24-Hour-Kraut

When the Eagles hosted the Redskins this weekend, I wanted to cheer the boys in green on in style with a small gathering at our apartment to watch the game. I decided to go Oktoberfest, but this was a game time decision. The chicken wings looked squirley at the store, so I wanted to do brauts and sauerkraut. I came home with my head of cabbage and googled "sauerkraut." Much to my dissapointment, real sauerkraut takes 3 weeks to ferment. I only had one day. I decided to improvise. This version is not authentic, but it is delicious. Slow cooked cabbage is tender and full of spiced, briney flavor that mimics the real deal without the 3 week lag time or rotting required. Toss finey chopped cabbage in the slow cooker and let it go. It's hard not to keep peeking so that you feel involved, but a 24 hour braise on the cabbage make it the perfect compliment to a beefy brat. Enjoy with some Oktoberfest beers and hopefully a win for the birds next week.
24-Hour-Kraut
Ingredients
1 head cabbage
24 oz. beer (I used a pilsner)
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
2 Tbs. Kosher salt
2 Tbs. sugar
1 tsp. pickling spices
1/2 tsp. whole peppercorns
1. You want to cut the cabbage finely so that it will sit nicely on your brats. First, cut the cabbage in half and then in quarters.
2. Cut out the stem and slice each quarter and finely as you are able. Place the cabbage in the pot of your slow cooker. This makes a lot of slaw. I have a 5-Quart cooker and it filled it to the brim, but it will cook way down.
3. Add pickling spices, peppercorns, sugar, salt, beer, and cider to the pot.
4. Turn the cooker on high and let it get hot for an hour. Then turn it down to the lowest setting (mine is "Warm") and leave it overnight.
5. About 3-4 hours before you want to serve the Kraut, turn the setting up to "low" and let it sit until you are ready to serve.
6. It may not look pretty, but this stuff is really fantastic. We piled it on top of our brats and ate them happily.
It made the Eagles poor performance a bit easier to take.