Potato Leaves with Sauerkraut

Potato leaves:

1. Potato leaves are typical South Tyrolean potato biscuits that are originally served with cabbage and bacon. They puff up slightly when fried and are nice and crispy on the outside. However – for our taste – I cooked a piece of Kasseler comb in the cabbage to “pimp up” the dish. If you want to prepare it entirely vegetarian, you can leave out bacon and smoked pork sausage completely.
2. Now cut the peeled potatoes into large cubes and cook them in salted water. Let the butter melt over low heat. After draining, allow the potatoes to evaporate well, put them through a press, mix the mixture with the liquid butter and egg yolk while still warm and place in the refrigerator to cool. Mix the flour with nutmeg and salt and knead with the mass, which has cooled a little later, until a smooth, non-sticky dough is formed. The deep-frying is done shortly before serving.

Sauerkraut:

1. Cut the rind off the bacon (but do not dispose of it, comes with the cabbage) and cut it into larger cubes. Peel the carrot, grate coarsely. Fry the bacon in the oil, add the slightly pre-cooked sauerkraut from the preserve and grated carrots and pour in the water. Add the juniper, pepper, bay leaf and caraway seeds, stir everything well and bring to the boil. Put the piece of Kasseler Kamm in it, put a lid on the pot, turn the heat down halfway and let everything simmer for 1 hour. While doing this, turn the piece of meat in the cabbage every now and then.
2. In the meantime, peel and dice the onions for the sweat and finely chop the peeled garlic. Heat the butter in a pan and sweat both in it until translucent. Then dust with the flour, sweat it briefly while stirring with a whisk and – also while stirring – deglaze with the water. Then keep stirring until you have a creamy, light-colored sauce. When the meat in the cabbage is cooked after the above hour, take it out, stir in the sweat and let everything simmer for another 10 minutes. Remove the meat from the bone, cut into large pieces and put back into the cabbage. Then turn off the heat and just keep it warm.
3. In the meantime, heat about 1 – 1.5 l of oil to 145 – 150 ° in a higher pot. Divide the potato dough into 2 portions and roll out each one to a thickness of 3 mm on the work surface sprinkled with the double-grip flour. Then cut out round plates with a diameter of approx. 8 cm and bake them (possibly 4 pieces at the same time) in the hot fat on both sides until golden brown. The surface should always be doused with the oil. Turn first when the surface begins to bulge. Degrease the finished sheets a little on kitchen paper.
4. Then serve with the cabbage and ……………. taste.