Meat · Recipe · Cologne · Reference page

Rheinischer Sauerbraten

Name: Rheinischer Sauerbraten
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 150 min
Total time: 4500 min
Yield: 6
Ingredients: 1 kg beef: shoulder, Nuss (thick flank) or Oberschale (topside); 500 ml water; 250 ml good red wine vinegar; 1 tsp salt; 3 piece onions, sliced; 1 piece carrot, sliced; 5 piece cloves; 10 piece juniper berries; 10 piece black peppercorns; 0.5 tsp mustard seeds; 2 piece bay leaves; 1 pinch each of ground coriander and dried marjoram (a knife tip); 1 tsp dried rosemary; 100 g beef suet or sunflower oil; 200 g raisins; 50 g currants; 2 piece onions, finely chopped; 1 tbsp Apfelkraut (thick apple syrup); 2 piece Sauerbraten-Printen (Aachen spice biscuits), crumbled; as many as needed; 125 ml sour cream; salt and black pepper; 100 ml not-too-dry red wine, optional

Rheinischer Sauerbraten / Soorbrode

Beef marinated for at least three days in red wine vinegar with onion, juniper, cloves and bay, then browned and braised in the marinade with raisins and currants. The sauce is sweetened with apple syrup and thickened with crumbled Printen spice biscuits. The recipe is a Cologne brewery-tavern's, published by the city portal koeln.de.

Editorial illustration of the documented recipe; not a photograph of a kitchen-tested result.

Servings: 6
Preparation: 30 min
Cooking: 2 h 30
Resting: 72 h
Total: 75 h
Difficulty: Involved

Equipment

Non-metallic dish or bowl that holds the meat snugly in the marinade
Heavy iron casserole (Schmortopf) with a lid
Sieve

To drink & serve with

In the Rhineland it comes with potato dumplings or Reibekuchen (potato fritters), and always with apple sauce.
Kölsch
Editorial suggestion: a Kölsch, the beer of Cologne's brewery taverns.

Substitutions

Sauerbraten-Printen → Lebkuchen or dark rye bread with a pinch of mixed spice, crumbled into the sauce.
Apfelkraut → Sugar-beet syrup (Rübenkraut) or a little honey.
Beef → Horse meat, the traditional Rhenish choice, where it is available.

Common mistakes

Cutting the marinating short: the meat stays tough and the flavour only skin-deep.
Not drying the meat before browning: it boils instead.
Adding all the Printen at once: the sauce can turn pasty. Add them a little at a time.

Storage & reheating

Refrigerate within 2 hours and eat within 2 days; it slices better cold and reheats well in the sauce, once, until steaming hot.

Safety

Contains gluten (Printen), milk (sour cream), mustard (seeds) and sulphites (wine vinegar, wine). Printen can also contain nuts: check the label. Marinate in the refrigerator, never at room temperature, and use a non-metallic container.

Allergens

Gluten · Milk · Mustard · Sulphites

Check labels: stock, bacon and sauces can contain further allergens.

Soorbrode in a Cologne brewery tavern

Sauerbraten is cooked across Germany, but the Rhineland version is sweet as well as sour: raisins and currants in the sauce, apple syrup (Apfelkraut) and crumbled Printen, the hard spice biscuits of Aachen, which thicken it. In Kölsch dialect it is Soorbrode.

The recipe comes from the former Gaffel Haus in Cologne, now the Brauhaus zum Prinzen, and is published by the city portal koeln.de. The beef marinates for at least three days in water and red wine vinegar with onions, carrot, cloves, juniper, peppercorns, mustard seed, bay, coriander, marjoram and rosemary. It is served with potato dumplings or Rievkoche (potato fritters) and always with apple sauce. The page adds that anyone wanting the truly traditional dish uses horse meat instead of beef.

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How it connects

Place

origin Cologne In preparation

Style

pairs with Kölsch

Cut

made with Paleron (shoulder blade)

Rheinischer Sauerbraten

Equipment

Ingredients

The meat

Marinade

To brown

The sauce

Method