This isn’t a recipe, to be honest. I have yet to actually try to make pretzels myself, but in order to make them in the traditional way, you have to get hold of and prepare a sodium hydroxide solution. This caustic solution isn’t something to mess around with, so for now I’d rather buy partially baked pretzels from the German Deli and finish them off in the oven. They’re rather yummy actually, and I honestly don’t think I’d be able to make anything nicer myself.
So why bother blogging about it? Yeah, fair point.
But I thought, since I’ve been introducing Mark to some German dishes over the lockdown weeks, and he really enjoyed every single one of them, I may as well write (home) about this one too.
All components are readily available for online ordering from the German Deli in London, and I was very pleased to see that they actually have the higher quality brands available in their offering.
In fact, I think Aldi and Lidl have also started stocking the sausages and sweet mustard.
For a “proper” Bavarian breakfast you need the following:
- “Weisswurst” – a poached veal sausage, which must be peeled before getting to the beautiful subtly flavoured sausage meat.
- part-baked pretzels
- sweet mustard (no other mustard works, trust me)
- wheat beer (optional)
- “Obazda” – a cheese spread made from camembert, cream cheese, cream, butter, onions and spices.
- butter, lots of butter to put on the pretzels
Technically, the Obazda is optional too. I just like it. No, sorry. I’m obsessed with it, especially when I have freshly baked pretzels. The combination is just to die for.
Unlike other German sausages, Weisswurst is not smoked or preserved in any other way, and therefore it is very perishable. Back in the day, Bavarian butchers made Weisswurst very early in the morning on a Saturday, and sold them as quickly as possible. There’s a famous saying that Weisswurst must not hear the church bells at noon, otherwise they’ll go off.
Even though I’m sure manufacturing of Weisswurst has changed since those days, and the sausages probably contain some kinds of preservatives now, the tradition of eating them for breakfast, or “elevensies” has stuck. And therefore it is also perfectly acceptable to have a wheat beer with this popular snack!
If you manage to get your hands on some Weisswurst, they’re very simple to prepare, but maybe a little tricky to eat if you’ve not done this before.
Bring a pot of water to the boil. Turn down to a very low heat and add the sausages. Do NOT bring the water back to a boil! Leave the Weisswurst to poach in the hot water for 10-12 minutes, then serve immediately, with pretzels and sweet mustard.
Before digging into these yummy pale sausages, the skin must be removed! Sounds tricky, but it is fairly simple: Cut the sausage in half. Then cut each half lengthways, but stop short of cutting all the way through. Peel back or scrape the sausage meat from the skin.
Dip into sweet mustard and enjoy with a piece of generously buttered pretzel! x
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