Dinner for One

As we make the transit into 2009, different cultures have different rituals to celebrate this change - New Yorkers drop the ball, in North Carolina they drop an Opossum, in Naples it's either sex or fireworks, and in Germany it is a dinner.

Not just any dinner.

It's Dinner for One.

This is an old theater play, showing the 90th birthday party of an old lady. She celebrates her birthday since many years with her four closest friends. Unfortunately, she has outlived all of them, but does not want to miss out on her fun dinner party. So, for all toasting to the health of the lady, Butler James has to act each guest's part... All in british english, except for the introduction speaker.

The play was recorded in 1963 with british actors in Hamburg, Germany.
Since 1972 it is broadcasted on every New Year's eve on all local TV channels.

Enjoy the dinner! :)

Drink! More! Wine!

We knew it all along that red wine cannot be bad for you ... It even cuts down cancer risk if you marinate your steak in it first - and it tastes great!

So I've read on BBC, check it out if you need more convincing for pairing your favorite cut with a good glass... I wonder whether internally mixing of the ingredients might help against cancer as well? I've been testing that for a couple of years now, and so far it works..

And, if you're more in the beer-mood, that works just fine as well!
In case you need guidance on cooking with beer: here is a german blog describing pork pot roast in a beer sauce, with potato dumplings - the pictures should guide you along pretty well even if you don't understand german :)

Let me remind you also that in the state of looming and lurking economical crises the consumption of goods is essential to keep the business spirit high and deflation low.. so, keep drinking. Keep marinating. And enjoy the transition into the new year, may it be filled with good food & happy news!

The cheap (and easy) way out

My Flammkuchen was not standing under a perfect Flammkuchen-star...
I don't have the special oven, did not have time to make the dough, and most likely a vegetarian coming over. So, no bacon. No bread dough. No really high heat.

[Here is a recipe for the real thing]

Note that Flammkuchen is not really german - it is from Alsace, i.e. a french region at the border to Switzerland & Germany.

Here's the cheap trick for the veggie-version:
I bought crescent dough - a little too sweet, true, but works; roll dough or pizza dough might be better but I wanted it a little flaky. Just because I felt like it.
Rolled it out on a sheet. Mixed sour cream with cream to add fat (for baking that's better, it crumbles otherwise, said my mom. And she knows these things..). Peppered and salted it. Sliced onion, boiled it shortly in water, then mixed it with walnuts and grape quarters.
The sour cream covers the dough, the onion-grape-nut mix is sprinkled over it, and all that is baked for about 15 minutes at about 375 deg F (or whatever your dough would like to be baked at).
It's a really nice, simple, quick version of vegetarian Flammkuchen!


Another veggie-pizza-like item is this here: I simmerd spinach with butter, mixed roasted sunflower seeds and dried tomatoes in, and ricotta. Salt and pepper, and cover the pizza dough of your preference with



Both are quick and easy, and, obviously, versatile. The spinach-ricotta mix is my favorite, the dried tomato gives it a real kick.

Good stuff. :)

Red earth

Red beets are a knockout if you're into earthiness - and red fingers after prepping them. Other people spend money on Henna, so, well..

But: they may sometimes be a little too much for some people, it's a matter of taste, as (nearly) everything.
Here is a recipe that lightens up the heavy flavors, adds acidity, gives the earth an airy lightness and an edge that leaves you wanting more.. (thanks mom!)

Fry the beets from all sides a bit in butter, salt them, put the lid on & let them simmer for 20-30 minutes - check on whether they are done. Then, add a spoon of honey, and some balsamic vinegar. Mix well together, and add vinegar til the taste is right. The beets drink the Balsamico up like nothing. Finally, add slices of orange - I used tangerines.
Delicious combination.

It goes really well with duck, ...as in sophisticated dinner vegetable.. as in christmas..

More cookies for the world!

The last cookies want to be eaten before the new year begins - I had to take a quick photo before they vanish: here's a short run down on the essential german christmas cookie varieties!


Let's go around the clock:

12: selfmade Schokoladeprasselplaetzchen, I posted the recipe in the last cookie letter..

1: Anise cookies - they are close to Macaroon-style cookies, with beaten egg white, but also added flower. Very dry and crunchy, and nicely anisy.

3: Cinnamon wafers - those are special, one needs optimally a special device to bake them - like for normal waffles, but heavier, making them thinner, and imprinting different pictures in them.
The recipes I saw are simple and similar to this: 250 g butter, 8 eggs, 400g flour, 400g sugar, 40g cinnamon, mix it up, put little portions into the waffle baker and bake it..

5-6: these are tiny Weihnachtsstollen! Stollen are actually big cakes with dried fruits in them, check out the wiki description, it's pretty complete.. These cookies though are the tiny modern version for people like me... I don't like Stollen.. too much dough. Too much dried fruit that got a strange texture when you bite on it.. But the cookies: one type is filled with ground poppyseeds, one with marzipan, just like the real big Stollen can be, but they are so tiny, that there is a much higher ratio of filling to dough! Lovely... :)
Stollen is typically baked weeks before christmas and stored wrapped in waxpaper in an airtight container.

