Sauerbraten with potato dumplings

Put chunked onions, carrots, celery, garlic, rosemary, a few juniper berries and cloves in a pot.

Add the red wine vinegar, red wine and chicken stock; hold back the water for now.

Bring to a boil to draw flavour from the spices, sterilise the marinade and boil off the harshest notes of the vinegar.

Taste: it should be too acidic but not repulsive. Balance with a little honey and salt until it tastes like overly acidic soup broth.

Cool with ice cubes until they stop melting immediately.

Submerge the raw roast, top off with water, and marinate in the refrigerator in a non-metal vessel at least a couple of days; this one went six days.

Remove the softened roast carefully, knock off the vegetables and dry it on a towel.

Brown the roast in a little oil in a hot pan on more or less all sides, rendering the fat cap; go by smell and turn the heat down if anything burns.

Return the roast to the cold marinade. Brown a little potato starch in the pan fat to make a roux, deglaze with water, scrape up the brown bits and add to the marinade.

Simmer covered in the oven at 300F / 150C until the meat is soft, about four hours, baking the whole potatoes alongside.

After two or three hours, when the potatoes are squishably soft, open them to steam out and cool.

Scoop out the flesh, smash the big chunks, discard the skins and season with salt, garlic powder and onion powder.

Add an egg, beat it in, scatter on potato starch and fold just until it barely holds the shape of a ball; overmixing or too much starch makes rubbery dumplings.

Roll into golf-ball-sized dumplings and boil in salted water until they float, about 10 minutes. Drain, toss in a little melted butter and hold covered on warm.

After four hours test the roast with a fork, pushing to the core.

Remove the roast, boil the marinade and reduce by about half.

Smash ginger snaps in a towel and stir in by handfuls, boiling to dissolve, until the gravy is as thick as wanted.

Strain through a sieve into a bowl, pressing the solids with a wooden spoon. Season with more salt and lots of pepper.

Chop curly parsley for garnish. Slice the roast and serve with the dumplings and plenty of gravy.