Frankfurt-Style Pickled Pork Chops & Sauerkraut

This is a specialty dish of Frankfurt am Main, also known as just Frankfurt, in the German state of Hessen in western Germany, and it is the "financial capital" of Germany. The "am Main" means "on the Main (River)," and it is used to distinguish this Frankfurt from another German city of Frankfurt, which is about 50 to 60 miles east of Berlin on the Oder River; thus, this city is referred to as "Frankfurt an der Oder," and it is much smaller than the Frankfurt in Hessen. The dish is generally called, "Frankfurter Rippchen mit Sauerkraut" (the "Ripp" part is closely related to English "rib"). The first part of the recipe is for making the the pickled pork, as in Frankfurt cuisine, the pork chops are not smoked. In English, the word "pickle" also carried the meaning of "curing" by the use of salt in some way, and it wasn't until vinegar became a popular ingredient for "pickling," that the word often took on the connection to vinegar in English. Plus, the word "cure" had come to be used in the mid 1700s for treating meat with salt and spices to preserve and flavor it, leaving "pickle" to be used more with vegetables, especially cucumbers, in vinegar laced brine.   

Ingredients:

(to pickle the pork)
48 ounces water (more if needed to cover the meat)
5 tablespoons pickling or kosher salt + 1 tablespoon separate
1 tablespoon sugar
1 bay leaf
6 peppercorns
4 fresh loin pork chops

Bring the water with everything, except the pork chops and the separate tablespoon of pickling salt, to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool. It must be considerably cooled to use over the pork. In a dish or non reactive pan, place the pork chops, then sprinkle the extra tablespoon of salt over them. Pour the brine over them. If you need to add a little more water, do so. Make sure the pork is fully covered by the brine. If you are using a dish/pan with a lid, put it on, or put plastic wrap over the top to fit tightly. Place in the refrigerator for 8 to 12 hours.   

(for the dish)
1  2 pound bag of refrigerated sauerkraut, drained and rinsed
2 cloves
2 onions, chopped (divided use, so keep each separate)
1 Granny Smith apple (I leave the peel on, but you can peel it, chopped)
4 juniper berries, crushed a little
5 whole peppercorns
2 bay leaves
1 tablespoon canola or vegetable oil (or lard, which was used in the past)
4 pickled pork chops
1 cup hard apple cider or apple juice or regular apple cider, no spices added**

Almost all Germans would fix this dish on top of the stove, but I prefer to bake it, and I think you'll love the results. A casserole dish with a lid is good, but a non reactive pan is fine too. In a separate pan, heat some water, add the cloves, one chopped onion and the peppercorns. Add the pork chops and simmer for about 20 minutes, remove the pork and discard the liquid (don't get that backwards).

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a skillet, add the other chopped onion. Saute briefly to just begin to soften the onion. Add the apple and cook for just another 2 to 3 minutes, stirring a little. Drain and rinse the sauerkraut, put into the dish you will be using. Add the onion/apple and juniper berries and mix well. Nestle the two bay leaves into different parts of the dish. Add the pork chops, pressing them down into the kraut a bit, but you need not cover them completely. Pour in the cider, cover the dish and place in a 300 degree (F) oven. Bake for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, until the meat is tender. 

* "Culinaria, European Specialities" (Volume 1), chief editors: Joachim Römer and Michael Ditter, editor: Christine Westphal, published by Könemann Publishing, Cologne 1995

** For those unaware, "hard cider" means it is fermented and has an alcohol content.

Cured pork chop, sauerkraut and mashed potatoes ... what a great dinner!

WORD HISTORY:
Sift-This word, closely related to "sieve," goes back to Indo European "seip," which had the notion, "to flow through, to drip, to trickle." This gave the West Germanic branch of Old Germanic, "sibp," which meant, "sieve." ^ This then gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) the verb "siftan," meaning, "to put something through a sieve." This then became "siften," before the modern form. The close relationship between forms of "sieve" and "sift" in the Germanic languages makes it rather difficult to separate the words, but words in other Germanic languages more or less mirroring their English cousin: German has "sichten" (perhaps borrowed from Low German? Not nearly as common as the closely related "sieben," literally "to sieve, to sift"), Low German Saxon has "sichten," Dutch has "ziften" (also "zichten," which is antiquated).

^ For the history of the word "sieve," here is the link to that article:  http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2016/12/liptauer-cheese-spread.html