New Year's Day Pork and Sauerkraut

New Year's Day Pork and Sauerkraut

It is a Pennsylvania Dutch tradition to serve pork and sauerkraut on New Year's Day.  The tradition goes back a long time, and the reasons are fairly simple:  Pigs root forward, symbolizing forward progress, or luck, and sauerkraut is shredded cabbage, and all of the strands represent the amount of wealth one will receive in the coming year.  

A few words on the Pennsylvania Dutch:  We are not Dutch.  We are of German ancestry.  "Dutch" in this case is a mispronunciation of Deutsch, or as the PA Dutch say, "Deitsch."  Think of the PA Dutch dialect as German that got lost in the woods for a few centuries.  The bones of the original language are still there, but pronunciation has changed.  Oh, and irregular verbs are gone too.  

We are a disappearing people, and the language is fading away.  When I moved to Oregon in 1992, there were about 50,000 of us left who still spoke the dialect, of which I am not one.  There are surely fewer today. During WWII, many PA Dutch parents stopped passing on the language to their children due to anti-German sentiment.  That trend continued in successive generations as the modern world encroached on rural areas of the state.  In those areas, PA Dutch words still abound, mostly as euphemisms or exclamations.  I had to root them out of my own vocabulary when I was in the military so people could understand me.  

The Set Up

Serves 4.

Ingredients:

• 2-3 pound boneless pork shoulder or Boston Butt
• 3 tbsp kosher salt
• 2 tbsp ground black pepper
• 32 oz sauerkraut*, drained, keeping the juice.  
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil (bacon grease works too)

Directions:

1. The day prior to roasting, salt the pork on all sides.  It should take all 3 tbsp.  Use more if necessary.  Wrap in plastic wrap or in the original butcher paper wrapping, and leave in the refrigerator for at least 12 hours.   
2. On roasting day, get the roast out of the refrigerator, and season with the black pepper on all sides.  Preheat the oven to 275ºF.  Using a cast iron dutch oven, add the vegetable oil, and sear on all sides over medium high heat until golden brown.  While it is searing, drain the sauerkraut over a bowl to catch the juices.  

   

   Searing
   

   

   Draining the Sauerkraut

3. Turn off the burner, and add the sauerkraut juice only.  Cover, and bake for 2 to 2.5 hours, or until the internal temperature reaches 190ºF.  Remove the roast from the oven, and add the sauerkraut shreds.  Turn the burner onto medium, and raise the temperature of the sauerkraut to 190ºF.  Break the pork into portions using a pair of forks.  

   

   Ready to Serve

4. Serve.  

*Notes on Sauerkraut.  The best I have seen is Bubbies.  It is naturally fermented, and has enough juice to make this dish without adding any water to the dutch oven.  

Thanks for reading!

Gary L. Quay