Kasseler

Kasseler is lightly cured and smoked pork loin, roasted and sliced thick over sauerkraut and mustard sauce. It's a German classic, and despite what the name suggests to most guests, it's generally credited not to the city of Kassel but to a Berlin butcher whose surname it carried.

What it actually is

A pork loin or neck is cured in a brine with juniper berry and spices for several days, then lightly smoked, which gives it a distinctive pale pink colour and mild, savoury-smoky flavour before it's even cooked further. It's roasted gently to finish, kept moist since it's already been cured, and sliced thick to be served warm over a bed of sauerkraut with a mustard-based sauce and boiled potato.

Because the curing and smoking do most of the flavour work upfront, the cooking itself stays simple — the point isn't to build flavour at this stage, just to bring the already-cured meat up to temperature without drying it out.

How it's served

• Sliced thick, warm, over sauerkraut with mustard sauce.
• With boiled potatoes, plain, alongside.
• As a substantial single plate, not typically shared or split into courses.

Writing it on a menu

• Note the curing and smoking, since both are part of why the meat looks and tastes the way it does before any further cooking.
• Say that it's not from Kassel, if it's worth clarifying — the name's origin story surprises a fair number of guests.
• Mention the sauerkraut and mustard sauce that come standard, since the dish is rarely served without them.
• Flag that it's already cured, meaning it should be handled and priced like a prepared charcuterie item rather than a raw cut cooked entirely from scratch.