7: Spritzgebaeck ("spritz" is best translated by 'squirt') - they are made with butter, sugar, eggs, and a little flour. The very creamy dough is put into a bag with tip cut off, and squirted onto a baking sheet in different simple forms (typically just circles). They are best eaten very fresh.

9: Schokolebkuchen - these are similar to little gingerbreads that are covered in dark chocolate. Also best when they are fresh, or stored well and airtight not to get very dry.

10: Anisplaetzchen - yes, another one! This one is acutally an Anisstern, i.e. anise star. Obviously. It is a hazelnut or almond macaroon, with anise sugar icing brushed on.

11: simple, classical hazelnut macaroons - best fresh out of the oven...

That complete's this years christmas cookie section - one should not need many more than these...
Hope you didn't eat too many! :)

Power to the wineries!

Counterintuitive point #1: Accelerating aging is a good thing.
Counterintuitive point #2: Car batteries & wine go well together.


Chinese researchers seem to have had these paradoxical thoughts. They exposed young red wine to strong electrical fields, let sommeliers test the result, et voilà: the wine had magically matured, improved beyond wildest imaginations.

Here's the recipe from their abstract:
"An optimum treatment, with electric field 600 V/cm and treatment time 3 min, was identified to accelerate wine aging, which made the harsh and pungent raw wine become harmonious and dainty."

Empowering your local winery may soon get a whole new meaning!


But for now, keep your powertools & batteries away from your glass..

Christmas cookies

It's time to get started, seriously. December 6th and no single christmas cookie baked yet? Unbelievable...

But, here we go, the first badge of cookies, quite a selection of quickly whipped up little critters that will disappear in no time, but remind me on how easy it is to make these things, if you're simpleminded like I am.. :)
There they are:
- chocolate cookies ("Schokoladen Prasselplaetzchen"), some covered in hazelnuts, some in sugar
The recipe is from a Chocolate cookbook from teh Bechtermuenz Verlag: melt 200g dark chocolate with 90g butter, add 115g sugar and vanilla, beat in 3 eggs, and then add 200 g flour with 1/2 tea spoon baking powder, and a little salt. They ask for 25 cocoa powder as well, which I did not add. Let the dough sit cold for a bit before you form it into little balls, roll them in ground hazelnuts, or powder sugar, and then bake them for 10-15 minutes at 160 deg C (320 deg F).

- hazelnut macaroons
I had some leftover eggwhite, added sugar and hazelnuts, and baked it at 400 deg F for about 10 minutes.

- coconut cookies
These are not quite macaroons because there's egg yolk in them - that's why they are so yellow. Temperature is about the same as for the hazelnut macaroons.

- Spekulatius cookies
These are based on flour, baking powder, sugar, egg, a little heavy cream, and, spekulatius spice, which contains cinnamon, orange and lemon peel, cardamom, cloves, coriander and nutmeg.

Spekulatius is actually a traditional central european christmas cookie, which is entirely different from what I made here - I just threw somewhat randomly things together that result in something with a good taste and a cookie appearance, and coincidentally I had Spekulatius spice to add to the mix :-)
But here's how real Spekulatius looks like:
Check out this recipe for Spekulatius (supposedly belgian, but they are very similar in Germany), a little more work than I was willing to put in today.. but well worth it!

Happy Nikolaus-Day!

Fire it up!

Another cold day, and the temperatures are a good reason to think up other ways of keeping warm.

Around this time of the year, there is a great tradition in Tuebingen, an very old picturesque town in southern Germany..On the "Haagtorplatz", outdoors, the movie "Die Feuerzangenbowle" is shown at night, when it is freezing cold, sometimes snowing. People gather, wrapped up in woolen scarves to protect themselves from the icy wind, and watch this great movie, and drink the "Feuerzangenbowle", prepared on the spot, for a huge crowd - here's how that looks & sounds:


Feuer (fire) zangen (tongs) bowle (punch) - hear how it's pronounced - is Gluehwein (mulled wine), with a sugar cone placed over it, the sugar cone being soaked in rum, and then lit. The sugar burns, more rum is poured over it, while it burns, it all drips into the mulled wine. When the sugar has all disappeared in the wine, it is ready to drink - warm and highly alcoholic, and really really tasty..

Watch this video to see how it is done - you might want to do that at a good distance from your smoke-detectors...

Spice it up!

It is still cold. My rum has gone the path that all good rum, in my house, has to take eventually, and has disappeared in those last sips of hot tea. Grog, that is.

Now what?

I will follow the leads of my ancestors who had the great insight to heat up whatever alcoholic beverage they could find, and add spices as they found appropriate for the season.

So, how about a glass of hot wine?

