Zuurkoolstamppot: or, Kraut Spuds and Bacon

Some delicacies must wait until no one is around to whine about the smell.

Zuurkoolstamppot 750g starchy potatoes (about 1½ pounds), peeled (if desired) and cubed* 250g sauerkraut (about 8 ounces) 100g smoked bacon (about ¼ pound), diced† 1 onion, finely chopped (or one 12-oz package frozen chopped onion) 2 garlic cloves, minced ½ cup milk Butter to taste (I didn't use any) Pepper to taste Put the sauerkraut in a strainer over a bowl (or the sink) and set aside to drain. Boil the potatoes in salted water until soft. Meanwhile, cook the bacon until crisp in a large frying pan. Remove and set aside, leaving the drippings in the pan. Add the onion and saute until soft. Then add the garlic and cook another minute or two. Next, add the drained sauerkraut and stir long enough to warm it through. When the potatoes are ready, drain and mash them. Add them to the frying pan along with the bacon. Mix everything together, adding milk, butter and pepper to taste. You can also add salt, but taste first because there's probably already enough from the other ingredients. *Just round to the nearest potato. This isn't one of those recipes where measurements must be precise. †If smoked bacon is too expensive, you can just add a few drops of liquid smoke when you're mashing the potato. Note: This is really good if you mix in a little mustard (wholegrain if you have it). Source: Retro Food for Modern Times

Today, we are borrowing a recipe from our Pieathlon friend Taryn at Retro Food for Modern Times. It's basically cabbage spuds and bacon except this time, the cabbage is fermented. 

Since I really love sauerkraut, this recipe seemed absolutely perfect for me-- and that's before we get to the bonus onion. But first, bacon!

At first I thought it was a lot of bacon grease for one recipe. But people tend to put truly heartstopping amounts of butter into mashed potatoes on a normal day. So really, bacon grease is a lateral move.

Next, we got to the onion! I took the lazy route and bought frozen chopped onions instead of cutting one up on the spot. 

I've happily let myself get into the habit of keeping frozen chopped onions on hand for whenever I feel something could use a lift. Just like the spices in the cabinet, it's nice to always have onions ready whenever we need them.

While our onion was cooking, our potato was ready to come out of the pot and get mashed. The recipe calls for 750 grams of potatoes, and I decided one of the bigger spuds in the supermarket bin was close enough. Unless you're making a very precise recipe, there's nothing wrong with rounding to the nearest potato.

Moving back to the bacon fat, I think I set my burner a lot higher than Taryn did when she posted this recipe. My onions became a bit artisanally blackened while I wasn't looking. 

Everything smelled divine anyway. (Really, how can you go wrong with onions and bacon?) And when I added the sauerkraut, the steaming vinegar scoured my nose so I could really appreciate the aroma of success.

Soon, it was time to add our mashed potato, which had turned into a surprisingly firm clump in its bowl. If I wasn't making zuurkoolstamppot, I could have unmolded this onto a platter.

The recipe says to add butter to taste along with the milk. I haven't gotten to go grocery shopping in Australia (where Taryn is writing from), so I don't know what bacon looks like there. But here in glorious America, bacon has so much fat on it that the actual meat sometimes seems like it got into the packaging by accident. So, butter seemed superfluous.

This tasted exactly like what went into it. I was in sauerkraut ecstasy. 

I served this with Swedish meatballs, and the potatoes were a lot better than the beef (which, by the way, was really good). If you have a well-ventilated kitchen or a good aim with a wooden spoon when people come grousing about the smell, you owe it to yourself.