No. 2819

Sauerkraut Garnished

Choucroute Garnie

Butter the bottom of a saucepan; lay in two pounds of fresh sauerkraut washed in several waters; in the center arrange a quarter of a pound of bacon and a quarter of a pound of goose or chicken far; moisten to its height with broth (No. 194a), and in the middle lay an eight-ounce cervelas sausage, one onion or carrot cut in four and a garnished bunch of parsley (No. 123); cover over with buttered paper and cook for two hours or more; the moistening should be reduced when the sauerkraut is done; drain off the fat, take out the bacon, sausage and vegetables, and add to the sauerkraut one gill of white wine, a piece of kneaded butter (No. 579) and three ounces of plain butter divided in small pats. Suppress the bacon rind, cut it and the sausage into slices and dress them around the sauerkraut as a garnishing; thicken the sauce with some espagnole (No. 414), and serve separately.

← No. 2818 Sorrel with Gravy Other Vegetables No. 2820 Spinach with Bechamel Sauce and with Cream →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with a stockpot always going and a numbered reference for every component. Stripped of the cross-references, this is a straightforward braise: sauerkraut cooked slowly under fat and broth, then enriched and garnished with its own meats.

The hinge: low, slow, and coveredThe sauerkraut should barely tremble for two hours, not boil. The buttered paper keeps it from drying out; on a modern burner use the lowest setting that holds a bare simmer.
"Buttered paper"A cartouche: a round of parchment cut to the pan's diameter, buttered on one side and laid directly on the surface. It slows evaporation while letting a little steam escape, which is what allows the liquid to reduce to almost nothing by the end.
Washing the kraut"Fresh sauerkraut washed in several waters" points to barrel kraut, which was likely sharper and saltier than today's jarred or bagged supermarket sauerkraut. With modern refrigerated kraut one rinse and a firm squeeze is usually enough; taste before deciding, since over-rinsing leaves it flat.
"Goose or chicken far"A typographic slip for fat. Rendered goose fat is sold in jars and tins; schmaltz or duck fat does the same work. Four ounces of it with four ounces of bacon is not excessive here, as most of it is drained off before serving.
CervelasA fine-textured, lightly smoked French pork sausage, close to a saveloy. A cooked garlic sausage, a good knackwurst, or Alsatian saucisse de Strasbourg all substitute honestly; avoid raw sausage, which is not what the recipe assumes.
A gill of white wineHalf a cup, four fluid ounces. Add it at the end, off the direct heat, along with the butter, so it lifts the dish rather than boiling away.
Kneaded butter and espagnoleNo. 579 is beurre manié: equal weights of soft butter and flour worked to a paste, whisked in to bind the last of the liquid. No. 414 is the classic brown sauce; a well-reduced veal or beef stock finished with a little butter serves the same purpose for the sauce passed separately.
The brothNo. 194a is one of Ranhofer's broths. An unsalted or low-sodium chicken stock is a safe stand-in, since the kraut and bacon bring plenty of salt of their own.
YieldTwo pounds of kraut with its garnishes will serve roughly four as a main course, and more as a vegetable course, which is where the book files it.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York across some three decades, though not continuously — his tenure came in two stints, with a break in the later 1870s — and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that restaurant's working repertoire set down in a thousand-page reference. Choucroute garnie is Alsatian rather than Parisian in origin, from a border region where German fermented cabbage met French charcuterie and butter, and it reached fashionable French tables in the nineteenth century largely as a regional specialty. Ranhofer's version shows the treatment being made restaurant-polite: the kraut is washed of its harshness, braised in stock rather than water, finished with wine and three ounces of butter beaten in as pats, and served with a separate sauceboat of espagnole. The garnish is a French idea imposed on a peasant dish. One imagines that in an Alsatian household the sausage and bacon would be cooked and served in the pot; here, at any rate, they are lifted out, trimmed, sliced neatly and arranged around the mound of cabbage, which tells you as much about Delmonico's dining room as it does about the dish.