Polish sauerkraut salad with carrot and oil, in ten minutes
The winter salad that has stood beside the schabowy on Polish tables for generations: sauerkraut squeezed and chopped, carrot, onion, oil and a pinch of sugar for balance. No cooking and no vinegar, because the acid is already in the cabbage. Ten minutes, and a helping of fermented veg in the depths of winter.
Your own work in that: 10 min.
- Squeezing and chopping 7 min
- Mixing 3 min
Step by step
0 / 4 doneSqueeze the sauerkraut
Squeeze the sauerkraut by the handful, but not bone dry: it should stay moist. Taste it: if very sour and salty, rinse briefly in cold water and squeeze again.
Ingredients: 500 g sauerkraut · 2 pcs carrots · 1 pcs onion · 3 tbsp rapeseed or linseed oil · 1 tsp sugar · ½ tsp caraway seeds · ¼ tsp black pepper
TipKeep the juice: a spoonful goes back into the salad if it turns out too dry, and the rest can be drunk — in Poland it is a traditional hangover remedy.
Squeezed, but still moistChop
Chop the sauerkraut into shorter pieces, 2–3 cm. Long strands tangle on the fork and are hard to pick up together with the carrot.
Shorter, so it picks up on a forkAdd the carrot and onion
Grate the carrot coarsely, dice the onion finely. Mix with the sauerkraut.
Carrot coarse, onion fineOil, sugar, pepper
Add the oil, sugar, pepper and caraway, mix well. Wait a moment for the sauerkraut to take up the oil, then taste: too sour? A pinch more sugar. Too dry? A spoon of sauerkraut juice. With schabowy, minced cutlets, fish, black pudding.
Oil and sugar balance the acid
Before you start
With apple
One tart apple, coarsely grated: a milder, sweeter salad that children eat.
With dill and pickle
A spoon of chopped dill and half a brined pickle in dice: sharper, for fish.
Linseed oil
Cold-pressed linseed oil instead of rapeseed, added just before serving: a distinct, slightly nutty flavour. Never heat it.
