Lorraine Food: Sauerkraut

A year ago and a half ago, my French grandmother gave me a book called La Cuisine Lorraine. It isn't so much a cookbook as a book about Lorraine food. It has general procedures for making foods and ingredient lists, but it rarely has anything as specific as cooking time. In addition to these recipes, it has bits of history about food in the Lorraine region, illustrations, poems, and a few stories written in both French and a local patois.

After looking through it occasionally for a while, I decided that I would like to try to make one of the sauerkraut recipes. It consists of pork shoulder slow cooked with sauerkraut, onions, spices, and potatoes. The cooking time was not specified, other than it must be at least a half hour, but I looked at similar recipes on the next page and got an idea of how long to cook it.

If you can read French, cool! If not, here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

• pork shoulder
• sauerkraut- about as much by weight as the pork shoulder. I think you are supposed to rinse it.
• onions
• salt and pepper
• thyme
• bay leaf
• nutmeg
• some liquid to simmer it in. The recipe says dry white wine, but I just used some chicken broth that I had.
• potatoes
• smoked ham or sausage (optional)

Procedure:

1. brown the pork shoulder in the pan. 

2. Add the liquid, sauerkraut, salt, pepper, bay leaf, entire onions, and plenty of thyme and nutmeg. Add ham and/ or sausage if desired.

3. Cover the pan and let it simmer for three hours.

4. A half hour before it is done, cut up some potatoes and put them in the pan. They will cook from the steam.