The "Gluehwein" (glowing wine, or mulled wine) concept is simple: warm up red wine with sugar and christmas spices, such as cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves, and a slice or two of orange (some add lemon, I prefer orange). If you let the wine stand for a while first with the spices, and then heat them up to warm them for 10-20 minutes (without ever boiling it) the spices will nicely get into the wine. You can try now and then to test whether it needs more sugar, or more time to spice it up.

Here is a nice recipe you might want to try, and here another one that sounds great as well. Most recipes I found online use water. I never do that, the wine itself with sugar & spices is just fine.. however, admittedly, somewhat deadly. Even more deadly is this one: with brandy! Sounds great..
Try & find out what you like.

In germany, you will find Gluehwein sold on every christmas market, in bottles or cardboard boxes (like juice/milk boxes) for sale in the grocerie store, all ready to warm & drink, and there are Gluehwein-spice teabags as well that can be put into the wine while heating it up.

It'll make you happy and fuzzy and guaranteed very warm..
Enjoy!

Heat it up!

It's frickin' cold. It really is. I've been freezing on my way home, and now, two hours and two bowls of hot spicy thai-style chicken coconut broccoli soup laterI finally feel that my bodytemperature has somewhat recovered.
To get it back up to normal & cozy, I do what is a custom thing to do among freezing people in Germany.. I drink a Grog.
Originally, it may have been hot tea with a splash of rum, possibly after 18th-century British admiral Edward Vernon, nicknamed Old Grog for the grogram fabric cloak he wore (although wiki gives various possible backgrounds), who made his sailors drink rum with water, sugar and lime to help against scurvy.
But the following recipe, the best I know, gives you the spirit of what it is about - a warm, and warming, drink at a cold winter night:

Rum muss.
Zucker kann.
Wasser braucht nicht.

Rum a must. Sugar optional. Water not needed.

If this recipe is too light for you, here is another one from one of my favorite writers that is more "spirited":

Kurt Tucholsky:
"Aus meinem Privatkochbuch: Man nehme guten alten Whiskey, fülle ihn in eine nicht zu kleine Suppenterrine, rühre gut um, und geniesse das Getränk - soweit angängig - nüchtern. Anmerkung: Der Whiskey muss von Zeit zu Zeit erneuert werden."

From my private cookbook: take good old whiskey, fill it into a soup bowl, stir well, and enjoy the beverage - as far as agreeable - without food. Note: the whiskey has to be renewed from time to time.
Note from me: there is no harm in using Rum instead of Whiskey.

Now I feel warmer.. :)

Fruity animals

To continue with the fruit-meat combinations, here another one I made quite a while ago:
Pork-apple stew
This is based on onions seared to being soft & golden, and pork pieces fried to have some color; at that point I added pieces of good textured apples, fried them a little bit as well, spiced it all up with a dash of cayenne pepper, and lastly took the heat off with cider vinegar, adding more fruity acid and giving it the final kick.
Simmering that cider vinegar away to have everything blend together gives you the chance to adjust how sour it tastes - some of it will cook off, but don't forget that the Cayenne pepper gains in power as you cook this longer...

A good idea is also to move this a little more in the indian corner, by starting to fry onions with cumin, turmeric and coriander seeds, and maybe some fenugrek, which adds a almost meaty flavor to the whole concept. Less acid in that case is key, but more cayenne might be good.

Any other interesting meat & fruit ideas? Let me know!

Cordon vert

My last night's dinner reminded me on another variation on the theme of fruit, pork & cheese.. Cordon vert.
No worries, you have not forgotten anything essential, I made that one up. Still good.

A dish very typical for rural area german restaurants is "Cordon bleu" (blue ribbon, supposedly not named after the culinary school, but after the blue ribbon of excellence), also common in Austria, I assume. It is veal cut open and filled with cheese and ham, battered and fried, similar to a "Wiener Schnitzel", just stuffed, as can be seen on the right.


My "cordon vert" (green ribbon), first of all, is with pork, i.e. makes the ham obsolete, is not battered, has a different cheese (correct, my alltime favorite gruyere), and is green, because it contains fruit/veggie matter. The upscale healthy choice, sort of.

This is before frying it:Pork cutlet or pork chop without bones, filled with apple slices and gruyere, fried with black pepper, parsley and spring onions.
This is it when it's done, ready for the happy eater:
Enjoy :)

Himmel und... heaven too

Do you know "Himmel & Erde"? It is a traditional german dish with potatoes and apples. Enough said, happiness included.
There is something else going in that direction, combining potatoes & pears - no discussion there either. Yum. (Does anyone know that dish under some name? Am I making that up? No matter, tastes great..)
One step further: add gruyere to the above. Okay? Easy, that is basically nothing else but a traditional Raclette (with gruyere instead of raclette cheese, admittedly): hot potatoes, good cheese molten on top, pear in some form (admittedly, not in Eau de vie form, but that is a very good candidate for accompanying or following this dish).

