Sausage and rutabaga: A Smoky Mountains Sunday supper

A one-pot meal of sausage, apples, sweet rutabagas, and tangy kraut may sound German, but it’s also Southern, said Sam Beall in The Foothills Cuisine of Blackberry Farm (Clarkson Potter). At our hotel and restaurant, located on a farm in the foothills of East Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains, we strive to combine the best of rustic Appalachian cooking and the cosmopolitan cuisine of the finest restaurants in nearby Knoxville. This simple supper is the kind that’s meant to feed an impromptu weekend gathering. While the dish takes many cues from Appalachia’s German settlers, we serve it with a house-made mustard that honors Burgundy, France—home to “some of the best prepared mustards in the world.”

We make our own sausages for this dish, but store-bought sausages are fine. Try making your own mustard, though, which is easy if you start it in advance. We make ours with an unoaked chardonnay—because the “crisp, clear qualities” of the wine should shine through.

Recipe of the week

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Sausage with roasted rutabagas, apples, and sauerkraut

• 3 tbsp grapeseed oil, plus more as needed
• 3 lbs fresh pork sausage links
• 2 sweet onions, diced into 1-inch pieces
• 2 rutabagas, peeled and diced
• 3 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and cut into 1-inch pieces
• 1 lb drained sauerkraut

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a large Dutch oven, heat 1 tbsp of the oil over medium-high heat. Working in batches,

add half the sausages to the pan. Cook undisturbed until browned on the bottom, about 7 minutes. Turn and brown the other side. Transfer to a platter. Repeat with remaining sausages, adding oil between batches as needed.

Add 1 tbsp oil to the Dutch oven. Add onions and ½ tsp kosher salt and cook, stirring, until golden, about 8 minutes. Stir in rutabagas and ½ tsp more salt. Add 1 cup water, reduce heat, cover, and simmer until rutabagas begin to soften, about 10 minutes. Stir in apples and cook 1 minute.

Return sausages and their juices to the pot. Transfer to the oven and roast until the sausages’ internal temperature reaches 145 degrees and the rutabagas are tender, about 18 minutes. About 5 to 10 minutes before the end of cooking, add sauerkraut. Transfer to plates and dollop with mustard. Serves 6 to 8.

For the mustard:

• One 750-ml bottle dry white wine
• 1 cup distilled white vinegar
• ½ cup each white balsamic vinegar, brown mustard seeds, and yellow mustard seeds
• 4 tbsp dry mustard

In a saucepan, boil the wine until it reduces to 1 cup, about 20 minutes. Pour into a bowl and stir in distilled vinegar, balsamic vinegar, and mustard seeds. Cover and let sit at room temperature for 3 days.

Pour into a blender and pulse to grind to desired coarseness. Stir in dry mustard. Use at once or refrigerate for up to 3 weeks.