Baked Potatoes with Sauerkraut (Pečené Zemiaky s Kyslou Kapustou)
Ingredients: one potato, 0.8 lb sauerkraut, 1/6th cup of sour cream (optional), caraway, oil, bacon
Prep Time: 10 minutes plus some 30 minutes for baking
Today I came back from a four day conference (International Conference on Plasma Sciences in Norfolk, VA) to an empty fridge. An almost empty fridge. Besides one lonely yogurt, some cottage cheese and a stale nut roll, it contained one potato, about half a bag of sauerkraut, and fried bacon bits left over from making cabbage dumplings. In other words, just the right ingredients for making baked potatoes with sauerkraut, the dish from the times when money was scarcer and pantries less plentiful.
Ingredients for two plates: one potato and about 0.8 lb of sauerkraut. Also caraway seeds and some oil. I used bacon bits and the rendered fat. Feel free to throw in a sausage if you have some.
Peel and slice the potato and rinse the kraut.
Grease the bottom of a baking pan – I used half of the melted bacon fat. Then take half of the potato slices and make a single layer out of them. Mix the drained sauerkraut with about a tablespoon of caraway seeds and add on top of the potatoes. Also throw in some bacon bits for a good measure. Then top off with the remaining potatoes, pour on the rest of the grease and bacon, and also salt lightly. Then stick the pan into a 375F oven (I bake pretty much everything at 375F) and leave for about 30 minutes. About 20 minutes into baking, the kraut started looking tad dry, so I added just half a small glass of water. Also, while the potatoes were baking, I remembered I had a tiny bit of sour cream left in the fridge, about 1/6 of a cup. Mix this with an equal amount of water, and whisk well. Then when the potatoes are almost ready, pour the sauce in and bake for few more minutes. This is not required, but the cream definitely gave the meal a very nice taste.
This dish goes great with a glass of milk or kefir. Enjoy!
For another cheap, yet filling potato recipe, check out bacon potatoes.
Really good Slovak comfort food. Our family in the U.S. had at least ten different varieties of this dish. I still eat it today. Always the sliced potato, some kind of fresh cabbage or sauerkraut, raska, salt, pepper, then, pork meat optional, either sausage, bacon, leftover pork, fresh cubes well browned, etc. For us the caraway was a light touch, and ground first. Baked covered for a while, then uncovered until done. The most complicated one added fried onions and chopped carrot to the cabbage. Added whatever kind of soup available to keep it moist. Sour cream always a welcome addition.
Curt B.
I do a bunch of variation of this. One thing I do differently that I semi boil a potato before I slice it and make a casserole (mixing sauerkraut, maybe some sausage, etc.) Potatoes are better that way in my opinion. Just baking a raw potatoes usually results in undercooked and dried out potatoes that I don’t like.
not if you use a lot of oil 🙂
How it could be done after 30minutes of baking? It took me about one hour baking on almost 400F until the potatoes got done. Although, I used organic red potatoes (that I happened to find for the same price as non organic yellow potatoes that I buy all the time, hate russet potatoes, btw).
It is my understanding that red, and white potatoes are boiling potatoes, not baking potatoes. Perhaps that is why it took so long? Russets, the ones you hate, are baking potatoes.
I also make our traditional Christmas Eve meal which my family enjoys. I do make Opekance. I use bread dough which I divide and roll out into rope style and cut and bake. I do these balls ahead of time and freeze them. To use them I soak them for a few minutes in hot water. When they are soft I drain them and add melted butter poppy seed (ground) and melted honey. Toss everything together and enjoy. I grew up on Slovak cooking and my family enjoy it.