This Bavarian Fleischkaese recipe is an original recipe from Germany. It differs a bit from the other one but it is also a proven recipe. Don’t forget the ingredients might be a bit different in Germany despite the fact that they have the same name.
Fleischkäse is a specialty food found in the south of Germany, in Austria and parts of Switzerland. It consists of beef, pork and bacon and is made by grinding the ingredients very finely and then baking it as a loaf in a bread pan until it has a crunchy brown crust.
Variations may be made using other kinds of meat such as horse meat or turkey, or may contain additional ingredients such as cheese or minced chili peppers. Liver is not traditionally considered an essential ingredient if it is added it would be called Leberkäse.
Ingredients Bavarian meat cheese
To make the so-called Fleischbraet – for 1kg
60% lean pork
40% fat pork belly or 30% pork belly and 10% bacon without slab
Spices for 1 kg of meatloaf
22 g curing salt – click to Find Curing Salt Information
3 g white pepper, ground
Ground Spices and herbs, each 0.5 g: Marjoram, Thyme, nutmeg and ginger
ice cubes: at least 300g per 1kg of meat
Cooking instructions
1. Cut meat and refrigerate it. It must be very cold before handling it (shortly before freezing temperature).
2. Make at least 300 g ice cubes and before you start with the meat, shred and (ice snow) keep aside. Use a mixer or any device that can shred ice finely.
3. Mix the very cold meat with spices, very fast as meat should not get warm.
4. Add meat to the grinder or food processor and grind it on high speed for about 1-2 minutes. Add grated “ice snow” and grind again thoroughly. You should get a fine but tough mass. That’s all okay.
4. You can do a test now if you like:
Bring water to a boil, then turn off. Take 1 tbsp of the meat mass and add it into the water. It needs to be firm and should not fall apart
5. Take a rectangle shape that is cooled and grease it with taste neutral (expeller pressed) coconut oil or shortening (eg. from Spectrum – needs to be a grease that can be used for high cooking temperatures – don’t use olive oil, other oil, butter or margarine; in Germany we use the grease Palmin or Biskin).
The grease should be sticking in the edges, that’s why the form needs to be very cold. You do this so the Leberkaese can get smoothly out of the form when done. Press the meat thoroughly into the form because you don’t want bubbles.
6. Use a dough scraper that you dip into cold water and smooth the surface, make a rhombic patter into the loaf by pressing the dough scraper into the loaf, don’t cut it.
7. Bake in the oven on 160 C for about 90 minutes until the surface browns slightly, if it won’t get brown, use the broiler for 5-6 minutes.
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