Saturday Night: Oktoberfest Dinner

Well Oktoberfest may have already happened, but we used it as the theme for a dinner party last night anyway. The menu was:

1. Starters: Weisswurst (from Dittmers) with sweet mustard; Reibekuchen with apple sauce
2. Mains: Sauerbraten, Kartoffelknoedel, green beans, green salad with sour-cream dressing (from a Bittman column a long time ago).
3. Dessert: Reisfladen with sour cherry sauce and sour cream.
   

Details:

1. I somehow managed to burst the wurst. I guess I should have poked them with a fork a few times before boiling them. Ah well, they still tasted good, though I really prefer a good grilled Thueringer.
   
2. The Reibekuchen recipe is from my Niederrhein cookbook. We once again used the pre-cook, hold in a 250 degree oven, refresh in hot pan trick and that worked great. The food-processed apple sauce was also more pleasing.
3. The Sauerbraten recipe is from How to Cook Meat, but I used an eye of round roast and subbed a mixture of red wine and cider vinegar for the balsamico they call for. I also used more tomatoes (two pint cans), allowed the roast to cool in the sauce for a bit before skimming, and homogenized the sauce with the stick blender after skimming.
4. For the Knoedel I started from the potato dumpling recipe in How to Cook Meat, but I replaced some of the flour with bread crumbs and used way less flour than the recipe called for anyway. I prefer the lighter, more tender Knoedel you get with less flour. To make dinner go more smoothly, I par-boiled the dumplings in batches for 7-8 minutes early in the day and then tossed them back in the stock (chicken + beef + water) in group for 5 or 6 minutes just before serving. I garnished the bowl with a healthy bit of chives.
5. The Reisfladen were made on Thursday.
6. To make the topping for the Reisfladen, I reduced the syrup from two jars of sour cherries, with a bit of sugar (a few Tbs). To thicken the sauce I used a couple Tbs of corn starch. As a final "enrichment" I also added a bit of brandy.

I think overall the meal was a great success. It's definite that our kitchen looks like a bomb went off in it, and that's always a good sign. :-)