Sauerkraut & Dumplings

Traditional Mennonite/  Pennsylvania Dutch cooking is pretty heavy on meat, starches and sweets.  I’m fairly positive that I’ve never seen a traditional recipe that called for whole-grain anything.

So… when  I recently sat down with The Mennonite Community Cookbook that I’ve inherited from my mother and grandmother, I decided to see what gems I could discover in the incredibly thin “vegetables” section.  (And if family meals with grandma and the cousins have taught me anything, it was to expect lots of bacon and cheese added to most of the vegetable recipes).

I eventually settled on a recipe for sauerkraut and dumplings.  To me, kraut and dough are some of the main stays of Pennsylvania Dutch cooking.  Every now and then I like to revisit the familiar smells and tastes of grandma’s kitchen and this recipe seemed designed to do just that.  This particular recipe also had my grandmother’s notes in the margin which, in the end, helped me produce top-notch dumplings.

Of course, the main ingredient of the dish was pork. I might argue with the inclusion of such a dish in a section on vegetables – but I don’t argue with the final product.

In the end, the dish was not only incredibly simple to make, it tasted heavenly – with just the right balance of flavorful pork, sour sauerkraut and light, pillowy dumplings.  As you can see in my picture (after the jump), I added some peas on the side – because I really did want a vegetable involved in the meal.

Recipe (complete with grandma’s alterations) after the jump.

Sauerkraut with Dumplings

1 quart sauerkraut

1/2 lb. pork

For dumplings:

¾ cup flour

½ tsp. salt

1 ½ tsp. baking powder

1 egg, beaten

3 T. milk

Brown pork slightly, add water to cover and cook until almost soft.

Drain sauerkraut and rinse.

Add kraut and continue to cook for 40 minutes.

Just before serving, make dumplings by dropping dough from spoon unto hot kraut.

Cook dumplings 12 minutes, keep pan tightly covered.

Serves 6.