Ben Nerenhausen and Staci Lopez's Kraut Klasse

Recipes

Kraut Klasse

By Ben Nerenhausen and Staci Lopez

This very special family recipe would not be here without the express permission of Ben Nerenhausen’s grandmother. When she made these German dumplings, she didn’t follow a recipe. They were served when the whole family got together for special occasions. “It was the most requested birthday recipe. It had to be at Grandma’s house, and it had to be kraut klasse,” Nerenhausen says. “Simple, simple ingredients” are the benchmark, with an “all hands on deck” approach to its “laborious” production. While Grandma Nerenhausen is busy cooking down the cabbage in batches – “it can’t be too watery or liquidy” – other family members jump in to help roll and form the dough. You can’t rush the process. As for preventing the cabbage filling from being too wet, Nerenhausen says he will “grate a raw potato at the very end and the starch from the potato helps to kind of soak up and gel all the juices with the potato starch, so you don’t have to strain [the cabbage]. It just kind of makes it more saucy .”

You can boil or pan-fry the kraut klasse. “I like to have a couple of each on my plate,” Nerenhausen says. “We’ve experimented with different fillings, but I’d encourage people to try it” in its traditional form, he adds, with traditional toppings of salt and pepper, sour cream and melted butter. This recipe makes a huge batch – enough to freeze. “That was kind of the quick leftover supper Grandma sent you home with, to pull out on a rainy day. But they were never as nice as when they were fresh out of the pan,” he says.

And finally, don’t discard the scrap pieces of dough. The Nerenhausens call the remnants schneider flecken: “The kids would just fawn over the boiled and fried [dough] scraps.”

Ingredients

Yields 30-40 2-Ounce Dumplings

Dough:

7 cups flour

2 1/2 cups warm water

1 tablespoon salt

Filling:

2 large heads cabbage, shredded

5 pounds ground beef

2 large onions, julienned

Salt to taste

Lots of pepper

Instructions

Dough:

Knead together until the flour is fully incorporated. Add the water a little at a time in a stand mixer until it all comes together. You want the dough pliable but not too sticky. Depending on the humidity and time of year, you may need more or less of the recommended water amount.

Filling:

Brown the ground beef in a wide sauté pan/pot. Remove the ground beef and strain the fat. Set the ground beef aside and also reserve some of the fat on the side. Using the beef drippings, sauté the onions until they’re translucent with no color. Add the cabbage and cook it down until it’s soft and tender. Add the browned ground beef back into cabbage and onion mixture. Season with salt and pepper.

Assembly:

Cut off a chunk of dough and roll it out until it’s about one-eighth of an inch. Cut the rolled dough into roughly even squares or triangles; 4-5 inches per side is good. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but you want your dumplings to be more or less the same size. If you have bits of dough left over, save them and set them aside. We cook them off with the finished dumplings and call them schneider flecken. Place a spoonful of filling in the middle of each square or triangle. Gather all the corners and pinch the sides together, making sure to keep the filling in the middle and the seams sealed. If needed, apply a light brushing of water to help seal. Place the finished dumplings on parchment and cover them with a kitchen towel or plastic wrap until ready to cook. Cook in batches and place on a sheet tray with a rack until ready to fry, or serve them just boiled and enjoy right away! Fill a 5-to-6-quart pot with 4-5 quarts of water. Add 1/2teaspoon salt and bring to a boil. Drop the dumplings into boiling water and cook for 10-12 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon.

These are ready to eat as is, or you can move on to the next step and pan fry in a little clarified butter until golden brown. My family enjoys both, but everyone has their favorites. Feel free to cook off the schneider flecken scrap pieces of dough in this manner as well. It was always a favorite of the children of the house. Serve them with melted butter, sour cream and lots of salt and pepper.

Pro Tips

1

Use potato as a thickener. Potato contains a lot of natural starch and has a neutral flavor, so it works great as a natural thickener. Ben and Staci grate it into braised vegetables to soak up residual cooking liquid and blend it into purées and soups to create the perfect viscosity and texture. It also adds a beautiful gloss and sheen.

Bio

Ben Nerenhausen and Staci Lopez, married chefs and restaurateurs, met in Napa Valley while he was working at a Michelin star restaurant and she was in school at the Culinary Institute of America-Greystone. After the couple relocated to Princeton, New Jersey, Nerenhausen worked at Mistral, where he was a semifinalist for the James Beard Award for Rising Star Chef. They landed in Milwaukee after deciding to move to Wisconsin, Nerenhausen’s home state and open a restaurant. They’ve operated the bagel shop/luncheonette Allie Boy’s since 2020.

Allie Boy’s Bagelry & Luncheonette

About Allie Boy’s Bagelry & Luncheonette

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