Interim pork & kraut report: after eight-plus hours took out the pork and shredded it, and it came apart easily. Drained the sauerkraut etc. through a strainer and got almost two cups of liquid. Added a bit more water, put it in the crockpot, stirred in a cup of white rice, and it’s now cooking for the next roughly two hours on high.
Taste test? Less sour than my previous experiment, in fact somewhat bland, I have to say. I didn’t add any salt but there was apparently enough salt from the sauerkraut and bacon for that not to be an issue. I’m going to wait for the rice to cook and stir that in, then see what I think.
If it’s still not very impressive after it’s sat for a while and had the rice added, I’ll go buy more Lloyd’s barbecue pulled pork and stir it all together. I figure to get around a dozen meals out of this, even without the Lloyd’s addition, likely even more, depending on sides, and it should freeze well.
So, a fair amount of work with a couple dozen bucks’ worth of ingredients, with a so-so outcome, but I don’t mind. It was absorbing to work on, it will feed me for many meals, and it’s decently healthy. All in all, that’s good enough for me.
ETA: It would be interesting to try this again but with fresh cabbage, beef or chicken broth, and maybe a can of tomato paste, or some canned diced tomato with Italian spices.
Sauerkraut & pork update: I picked up a jar of Signature tomato-basil pasta sauce and also a package of Lloyd’s pulled pork in barbecue sauce today. I’m going to mix the tomato sauce into the four containers of P&S and see how I like it, keep one in the fridge and freeze the other three. The Lloyd’s I’ll save for another plan: doing barley in the slow cooker.
I plan to cook the barley in broth, then add the Lloyd’s when it’s done. Dunno if I should add any onion, carrot or whatever to the barley as it cooks. Maybe some fresh shredded cabbage? I have both beef and chicken bouillon powder on hand for the broth. Which would be better?
Because the pork and sauerkraut I made came out bland, as is barley by itself. I like tomato sauce. I like barbecue sauce. De gustibus non est disputandum.
So, you drained the kraut after slow cooking? Then you added water? No wonder it was bland. The broth from the cooked-together pork and sauerkraut is liquid gold. Also, adding rice is…different. Potatoes are a natural with this meal.
Keep it simple and try this next time:
Brown pork.
Cook sliced onions in pork browning and drippings until browned or at least well-sweated.
Add pork, undrained sauerkraut and beer or cider, or maybe some type of mild broth to slow cooker. Maybe a peeled and cut up apple too.
Season with pretty much only black pepper. Don’t go crazy with seasonings.
Either add diced potatoes toward the end to cook in the stew, or serve with baked or roasted potatoes. Serve as a sort of stew with the cooking liquid.
Yeah, cook same method (spike pork w/ garlic slivers, brown, dump kraut apples onion, bake, etc)…dont drain anything, but you dont want a “stew”, adding reisling or beer if you drain the sauerkraut. It should have juice but not be swimming. I just use the canned “ingredients: cabbage, salt” kraut.
It should be pork surrounded by a wet kraut. My mother used to add bisquick dumplings part way through, they were like a “knodel” and absorbed the flavor. Really good, never “bland”, never added spaghetti sauce!
I have to disagree. I added undrained kraut and a bottle of beer when I made it last Sunday, and I did not find it too soupy at all. If you want to serve or eat it with less liquid, just ladle it out with less liquid.
Or leave out the beer or whatever other extra liquid if you wish. But for the love of God, don’t drain the kraut beforehand-- that wonderful sour briny goodness is going to flavor the pork while cooking it.
I think we’re in agreement- ie keep the juices for all the flavor, plus the meat and liquids exchange juices for more flavor. I dont think you want liquids 3” above everything b/c then the flavors dont concentrate.
Yeah, probably so. I personally would not drain the kraut beforehand, then add only enough extra liquid to make sure that the kraut and liquid together just barely covered the pork. I added a whole bottle of beer to mine last time, but I had a big hunk of pork and a lot of kraut.
The sauerkraut is ultimately nothing more than lightly salted cabbage and scarcely seasoned enough for itself. The lean pork braise or bake or simmer needs to be seasoned and lots. Use a bunch of bacon and sausage, smoked if you can, half to equal amount. I’d also add black pepper, caraway, half a dozen+ allspice, probably some marjoram. I’m not adverse to a touch of MSG or other enhancement, Vegeta or Maggi or Knorr.
A few points: I did not drain the sauerkraut before adding it to the pot on top of the pork. Even with adding half the bottle of Guinness the liquid at the start of cooking didn’t completely cover the kraut.
