You know how it is with Wikipedia: you go there for some specific thing, and the next thing you know you’ve spent hours looking at different pages. I went there recently looking for some information and I somehow ended up reading the entry for doner kebabs, which somehow led me to the entry on currywurst.
Currywurst is Germany’s most popular street food, especially in the cities of Berlin and Hamburg. It consists of slices of bratwurst topped with a tomato sauce that’s best described as “curry ketchup”. It might not sound that good at first, but trust me: it’s delicious. It’s also amazingly easy to make at home:
Ingedients:
2 (15 ounce) cans tomato sauce
3 tablespoons chili sauce (or Sriracha hot sauce)
1 good-sized onion
3 tablespoons honey or sugar
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 cloves garlic (diced)
1 tablespoon paprika
Curry powder to taste (I use 4 tablespoons)
1 pound bratwurst or sausage of your choice
1 beer (optional)
French fries (optional)
Hardware:
1 2qt. pot with lid
1 large cooking skillet
Cutting board
Tongs
Knife
Large spoon
1) Chop the onion and place into the 2qt. pot. Add the garlic and just enough oil to coat the mixture, then cook over medium heat until transparent, stirring frequently.
2) Add tomato sauce, chili or hot sauce, honey or sugar, black pepper, paprika and curry powder. You may defer adding the curry powder until the very end if you’re cooking for people with varying “spiciness thresholds”, although for best taste add it now. Stir well.
3) Bring the sauce almost to a boil, then cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4) While sauce is simmering, cook bratwurst according to package instructions. I prefer cooking the sausages in a pan in beer, but that’s just me.
5) When sausages are fully cooked, remove from heat and let cool for a few minutes. Then cut the sausages “on the slant” into bite-sized pieces. When done, add to currywurst sauce and stir.
6) Deep-fry some french fries. Put them on the side of a plate, then spoon the currywurst onto the plate. Eat the currywurst as-is, and use the currywurst sauce as a ketchup for the fries.