German Night At The Ranch

As it turns out, one of my BBQ customers has a German background and makes his own kraut, a quart of which he gave me back in the fall.  I hate it took me so long to try it, but we finally got to it recently.  It’s common to cook pork with kraut and in this area it’s often country style ribs, which are really just sliced up pork butt, but I wanted to use some pork loin from the freezer.

Since the pork loin is so lean, it would become very dry if I used the same cooking process as with the ribs and I do not like dry meat, pork or otherwise.  So after thawing, I cut the loin into 1” chunks, added it to a pan with oil and browned a little then covered it with the kraut – I had a probe thermometer in one of the pieces and cooked it to 140*.  I considered brining the meat, but thought the cooking in the salty kraut would suffice.

I don’t know of a meal more German than pork, kraut, and potatoes, so Bev made some potato cakes from leftover mashed potatoes – adding some chopped chives and chopped crispy bacon – all we needed was some sausage, spargel (white asparagus), and good bread.  We also had some spicy brown mustard on the side.

As it turned out, the un-brined loin did not work well in this application as it needed more flavor and it didn’t provide much flavor to the kraut either - I also should have trimmed off the fat as it didn't cook long enough to render and add any flavor to the dish.  So I ended up making a very average dish out of some good ingredients - some of the better homemade kraut I’ve eaten.  As you can see this was more of a what not to do post.  Fortunately, the potato cakes made up for it as they were delicious. 

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago: Ye Olde Steakhouse For Breakfast

Two years ago: Dogs & Fries – Finally Pretty Weather

Larry

01/09/2012 meal date