Bratwurst in beer sauce with savoy cabbage

My recipe book collection also consists of six folders jam packed full of magazine recipes which I have collected over the years, all indexed and separated and coded, it took an awful lot of time and effort, but it was worth it, most of the recipes are in German and I fancied finally giving some of them a go, but I wanted something that wasn’t widely known as being traditionally German. I set myself this task thinking that it would be a challenge, I tend to get bored really easily and move onto something else. For example 18 years ago I started doing a large cross stitch, I designed it, drew it, put it on graph paper so I could transfer it to the canvas, I bought all the colours and set about doing it… It is now sat in my Mum’s attic, I got bored and quit doing it. So when I started this new project I was concerned it would be another one of those half-finished things that looms over me making me feel guilty and uneasy for the rest of my life until I complete it. However it was surprisingly easy although time consuming. Anyway this next recipe uses one of my favourite German ingredients the “bratwurst” as long as they are the fresh ones and not the long life ones. It’s not a recipe I would have recognised as being German, but it had what I would call German ingredients so ticked all the boxes for what I wanted to achieve.

Bratwurst in Beer sauce with Savoy Cabbage

700g Savoy Cabbage

1 leek

1 carrot

2tbsp butter

125ml instant veg stock

Salt and pepper

1tsp paprika powder

For the bratwurst

1tbsp oil

600g bratwurst

20g bread

100ml veg stock

150ml beer

2 bay leaves

2tbsp molasses

Salt and pepper

2tbsp apple or beer vinegar

50ml cream

1.       Remove any wilted or tired looking leaves from your cabbage, going length ways cut your cabbage into quarters and cut out the fat middle stalk, then cut the cabbage into thin strips. Wash the leek, cut in half length ways, wash it again and cut it into strips too, peel the carrot and julienne.

2.       Put 1tbsp of butter and the oil into a pot and heat, sauté the vegetables. Add the stock, salt, pepper and paprika, cover and cook on a high heat for 10 minutes. The vegetables should have some bite to them.

3.       In the meantime in a large skillet heat the oil, for the bratwurst. Cook the bratwurst for about 6 minutes, shaking the pan every now and again to turn the sausages. Remove the bratwurst and keep warm.

4.       Remove the crust from the bread and crumble. Add the stock, beer, bay leaves and the crumbled bread to the pan. Cook until the bread crumbs have dissolved and the sauce thickens, season with the syrup, salt, pepper and vinegar, mix in the cream – add the bratwurst to the sauce and leave until it gets really hot.

5.       Season the veg with a little butter, salt and pepper if desired, then serve with the bratwurst and sauce.

"We love Laarbruch" Facebook Group and Cabbage Rolls (Ironically a typical dish eaten by Germans)

I was a member of a group on Facebook, called “We love Laarbruch.” When I first joined, years ago, when they had as little as 50 odd members, they are now over 2000, it was with the soul intention of meeting up with old friends, and if the truth be known it served it’s purpose, all of my friends from school eventually joined the group and we are now Facebook buddies.

Quite often, people on there ask for recipes, traditional German ones, and I have a lot of those, after 24 years in Germany I have managed to collect 100’s of them, and I was sharing them. It got a little tedious though, translating and typing up these recipes. Whilst chatting to one of the other members, I mentioned my blog, and he suggested that every now and again (once or twice a month) I post my blog on the page so that he could skim though what I had posted, neither of us was really interested in becoming Facebook friends, I don’t know him, and he doesn’t know me, what was the point? So, once or twice a month, I posted on the page, this last time I posted, several people complained, moaned and groaned, about me “Spamming” I would hardly call it spam, I am not selling anything and I am certainly not forcing anyone to read something they have no interest in. I left the group after being accused of spamming, but they carried on the thread, keeping it at the top of the page, the longer it was at the top of the page, the more blog hits I got. I am a little confused to say the least. Possibly a little saddened, I am so proud of what I have achieved here, maybe they think it’s stupid, or maybe they are jealous I don’t know, but wouldn’t it have been better, to ignore or delete my post and move on rather than try and diminish something I have worked so hard to accomplish, shame on them for trashing one of their own!

Over the years I have had cabbage rolls, always store-bought with a powdered sauce – now I am not knocking either – certainly ideal for busy days when speed and ease are the name of the game, but what about those days when you do have time? What would you rather, quick store-bought or taking the time and making your own from scratch? I know that I would rather make my own and think of the pride you will feel at the end of it…..

Cabbage Rolls

4 Large cabbage leaves

¼ lb ground beef

¼ lb bulk pork sausage

¼ cup onion chopped

½ cup cooked rice

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

¼ tsp Dijon mustard

1 egg

1 cup tomato sauce

2 tbsp brown sugar (optional)

1. In a large saucepan, cook the cabbage leaves in boiling water for 5 minutes, then drain and set aside. In the meantime cook the beef, sausage and onion over a medium heat in a skillet until meat is no longer pink, then drain and stir in the rice, Worcestershire sauce, mustard and egg; mix well.

2. Cut out the thick vein from the bottom of each leaf, making a V-shaped cut. Place about 1/3 cup of the beef mixture onto each of the cabbage leaves, next over lap the cut ends of leaf. Fold in the sides, then starting from the cut end, roll up to enclose filling, if need be secure with cocktail sticks. Place seam side down in a greased baking dish.

3. Pour juice over rolls; sprinkle with brown sugar if desired. Cover and bake at 350°F/180˚F for 50 minutes. Uncover and bake for another 10 minutes.

Servings: 2