Yes?
Oh, yes...
Here is today's heavenly dinner:
starting with olive oil, one layer of sliced potatoe, chopped onion, garlic, nutmeg, salt, & black pepper.
Next layer: fried pork chop cubes.
next: pear, in this case fresh from my friends garden, i.e. locally & organically grown, and so tasty on their own..
Then: sliced/cubed gruyere (Kaltbach, i.e. aged in a cave, that is the reserve of gruyere... imagine that!)
Bake it for 25 minutes at 400-420 deg F (or til it smells amazing & the potatos are soft).
This is how it looks then:Himmel, heaven, and then some..
bon appetit :)

From goat cheese cheesecake to salty plums

It's been a while.. business kept me busy, and led me to a trip to Washington D.C., which resulted in me eating my way through the various amazing places there are in that city..

First, DC is a great place for seafood, especially compared to Nashville.. (go figure)I encountered a seafood place that is seriously worth mentioning - very pricy, but a real experience:
DC Coast, with a menu ranging from 'caramelized porcini gnocchi' to 'crab boudin', all very eclectic and creative, but in a very good way. I decided on a tuna dinner, starting with a Tuna tartare, à la ceviche, with lime, cilantro, red onion, and coconut milk, and lightly spicy, an extremely delicious combination that was served in half a coconut on ice. My entrée was 'seared yellowfin tuna', with strips of apple, and a sauce made from foie gras, and one from sweet onions. I'm not sure I tasted foie gras in there, and it therefore had a pretentious touch to it, but the sauces were very tasty and both supported and contrasted the tuna taste really well, very enjoyable dish. As a dessert I chose the 'Chevre cheese cake', made from goat cheese from a local farm, on a pecan cookie crust and sprinkled with caramelized pineapple and kiwi pieces... outstanding.. :)

In the days following this dinner, I mostly pursued my interest in chinese or generally asian food. Right at the entrance to china town, behind the big gate, is Tony Cheng's restaurant; on the first floor, mongolian cuisine, on the second floor, chinese and: Dim Sum. Living in Nashville, I am deprived of the better chinese food, as you will hear from all chinese living here.. one of the few praised exceptions is Golden Coast (on West End Ave) serving Dim Sum on the weekend - knowing that, I had to try the supposedly even more real deal in DC.
Check out Tony Cheng's Dim Sum menu for yourself - it sounds already really good, and is actually very affordable when you share with someone. My choices were a little limited to the carts that came by in the first 20 minutes of me being there - both me and my colleague really were hungry and could not wait for more offers.. so we had spare ribs in black bean sauce, some noodle dish with shrimp and peas in it, roasted duck, and fried sesame balls; I liked it very much, and every time I am astonished how much asian food I can eat and still not feel as stuffed as I feel with most other food styles.

Another chinese restaurant that was really worth going back to was close to Dupont Circle, City lights of China. The best one can do in my experience, is go to a chinese restaurant with chinese friends and colleagues, and let them order a whole bunch of food. With this approach, we ended up eating steamed bass, cantonese style, with ginger and scallions, steamed spinach, ma po tofu, and fried shrimps in their shells. This was a dinner for four, we only almost finished everything, and walked home very happy in the freezing cold night :)

Last on my asian dinner experiences is a little vietnamese place that might not look like much - but the vietnamese wife of my friend was there once, desperately wanted to go back and she sure was right. The place is Pho An in the White Oak shopping center in Silver Spring, at the end of the red metro line. We had garden rolls (with white rice, shrimp, spring onion, rolled into rice paper) for starters, dipped into a peanut sauce that we made spicy by adding pepper paste. Then we ate a big bowl of 'Pho', a noodle soup, in this case with beef slices, that are still red and cooking when it comes to the table, in a broth that has a very complex flavor, and apparently is based on secret recipes that no restaurant shares with anyone. To add into the soup, there is a big plate full with bean sprouts, limes, cilantro, jalapeno pepper slices, and leafy green vegetables that I did not recognize. Who cares, throw it all in, be happy, such a beautiful rich dish to eat at an icy cold winter night.

What was really interesting to me were the drinks - I tried 'salty plum', which appears to be water with salt and sugar and whole and fuzzy pieces of dried plum. Stir it all up, and it looks very ... strange (as you might be able to see on the right). It tastes very strange as well, slightly sour, a little sweet, for my normal taste way too salty, but somehow it is good and refreshing and I kept thinking about what this taste is about and why I cannot tell whether I really like or dislike it.. odd. But.. good. Somehow. :D

Aside from the asian adventures (I had more than the ones I mentioned here): at the First Cup Cafe, right at the convention center, you can sit down in a big armchair, grab one of the books off the window seals, or look at the photograph exhibition they have hanging up, and enjoy the best Avocado-Eggplant sandwich I have ever eaten or imagined.
I went back there and had it a second time. Amazing. Go get it!

Election Spaetzle

What better than making and eating Spaetzle on this election night, while listening to npr and watching the NYTimes statistics crawl higher and higher on the blue side of the political spectrum.. I'm optimistic, & hungry, and I have leftover from last night that is perfect for this, so - Spaetzle it is.

First, a little background: Spaetzle is a very traditional staple food of southern Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Spaetzle are essentially egg noodles.

