What makes a bratwurst a bratwurst?
As opposed to some other type of German sausage. Is it the spices? The meat? The preparation? Honestly, I can't seem to figure it out.
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8 Comments:
All bratwurst means is that you grill it. It is a generic term. There are brats made with pork and beef or combinations of the two. Some are coarse grained, some are emulsified. Here in America, unless you are within the "Brat Belt" of the Upper Midwest where many styles exist (my favorite is the Sheboygan Brat), a typical "brat" in the rest of the country is a white pork sausage with caraway, garlic powder and nutmeg. "Red Brats" are similar, but with beef.
HunterAnglerGardenerCook at 3:37PM on 04/22/08
Interesting...because my husband made English Bangers this weekend and they tasted like a mild brat to me.....
jcrisco at 5:26PM on 04/22/08
According to Wikipedia: "A bratwurst (pronounced: [ˈbraːtvʊɐst] (help·info)) is a sausage composed of pork, beef, and/or veal. The name is German, derived from Old High German brätwurst, from brät- which is fine chopped meat and -wurst, sausage. Though the brat in bratwurst describes the way the sausages are made, it is often misconstrued to be derived from the German verb "braten", which means to pan fry or roast. Etymology aside, frying and roasting are far from the most common methods of preparation. Bratwurst is usually grilled and sometimes cooked in broth or beer."
and Cook's Thesarus says: "This is made with pork and sometimes veal, and seasoned with subtle spices. It usually needs to be cooked before eating, though some markets carry precooked bratwurst.. Substitutes: weisswurst OR boudin blanc OR bockwurst"
kjgibson at 5:52PM on 04/22/08
HAGC-- but as kjgibson points out, courtesy of Wikipedia, boiling your brats is pretty common. I've think I've seen Johnsonville ads actually "teaching" how to properly prepare them in a beer and onion bath.
The etymology suggests that the fineness of the grind might be relevant-- I know a lot of Italian sausages have much larger grinds, but I'm not as familiar with German wursts.
sidebernie at 8:51AM on 04/23/08
It's the close proximity to Wisconsin and beer that makes it a brat...
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!
bodaciousgirl at 12:58PM on 04/23/08
For what it's worth, I got my info from a German butcher named Dirk Muller who runs Morant's Old Fashioned Sausage Kitchen in Sacramento. Muller went through years of training in Germany to get his certification. He says the grill-and-simmer method I had been using all along, a la the Johnsonville (or any Wisconsin BBQ) isn't "proper" in Germany. He doesn't dispute that it's a great way to cook brats, just that it's not not that way in Germany.
Weisswurst is always fine-grained, even emulsified, then poached before final cooking. Not entirely sure about bockwurst, though.
HunterAnglerGardenerCook at 3:39PM on 04/23/08
HAGC ????
kjgibson at 4:51PM on 04/23/08
HunterAnglerGardenerCook
sidebernie at 8:55AM on 04/25/08