French · Alsace · main

Choucroute Garnie

Choucroute Garnie reads richness 6.0, umami 5.2 and sourness 4.9 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a French · Alsace main, about 3 hr 39 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

The measured notes (of 18)

Richness 6.0 · Umami 5.2 · Sourness 4.9 · Salinity 4.8 · Funk & Ferment 4.4 · Smoke 3.5 · Allium 3.4 · Warm Spice 2.9 · Fruity 2.4 · Citrus 2.2 · Floral 2.2 · Sweetness 1.6 · Earthy 1.4 · Heat 1.1 · Bitterness 1.1 · Herbaceous 1.1

What's in it (18)

Time & effort: about 3 hr 39 min · effort: involved

Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 66.2 kcal, 1.9 g protein, 2.2 g fat, 10.5 g carbs

Dietary: Contains meat — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.

How it's cooked (9 steps)

  1. Taste the raw sauerkraut before you do anything. A good barrel choucroute needs one quick rinse; an aggressive supermarket one may need two, and an under-fermented one needs none at all. Then squeeze it dry in handfuls with real force — water left in it will dilute the wine and steam the whole dish flat.
  2. Melt the goose fat in a large casserole over medium heat and sweat the onions with the garlic for 10 minutes until soft and translucent, without letting them colour. Goose fat is not interchangeable here: this is the northern fat belt, and butter or oil gives a thinner, sharper dish.
  3. Tie the juniper, peppercorns, cloves, bay and thyme in a square of muslin. Put half the sauerkraut over the onions, bury the bacon and the smoked shoulder in it with the spice bag, then cover with the rest of the sauerkraut.
  4. Pour over the Riesling and the stock. The liquid should come about two-thirds of the way up, no more. Bring it to a simmer on the hob, cover tightly and cook in a 150°C (300°F) oven for 2 hours 30 minutes.
  5. Boil the potatoes separately in salted water for 20 minutes and keep them warm. Cooking them in the pot would turn them to mush and cloud the choucroute.
  6. The sausages go in only for the last 20 minutes, pushed down into the hot sauerkraut with the heat turned low and the pot barely steaming. A knack that has been simmered for an hour splits, greys and loses its snap; twenty minutes at 80°C warms it through and leaves the skin taut.
  7. Fish out the muslin bag. Taste for salt now and probably not before — the cured meats give up a great deal as they cook, and choucroute is one of the few dishes where seasoning at the start is a genuine mistake.
  8. Pile the sauerkraut on a warm platter, carve the shoulder and bacon over it, arrange the sausages and potatoes round, and eat it with strong mustard and the rest of the Riesling.
  9. Substitutions: lard can stand in for the goose fat; smoked Morteau sausage (about 300 g) can stand in for the Montbéliard sausage; chicken stock can stand in for the light pork stock.

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Every number above is Palate's engine-measured estimate, computed from this recipe's ingredients and techniques — not human-tasted ratings or reviews.