The main ingredients are flour, eggs, sometimes a little water, and salt. The major fluidity of the dough comes from the eggs. Consistency and texture of the dough depend on how the Spaetzle will be finally shaped.
There are three ways to get them into the boiling or simmering water:
they can be scraped from a wooden board, that's what I did tonight.resulting in thicker, lengthy, very irregular shaped Spaetzle. This requires a thicker dough as shown in the photo of my tonights dough (that did not include any water) almost like a dumpling dough.
Or they are pressed through a Spaetzlespresse, resulting in longer and thinner Spaetzle that resemble more typical noodles (needing a more liquid dough), or, lastly, they are scraped through a device called Spaetzleshobel (this dough is typically the most liquid of all three), resulting in small Spaetzle-blobs, called "Knoepfle" (little buttons).


The Spaetzle need to hang out in the simmering/boiling water til they start to rise. At that point they can be lifted out and added to a bowl of already waiting Spaetzle-friends..

Adding a little bit of butter to that bowl helps them not caking together. Also, draining them well after lifting them out of the water makes them more easily separateable.

At this point you can (and I do) dive in and eat the hell out of them.. they are sooooo good. And so easy to do..

The Spaetzle idea came to me last night, actually, but after making the "sauce" I had intended I was too lazy for Spaetzle-making. But, there is plenty leftover, and this is what it is: a little stew from veal, dried porcini, and carrots, with onion, and fresh herbs from my garden (thyme, rosemary, sage, a little lavender), as well as bay leaves and juniper berries to get the whole thing a little bit a hint of game..
This is how it looked last night :-) And this is how it looks with Spaetzle :-D
What a difference.. !
The polls look like Pennsylvania and Ohio go to Obama, which means I'm stuffed & tastewise happy, but also politically quite a bit more relaxed.. optimism paid out, the celebration Spaetzle turned out amazing and so did the context.
Now I need a Schnaps :)

Nectar of the gods

Two nights ago, I had the pleasure to taste mead home-made by a friend's friend, lovely people willing to share a godly drink with me..
Mead, in german called "Met", also known as honeywine, or, in the old germanic and wikings time, as drink or "nectar of the gods". They knew why they called it that..

It contains all the good stuff from honey, lots of vitamins and minerals; warmed it tastes wonderful at cold winter nights, and helps against colds, both warming you up, soothing a sore throat, making you nicely sleepy and providing biochemical support for your immune system to fight off the intruders.

As one of the oldest, or the oldest alcoholic drink known to mankind, it deserves a special hommage: it is known since about 7000 BC from China (!), at least 3500 BC in egypt, and has been brewed by the Germanics in central Europe around 1000 BC, long before the Wikings roamed the region.

One idea how the Germanics came to make mead so early is the following: for long trips by sea, bee pollen were stored on board and eaten by the crew to prevent skorbut. To protect the pollen, they were covered with a layer of honey. If the honey was too young, and thus contained too much water, or if the container was not air-tight such that the pollen could draw water from the outside air, then spontaneous fermentation could occur. The resulting mead was an unexpected surprise for the Germanics, and thus was considered a gift of the gods.Making mead caught on easily with the Wikings, who liked roman wine, but lived in regions too cold to grow grapes.

Wiki tells us this how they might have made it:

“

Take of spring water what quantity you please, and make it more than blood-warm, and dissolve honey in it till 'tis strong enough to bear an egg, the breadth of a shilling; then boil it gently near an hour, taking off the scum as it rises; then put to about nine or ten gallons seven or eight large blades of mace, three nutmegs quartered, twenty cloves, three or four sticks of cinnamon, two or three roots of ginger, and a quarter of an ounce of Jamaica pepper; put these spices into the kettle to the honey and water, a whole lemon, with a sprig of sweet-briar and a sprig of rosemary; tie the briar and rosemary together, and when they have boiled a little while take them out and throw them away; but let your liquor stand on the spice in a clean earthen pot till the next day; then strain it into a vessel that is fit for it; put the spice in a bag, and hang it in the vessel, stop it, and at three months draw it into bottles. Be sure that 'tis fine when 'tis bottled; after 'tis bottled six weeks 'tis fit to drink.[17]

”

In simple words: take lots of honey, add some water, maybe some lemon juice, brewer's yeast and some additional nutrients for the yeast, put all that in a big jar with gas valve so it won't explode, and let it do its thing.

And, maybe a year later or less, fill the golden liquid into bottles and distribute it to friends.
That's where I come in, have a dear friend come over with one of those bottles, and we drink to our health all night. :)

Insalata germanica

As a follow-up to the Oktoberfest post, I would like to highlight a few more german dishes that were featured at the fest (as sides to the staple dishes), but never make it into the major news - that has to end.


