Labskaus

Labskaus is a traditional Northern German dish, particularly in places such as Hamburg or Bremen. The dish was an easy to make dish with few ingredients but very nutritious at the same time.
During my time in Hamburg I had the dish on numerous occasions.

Finally, I got around trying the dish myself.
It's based on a recipe from (in German) https://www.springlane.de/magazin/rezeptideen/labskaus-hamburg-original/

What you need

• 2 whole beet roots. You can get them ready for consumption in most supermarkets. However, it's more fun to buy the actual roots and prepare it yourself. For this dish I am using 2 roots.
• 4 potatoes
• 1 large onion
• 200-250g corned beef
• salt, pepper
• gherkins and a tablespoon of the juice
• 30ml of stock
• 2-3 eggs
• mackerel or better still - rollmops - to go with Labskaus. But you may well eat it on its own

Equipment

• blender
• kitchen mixer and mixing bowl
• casserole or medium sized pot. 2 of those if you want to cook potatoes and beet roots at the same time
• frying pan

How you do it

Cooking the beet root

• fill a pot with water and bring it to a boil
• when boiling put the whole beet roots into the water and keep cooking at high temperature for 1 hour.  
• put the beet roots on the side and let cool down
• peel the roots and put in blender - or a handheld blender. Alternatively, you can squash them with a fork

Putting it all together

• bring a pot of water to the boil. add a bit of salt
• peel and quarter the potatoes and add to the boiling water
• let it cook until soft - usually 20min
• drain the potatoes when done and add to a mixing bowl
• chop onion and add to the bowl
• add the mashed beet root
• open a can of corned beef, cut it up a bit and add to the bowl
• season with pepper and salt
• add a bit of stock and juice from pickled gherkins (1 tablespoon)
• Finally, mix it all up. In a kitchen mixer use a lower setting and let it mix for a few minutes
• put the mix into an oven ready form. preheat the oven to ca 70 C to keep the Labskaus warm
• heat up a frying pan with butter or oil and break a couple of eggs into the hot pan

Once the frying eggs are ready you can pull the warm Labskaus out of the oven. Server the Labskaus on a plate and top it with the frying eggs.

Best served with a gherkin on the side. 

A mackerel or rollmops go well with it