Sour Cabbage, Champagne & Sausage

The preparation time for this family size oven dish is very flexible. When smoking the sausage yourself it could take up to 6 hours before you can serve a delicious meal.
Sour cabbage or "sauerkraut" is a typical Austrian and German winter dish, known for it's sour palete, often accompanied by a juicy smoked pork sausage and some crispy bacon.

Sausage making is a traditional food preserving method. Sausages can be smoked, cured or dried. Often pork, veal, chicken or beef is minced with herbs and spices (breadcrumbs and grains) afterwards it goes into cleaned animal intestines. Traditionally the sausage makers salted organ meat, blood and fat to prevent the meat from spoiling. 
Sour cabbage or "sauerkraut" in German is actually white cabbage fermented by a natural process called lactic acid fermentation. The cabbage is cut into thin slices, sprinkled with some fine salt and fermentated with lactic acid bacteria. Just like there are many good bacteria in yoghurt, they also play a big part in fermenting the "Sauerkraut." It gets it's distinctive sour taste because the bacteria ferment the sugars in the cabbage leaves.

European farmers preffered this method to preserve their yields and keep a healthy nutricious meal during the winter months. Every region has his own recipes like the French Strasbourg and Alsace or German Bavarian and Elzasser sauerkraut; it is often eaten together with beer and sausage. A traditional treat during events such as Oktoberfest. Sauerkraut is best cooked in a dry white wine or apple juice/cider.

This vegetable dish is also very popular in many slavic countries. The Germans didn't invent the recipe. It originated from China during the Dzjengis Khan era. They were subjecting the cabbage to fermentation with rice wine. Many Romans also used this method for preserving their cabbage and turnips.