My parents and older brothers and sisters had a whole life before I came along–my closest sibling is 10 years older than me, so all of the backpacking trips, the whitewater river trips, that time they lived in Europe for a year–all that happened before I was born. By the time I came along, my parents were tired and basically gave me free reign of the house and went on trips by themselves while I stayed home with my teenage siblings. So anyway. Back to that whole Europe thing. My dad was a university professor who took a sabbatical for a year and they lived in Germany. So when I was growing up, we ate lots of German fare. Sauerkraut. Various sausages. Sauerkraut and sausages together (in fact, sauerkraut and sausages was the first meal I ever learned how to cook by myself). Sauerkraut and pork. You get the idea. I had completely forgotten about sauerkraut pork until I recently stumbled across this recipe and the memories of this particular dish were so overwhelming. I was worried it wouldn’t taste as good as I remembered it or that it would just be different, kind of like going back to visit your hometown and realizing it doesn’t really feel like home anymore. But. It was awesome. It was so easy. My house smelled amazing. Everyone ate every bite and asked when we could have it again. I served it with loaded baked sweet potatoes and green salad and it was just the kind of meal that you eat and you feel like your body is thanking you for doing something nice for it. You want to start by heating 2 tablespoons of butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Sprinkle a 3-lb. (approximately) pork loin roast (loin, sirloin, tenderloin, whatever) with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper.
Place the roast in the hot skillet and brown on all sides. Place the roast in a Crock Pot. Take a 32-ounce package of sauerkraut (look for the stuff in the refrigerator section kind of by the hot dogs, sausages, etc., either jarred or in a pouch like this; the canned stuff tastes, well, kind of metallic and weird), 2 tablespoons packed brown sugar, 2 tablespoons maple syrup, and 1 tablespoon brown or mild coarse-ground mustard…
and combine the ingredients in a large bowl. Add in 1 medium sliced apple and 1/2 of a chopped onion.
Place the mixture over the pork
and cook on high for 4-5 hours or on low for 6-8 hours or until very tender and flavorful. Shred or cut into slices and serve with lots of the sauerkraut mixture on top. It’s great with potatoes (mashed…baked…scalloped…however you like ’em!) and a green salad or steamed vegetables. Makes 10-12 servings.
Recipe lightly adapted by Our Best Bites from Land O’Lakes
