Polenta with sauerkraut in red wine

Preparation steps

• First, wash the sauerkraut through a strainer in lukewarm water and squeeze and mash well with your hand to get rid of as much acid as possible and the well-known smell that only cabbage and nothing more can produce. Then leave it in clean water to stand while you prepare the other ingredients and until it is time for heat treatment.
• Pour the cornmeal into the bowl in which you will cook the polenta and add a lukewarm liter of water together with the butter and 3/4 tablespoon of salt. Allow to soak with occasional stirring to avoid creating a thicker precipitate that would be difficult to stir once you start cooking the polenta. The butter will partially melt even in that lukewarm water so it’s not a problem to mix and you don’t have to wait for the mixture to heat up right when you start cooking. By preparing the ingredients in this way, you avoid lumps, which are inevitable if you pour the semolina into boiling water.
• Finely chop the red onion and put on medium heat on the oil in a large area pan as it is faster to manipulate the cabbage later when added. When the onion begins to take on a golden-brown character, it should be watered with a little water so that the onion releases its juices and then simmered until the water evaporates and the process of roasting the onion begins again. Repeat watering at least 4-5 times (depending on the thickness of the onion cubes). It is done with the onion when each cube has become transparent and golden-brown. Now you are sure that the onion will not sit hard on your stomach.
• Add sauerkraut to the fried-stewed onion and repeat the frying and sautéing system as with onions at least 8-9 times to feel it under your teeth or 15-16 to melt it slightly on the tongue.
• While you are slowly sautéing and frying the cabbage, you have time to put the bread on the highest heat. Be ready to stir it all the time and before it starts to cook so that it does not succumb to the formation of lumps and it will be ready in a moment once it boils and thickens. You are sure that it is ready when the steam coming out of it starts to bring with it the distinctive smell of butter. Then remove it from the heat and leave it in the pot in which you cooked it to calm down a bit with the rising steam. When the polenta has cooled down a bit, start transferring it in smaller pieces over two spoons to the bowl in which you will serve it, layer by layer, so that these smaller pieces can cool down a bit separately and remain separated for each other. So a row of pieces of polenta in a serving bowl so dedicate a little to mixing the cabbage and so on until you settle the polenta in the serving bowl.
• Finally, add the spices that form the basis of the taste for this "stew" to the last addition of water to the cabbage. Turmeric which is a solid earthy tone with its bitterness; ginger, which with its sharpness and bitterness passes like reinforcement through turmeric; a pinch of cinnamon, which is not even felt in this symphony of flavors, but means everything to them because it connects this turmeric and ginger base with the otherwise characteristic and not at all conciliatory flavors of sauerkraut and Ždrepčeva blood, but with this base they got enough space to form a strong bond. leads to the world of goulash. And of course salt to make it all come alive. Stir well and let the water evaporate and brown everything again before adding the last ingredient.
• You add Ždrepče's blood, which is the only wine of all the wines I've tried so far in my life that is distinctive, strong and thick enough to withstand sauerkraut, even if it is well squeezed and washed. Don't play with other wines because you won't get "goulash" (venison, clove, laurel, nutmeg); the wine will hide in the corner of this ring where cabbage leads the way, and you will make fun of me as the organizer of this failed symphony concert that turned into a street fight. As in the previous steaming steps, let the wine itself brown. When there is no more red on your pan you have come to the safe side and the dish is ready and ready to arrange it over the polenta.