Hanoverian specialties

Calenberg Pan-Beating

This spicy grain sausage is a hearty traditional dish from the Hanoverian culinary tradition and originates from the Calenberger Land, a region characterized by rural agriculture southwest of Hanover. This cooked sausage—made from oat groats, cooked pork and beef, onions, and robust spices—is pan-fried until crispy and was once considered “poor people’s food,” typically served during the fall slaughter season. Today, Calenberger Pfannenschlag is often enjoyed with bread or potatoes, served with a fried egg and pickled cucumbers, and washed down with a “Lüttjen Lage” (this “small serving”—consisting of a shot of grain schnapps and a small glass of top-fermented wheat beer—is another typical Hanoverian specialty).

Plate with fried beef sausage — Calenberg Pan-Beating

In Hannover, it's called "Pfannenschlag"; in Bremen, they say "Knipp"

In the capital of Lower Saxony, this spicy groats sausage is known as “Calenberger Pfannenschlag”; in the surrounding countryside, you’ll often still hear the Low German term “Calenberger Pannenslag.” In Bremen, however, it is called Knipp, and in Scotland it is known as haggis. Both here and there, this cooked sausage specialty is made from oat groats, pre-cooked and minced offal, broth, and all kinds of spices. The sausage mixture is stuffed into natural casings and then scalded. This makes the sausage spreadable while still remaining firm enough to slice.

To make the traditional Hanoverian Grützwurst, meat from beef and pork heads, as well as pork belly and pork rind, is boiled and then ground in a meat grinder, mixed with finely chopped onions, soaked oat groats or rolled oats (which serve as a binding and filling agent), and minced beef liver, and finally seasoned well with ginger, coriander, mace, cloves, pepper, allspice, and salt. To prepare Calenberger Pfannenschlag, diced onions are first sautéed in a pan. Then a “Schlag”—roughly a ladleful of the sausage mixture—is added to the pan. The Pfannenschlag is then heated only lightly and not cooked through. Calenberger Pfannenschlag is usually served with farmhouse bread or fried potatoes, mashed potatoes or boiled potatoes, a fried egg, and pickled gherkins.

Bremer Knipp is traditionally made without beef, pan-fried until crispy, and either served simply with whole-grain bread or as a main course with pan-fried or boiled potatoes, accompanied by pickled cucumbers, sweet-and-sour pumpkin, sauerkraut, applesauce, or beets.

Recipe tip

Ingredients for Calenberger Pfannenschlag:
1 kilogram of pearl barley
2 liters of rich vegetable broth
750 grams of beef
chuck and fatty pork belly 200 grams of pork chuck and fatty pork
belly 500 grams of bacon rinds
A pinch of allspice
Salt and pepper

How to Make Calenberger Pfannenschlag:
Cook the pearl barley in the broth and let it soak over low heat. Then cook the beef liver in the same broth and grind it in a meat grinder along with some leftover pork and bacon rinds. Do not pour out the broth! Season the sausage mixture with a pinch of clove pepper, salt, and pepper, and mix well with the pearl barley. Next, place the sausage mixture into a linen bag and let it steep in the broth for another two hours. Finally, simply remove the linen bag and the barley sausage is ready. Now add a “scoop” (i.e., a generously filled ladle) of the barley sausage to the preheated pan and fry until the mushy sausage forms a crispy crust. Transfer the pan-fried portion to a flat plate and serve with salted or fried potatoes and pickled vegetables (spiced or mustard pickles, cornichons, pearl onions, mixed pickles).