Every bit of the liquid drained from the P&S after cooking, close to two cups, went into cooking the rice, with maybe a tablespoon or two of water to get to exactly two cups for the one cup of rice. So no flavor from the liquid was lost when I stirred the rice into the P&S.
The result was mildly sour and otherwise bland enough to be boring, which is why I added tomato sauce to it. I’m eating some for supper now and while it’s not wonderful it’s got more character.
I’m taking some conclusions away from this experiment:
I just don’t much care for sour foods, even when most of the sourness has been cooked out. Any further explorations of the basic recipe will use fresh cabbage instead.
I need to bump up the seasoning, intensify the flavoring to withstand the prolonged cooking, maybe add herbs etc. later in the process. Maybe put in some beef and/or chicken bouillon.
I’m gonna need a bigger onion, add carrot, think about what other vegetables might work well.
Maybe I should use some form of bone-in pork with more fat marbling it than the boneless spareribs meat, if that will increase the flavor.
So, bottom line, this experiment didn’t turn out all that well (not surprising since I’m not much of a cook to begin with) but I learned enough to do better next time.
Oh boy. I almost feel like jnglmassiv is whooshing us, and EddyTeddyFreddy, no, just no!
Look, when it comes to cooking, I’m often as guilty as anyone when it comes to going overboard adding ingredients, mad scientist style. But this meal requires the KISS principle-- Keep It Simple, Straightdopers!
Try this-- cover the pork in undrained sauerkraut and add just enough of a flavorful liquid if you need to, so the pork is covered. Cook until pork is shreddy. Do not drain resulting broth or combine it with rice or anything. Serve with baked or roasted potatoes. 3-4 ingredients.
You should find that the sourness and brininess of the kraut and the fattiness and savoriness of the pork meld beautifully. If you don’t like it, maybe it’s not a meal for you. If you think-- not bad, but it could use [X Y Z] added, then go ahead next time, but at least you’re starting from a knowledge of what the simple version of the meal should taste like.
No woosh intended, that sauerkraut and lean loin/ country ribs never had a chance with only a few slices of bacon for seasoning. Especially salt but caraway and allspice are proven winners for pork n kraut.
Well, I don’t know what you’ve been using for sauerkraut, but I found your claim that it’s just lightly salted cabbage to be a bit odd. It’s pretty well-salted, fermented cabbage that brings a lot of flavor on its own, and adding a bunch of bacon, sausage and extra seasonings is liable, IMO, to muck up what, IMO, is a wonderful, natural pairing of flavors, and over-salt the whole thing. I’m saying this as someone who is not shy about adding salt to everything.
My point is just, try first making the dish as simply as possible, as I suggest, then go ahead and add extra stuff next time if you think the dish warrants it. Caraway- sure. Allspice? Interesting. I’m not sure about adding it to pork & sauerkraut, but I do like allspice a lot- it goes very well with beef, as I found when I made the original version of Beef Stroganoff:
OP did that and said it wasn’t too good. It couldn’t be good, it was just wet cabbage and lean meat, scant bacon.
The result was mildly sour and otherwise bland enough to be boring, which is why I added tomato sauce to it. I’m eating some for supper now and while it’s not wonderful it’s got more character.
OP did some unusual things, like draining the liquid after cooking, adding water back to it, and using the cooking liquid to cook rice or something. All I was saying is, try keeping it simple and see how you like it. Then, having a baseline for what simple pork and sauerkraut together tastes like, go wild and experiment however you wish.
And c’mon, sauerkraut is not just ‘wet cabbage’. It’s like saying wine is just grape juice.
I do agree that a fattier cut of pork, like pork shoulder, would be better to use than a lean cut like pork loin.
I’m teasing with the soggy cabbage bit a little but, after the sauerkraut cooks for a few hours, any delicate fermentation flavor and aroma is mostly cooked out. It really needs help, starting with the salt.
IANA huge user of kraut. But I do enjoy it now and again, usually while I’m out, not at home. So I have little knowledge of various brands.
IME there’s kraut and then there’s kraut. Some is salty wet cabbage and some is more like vinegar level astringent cabbage. In fact tonight is Brats mit Kraut night at happy hour at my local Hofbrau, and that’s what’s next on my agenda here now. Their kraut is distinctly tangy, but not puckeringly so.
Cooking with one and expecting the other would certainly be a disappointment in either direction.
I’m actually in Ann Arbor tonight (Go Lions!) and that Cleveland caraway no-preservatives kraut is on my list to buy before I head back home to Chi tomorrow. I’ve been looking forward since it came up in this thread.