Kartoffelsalat Bacon pieces and onions are fried to golden/crispiness. Add some plain vinegar, and, after this does some sizzling action, also beef stock, and maybe some fresh parsley - this whole happiness is poured over boiled and cooled down, sliced potatoes. Mix well and store cool for a couple of hours or over night.
The dressing will soak in to the potatoes and will add to the potato salad the appeal of fried potatoes with bacon - together this is a refreshing, hearty dish that can be a centerpiece to remember.
At the recent Oktoberfest, people were raving about this salad made by the hosts after their either bavarian and saxonian recipes- when I made it in the past, especially americans were really intrigued by it. Some, because it reminded them on what their german grandmother used to make, others simply because. Not surprising to me :-)


Bohnensalat mit Gurke salad from steamed green beans, with cucumber slices and white onions - very lightly acidic with plain vinegar. The beans typically need a little more salt than other salads, in my experience. Actually, I have never had this with cucumbers in it and found it to be a really nice summery take on the very common german green bean salad.


Gurkensalat Cucumbers are sliced thin and mixed with a dressing made from heavy cream, a pinch of salt, maybe a little white pepper, where I grew up also lots of dill, and white, plain vinegar. Be courageous with the vinegar, the acid helps the cucumber taste standing out and makes this not just a side dish, but elevates it to a standalone that is great, cool and fresh on a hot summer night.

This salad, as the above as well, improves immensely from sitting for a couple of hours - the vinegar gets to better extract all the goodies from the other ingredients, the dill distributes its aromas, and the cucumbers have more time to penetrate the cream with their flavor. It's so good..

Actually, with all these salads, acidity is a really important tool - the potato salad, for example, changes attitude entirely when you give it some sour edge, it gets so much more than just cold fried potatoes with some bacon on them..

Strudel & Streusel

What would a real german party be, after all the serious staple foods, piggly, salads and the such, without ending on a sweet note? It would simply not be.

Here is the outline of the dessert list of the recent Oktoberfest that I was lucky to be invited to:

- Kirschstreuselkuchen
- Apfelstrudel
- Bundtkuchen

Lets do a little language lesson:
Streusel [ˈʃtrɔyzl̩] (pronounciation) can be translated as granules or crumbles. You can see the crumbles on the pictured pie, that actually looks very similar to the Kirschstreuselkuchen at the Oktoberfest.


Streusel recipe
Streusel are made like this: use
- 150 g butter
- 150g sugar
- 200 g flour
Mix it all together with the butter being somewhat warm but not molten, until the mix turns crumbly. You can mix it with your hands or longer in the food processor to make thicker Streusel.
Sprinkle them on top of your cake or pie before baking and they will be a great crunchy, yummy topping that is often more enticing than the cake itself... as a kid I was often stealing the Streusel from the simple Streuselkuchen, because they were the best part of the whole thing..

Strudel [ˈʃtru:dl̩] (pronounciation), can be translated as vortex or swirl, or maelstrom. Maybe you can see how the dough & filling swirl inside this beauty?


Strudel is a pretty complicated and labour-intense pie; here you can find a very detailed and pictured description about that process. I tried it myself once, the Topfenstrudel variety (more commonly known is Apfelstrudel), and had in the end a big clump of dough next to a big clump of filling in the oven. It tasted amazing, though..


Bundtkuchen - this cake is named after its shape, and the pan it is made in, the Bundt-pan (see a picture of the cake below). It is often also called Guglhupf, which is not entirely correct - the Guglhupf pan results in a slightly different looking cake, as you can see on the right. It also is typically made with a yeast dough, which, to my knowledge is not true for Bundtcake.


The cake at the Oktoberfest was more in a Bundtcake shape, and was actually a chocolate cake based on a "Ruehrteig" (german for stirred dough).

Ruehrteig recipe
Mix
- 300g flour,
- 300g molten butter,
- 300g sugar,
- 300g eggs (about 5-6 eggs).
together to a smooth dough (molten butter comes last). You will notice that at first it is very fluid, but gets thicker with time. You don't want to stir it too long or it will turn greyish and a little too tough.
Add
- 50-100g cocoa powder
to the dough, maybe add some chocolate chips. Essentially, just get the taste of the dough right to your preference - some like more cocoa (me!), some less.
Pour this dough into whichever shape pan you prefer, and bake it for about 40 minutes at 425 deg F (about 220 deg C).



This base dough is very versatile, you can put anything in it. For example, replace a third of the flour with roasted ground hazelnuts, and add a little bit of rum in the end.
Or mix in pieces of 1-2 cubed apples and a cup of raisins, and a teaspoon of cinnamon in the final dough, and batter the pan with sliced almonds.
Or mix half of the dough with cocoa powder, pour the white dough into your baking pan, pour the chocolate dough on top, and swirl the two doughs into another using a fork - there's your classical marble cake.

The possibilities are endless.

Brezeln

Depending on which kind of meat is available, you can find Kloesse on your Oktoberfest menu, or Knoedel, dumplings made either from potatoes or bread. A real staple food of Oktoberfest, unthinkable of not being present, and also commonly served in beer gardens all over Germany, however, are Brezeln, or, in bavaria, "Brezen", specifically Laugenbrezeln.

