Schweinsbraten, or Schweinebraten, is a dish we ate several times while in Germany, as well as when we visited Salzburg. A simple meal in appearance, the flavours are more interesting, as is the combination of the dish as a whole, than one might initially expect. The best example of Schweinebraten was our meal in Salzburg, pictured here. It didn't hurt that it was a warm, sunny evening as we sat in a lightly shaded, neighbourhood beer garden. There was quite a mixture of people in this small beer garden. There was a group of young guys, looking like they'd come straight from work, construction or something like that, at a table right in the direct sunlight, getting sunburned and drunk, a young couple having cappuccinos, a dad with two kids (which he was plainly ignoring, reading his newspaper while they played a the table), an older couple enjoying a few Helles - standard term for a light beer (I laughed when the man got the attention of the server by holding up his stein and tapping it with his finger, smiling), and us with our seven month old in her carseat, plunked on a chair at the table with us. Note the lovely stein (large, ceramic or earthenware beer mug) by my plate - this and pewter are two of the most common mugs used for beer in this region.
The sliced pork roast with a crunchy crust was tender and moist, and the gravy or sauce that accompanied it was rich and so good I hated to leave any behind. I did my best not to just short of licking my plate. The sauerkraut was melt-in-your-mouth delicious, not a description I'd have thought I'd use for sauerkraut. It was as if it had been simmered in a rich broth and worlds better than the jarred variety I'm used to eating at home. I'm going to have to do some experimenting and see if I can replicate it (look out for this in the near future). The potato dumplings (Kartoffelknödel) don't look very exciting but were just perfect, and ideal to sweep up that sauce with. These are often a part of the hot meals in this region. There is another type of dumpling with bread and potato. This is another recipe to look out for here in the future. We found that this sort of meal, a more substantial and hot meal, were still more commonly eaten as the midday meal when we visited family. Dinner was often similar to the breakfast selection I wrote about last week.
We weren't as enthusiastic about the salad served as a side dish - a combination of shredded radish, sour cream and we weren't certain what else. I'll be looking into this as I usually love radish. This almost had a fishy taste and before we asked to find out what in fact it was I thought perhaps it was herring!
Look out for a few recipes down the road - namely sauerkraut and Kartoffelknödel. In the meantime we'll go down a different road for next week's post!
