food → Brats and Apple Sauerkraut
Another food post here. This is actaully from last week. I just haven’t gotten around to posting it. It was my turn to cook and I made some brats and apple sauerkraut. I cooked the brats in brandy instead of beer because come on everyone does beer. It’s too common and not actaully as good as brandy. Well starting off with the brandy as a base I add a stick of butter, worshire sauce, balsamic vinegar, a couple dried chillies, ground up mustard seed, black pepper, olive oil, salt, chicken boullion, marjoram, sage, and maybe a couple other herbs I’m forgetting. I let it sit on low heat until it’s all good and mixed and the butter is melted. Then I put on the brats, put white pepper, black pepper, coriander, and honey over top of them. Put on the lid and let cook at between low and medium low heat for 20-30 mins. Flip and recoat with white, black pepper, coriander, and honey. Also stir up the liquid a bit too. Another 20-30 mins or so and the liquid should be just starting to thicken up if you put enough in to begin with. If it’s not thickening or just about to thicken you put too much. Take some out. Add it to the sauerkraut, just a couple spoon fulls. I leave the lid off the brats at this stage but you have to be careful because that liquid that is keeping them from burning is going away and is going to be less helpful. But you want the skins to toughen up a little and go dark. I sometimes add some more honey around this stage to get the skins to go just a little snappy. They won’t go crispy and you wouldn’t want them to. They’d be burnt. Anyways it only takes another 5 to ten mins to get them perfect and you have to keep an eye on them. They should look similar to the pictures I have. I took that just before they were done.
The apple Sauerkraut is easy. I made way too much. I used two cans of sauerkraut you really only need one. Cut up a couple granny smith apples, a few small red potatos, add some white wine, and herbs. Cook it down while you’re making the brats. Fry up some bacon and cut it up and add it to the pot. Drop some of the liquid from the brats at the end or near the end. As far as the herbs go just stick to peppers, salt, and other stuff that goes well with potatos or sour stuff. You don’t need a lot of herbs the taste from the other stuff will take it far. The potatos will completely cook down and the whole thing becomes a little like mash potatos, it gives it a really hearty taste and it’s super filling. The apples should come across but not like you’re bitting into apple pie or anything. It’s still sauerkraut. The bacon I could have used more on just add it to taste.
Once you’ve got everything done grab a roll slap a brat on it, heap on a ton of the sauerkraut and squirt some mustard on it. Enjoy.
