Handkäs mit Musik
Photo: Manfred&Barbara Aulbach · CC BY-SA 3.0

History

Handkäs is a hand-formed sour-milk cheese from the Hessen countryside, low in fat and high in pungency. Sachsenhausen's taverns made it their standard apfelwein companion by the 19th century, marinating the cheese in vinegar, oil and raw onions, the mixture locals call Musik. Tradition says you eat it with a knife on bread, never a fork, and the caraway on top is a dividing line between families. It survives because it does one job perfectly: it makes the next Schoppen of sharp cider taste sweeter than the last.

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Common allergens: Milk

Make it at home

Yield Serves 4 as a snackHands-on 15 minTotal 4 hrDifficulty Easy

Ingredients

  • 4 Handkäse or other firm sour-milk cheeses such as Harzer
  • 1 large onion, finely diced
  • 5 tablespoons white wine vinegar
  • 3 tablespoons neutral oil
  • 4 tablespoons water or apfelwein
  • 1 teaspoon caraway seeds
  • Salt, black pepper
  • Dark rye bread and butter to serve

Method

  1. Whisk the vinegar, oil and water or apfelwein with salt and pepper to make a sharp vinaigrette.
  2. Lay the cheeses in a shallow dish, scatter over the diced onion, and pour the marinade on top.
  3. Cover and marinate at room temperature for at least 4 hours, turning once, until the cheese turns glassy at the edges.
  4. Serve each cheese with plenty of its onion Musik, caraway scattered over, with buttered dark bread.

Tip from the editors. The cheese should go glassy and translucent at the rim; if your room is warm, marinate in the fridge and pull it out an hour before eating.

Where to eat handkäs mit musik

Handkäs mit Musik in Frankfurt

Apfelwein Wagner ★ 4.6

€€ GermanSachsenhausen

Apfelwein Wagner proves Frankfurt tradition is a budget cuisine: Handkäs at €5.10 and Rippchen with kraut under €15 on Schweizer Strasse every day.

TryHandkäs mit Musik at €5.10, Grüne Soße at €14.50

TipOrder Handkäs and a Schoppen for the cheapest authentic Frankfurt dinner going; bread comes with it, and nobody hurries you out.

Directions

Fichtekränzi ★ 4.5

€€ GermanSachsenhausen

Fichtekränzi has poured apfelwein under a braided spruce wreath on Frankfurt's Wallstraße since 1849, one of Sachsenhausen's oldest tavern rooms.

OrderHandkäs mit Musik with farmhouse bread, then whatever the slate board says

TipCash or EC card only, no credit cards; the courtyard garden is first-come, so arrive before 18:30 in summer.

Directions

Zur Buchscheer ★ 4.5

€€ GermanSachsenhausen

Zur Buchscheer pours self-pressed apfelwein under garden trees in Frankfurt's quiet south, the tavern locals protect from the crawl routes each night.

OrderThe house pressing with Handkäs mit Musik

Why locals goIt sits in residential Sachsenhausen-Süd, a 15-minute walk from the tavern strip, so tour groups never make it this far.

TipWeekday evenings are regulars-only calm; weekends from noon bring Sachsenhausen families for the long lunch.

Directions

Lorsbacher Thal ★ 4.6

€€ Wine barSachsenhausen

Lorsbacher Thal treats apfelwein the way a wine bar treats Burgundy, cellaring over 300 bottlings in barrel below its Frankfurt tavern in Sachsenhausen.

WineAn apfelwein cellar list of over 300 entries, aged in barrel

FoodHessian tavern kitchen without shortcuts

TipOrder by flight, not Bembel, and let the host sequence the pours from bone dry to barrel-aged rarities.

Directions

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