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  German culture is filled with delicious and hearty food and drink. From Oktoberfest favorites to farmhouse classics, there are plenty of tempting gourmet food recipes for German dishes available on the Internet and in cookbooks for the home cook to try out. Germany is most famous for its beer, meats and sweets.
  
  

Cooking with Beer

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  Biersuppe is a beer soup made with dark German beer allowed to go flat, eggs, flour, cinnamon and sugar. Caraway Alt Potato Salad is a potato salad made with red potatoes, alt beer, cream cheese, caraway seeds, cucumbers, pickles, brown mustard seeds and other ingredients. Kriek Cabbage is a cabbage dish made with cherries, red cabbage and Kriek beer. Kriek is a Beligan cherry lambic. Roast Pork Loin in Beer Sauce is a pork dish made with dark beer, honey, onions and pork loin. Sauerkraut is pickled cabbage that is slow cooked with sugar, caraway seeds and beer. Karotten im Bier is a sweet vegetable dish with carrots, sugar, dark beer and butter.
  
  

Meat

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  Bratwurst is a white German sausage made of veal and pork that is seasoned with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Gulaschsuppe is a beef stew with vegetables seasoned with caraway, bay leaves and red wine. It's often called goulash. Jägerschnitzel or Hunter's Schnitzel is a hearty sausage made with pork or veal, bacon, mushrooms, onions and various spices. Knockwurst is a sausage made from pork or veal, garlic and is highly seasoned. It is often served with sauerkraut. Rouladen is thin beef steak stuffed with onions, pickles and bacon. It is then rolled and tied with string and slow cooked in a creamy tomato broth. Sauerbraten is a braised beef dish made with the top round cut of beef, ginger snap cookies, sour cream and various herbs and spices. Wiener Schnitzel is a veal dish made with cheese, breadcrumbs, butter, lemon and spices. It is often served with noodles. Wurstsalat is a sausage salad made with knockwurst, potatoes, eggs, onions and dill pickles. It it bound together with mustard, olive oil and spices. It's often served on toasted rye bread.
  
  

Sweets

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  Apfelstrudel is an apple strudel made with Golden Delicious apples, dark rum and raisins. Bienenstich or Bee Sting Cake is a breakfast sweet cake made with heavy cream and almonds. German Chocolate Cake is perhaps the most famous German desert. It is a rich chocolate cake topped with a coconut icing. The reason it is a rather unusual dish is because the icing is made with mayonnaise. Linzer Torte is a pastry dessert that is made with Kirschwasser (cherry brandy), raspberry preserves, oranges, lemons and almonds.
  
  

Other Specialties

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  There are several German dishes of note that don't exactly fit into a beer, meat or sweets category. Spatzle is German-style egg noodles. Spatzle is made with flour, eggs and nutmeg. It's a small noodle, and a common way of making it is by forcing the noodle dough through the grate of a strainer. Schwarzbrotsuppe is a soup made from dark bread, onions and pork fat. Weinkraut is baked apples that are stuffed with sauerkraut. Hazelnussomeletten is an egg omelet with hazelnuts. Kartoffelpuffer are potato pancakes made with onions and eggs. They are very similar to latkes and are served with sour cream or applesauce.