Sauerbraten

Ingredients

• Beef topside1.5 kg
• Red wine vinegar400 ml
• Dry red wine400 ml
• Onions3
• Carrots2
• Celeriac150 g
• Cloves, juniper, bay, peppercorns1 tbsp
• Gingerbread — crumbled80 g
• Raisins50 g
• Sugar1 tbsp
• Oil for frying2 tbsp
• Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Boil the vinegar with the wine, vegetables and spices, cool it completely and pour it over the beef. Keep it in the fridge three to five days, turning once a day.

   4320 min

2. 2

   Lift the meat out, dry it with kitchen paper and brown it hard on every side in a hot casserole. Strain the marinade, keeping the vegetables.

   15 min

3. 3

   Fry the marinated vegetables in the same fat, add the sugar and let it catch a little colour. Pour in the marinade and bring it to the boil.

   10 min

4. 4

   Return the meat, cover and braise over a low flame for two hours, turning it once halfway. A fork should meet no resistance.

   120 min

5. 5

   Take the meat out and keep it warm. Stir the crumbled gingerbread and the raisins into the gravy and cook for fifteen minutes: the gingerbread dissolves and thickens it on its own.

   15 min

6. 6

   Blend the gravy smooth and taste it for the balance of sour and sweet. Carve the meat across the grain and pour the gravy over.

   8 min

About the dish

Sauerbraten began as a way of rescuing tough meat: over several days vinegar breaks down connective tissue that no knife will. Three days is the minimum, five is normal, and there is no point cutting it short.

The Rhineland version thickens the gravy with gingerbread. That is not a quirk: it carries sugar to balance the vinegar, spice, and starch — three jobs in one ingredient.

The meat has to be dried thoroughly before it goes into the pan. A wet surface will not brown, and without that the gravy stays pale and flat.

Worth knowing

• — The marinade must be cold before it meets the meat. Hot marinade cooks the surface and then cannot get in.
• — If the gravy comes out too sour, add sugar a teaspoon at a time rather than all at once: vinegars differ and it cannot be predicted.
• — The classic sides are potato dumplings and red cabbage. The dumplings are there to collect the gravy.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

610 kcal

Protein

54 g

Fat

26 g

Carbs

26 g

More from Germany

• Käsespätzle — Swabian egg noodles layered with cheese and buried under fried onion.
• Rinderrouladen — Thin slices of beef rolled around mustard, bacon and gherkin and braised until they give way.
• Swabian potato salad — Potato dressed in warm stock with vinegar and oil. No mayonnaise — southern Germany does not admit it here.