Choucroute garnie — 2

Here's a link to part 1 of this topic about making sauerkraut in France.

In the mid-1990s, I had started making choucroute garnie at home in San Francisco. I tried buying it in cans, jars, and refrigerated plastic packages. I eventually found a German deli on Church Street in S.F. and I bought sauerkraut in bulk — in other words, not pre-packaged — from there.

Each time, I tasted the sauerkraut and decided that it would be better if I rinsed and blanched it before cooking it with onions, carrots, spices, and white wine. I'm not even sure now whether the sauerkraut I was buying was pre-cooked or raw. The result was good, but the cooking involved many steps and took three to four hours each time. It was a weekend project — I had a full-time job back then.

Sausages for a choucroute garnie — from left to right,
a fresh pork sausage with herbs, a Montbéliard, a generic
smoked sausage, and some Knacks from Alsace

Then one day I was visiting friends in Normandy. They served sauerkraut, and it was very good. The meats served with it were amazing, but the choucroute itself was sweet and tasty too.

I asked J., who had cooked the meal, what kind of sauerkraut she bought and how she cooked it. What do you mean?, she said. I told her that in California I bought sauerkraut, rinsed to several times to get rid of the saltiness, then blanched it, and finally cooked it in white wine for at least three hours.

A choucroute garnie with a smoked hamhock and sausages

« C'est vrai ? », she said. Is that true? She seemed confused. « Moi, j'ouvre les boîtes de conserve, je fais réchauffer la choucroute, et puis je l'apporte à la table avec les viandes et les saucisses ! » I just open the cans, heat up the sauerkraut, and bring it to the table with the meats and sausages. She said it took about 15 minutes to get the sauerkraut itself ready.

It wouldn't be as good without the boiled new potatoes.

Well, I haven't ever bought choucroute in cans here in France but I guess I should try it. Maybe I'll go up the SuperU and buy some today or tomorrow, while the taste and texture of the old-fashioned, complicated version I make is still fresh in our minds.

Strasburger sausages

An Alsatian-style choucroute garnie is served with meat and potatoes. Smoked pork, including smoked pork sausages, are traditional, as are boiled new potatoes. But you can also serve the sauerkraut with fresh pork — chops, for example — or smoked chicken. Usually, you'll see a few frankfurters, called either saucisses de Strasbourg or saucisses de Francfort here in France, on the platter as well.

Very nice smoked pork sausages
from Montbéliard in eastern France

The meats can be cooked in the sauerkraut or separately, and the same is true of the potatoes. I like to cook the potatoes and poach the sausages separately from the dish of sauerkraut, so that I can better control the cooking times. Smoked sausages like the traditional ones from Montbéliard, from the mountains just south of the Alsace region, need about 20 minutes in simmering water. Frankfurt or Strasbourg sausages need only 5 minutes.

The other indispensable accompaniment to a choucroute garnie is good spicy-hot mustard. I think plain hot Dijon mustard is best, but other kinds of mustard can be good too. If you want a cheese course, get some good Munster, which is traditional in Alsace-Lorraine.

Munster cheese is traditional in Alsace. This one, which has
the A.O.C. label of authenticity, was creamy and nutty-tasting.

I don't think Alsace and neighboring Lorraine claim to have invented sauerkraut, but the version garnished as described here is something they do claim to have concocted. If you get a chance to go to Metz or Strasbourg, you ought to try it in one of the traditional restaurants. And you can make it at home pretty easily, if you have the time.