Wartime Recipes

The Oberkommando des Heeres published a cookbook called “Oestliche Speisen nach deutscher Art” (Eastern Dishes in the German Style) for German personnel serving in the occupied East. The book included instructions on how to cook in Russian home kitchens and had a mix of German recipes that could be made with locally available ingredients, and local recipes. We have previously posted a Borscht recipe from this cookbook. Here are some meat recipes. Translations are mine. Note that these recipes are deliberately vague so as to be adaptable based on availability or simply taste. Any of these are easily prepared over a fire with very minimal equipment required.

Schmorbraten

Cut the meat into as big pieces as possible. Brown on all sides in hot oil, season with salt and pepper. Remove meat from pan and keep warm. Add coarsely chopped root vegetables to pan and brown well. Dust with flower and mix together. Add water or broth and bring to a boil. Put the meat back in and cook with gentle heat until it is done. Season with bay leaves, juniper berries, allspice and/or peppercorns. Add wine to taste.

Gulasch – Basic recipe with fresh meat

Dice the meat, add salt and pepper, fry in a little oil. While browning, add finely chopped onions, a teaspoon of tomato paste, a little paprika, and roast together. Cover with water and braise until done. Add flour to thicken and bring to a boil, simmer until done.

Variations on Gulasch:

1. Gulasch with bell peppers. Add 1 chopped bell pepper for the last 30 minutes of cook time. Or, add 1-2 canned peppers, sliced, to the dish at the end just until heated.

2. Szegediner Gulasch. Add 1/8 kg of sauerkraut per person to the dish at the end just until heated.

3. Gulasch with vegetables. Add fresh or dried vegetables, even pumpkin, and cook together. Soak dried vegetables before using. Canned vegetables can be added at the end just until heated.

4. Serbian Rice Meat. Use veal if possible, seasoned with paprika. Add 4-5 tablespoons of rice (about 100 grams) in the last 20-25 minutes of cooking. Or instead of rice you can use risotto, just mix it into the finished dish.

Gulasch from canned meat

Meat in cans is pre-cooked. Because it is usually very fatty, you can make it more productive with this sauce: Roast chopped onions and 1 teaspoon tomato paste in a little fat. Add 1/8 liter water and bring to a boil. Thicken with flour, use 10 grams of flour per 1/8 liter water. Bring to a boil again, cook until done. Season with pepper or paprika. In this sauce, add the canned meat just to heat it up.

Meatballs from fresh meat

Grind the meat in a meat grinder. Add salt and pepper and mix well. Add bread crumbs or soaked bread, finely chopped onions, egg or just egg whites or egg substitute. Mix well and form into balls. Coat with flour or bread crumbs and fry in hot fat until done. The meat mixture tastes best when the onions are cooked and it is seasoned with available herbs. The meat can be extended with finely clopped and mixed in cabbage cores or other vegetable waste, without sacrificing goodness.

Meatballs from canned meat

Finely chop the meat and leave it to dry in the air for a little while. To cook, use the same recipe as for fresh meat but you must add flour.

The following recipes are from a German “war cookbook” of 1915. The idea behind this cookbook was to provide options for simple, cheap meals, with ingredients obtainable in austere wartime conditions. These recipes were not created from nothing in 1915, and they did not diappear afterward- they are rooted in German traditional cuisine, and simple meals like this were served before WWI and also during the depression, in WWII, and beyond.

All recipes serve 4 portions.

Cabbage Soup

One small head Savoy cabbage or white cabbage
2 tbsp. fat
4 tbsp. flour
1-1/2 ltr. water
Pinch of pepper, salt

Clean cabbage, cut in strips, wash. Heat the fat, add cabbage and braise. Sprinkle with flour, stir well, add water and boil 1-1/2 to 2 hours, to taste.

Pickle Soup

1 small pickle or 1/2 a large pickle
2 tbsp. fat
4 tbsp. flour
1-1/2 ltr. water
1-2 tbsp. vinegar, salt

Make a roux of fat and flour, slowly add water. When boiling, add diced pickle. Add salt and vinegar to taste.

Sauerkraut Soup

As pickle soup above, instead of pickle use sauerkraut.

Carrot Soup

3 large carrots
1 small onion
2 tbsp. fat
4 tbsp. flour
1-1/2 ltr. water from cooking carrots
1 tsp. parsley
1 tsp. sugar, salt

Peel the carrots, cut into small pieces, cook until done then push them through a strainer. Cook fat, onions and flour together, then pour in the carrot water. Add carrots, boil well, season with salt, parsley and sugar. If desired, you can replace half the carrots with potatoes; just use 1 less tablespoon of flour.

Baked carrot and potato dumplings

2 lbs. potatoes
2 lbs. carrots
2 tbsp. milk
salt, pepper
60 grams fat

For the sauce:
1 tbsp. fat
2 tbsp. flour
3/8 ltr. water from cooking the carrots, salt
1 tbsp. parsley, a little sugar

Boil the potatoes and carrots and push them through a strainer. Mix with salt and pepper, then form dumplings. Press them a bit flat, and fry in a frying pan until brown. To make the sauce, fry the flour and fat until yellow, pour in the carrot water, and bring to a boil. Season with salt, sugar and parsley.

Last weekend Sicherungs-Regiment 195 participated in the annual Ostfront reenactment in Haydenville, Massachusetts. We issued 24 hours’ worth of cold rations on Friday evening and then gave out warm rations on Saturday night. For the warm rations we wanted to recreate something that might have been made in a Wehrmacht field kitchen. To fit with the Ostfront setting, we picked a dish from the cookbook “”Östliche Speisen nach deutscher Art” (Eastern Meals in German Style),  a collection of recipes collected by the Oberkommando des Heeres and intended for issue to troops serving in the occupied Eastern areas.

Borscht (Borschtsch in German) is a traditional soup made with beets, cabbage and potatoes that is popular in many Central and Eastern European regions. This Wehrmacht recipe is simple, hearty and delicious.

“Borschtsch
Russian National Dish

Ingredients:
120g pork (pickled or smoked meat is preferred)
350g potatoes
350g white cabbage
500g red beets
15g fresh onions
20g fat or oil
Salt, dill leaves, coriander, soup herbs

Preparation:
Boil the meat and remove it.
Peel and dice the potatoes, slice the cabbage into strips, cook them in the broth.
Roast the onions in the hot oil.
Clean, peel and dice the beets and braise them in broth.
At the end, combine the ingredients, season to taste.

Note: The red beets can never be cooked together with the cabbage and potatoes because the beets will dye the other vegetables and make the food look unappetizing.
In place of part of the red beets, carrots or yellow turnips can be used. Yellow turnips can be cooked together with the beets. The meal can also be thickened with a roux.”

In the field we have no means of refrigeration, which limits use of fresh ingredients. For the pork, we used sausage in a glass jar. We utilized canned beets and potatoes, fresh cabbage and dill. Knorr bouillon cubes seasoned the broth.