These on the picture were actually made by me and found lots of old and new friends at the Oktoberfest. They are based on a recipe from a book ( "Das Kochbuch aus dem Saarland") I keep referring to a lot - here is how they are made:

make a yeast dough from 500 g flour, 40 g yeast (or 1 pack of dry yeast), 1 tablespoon of sugar, 1/8 l milk, 2 eggs, a pinch of salt, 125 g butter (unsalted, please).
Let the dough rise and be happy, and then take little pieces, roll them into long finger-thick snakes and tie them into the Brezel-shape.
Let them sit again to rise a little and prepare the 'Lauge' that gives the Laugen-Brezel its name & special flavor: boil 1l water with 100g baking soda. When the water is clear, let it be simmering or just lightly boiling. Carefully slide the brezeln individually into the water (they sometimes like to unwind if you're not careful enough..), let them float in the water for about 30 seconds.
Take them out, put them on a baking sheet, let them cool down a little, brush with egg yolk (I mix it with a little water to make it easier to brush on), sprinkle coarse sea salt on, and bake at 220 deg C (425 deg F) about 10-20 minutes. Check back early to see how brown they look - when they look great, they taste great - eat them as fresh as possible, still warm they are really addictive.

Sauerkraut

THE one major veggie item on the Oktoberfest menu has to be Sauerkraut!
Do I need to comment on this? Maybe a little - there are big differences in how much Sauerkraut one eats, and how it is prepared, across Germany. Actually, germans do not eat it a whole lot to begin with. A few times in the winter, and that's it. I've never seen Sauerkraut being eaten in spring or summer until I came to the US, and never ever on a sausage.

Making it involves frying bacon, and adding the Kraut, adding spices (cloves, juniper berries, bay leaves, pepper, salt), and, according to one's preference, mellowing agents to reduce the acidity of the Sauerkraut. This almost always is butter, and can be, in addition, pieces of apple. Some people throw uncountable numbers of butter sticks into the pot (after it is cooked well and almost ready, the butter should not be heated up too high), others just add a little spoonful, almost as a spice. This choice also instantly changes the way this dish behaves as either a side or center of the meal.

If you are into do-it yourself the whole way, here's a link to make Sauerkraut yourself. It is very healthy - I'm not sure if I would trust it for dealing with birdflu though as that site claims...

Rostwurst failure

I failed. Miserably. There was Bratwurst, and I did not even try it!
Yes, shame on me. But, honestly, I wasn't in the mood. The Nashville-Oktoberfest Bratwurst got many good reviews, though, and looked alright, and can be bought at Publix, so I heard. Go, try it.

Anyhow, in the context of german food, I need a different thing than what you can get at Publix - here's my Bratwurst concept:

You go to a little takeaway. A very heavy elderly lady with bleached curly hair that appears a little on the greasy side after a day of hanging out in that little fryer-world, in a white work-dress, almost like a labcoat, grabs a couple of those long, slender sausages, clear casing, filled with white, finely ground meat, with very small speckles from parsley. She throws them on the grill, rolls a few previously started ones around to get nicely brown outside. She takes a white wheat bun, soft inside, with a lightly crunchy crust, that makes a crackling sound as she cuts it half open with that huge knife, picks one of those beautifully browned, partly broken up sausages for me, and shoves it into the bun, so sausage looks out on both ends. She hands it to me, I use the mustard-push-device to cover the sausage along its whole length - there it is. Not even just Bratwurst. It is Rostwurst.

So, yes, I haven't had Bratwurst at the Oktoberfest. Don't blame me, I'm spoiled. :)

Kraut-Pork-Brezen-Beer

Let's continue with the Oktoberfest menu before Oktober is over...
What should such a menu feature? Sauerkraut, pork, Brezeln, Beer should be the basics, and that's what we'll deal with here:

The Oktoberfest staples


****

THE one major veggie item on the Oktoberfest menu has to be Sauerkraut!
Do I need to comment on this? Maybe a little - there are big differences in how much Sauerkraut one eats, and how it is prepared, across Germany. Actually, germans do not eat it a whole lot to begin with. A few times in the winter, and that's it. I've never seen Sauerkraut being eaten in spring or summer until I came to the US, and never ever on a sausage.

Making it involves frying bacon, and adding the Kraut, adding spices (cloves, juniper berries, bay leaves, pepper, salt), and, according to one's preference, mellowing agents to reduce the acidity of the Sauerkraut. This almost always is butter, and can be in addition pieces of apple. Some people throw uncountable numbers of butter sticks into the pot (after it is cooked well and almost ready, the butter should not be heated up too high), others just add a little spoonful, almost as a spice. This choice also instantly changes the way this dish behaves as either a side or center of the meal.

If you are into do-it yourself the whole way, here's a link to make Sauerkraut yourself. It is very healthy - I'm not sure if I would trust it for dealing with birdflu though as that site claims...


