German recipes

Potatoes, cabbage, vinegar and slow-cooked meat, plus a baking tradition that is quietly one of the best in Europe.

The savoury dishes lean sour in a way most cooking here does not — vinegar in the red cabbage, in the potato salad, in the braise — and that sourness is the point rather than a mistake.

The cakes are where this section really pays off. Plum cake, streusel and the yeasted bakes are all more forgiving than they look and all keep for several days.