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Sauerkraut with Meat

A sauerkraut stew cooked with ham or bacon and pork or sausages, flavored with white wine, flour, salt, pepper, and optional onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,214 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sauerkraut with Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Layer half of the sour kraut in a pot.

  2. Add the meat on top, then cover with the remaining kraut.

Stew

  1. Pour in the white wine and add water to moisten.

  2. Cover and stew gently until the kraut is soft and yellow.

  3. Remove the meat when cooked.

  4. Dredge the meat in flour for smoothness.

  5. Stew for another 30 minutes.

  6. Return the meat to heat through, stirring occasionally to prevent burning.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. White wine + oniontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,535 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Ham + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,638 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. White wine + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sour kraut
Forms the main body of the dish and softens into a tender, tangy base during stewing.
Ham or bacon
Adds smoky, savoury fat that flavours the kraut as it stews.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich stewed kraut.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid slightly, giving the dish a smoother texture.

The step that matters

Return the meat to heat through, stirring occasionally to prevent burning.. Sugars and starches in the kraut and flour can scorch on the bottom of the pot if left unstirred over direct heat, so gentle stirring keeps the stew from burning while the meat warms through.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, pork, white wine, flour, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, pork, white wine, flour, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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