part of the kassler, potato and sauerkraut. Pass a mustard pot around at the table as the condiment. 

Serve with a nice Alsatian white or beer.

Note

• Brigitte Bardot had a choucroute hairstyle – a tangled beehive that was named after the messy pile up of blond choucroute on the plate.

Also try Matthew Evans' pan-fried kassler with colcannon.