Sour cabbage and potato stew

In the times past we ate quite some sour cabbage based dishes, especially after spending a day oudoors. It was one of the first things I've learned to cook and it still is a lovely winter season dish, if you like a simple country style kitchen. For the best result it is wise to forget all what you have been told about the fats in your food for a day; sour cabbage generally needs some fat to taste good, bacon, lard or any other fatty meat is the best add. It's a farmers dish, not a supermodels dinner crumbles. ;)


Need:
200 g of sour white cabbage
4-5 normal size potatoes
200 g of fatback or bacon (preferably fat and not too salty).

Peel the potatoes and slice them into not-too-thin slices. Take the cabbage out of packaging and squeeze some of the liquid off it (you can wash it under a stream of cold water as well, in a sift, if you want less sourness). Take a pot and layer potato slices and cabbage: one layer of potatoes, one of cabbage, rinse and repeat. Pour water into the pot, so that the last layer is submerged, add a pinch of salt. Cook it for about 40 minutes on a medium fire.

While stew is cooking, slice the fatback or bacon into the small cubes. Fry it on the frying pan for 5 min or so. When the stew is done, pour the water off, mix in the bacon with all the fat. I like to wash it down with a glass of cold milk, have no idea why, it just goes right with it.