Recipe // Henning’s German Sour-Roast (Sauerbraten)

Sauerbraten (pronounced zou-uhr-braht-n) is a traditional German pot roast with a rich history. It literally translates to sour-roast.

The recipe is essentially a preservation technique — tough meat that is hard to chew is marinated in a mixture of wine, vinegar, water and spices for 3–10 days, depending on the thickness of the meat. In the process, meat becomes more tender and sour.

It is one of the national dishes of Germany, and different regions bring their own flavours to it.

On our latest Flavouries episode, Henning prepares his family recipe.

Henning’s German Sour-Roast (Sauerbraten)
Serves 4

For marinating..

1 kg beef (clod or shoulder)

500 ml water
500 ml white wine
500 ml white wine vinegar

2-3 carrots
2 onions
half a leek
half a celery root

few bay leaves
8 juniper berries
12 whole black peppercorns
8 pimento (a.k.a. allspice)

1. Cut the vegetables into pieces and slightly crack up the herbs in a mortar. Cook everything with wine, vinegar, water mixture for about 5 minutes and let it cool down.
2. Meanwhile, remove any excess fat and tendons from your meat (you could keep them for cooking a beef stock right away). Place your meat in the cold marinade, make sure that it’s covered completely. The marinade will move 1 cm per day into the meat, so depending on the size of your meat it can take between 3 to 10 days.
3. Store in the fridge. It is recommended to turn the meat once a day to evenly distribute the marinade.

Once the marinating process is finished..

2-3 carrots
2 onions
half a leek
half a celery root

500 ml beef stock
200 ml red wine
3 Tbs tomato puree
200g raisins (sugar replacement)

2-3 slices of German Pumpernickel or similar whole rye bread for binding the sauce (if unavailable, use other means of binding the sauce)

1. Take the meat out of the marinade. Wash and dry it — the dryer it is, the better it fries later on. Sieve the vegetables and herbs out of the marinade and discard.
2. (optional) Boil the marinade in a pot. The marinade has a lot of the proteins from the meat dissolved in it. By boiling it, it will release the proteins as a white foam which you can scoop away. This results in the sauce being more clear, with a nice shine to it.
3. Cut down the fresh vegetables into pieces. Flavour the meat with salt and pepper. Heat a pot on high temperature and fry the meat from every side with oil. Ensure the meat takes colour — it should also leave a nicely roasted brown layer on the bottom of the pot, do not let this burn.
4. When you are happy with the frying, remove the meat and put it aside. Add fresh oil if necessary and fry the freshly chopped vegetables. Add tomato puree and cook for a few minutes. Add the red wine in parts, letting it reduce and adding more slowly.
5. Put the meat back in the pot. Add the raisins and equal parts of the marinade and the beef stock, until the meat is 2/3 covered. Cover with lid and let it stew on low heat for 1.5 to 2 hours. To check the meat, poke it with a stick — if the meat slides off easily, it is ready.
6. Take the meat out of the sauce and put it aside. Sieve all the vegetables and rosins out of the sauce. Season to taste. If not sweet enough, press out the raisins to extract the sweetness. If not sour enough, add more of the marinade.
7. Once you are happy, bring to boil and bind the sauce. If using Pumpernickel, or other similar whole rye bread, roughly chop and add to the sauce. Let it cook in the sauce for 10 minutes and sieve it out — the sauce should be nice and thick. If not, let the sauce reduce more.
8. Cut the meat into slices and pour over the sauce. Serve with potato dumplings for soaking up the sauce. Compliment with some German red cabbage and apple mash (click here for the recipes for these). Enjoy!

This recipe requires patience — but the wait is well worth it.

Stories of everyday people, told through food.

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