Saurebraten

[FordGuy100]

German dish that we are doing at work now.

You will need 1 Top Rump cut of beef. (recipe will be subjective to amounts as I did roughly 30lbs at once, 4 top rump cuts).

In a large pot, get some veal stock going (either from scratch, or I suppose some bullion cubes or what not). Add to that a carrot or two, cut up into cubes. Add one diced onion, and diced celery (call it 1-2 cups). Add a couple bay leaves, and about 1/4 cup of whole black peppercorns. Add red wine to the mixture, making it roughly 1 part wine, to 2 parts of the stock. At this point, you should have about 1 gallons of this stock/wine liquid. Remember, this is all subjective. Add salt to your liking.

Take your top rump, and salt and pepper it. Then take some Dijon mustard, I used Grey Poupon, and coat the meat with it, rub it in with your hands. Get a skillet going and put some veg. oil on it. You will now sear the top rump on all sides. Cook 2 minutes on each flip. You are not looking to cook it, just to sear it.

This is where the average home cook will run into a problem. I put the top rump after they were done searing into a large hotel pan (imagine large rectangular metal container) and poured the wine/stock mixture over it. I think you could crock pot this if you would like, I cooked it in an alto-shame (oven with a timer that shuts itself off after x amounts of hours at X *F).

So I put the Saurebraten into the altosham last night, and set it for 250* for 8 hours. I would imagine a crock pot set on medium-high would do the same. If you have a pan you could do this in the oven, that would work as well.

So the next day rolls around, your saurebraten is done cooking. The top of the liquid will be thick from all the fat. Take and scoop out as much of the jelly like substance and discard. Take the meat out of the container and set aside. You are now left with the saurebraten sauce, but it will still be fairly thin at this point. Take a sauce pan, and reduce this for a good 20-30 minutes until its thickened up. You can always add some corn starch to some cold water, and wisk it in while it is boiling. Reducing concentrates the flavor though.

Now all you do is cut the meat, and serve the sauce over the top. We serve it with braised cabbage and spaetzle (German type of noodle).

That sauce is what makes this dish, its devine.

[ToMang07]

IMHO use a large turkey pan over a crock pot.

Sounds like a good recipe... I may have to try this in the future...maybe Thanksgiving.

I love German food/beer!

[FordGuy100]

Spaetzle:

This is a mixture of semolina, flour, eggs, and water. You will need a special spaetzle press, you should be able to find one on google, looks kinda like a cheese grater.

Take two cups semolina, and mix two cups of all purpose flour into it. For seasoning, add about 1/2 tsp. nutmeg, and about 1 tsp white pepper into this semolina/flour mixture.

Take about 8 eggs, and whisk them up. Add to the mixture. Mix this mixture as best as you can, but the eggs will not be enough liquid. Add water until the mixture is thick, and very sticky (will be impossible to get off your hands without washing). Use the same amount of water as eggs. So if you find that after adding about as much water, that the consistincy is still to dry, crack another egg or two into it, and add water accordingly.

In a large pot of salt water, use the press and the spaetlze batter and push it through the press. This are essentially small little dumpling noodles. The noodles will fall to the bottom. Once they rise to the surface a minute or two later, they are done cooking. Take spoon and put them into an ice water bath to discontinue the cooking process.

Then just put into a strainer in a sink, and let the water drain off. To re-heat, just put some oil, or butter, into a pan and heat the spaetzle until it starts to brown.

This is a very plain dish, and almost always served with something (in the case above, use the saurebraten sauce and pour over the noodles, like you would a gravy).

[FordGuy100]

For Spaetzle:

http://www.kitchenfantasy.com/images/Spaetzle_Maker.jpg

[FordGuy100]

Forgot to mention, will go back later and fix, but the wine/stock mix needs about 2 cups red wine vinegar.