Mothers Austrian Style Wine Sauerkraut Recipes

Steps:

• Heat bacon drippings in a large skillet over medium heat; cook and stir onion until soft and translucent, about 5 minutes.
• Place sauerkraut with juice into a large bowl and cover with water. Stir and use your hands to squeeze out as much of the water and juice as possible. Add squeezed sauerkraut to onion.
• Stir brown sugar, caraway seeds, chicken stock, and cooking sherry into the sauerkraut mixture. Reduce heat to low and simmer until almost all the liquid has evaporated, 30 to 40 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Steps:

• Break away any bad outside leaves and discard.
• Rinse cabbage under cold running water.
• Cut cabbage heads into quarters.
• Do not use cores, discard them after shredding.
• Finely shred cabbage or slice with a good sharp knife.
• In a large crock, layer with 2 inches of shredded cabbage.
• Sprinkle with 2 tablespoons of pickling salt.
• Place sliced pieces of one red pepper over.
• Repeat layering until all cabbage, salt and red pepper are used up.
• There should be about 4 layers.
• Pour water over cabbage.
• Now pour the wine over cabbage.
• Place a large plate to cover most of the top surface of the cabbage.
• Place a 4 to 5 pound clean rock (cleaned and washed and soaked in white vinegar) on top of the plate as a weight.
• If liquid does not come to the surface, just add a bit more cold water (or wine if you prefer.) Cover top with several layers of cheesecloth and tie with a good string so the cloth does not fall off.
• Leave cabbage to ferment for 2 to 3 weeks in a warm area (70 F to 75 F) or until it starts to foam around the edges of the plate.
• Move the crock to a cooler area (about 60 F to 65 F) and continue to ferment for another 2 weeks.
• At this time, taste to see if the sauerkraut is curing.
• When it suits your taste, pack the sauerkraut and some liquid into 12 sterilized quart size jars leaving a 1/2" head space.
• Wipe jar rims clean.
• Prepare and place lids according to manufacturers instructions.
• Place screw lids on just finger tight.
• Process in boiling water in a canner for 25 minutes.
• Remove jars and allow to cool for 12 hours.
• Check to see if all jars are sealed.
• Lids should be concave (curved down).
• Re-process jars that are not sealed, but remember to change with new lids.
• Store in a cool, dark place.

Steps:

• Chop peeled apple into roughly bite sized cubes; set aside.
• Chop onion; set aside.
• Measure out butter or margarine, sugar, caraway seed and wine and have ready in separate containers to add at appropriate time.
• In large, deep skillet, melt butter over medium heat. When heated add caraway seed and onion. Sauté three to four minutes until onion starts to get translucent.
• Add apple cubes in with onion and butter and caraway. Cover frying pan and with heat between medium and high, let the apple and onion caramelize for about five minutes or however long it takes to see the onion and apple start to brown. The heat will also bring out the flavor of the caraway seed.
• When onion and apple have become soft and starting to brown, add sugar and mix onion and apple and sugar until they are evenly
• mixed. Let sauté another minute to get the sugar into the other ingredients.
• Add the sauerkraut and with cooking tongs and a spoon, gently toss sauerkraut in the butter, fruit and onions and caraway seed mixture until it is evenly distributed and coated.
• Deglaze with white wine and again stir around until it is all mixed.
• Cover the skillet, reduce to simmer and let the sauerkraut steam for another 10-15 minutes on simmer, letting the flavors thoroughly blend.
• Adjust for balance between sweet and sour. If too sweet, add a bit of sauerkraut juice and stir it inches If too sour, add a bit more sugar to a ½ cup of hot water and dissolve, mixing that into kraut.
• Cover and let sauerkraut simmer a few minutes more to let it blend.
• **Note: if you want you can fry bacon in small strips until crisp. Retain 3;8 cup of bacon fat and use instead of margarine (as per recipe above). You can then cook the sauerkraut, onion, apples and caraway seed in bacon fat then follow the other steps of the recipe same as above.
• Crumble the bacon into the sauerkraut at the last minute before serving and toss.