Sauerkraut with Sausages and Confit Duck

Serves 4

Ingredients
4 bratwurst or any of your favourite sausages
2 packs sauerkraut (zuurkool), about 800 gr
250 g lardons
2 onions
2 apples
olive oil
50 g butter
1 bottle beer
2 bay leaves
6 juniper berries
salt
pepper
boiled potatoes, to serve
4 confit duck legs, to serve
mustard, to serve

Method
Finely slice the onions. Peel the apples, discard the core and cut into 1 cm cubes. Place the sauerkraut in a sieve and rinse under cold running water. Dry the sauerkraut well. Heat a wok with 2 tablespoons olive oil and stir fry the sauerkraut until lightly caramelised. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Heat a large heavy pot over medium heat. Add 2 tablespoons olive oil and 50 g butter with the onion and lardons. Fry for 5 minutes. Add the stir fried sauerkraut, apple, the bottle of beer, juniper and bay leaves and cook gently over a low heat, covered with a lid, for about 40 minutes.

Heat a frying pan over medium heat. Add 2 tablespoons olive oil to the pan and fry the sausages for about 12 minutes until golden brown and cooked through.

Season the sauerkraut with salt and pepper. Serve with the sausages and confit duck, boiled potatoes and a little mustard, if you wish.

We, the Amsterdam Flavours chefs, hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do. If you have any questions on how to prepare it or just want to send us your feedback, you can reach us here Contact Amsterdam Flavours


Chocolate Guinness Cake

Nigella Lawson is famously known as The Domestic Goddess. Her cakes and dispelling baking myths have made her a household name. Recently someone told us we had to make her Chocolate Guinness cake. So we did. The combination of chocolate and Guinness makes a deep, dark cake, which is moist and delicious. And now we're sharing the recipe with you.

Ingredients
250 ml Guinness
250 g unsalted butter
75 g cocoa powder
400 g castor sugar
142 ml sour cream
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
275 g plain flour
2 ½ teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
for the topping
300 g cream cheese
150 g icing sugar
125 ml cream

Method
Preheat the oven to gas mark 180°C and butter and line a 24cm springform tin with baking paper.

Pour the Guinness into a large wide saucepan, add the butter and heat until the butter has melted. Whisk in the cocoa and sugar. Beat the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla and then pour into the buttery Guinness pan and finally whisk in the flour and bicarb.

Pour the cake batter into the greased and lined tin and bake for 45 minutes to an hour until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool completely in the tin on a cooling rack, as it is quite a damp cake.

When the cake's cold, place it on a flat platter or cake stand and start with the icing. Lightly whip the cream cheese until smooth, sieve over the icing sugar and then beat them both together. This can also be done in a processor, putting the unsieved icing sugar in first and blitz to remove lumps before adding the cheese. Add the cream and beat again until it makes a spreadable consistency.

Ice the top of the cake and serve.

We, the Amsterdam Flavours chefs, hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do. If you have any questions on how to prepare it or just want to send us your feedback, you can reach us here Contact Amsterdam Flavours