Heaven and Earth German dish •

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It’s no longer possible to trace with complete accuracy how the dish Heaven and Earth or “Heaven and Earth” came into being. According to one legend, it goes back to a group of farmers who weren’t keen on separating the apples that had fallen into the fields from the potatoes. Out of laziness, they gathered everything together and cooked it all together as well. Whether you want to believe that is up to each person. It makes sense because back then apple trees would grow along the fields where they grew potatoes.

What is certain, however, is that in the 18th century the dish first made it onto German plates, and its origin probably lies in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Since then, the recipe has spread through Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, into Alsace, Baden-Württemberg, Saxony, Bavaria, and of course the Rhineland. Every region swears by its own particular interpretation of “Heaven and Earth.” But they all have one thing in common: it just tastes wonderfully heavenly! Happy Cooking!

Heaven and Earth contains several components: Mashed potatoes, apple compote, onions and blood sausage. It got its name because both apples which grow on trees, up in the sky, and the then silent little-known “earth apples” (potatoes), which grow in the ground, are among its ingredients – from Heaven and Earth.

Schaller and Weber in N YC carries this Blood Sausage – click here –

The special blood sausage Panhas from North Rhine-Westphalia is a sausage pressed into casings, made from diced bacon, onions, spices (including, among others, pimento), broth, rendered fat, and a mixture of liver and blood sausage, bound with buckwheat flour, and cooked. It’s cut into slices and fried in butter. It’s served, among other things, with sauerkraut or “Heaven and Earth.” In certain regions, Panhas is eaten on pumpernickel with beet molasses. Similar sausage preparations include Möppkenbrot, Wurstebrot, or Leberbrot. A Dutch counterpart exists under the name Beam brij.

Where to find the specific Sausage Panhas
It’s sold under the name “Panhas” in most mainstream US stores but it’s often available via specialty German/Pennsylvania-Dutch butcher shops and online German food retailers in the USA, and you may find it under similar descriptions (liver-and-blood sausage/buckwheat-bound sausage) or in products close to “scrapple.” – Check out this website –

Ingredients heaven and earth

For mashed potatoes
800g potatoes
150 ml milk
1 tsp butter
Fried apples
4 apples
1 tbsp butter
1 dash sugar

2 small onions
blood sausage – German recipe asks for 1 ring, it should be a sausage that can be fried, otherwise it would fall apart.
Alternatively use 125 g lean bacon, cut into small cubes or sliced bratwurst
2 tbsp flour
salt, pepper, nuts to taste

Cooking Instructions Heaven and Earth

There are 4 steps:
1. Peel potatoes, cut into smaller pieces. Boil in water with a dash of salt. Let them steam off, then combine with butter, milk salt and nutmeg, mash them.

2. From peeled apples remove core, cut into small quarters, then into cubes. Heat butter with sugar, add the apple pieces and roast them until slightly brown.

3. Cut peeled onions into rings. Heat some oil in a pan, fry onions and season with salt and pepper to taste. If you use the bacon, fry onion in the fat that is released from the bacon.

4. Remove skin from the blood sausage, cut into 2cm thick slices. Turn them into some flour. Heat some oil in a pan and fry the blood sausage slices. If you like season with pepper. If you use the bacon fry the cubes in a pan without adding oil, when done remove from pan and set aside.

Serve the dish as follows:
– Add the mashed potatoes in the middle of the plate. On top add the apple pieces.
– The blood sausage slices are added around the mashed potatoes and will be topped with the onions.

It’s a specialty in Cologne – They serve it in the restaurant “Bei d’r Tant” very close to the Neumarkt.

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