Each December my heart is filled with fond memories of past Christmas times spent with friends, family and coworkers. I have cultural roots that go back to Germany on my mother's side and remember the german cookies mom would make during the holidays. Springerlie, pfeffernusse and fruit and nut cookies always filled the air with scents of spice. This post is not about the cookies but is about my memories of Pan Am Christmas layovers spent in places like Frankfurt and Munich.
Lothar Erbe is our local german artisan master butcher. He has captured the hearts and tummies of local Northern Virginia residents who flock to Purcellville each week to stock up on fresh made brats and special meats. One of my absolute favorites is his Kasseler (smoked pork loin) served with fresh sauerkraut.
Last Friday I dropped by my master artisan German butcher out in Hamilton, Virginia. Lothar Erbe learned his craft as a master artisan butcher in Germany. He supplies the highest quality meats at our year round local farmers market in Purcellville each Saturday and has a shop in their home that is open a few days a week. I picked up a pork roast for Christmas day and sampled some of June's goulasch, a bier and a glass of warm gluhwein. June is Lothar's wife. She is from Korea and used to fly for the airlines and met Lothar in Frankfurt years ago. I also used to fly there during my Pan Am years. We talked about visiting a restaurant near the Hauptbahnhoff called the Baseler Eck. This restaurant served authentic German cuisine and was well known for its schweinehaxen (smoked pork hocks) and also apple fritters (see recipe below).
Baseler Eck in Frankfurt. This restaurant was our layover restaurant. It is on Baseler Strasse.
A former Pan Am flight attendant whom I knew when based in London in the early eighties recently shared his menu for Christmas day...which I decided also to make for the day after Christmas. Sauerbraten is literally translated as sour or pickled roast. The meat must marinate for 2-3 days in a piquant marinade of vinegar, pickling spices and sliced onions that have been boiled and cooled before pouring over the meat. The meat is then braised for a few hours on cooking day, then the sauce is thicken as is traditional using crushed ginger snaps. Mashed potatoes make an easy side for this comforting winter german meal. Canned peaches also make a nice fruit side to this meal. I have a freezer full of venison so decided to use that instead of beef called for in this recipe. The meat was tender and subtly spiced from the 2 days of marinating.
This is a 2 pound venison roast. The marinade was boiled to disolve the sugar, then cooled and poured over the meat. It will sit for 2 days in the fridge. It is fun to turn the meat twice a day and smell the spices. (I did not have a larger roast, so this worked just fine.)
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Hans Vollmer’s Sauerbraten
This is the time of year for hearty meals. My Mom always made Sauerbraten during winter. Here is her recipe:
Ingredients
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 (4 pound) beef top round roast [you can also use the same amount of venison roast]
2 1/2 cups water
2 cups apple cider vinegar
2 medium onions, sliced [ I used red onions]
1/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons mixed pickling spice [allspice, coriander seeds, juniper berries, bay leaves, yellow mustard seeds, etc]
1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
8 whole cloves
2 bay leaves
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
14 gingersnaps, crushed
Directions:
Combine salt and ginger; rub over roast. Place in a deep glass bowl. In a saucepan, combine water, vinegar, onions, sugar, pickling spices, peppercorns, cloves and bay leaves; bring to a boil. Pour over roast; turn to coat. Cover and refrigerate for 2 days, turning twice a day. Remove roast, reserving marinade; pat roast dry.
In a large kettle or Dutch oven, brown roast on all sides in oil over medium-high heat. Strain marinade, reserving half of the onions and seasonings. Pour 1 cup of marinade and reserved onions and seasonings over roast (cover and refrigerate remaining marinade). Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 3 hours or until meat is tender. Strain cooking liquid, discarding the onions and seasonings. Measure liquid; if necessary, add enough reserved marinade to equal 3 cups. Pour into a saucepan; bring to a rolling boil. Add gingersnaps; simmer until gravy is thickened.
Slice roast and serve with gravy. Enjoy!
After two days of marinating, take out the roast and pat dry, reserving the marinade for later. Heat your pan over medium high heat and add the oil. Sear the roast well on all sides. This produces flavorful bits that add to the final gravy. Next add the reserved onions and some of the marinade and cover. Let braise for about 3 hours on medium low.
Adding the marinade prior to braising...
After 3 hours in the pot. Now strain the spices and onions, add back to the pot and add ginger snaps, cooking till gravy is thickened. Now add meat back to the pot and serve when other sides are ready. The aroma is heavenly.
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Hans also shared his grandmother's recipe for braised red cabbage that is the perfect accompaniment to the sauerbraten. My recipe is a little different that this one and both are equally good. I will share both versions and let you decide. The house smelled of spices when the braise was started and red cabbage was cooking.
Hans, it has been nice to reconnect with you and so many other Pan Amers over the past few weeks. Thank you for sharing memories and encouraging that of all of us! Prost!
Hans' Braised Red Cabbage
1 medium head red cabbage, cored and sliced
2 large tart apples, peeled and sliced
1-2 Tablespoons canola or grapeseed oil
1 medium sweet onion, sliced and separated into rings
1 1/2 cups water
1 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon salt
6 whole peppercorns
2 whole allspice
2 whole cloves
1 bay leaf
2 teaspoons cornstarch
2 teaspoons cold water
Directions:
In a Dutch oven, toss cabbage, apples and onion. Add water, vinegar, sugar, butter and salt. Place the peppercorns, allspice, cloves and bay leaf on a double thickness of cheesecloth; bring up corners of cloth and stir with kitchen string to form a bag. Add to Dutch oven. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 1-1/4 hours.
