Central Europe · Volume 39, The Vinegar Cure, the Seven Herbs and the Butter Letter
Pfälzer Saumagen
The Palatinate
Illustration
- Time
- 4 hours
- Researched
- Researched from 1 source in the brief
The Palatine dish, documented in a handwritten recipe of 1865 and famous since a chancellor served it. The filling is loose because it swells; the poach is gentle because a boil bursts the stomach. The weights are for a medium stomach, and the simmer runs two to three hours.
As tradition built it
Serves a table. About 3 hours to cook, after an hour to fill.
Ingredients
- 1 pig's stomach, cleaned
- 500g waxy potatoes, cut in 1cm dice
- 500g lean belly pork, diced
- 500g pork ham, diced
- 500g bratwurst meat, Brät
- 2 day old bread rolls, soaked and squeezed
- 3 eggs
- to taste pepper
- to taste nutmeg
- to taste marjoram
- to taste salt
Method
- Boil the diced waxy potatoes in salted water for 5 minutes and drain them.
- Mix the potato with the belly pork, the ham, the sausage meat, the soaked rolls and the eggs, and season the mixture with salt, pepper, nutmeg and marjoram.
- Fill the stomach loosely, because the filling expands, and sew or tie it shut.
- Simmer it gently in salted water, never at a boil, for about 3 hours; other houses say 2 to 3.
- Lift it out, let it rest, and slice it thick; the slices are often fried in butter before they are served, with sauerkraut and bread.
What a modern chef changes
The poach held at a temperature, the slice crisped
Rung 5
Method
- Fill the stomach as the tradition does and poach it in a water bath at 80 degrees for four hours with a probe in the centre, pulling it at 72; the gentle simmer the Palatine butcher judged by eye is a number here.
- Cool it overnight under a light weight so it slices clean.
- Fry the slices in brown butter until the cut face is a crust, and serve them on sauerkraut cooked in Riesling.
- A pig's stomach is ordered from a butcher in Britain, with notice; a large sausage casing or a cloth gives a loaf that tastes the same and is not Saumagen.