After our recent meal at Alpine Restaurant, Jac developed a craving for bratwurst and sauerkraut – she’d ordered rollmops and goulash on the night but quite liked the look of Juji’s bratwurst dish. The following week, Jac decided to do her own version of bratwurst, sauerkraut, potatoes and onions for dinner. She bought bratwurst sausages from the butcher – these particular bratwurst were hefty looking things!

I love fried onions. They can be cooked in a frying pan, on a barbecue or crumbed or battered and served as onion rings, served in a tasty rich brown onion soup – I love it all! These onions were panfried and sweet, a perfect companion to the savoury meaty sausages.

So, for this meal with the bratwurst, Jac thought she’d try the rinsing trick. She rinsed the sauerkraut and did something else: she mixed fresh cabbage in with it. She put it all (rinsed sauerkraut and fresh cabbage) in a big pot on the stove, adding a tablespoon of butter. Once the fresh cabbage was cooked, the transformed sauerkraut was ready to serve. And you know what? I didn’t mind it at all! The rinsing plus the mixing of fresh cabbage with the pickled cabbage meant the flavour was quite mild. I look forward to the sauerkraut with pork and bacon one of these days!

Jac wasn’t very happy with how the potatoes turned out – she said she didn’t cook them in a hot enough pan, so they didn’t turn out crispy as planned. She called them “sauteed” potatoes rather than “fried”. I thought they tasted pretty good despite not being crispy. She seasoned them well and I thought the whole meal was lovely!