Discard spice bag. In a small bowl, combine cornstarch and cold water until smooth; stir in cabbage mixture. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 1-2 minutes or until thickened.
All ingredients are placed in the pot in Han's recipe and then brought to a boil. Cover, lower hear and braise according to recipe. It smells like a german restaurant!
Red cabbage is ready.
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Bonnie's Red Cabbage
1 small to medium red cabbage, finely sliced
1 medium red onion, finely sliced
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon caraway or celery seed (optional but adds a nice flavor)
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
[optional: 3 slices good quality bacon, finely chopped and added with the onion]
1. Heat a large saute pan or skillet on medium high. Add the oil. When the oil shimmers, add the onion and saute (if using bacon, there is no need to use the oil. Add both onion and bacon together.) Cook until onion begins to brown (and bacon is crisped.). Add vinegar, brown sugar, allspice and salt & pepper and cook to a boil. Add the red cabbage and toss to coat with the sweet and sour mixture. (You may need to add about 1/4 cup of water here or later.) Let the cabbage come to a boil and cook until the juices in the pan become syrupy, turning down the heat to a simmer. You may cover the pan for about 10 minutes so the cabbage can cook and become tender, then take off the lid and let the water evaporate till the cabbage in nicely coated with the sweet and sour juices. Salt and pepper to taste if more is needed.
[Mashed potatoes, potato dumplings, spatzele, or cauliflower mashed would all go well with this red cabbage.]
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My mom made both German red cabbage and hot bacon potato salad to go with ham when I was growing up. Her roots go back to German heritage as do mine. My grandfather and great Aunt Clara would write letters to me in the German language. I wanted to be able to read those letters so studied German in both high school and then majored in German at Baylor University. When I flew for Pan Am, my language of hire was German and therefore most of my trips were in and out of Germany for the 13 years I flew.
Our favorite layover restaurant in Frankfurt was a placed affectionately called "The Gas Station", but was in reality called "Der Baseler Eck". It is within walking distance from the Hauptbahnhof in downtown Frankfurt and just a short walk from our home away from home, the Intercontinental Hotel. Gerd was the owner of this restaurant. He ran all the tables each night with one other helper, so the service literally took all night long. Pan Amers and other crew members from other airlines filled this place nightly. I kind of think we kept him in business but it was also popular with locals. This recipe for apple fritters was a favorite of all crews, so I share it with you all. My kids have come to love these fritters, served warm with vanilla ice cream. I hope one day to take my grown kids to Frankfurt to the Baseler Eck and relive some fond memories of layovers past.
Gerd’s Apple Fritters
A Pan Am family favorite from Frankfurt, Germany
Batter:
2 cups flour
12 oz beer
½ tsp salt
½ tsp baking soda
2 beaten egg whites
6 apples, peeled, cored & sliced
oil for frying fritters (Germans used lard, but canola works fine)
Cinnamon sugar
Vanilla ice cream
Combine batter ingredients and let sit in fridge for about an hour. When ready to make fritters, heat oil in a saucepan to 350F. Dip apple slices into batter and put into hot oil. Fry until golden and drain on paper towels. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.
Serve as is or with crème fraiche or vanilla ice cream (or Rumtopf if you have some lying around!).
I could not find a picture of these apple fritters in my files but am happy to give credit for this closest to Gerd's fritters from Mario Batali's site...and another version to boot.
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I was considered "junior" for my entire 13 years of flying and therefore flew over all major holidays. I would always bid to be off for the holidays, but then chose lines of flying that took me to places I would want to be during a holiday. My regular Christmas layover was in Munich, Germany. We layed over at the Sheraton Hotel, just outside of town. There was usually about an inch or two of snow on the ground. A particularly memorable Christmas layover in Munich started in New York. We were in our briefing room setting up the assignments for our flight. The purser had a letter that she read to us from a fellow flight attendant from London base who lived just outside of Munich. She said that she was recently separated and lived alone about 45 minutes by train outside of Munich. Her letter stated that she knew what it was like to be away over a holiday. She invited our entire crew to ride the train out to her apartment in the suburbs and celebrate Christmas with her, giving us a contact number if we wanted to come out.
You never knew how crew members would be about such invitations, but every last flight attendant and pilot on our crew obliged her invite and decided to take her up on her offer. We arrived early in the morning after our all nighter flight and rode our van to the hotel. Everyone slept for several hours then decided to meet in the lobby to head out by train. It was snowing lightly with about an inch of snow on the ground. I cannot remember her name though I had recollection of flying with her during my London base days but no one else knew her. She had the most lovely spread of German deli food you could possibly imagine, with fresh leber kase (liver cheese), deli meats, cornichon and an assortment of cheeses, mustards and homemade German breads and rolls, plenty of wine and beer. She had a Christmas tree in typically German style with candles and sparsely decorated. The entire place was lit in candles. We dined and sang songs and told stories and laughed until till it was time to take the last train back to Munich. I will never forget the generosity of this fellow member of our huge airline family.
I share these beautiful memories of my past with you in hopes that you too have fond memories to share with others. When we leave this earth one day, all that we will take with us is our memories and leave all the material stuff behind.
This is what matters most.
Happy New Year to all !
