Frankfurter Rippchen mit Kraut

Frankfurter Rippchen mit Kraut belongs to Hesse, and more exactly to the apple-wine table around Frankfurt. This is tavern food and home food, good on a cold weeknight and good enough for the Christmas season when the larder is doing its old work: cured pork, fermented cabbage, stored potatoes, mustard sharp enough to wake the plate.

The regions disagree before the pot is even warm. In Frankfurt the Rippchen, cured pork rib chops or loin chops, are often heated gently with sauerkraut and served with Apfelwein, mustard, and mashed potatoes. Further north you meet Kasseler, smoked and sturdier. In the south they may want another pork cut altogether, and then someone starts talking about dumplings. Im Norden anders, im Süden anders. Das ist kein Bierzelt.

The rule is simple: don't boil the pork. The cure has already seasoned it and tightened the meat; a hard boil squeezes the loin dry and leaves you with salty rope. Keep the liquid just trembling, and the Rippchen warm through without fighting you. The kraut gets onion, apple, bay, juniper, and Apfelwein because sour cabbage needs fat, fruit, and time to turn round in the mouth.

Weggeworfen wird nichts. If the butcher gives you rind or a small pork bone, it goes into the kraut and comes out before serving. It leaves body behind. Serve the Rippchen over the cabbage, mustard on the side, potatoes to catch the juices. Schön ist, was schmeckt.