Sauerbraten with potato dumplings

***RECIPE***

a lean, tough beef roast (bottom round is classic, figure .5 lb / 227g per person)
red wine vinegar (a lot, I used a whole bottle)
red wine
stock, water, etc.
honey or other sugar
onions, carrots, celery, leeks, garlic, whatever aromatics you've got, etc.
parsley or other fresh herb for garnish
potatoes (I'd figure one large baking potato per two people)
potato starch (cornstarch or AP flour would work instead)
egg (I only needed one for four big portions of dumplings)
ginger snaps or similar spice cookies (I needed like half a package, it's a lot)
spices (a few juniper berries and cloves are key to me)

Roughly cut up your aromatics — they're getting strained out in the end, so don't be precious about it. Throw them in a pot along with some spices and add vinegar and red wine — I like a about 1 part vinegar to two parts wine to two parts stock/water, but don't add the stock/water yet. Plan such that you'll have just enough liquid to cover the roast at the end.

Bring this liquid to a boil then kill the heat. Stir in salt to taste, and maybe stir in a little honey or other sugar. Now is when you can add your stock/water to help cool things down — I like to throw in ice cubes.

When the liquid is cool and you have enough to submerge your raw roast, submerge your raw roast and marinate in the fridge for 2 to 7 days — make sure to do this in a ceramic or plastic vessel rather than a metal one, as the acid could leech out metal ions.

Take the roast out and dry it on paper towels. Heat a film of oil in a different pan and brown the roast on all sides. When the roast is brown, return it to the marinade. Either deglaze the pan water and add that liquid to the marinade, or brown a little starch/flour in the accumulated fat to make a roux then deglaze with water and add to the marinade.

Simmer the roast in the marinade, covered, until tender as you want it — I gave mine four hours and wished I had pulled it at three. You can simmer on the stovetop or in the oven — I did the oven at 300ºF/150ºC, because that allowed me to bake my whole potatoes at the same time, which took almost three hours at that relatively low temperature.

When the potatoes are squishably soft, take them out, cut them open and let them steam out. When they're cool enough to handle, scoop out all the potato flesh and discard the skins. Break up any big pieces of potato and then season them to taste with salt and other spices — nutmeg would be traditional but I did garlic powder and onion powder and it was really good.

Into the potatoes, mix beaten egg and starch/flour for binding until you get a dough that will hold the shape of a ball — mix as little as possible and use as little starch/flour as possible or the dumplings will come out rubbery. Form roughly golf-sized balls and boil in a big pot of salted water until they float — about 10 minutes. Drain, and then you can toss these in a little melted butter or oil and just hold them covered until dinner is ready. Reheat if necessary.

When the roast is soft as you want it, take it out to rest, bring the marinade back up to a boil and reduce about by half. Thicken the gravy with ginger cookies — they'll dissolve faster if you pulverize them first, but you can also just throw them in whole. When the gravy is thick as you want, strain it and discard the solids. Season to taste — it should be strongly sweet and sour and salty and meaty.

Slice the roast, serve with potato balls, drench everything in gravy and top with chopped parsley or some such. Maybe have a salad too?

[mazo-]

I appreciate the messy cooking. As all real cooking usually is. Too many cooking shows have unrealistically clean and filtered cooking processes. This makes it feel more authentic and personable

[pielord]

I live for the moment in every soup/braise/stock episode where Adam casually disses bay leaves

[jano]

Curly parsley definitely is the more traditional german variety. Here in Cologne, Sauerbraten is traditionally made with horse meat :)

[xxluggixx]

My grandma always makes Sauerbraten with Spätzle for the whole family on Christmas Eve. The taste will always remind me of the time when I was still a kid and Christmas was still magical.

[Johnny_Shikari]

Pumpernickel or similar dark bread can also be used as a thickening agent for people who don't like ginger snap cookies or ginger bread.
And I highly recommend braised red cabbage as a vegetable side dish, which also has a nice savoury, sweet and sour taste that compliments the rest of the meal.

[eliasv.]

If you have leftover potato dumplings you can cut them in half and put them in a pan with some butter on medium to medium high heat. Get them nice and crispy on the bottoms and eat them with some leftover gravy. That's what my family always does with the leftovers and it's delicious.

[tmgerlach]

Another german speaking here. This is a very authentic recipe as far as the meat is concerned (only we don’t use celery sticks, we use celeriac). but as to the dumplings: NO breadcrumbs or flour in dumplings, only potato starch. and dice up some dark rye bread, fry it in butter until crispy and put 2-3 dice in the center of each dumpling. (and just one more thing: our „soßenlebkuchen“ or sauce cookies are actually more like dark gingerbread than cookies…) enjoy!

[ZTTINGS]

Before the advent of motor vehicles, we had a huge number of working horses, which when no longer usable, still provided a core and valuable source of protein that couldn’t go to waste. A week in vinegar followed by a day long braise was necessary to turn the hard working muscles into something digestible. And it tastes fantastic. Nowadays we baulk at the idea of eating horse but our ancestors made recipes for what was available. Nice video as always Adam, thanks! Food looks great!

[TRex]

As a German I can confirm that this looks very authentic

[brokenspine]

Usual Celery "Root" is used it has a stronger flavor besides Carrot + Leek, this classic trinity called "Suppengrün" + some parsley. It also used as base in most German Stews "Eintopf".

[christianbiebl]

having grown up on this the one note I wanna make is that for the potato dumplings you can actually buy the finished dough (at least in Bavaria) and just form them into balls and boil. its a huge time saver for any weeknight dumpling meals

[treasey]

This is my German mom's favorite dish! And it's definitely one of those national dishes where every family has their own recipe, passed down from generation to generation. Yours looks amazing as well!

[hingefallen]

Just to add to the potato dumplings: In Franconia (where Sauerbraten is very traditional) usually half of the potatoes are cooked, the other half are raw potatoes. And the dumplings are typically way bigger.

The recipe is very authentic, well done!

[jasonguarnieri]

Saurbraten is one of my favorite dishes. I've made it with bottom round, top round, eye round and chuck roast and they all turned out great.

[kilianortmann]

That is a very very good take on a German potato dumpling. The type you made are called Baumwollne Klöße (cotton dumplings).
There are a few other types, particularly Grüne/Thüringer Klöße, made from a combination of raw and boiled potato (no egg, no flour), bit of an art form, but my absolute favorite.

[orifox]

I recommend nutmeg with potatoes even if you're adding garlic and onion powder to your mash. Nutmeg is wonderful and perfect. It seriously kicks up mash so well

[Angor]

As a German, I must admit, that even though I really like Sauerbraten and have eaten it many times I had no idea how to make it. Thanks for filling that gap, it really looks quite close to what I am used to!

[xxluggixx]

You are actually right about the curly parsley! Nowadays you see both variants in stores and dishes. But in traditional dishes it's always curly. My great grandma only ever had the curly one in her nice herb garden.

[Prinrin]

Really glad to see the more traditional video style back. This video came out really well, and I can't wait to try this for myself!

[MidwestManMountain]

Dear Adam, I made this for supper tonight for a family of ten. We had Rotkohl as an additional side and Stachelbeerkuchen in the afternoon. I altered your recipe by letting the meat sit in the marinade for two weeks. Your recipe lives up to our German standards. It is the finest Sauerbraten preparation video on YouTube. Gut gemacht und vielen Dank.