Braised Cabbage and Mashed Potatoes

But I just want to warn you that this is the food of German peasants - people who worked willingly and a lot. Therefore, traditionally, my great-grandmother stewed cabbage with lumps of lard from a pack of your cigarettes. When there was smoked bacon, they certainly took smoked, and if a ham was hanging somewhere, then they took several pieces from the ham. You can take any vegetable oil you like, and I - here, albeit not very large, but still pieces of smoked lard.
Following the smoked lard, two kilograms of lamb brisket will go to the cauldron.
To cook the indicated amount of cabbage, you need to take at least a kilogram of onion. And so that the onion can fry well, it is better to remove the fried meat from the cauldron for a while.
Stir frequently in the pan, making the onion brown as evenly as possible. It will take about twenty minutes to fry the onion - count the time.
Now you can send cabbage to the cauldron. But first you need to try it: if it is recently fermented and not too sour yet, then you can cook it as it is, and if it is already very sour and has a pungent smell, then it is better to put it in a colander, let it drain, or even rinse it.
Although, if cabbage has its own correct sourness, then this is very good. It was in the hope of this sourness that I fried a whole kilogram of onions. Sauteed onions have a sweet note, cabbage has a sour note, which makes for a great sweet and sour, well balanced taste!
Three tablespoons of vegetable oil, and in them - one and a half tablespoons of tomato paste. Tomato paste must first be fried until a pleasant smell comes out. Never act like cooks in canteens - do not thump tomato paste into food as it is, be sure to fry it!
Add two to three tablespoons of sugar and half a glass of hot water to the tomato paste. Stir, let the sugar dissolve and let it simmer until a fairly smooth tomato syrup forms.
Now it can be added to cabbage. And the amount of sugar should be selected depending on how sour the paste is and what sweet and sour balance the cabbage has acquired by that time.
When the cabbage is at least half fried, you can already start trying - everything will be clear whether there is enough salt, whether it is too sour, or vice versa, whether it is too sweet. By the way, did you forget to salt the meat that was fried from the very beginning? It's time to return him to the cauldron!
I add a little salt to the cabbage, if necessary, be sure to add a full tablespoon of paprika, a little hot red pepper and a full tablespoon of coriander.
Closer to readiness, I add small raisins to the cabbage - osh-maiz, as it is called in Uzbekistan, or cinnamon, as some people in Russia still call it. Let's get everything ready together. From the very beginning of cooking, my fire was at its maximum, and when the cabbage began to decrease in volume, I also reduced the fire.
Since each time there was little stewed cabbage - only half a cast-iron, designed for the whole family, the Germans liked to cook mashed potatoes for it.
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