Ingredients
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1 kg ground beef, shoulder is the best
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2 kg sauerkraut
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ham (a middling-sized piece, minced and divided in half) or lean bacon (a middling-sized piece, minced and divided in half)
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oil
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water
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1/4 cup tomato sauce
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paprika
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salt
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sour cream, for serving
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pepper
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1 teaspoon marjoram
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1 egg
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2 large onions, peeled and diced
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1 cup rice, uncooked
Instructions
- Squeeze out all excess liquid from sauerkraut into sink from and place in a bowl.
- Cook the rice (you should end up with about three cups).
- Put ground meat into another large bowl - you will need the space!
- In a large deep saucepan, in which you will be cooking the meal; braise the onion in plenty of oil, so it won't burn - until glassy.
- When done, pour off the oil, using spatula to keep onion in saucepan.
- Divide the cooked onions, leaving one half in saucepan
- Place the other half on the meat.
- Turn off the heat and put in plenty of paprika and the tomato sauce on onion left in pan.
- Pour in some water, just as much so the mixture gets creamy.
- Let cool a little, then pour on sauerkraut and mix together.
- Take the bowl with the meat and onion.
- Make a well in the middle of the meat mixture, add the egg and mix together with your hands.
- Mix in cooked rice.
- Add paprika for nice red color, salt and pepper to taste and marjoram.
- Knead until smooth.
- Make sure to taste while you are working with it. This meal should be quite spicy! But not TOO spicy!
- Place one third of the sauerkraut mixture into your sausepan and place half of the speck/ham/lean bacon on top.
- Make meatballs about the size of a kiwi - don't need to make them hard.
- Place in the pan, next to each other to make a "meatball layer".
- Put a second layer of sauerkraut mixture on top of it, then another layer of meatballs.
- Top it with the remaining sauerkraut.
- Place other half of speck on top.
- You must completely cover the meat layers with sauerkraut leaving no holes.
- Pour in water only until you can see it appear on the side - to about 3/4 of the pan.
- Cover, and cook on low heat. Do not stir!
- Occasionally lift pan up and move back and forth sideways, like you were steering your car.
- It is done when sauerkraut is so soft it melts in your mouth. You don't need to taste the meat, because it cooks sooner than the sauerkraut, so it is 100% done if your sauerkraut is cooked.
- Serve with sour cream.