A Nice Cool Weather Casserole

While in lower altitude Arizona where we live now doesn't begin to compare to the frigid weather up north, it is still nice to have something warming on a cool day, and this casserole does the trick.

This recipe for Beef & Sauerkraut Casserole (or "Tushena Kapusta," as it was given to me) is an homage to a wonderful Ukrainian lady named Oksana, who was kind enough to make it for us. While her methods spoke of the "old country," it was easy enough to update and make in my own fashion. Apparently, many of the foods that came down to me from the paternal side of my family, are similar, if not identical to much of the food in the Ukraine (and most of that whole large region). 

Beef and Sauerkraut Casserole or Tushena Kapusta

My paternal grandparents came over to the U.S. from what was Yugoslavia in the very early 1900s. The town they came from is in what is today northern Serbia, in Vojvodina. It is a very small town named Kucur, northwest-ish of Novi Sad, and not found on many maps. That whole area was overrun so many times, changing "ownership," and the languages overlapped as well as food style. 

This dish is made with beef, sauerkraut and cabbage. Apparently it can be made with all sauerkraut and no fresh cabbage, or all fresh cabbage and no sauerkraut. However it is made, it comes out the most delicious comfort food. Just set out some good bread and butter to accompany, and there you have it: one fine meal. That said, as I looked up Tushena Kapusta recipes out of curiosity, I found that there is every variation imaginable for the meat (beef, pork, chicken, duck, Kielbasa sausage), and some are meatless. The remaining ingredients are the same, allowing for slight differences in amounts, and sometimes people add a touch of sour cream. 

Beef and Sauerkraut Casserole or Tushena Kapusta

Oksana worked with no recipe, of course, and gauged everything by eye. When I set about recreating for myself what she did, I wrote down everything I did and made note of all the amounts, so I could share it here. While seasoning the meat, she asked for a few different dried herbs, in an effort to replicate a seasoning mix she used back home. I chose to replace her herbs with my Beef & Pork Seasoning, as it had some of the items she used, plus those flavors go excellently with beef and pork. I added dried and reconstituted shiitake mushrooms, though I do not believe she used mushrooms in her dish. She did many things two different ways while making her recipe, things I could see no earthly reason for doing. These I changed to make things easier, less time-consuming. 

All in all, the recipe came out close enough to hers that I have no qualms about posting, revised though it is. To me, it tastes nearly identical. For certain, it is simply delicious, mouthwatering, comfort food.

Beef & Sauerkraut Casserole

(Tushena Kapusta) 

Beef and Sauerkraut Casserole or Tushena Kapusta

Serves 4 to 6

4 cups / 10 ounces thinly sliced green cabbage
½ teaspoon salt
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6 dried shiitake mushrooms
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1½ cups shredded (large holed grater) carrot, divided
1 red bell pepper, cut into thin strips about 1½-inches long
1 (32 ounce) jar sauerkraut, rinsed and drained
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2 slices (thick-slice) bacon, or 3 if thin sliced
1 medium onion, thinly sliced then quarter the round slices
¼ teaspoon salt
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1 pound beef stew meat, in ¾-inch cubes
1½ teaspoons Beef & Pork Seasoning or Montreal Steak Seasoning
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon freshly grated pepper
1 tablespoon Hungarian paprika
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 ounces tomato paste
2 bay leaves

Set the prepared cabbage into a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle with the ½-teaspoon salt and mix with hands, squeezing and rubbing the cabbage vigorously, or pound with the flat part of a meat tenderizing mallet. This breaks down cell walls in the cabbage and helps release liquid. This dish is a dry style casserole. Set the cabbage aside to release more liquids for at least 15 minutes.

Place the dry shiitake mushrooms into a bowl and cover with boiling water. Use a plate to help keep them submerged and set aside while preparing the rest of the dish.

Drain the sauerkraut and rinse under running water, then set to drain well.

Set the cubed beef into a bowl and sprinkle with the Beef & Pork Seasoning, ½-teaspoon salt and pepper. Toss well to coat. Set aside.

Cut the bacon slices into ¼-inch bits and place in a large skillet or simply use the Dutch oven to be used to bake the casserole. Cook the bacon until crisp, then set the bacon onto paper toweling to drain and set aside. In the resultant bacon grease, fry the onion with the ¼-teaspoon of salt until tender, then add in half the shredded carrot and cook just until softened.

Everything mixed together in bowl

Drain the cabbage well, squeezing to extract moisture, and return to the mixing bowl. Add in the fried onion and carrot mixture (reserving any remaining bacon grease in the pan) with the remaining raw carrots, red bell pepper and drained sauerkraut. Drain the mushrooms, remove hard stems, then slice the mushrooms and add to the mixing bowl. Add in the brown sugar, tomato paste and paprika and stir well.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In the same skillet, adding more oil only if needed, quickly sear a few of the meat pieces at a time, never over-crowding the pan, until browned, then place the pieces of meat into the mixing bowl with the vegetables as they are browned. Once all the meat is browned, stir all the ingredients well (photo at left), then turn into an oven-safe casserole or Dutch oven with lid, slip in the bay leaves, submerging into the mixture. Cover the casserole and bake the casserole for 30 to 45 minutes, checking to ensure it is not scorching on the bottom. Add hot water only if absolutely needed to prevent burning. 

Serve this casserole with mashed potatoes or rice and with bread and butter on the side.


My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.

