Roast Pork With Dumplings And Sauerkraut
By Johanka Lišková
Imagine it is a Sunday morning and you are visiting your grandma for lunch. You are so excited about going there, because - what else will you be having, than her awesome roasted pork?
Roast pork with dumplings and sauerkraut is a traditional Czech meal, more known as "Vepřo knedlo zelo/Knedlo vepřo zelo/Knedlo zelo vepřo" - which are the shortcuts for pork (vepřo), dumplings (knedlo) and sauerkraut (zelo). It consists of these three parts, the dumplings can be also potato dumplings. Like I said, it is a traditional food indeed, so you can find it on the menu of many restaurants.
And well, here's the recipe:
The ingredients are: Meat - 1,25 kg of pork neck (and collars), salt and pepper, 1-2 teaspoons of freshly ground cumin, 5 cloves of garlic (pressed), 2 onions (finely dices), 100 g of lard ; Dumplings - 1kg of coarse flour, a pinch of salt, 1 egg, 20 g of fresh yeast, a pinch of sugar, 1 roll (cut to small dices), 500 ml of lukewarm milk ; Sauerkraut (cabbage) - 2 tablespoons of lard, 100 g of bacon, 2 onions (finely diced), 1 bag of sauerkraut, ground cumin, salt, sugar and 1 raw potato
Now, onto the preparation:
Preheat the oven to 140 °C, clean the meat, then season it with salt, pepper, cumin and smear it with the garlic. Put it into the roasting pan, onto the diced onions, add lard, pour with a glass of hot water and bake until softening (for about 3 hours).
Prepare the dumplings: mix the flour, salt, egg, sugar, yeast and milk in a bowl and let sit for 5 minutes. Develop a smooth dough, add the cut roll and let rise for about an hour. Thereafter, form 3-4 cones and let them boil in salted water for 18 minutes (after the first 9 mins turn them around) and when finished, prick them with a fork.
Prepare the sauerkraut: Let the cabbage drain and then cut it, but don't pour the pickle away. Then put the bacon and diced onion into a pan with lard and let it fry, put the cabbage in and pour the pickle in afterwards. Season with sugar and salt and let boil. After approximately 15 minutes, add the finely grated potato and let it boil briefly, for another 15 minutes.
After letting it rest for about 15 minutes, cut the meat into slices with the thickness of 1,5 cm. And you're ready to serve the finished meal. Enjoy!