An Interest in Fermented Foods and Health

The views expressed here in this blog are my own. I have copied some views from elsewhere that express my ideas and beliefs, but they are my own views, nonetheless. I am no medical authority, but just a normal person interested in going back to healthier ways of eating and living.

My interests have diversified lately. I bought the book "The Art of Fermentation" by Sandor Ellix Katz. I took a couple of days of reading at the beginning of the book, and then flipping around and just checking out what all types of things can be fermented. Turns out, almost anything can be fermented. This quote, taken from the Weston A. Price Foundation website, and copied there from Nourishing Traditions: the Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats, by Sally Fallon with Mary Enig, PhD, copyright 1999, explains:

"The fermentation process is accomplished by lacto-fermentation. Lactic acid is a natural preservative that inhibits putrefying bacteria. Starches and sugars in vegetables and fruits are converted into lactic acid by the many species of lactic acid bacteria. These lactobacilli are ubiquitous, present on the surface of all living things and especially numerous on leaves and roots of plants growing in or near the ground. Man needs only to learn the techniques for controlling and encouraging their proliferation to put them to his own use, just as he has learned to put certain yeasts to use in converting the sugars in grape juice to alcohol in wine."

After taking time to read a lot of the new book, I am convinced that here is one very good example of why the American diet in particular is so poor; why there is such rampant obesity; why there is so much succumbing to auto-immune disorders, so many allergies, so much wrong in our gut. While some of these views I am expressing are also expressed in one book, website or other, they are also my own feelings on the subject. Thoroughly hopping onto my own little bandwagon here, I think that in a society where healthy fruits and vegetables are so very expensive, yet over processed foods, filled with every health-threatening additive (yet tasting so good!) are very inexpensive, this explains a large portion of our dietary and health problems. If one cannot afford to buy the fruits and vegetables, then settling for the processed foods that are cheap, high in empty carbs and sugars regardless of the threat to overall health, is the only alternative. And rampant health issues abound. 

Having dealt with yeast/candida issues pretty much all my adult life, I am very conversant with the effects of too much bad yeast in the gut. How does one get an overgrowth of candida in the gut? Well:

1. Eating a diet in highly refined carbohydrates and sugar
2. Consuming too much alcohol
3. Oral contraceptives
4. Antibiotics
5. Chloride and fluoride in your water

Sound familiar? These are only some of the things, but since the advent of antibiotics, the upswing in candida has soared. Coincidence? Probably not. So, enough of my little rant. The thing is, reading The Art of Fermentation is opening my eyes to how the preserving of food was once done, before refrigeration and the advent of processed canning of foods. Our ancestors, people all over the world, have been preserving foods through fermentation since farthest antiquity. In most cases, all that is needed is salt and water. In some cases a little help must be provided, as in the case of things like yogurt and kefir (among other things), where a culture of some kind is required.

Sauerkraut ferment: Day 1, top; Day 5, below

One of the easiest things to ferment is cabbage, making it into sauerkraut. All that is needed is a glass or ceramic container, shredded cabbage and salt. In most cases not even water is required, as the cabbage is squeezed or pounded and with salt, creates its own liquid. Other things may be added to the cabbage for flavor variation, but in its simplest form, that is all that is required. It will need to ferment for a period of time; how long a time will depend on the amount of salt used (more will slow fermentation) and the ambient temperature. Lower temperatures, such as in basements, or indoors during winter time, will slow fermentation to the degree that it can take more than 6 months. Higher ambient temperatures and it can ferment far more quickly, as quickly as 2 weeks. The longer and slower the fermentation, the better the flavor, but that should not stop anyone from giving this a try. It has been slightly over 70 degrees in my kitchen since beginning my sauerkraut ferment 8 days ago. I tasted the sauerkraut last evening, even though it is not nearly fully soured, but I can truly say I have never tasted sauerkraut that tasted so good. I will post the tasty "recipe" I put together soon.

You may say that you like sauerkraut and eat it all the time. Yes, but. . . is it from a can? Has it been heat processed? Unless the sauerkraut has been raw-fermented, and without being heat treated for stability, killing off all the good, beneficial bacteria, then you are missing out, both on flavor and nutritional and health benefits. Some of the benefits of raw, fermented sauerkraut:

• High levels of glucosinolates, shown to produce anti cancer activity. Not a cancer cure, but certainly worthwhile to have in the diet.
• Natural probiotic bacteria. Naturally fermented sauerkraut contains no vinegar; lacto-fermentation gives it the characteristic sour flavor.  Its raw state means live, active cultures.
• Healthy bowel flora: fermented sauerkraut helps cleanse the bowel, adding in helpful lacto bacteria; aiding in whole body health
• High sulfur content in the cabbage is invaluable in skin cleansing, from the inside out. Think acne!
• Fermented sauerkraut juice is a strong stimulant for the body to produce acid, helpful in Acid Reflux, where contrary to what it sounds like, means there is insufficient acid to digest foods.
• Sheer diversity of probiotics in fermented foods offer a fighting chance against the bad yeasts in the gut.
• Fermented foods are potent detoxifiers, helping out in such things as obesity, mood, diabetes, heart health, acne and many other things.

Just as a quick experiment, I made some "Dilly Beans". These raw green beans are fermented only a few short days in a brine with dill weed and seed before they are ready to eat. I ate one, single green bean from the jar after only 3 days. Let me say here, that introducing a goodly dose of healthy and active probiotics into the gut has some very interesting and explosive repercussions! Eat only a small amount of any fermented food at first, to allow the system to become accustomed to getting healthy!


My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.