***

Depending on which kind of meat is available, you can find Kloesse on your Oktoberfest menu, or Knoedel, dumplings made either from potatoes or bread. A real staple food of Oktoberfest, unthinkable of not being present, and also commonly served in beer gardens all over Germany, however, are Brezeln, or, in bavaria, "Brezen", specifically Laugenbrezeln.

These on the picture were actually made by me and found lots of old and new friends at the Oktoberfest. They are based on a recipe from a book ( "Das Kochbuch aus dem Saarland") I keep referring to a lot - here is how they are made:

make a yeast dough from 500 g flour, 40 g yeast (or 1 pack of dry yeast), 1 tablespoon of sugar, 1/8 l milk, 2 eggs, a pinch of salt, 125 g butter (unsalted, please).
Let the dough rise and be happy, and then take little pieces, roll them into long finger-thick snakes and tie them into the Brezel-shape.
Let them sit again to rise a little and prepare the 'Lauge' that gives the Laugen-Brezel its name & special flavor: boil 1l water with 100g baking soda. When the water is clear, let it be simmering or just lightly boiling. Carefully slide the brezeln individually into the water (they sometimes like to unwind if you're not careful enough..), let them float in the water for about 30 seconds.
Take them out, put them on a baking sheet, let them cool down a little, brush with egg yolk (I mix it with a little water to make it easier to brush on), sprinkle coarse sea salt on, and bake at 220 deg C (425 deg F) about 10-20 minutes. Check back early to see how brown they look - when they look great, they taste great - eat them as fresh as possible, still warm they are really addictive.


***

I failed. Miserably. There was Bratwurst, and I did not even try it!
Yes, shame on me. But, honestly, I wasn't in the mood. The Nashville-Oktoberfest Bratwurst got many good reviews, though, and looked alright, and can be bought at Publix, so I heard. Go, try it.

Anyhow, in the context of german food, I need a different thing than what you can get at Publix - here's my Bratwurst concept:

You go to a little takeaway. A very heavy elderly lady with bleached curly hair that appears a little on the greasy side after a day of hanging out in that little fryer-world, in a white work-dress, almost like a labcoat, grabs a couple of those long, slender sausages, clear casing, filled with white, finely ground meat, with very small speckles from parsley. She throws them on the grill, rolls a few previously started ones around to get nicely brown outside. She takes a white wheat bun, soft inside, with a lightly crunchy crust, that makes a crackling sound as she cuts it half open with that huge knife, picks one of those beautifully browned, partly broken up sausages for me, and shoves it into the bun, so sausage looks out on both ends. She hands it to me, I use the mustard-push-device to cover the sausage along its whole length - there it is. Not even just Bratwurst. It is Rostwurst.

So, yes, I haven't had Bratwurst at the Oktoberfest. Don't blame me, I'm spoiled. :)


***

Beer - beer? Yes, well.. I'm not big on bavarian Weissbier. Sorry. The Oktoberfest in Nashville actually did not feature that either - there was some good stuff from the local Blackstone brewery, something a little on the malty side, I forgot which one.. Nashville is actually a really nice city for beer drinkers - there are several small breweries, each with distinct specialties that one can get seriously used to. If you get the chance, get a sampling set and an appetizing cheese plate & roasted nuts at hidden special treat Yazoo, then go to Big River on Broadway, have a heavy southern dinner, like Magnolia ribs with your magnolia brown ale, watch cowboy hats in horse carts passing by and listen to the distant noise of the downtown music scene, then move up-town to Boscos on 21st for another sample set & apple crisp for dessert...
and if you don't have enough yet, join me at 12th South Taproom to find more beers to select from then you can count at that point..

Savoy/Savoir vivre

Some things are too good not to be shared..

I love Wirsing, which would be "Savoy Cabbage" in the US. Great texture, great flavour, that is not as intensely cabbagey as some other veggies out there and more nut-tasting.
It can easily stand out with fried bacon & onion, be entirely happy in a stew with grapes and pears to accompany a piece of pork loin, and be a wonderful casing for mushroom-dumplings..

Another great way to deal with this cabbage is to blanch the leaves, fill them with ground hazelnuts and Gruyère pieces, roll the leaves individually up and lay them out next to each other in a baking pan, make a nice, fresh, savory tomatosauce, pour it over the cabbage rolls & bake this whole thing for about 20 minutes at estimated 425 deg F. This gives a really nice, late summer, early fall appetizer, that brings out the best in savoy cabbage.

I just recreated this dish, much simpler, and almost as amazing: fry half a chopped red onion in a little bit olive oil, and add early on ground hazelnuts; let them roast and fry a little, then add a third chopped savoy cabbage, and two tomatoes in big pieces. Add salt and pepper, a little water, and put a lid on for about 10 minutes. Lower the heat a little to let the vegetable steam lightly. Check back early to make sure that the cabbage retains some crispiness and keeps the nice color.
I just ate three plates of this (the last is on the photo), after grating a special cheese over the steaming hazelnut-veggie: Kaltbach, from Switzerland, lets Gruyère mature in a sandstone cave close to Lucerne for an extended period to a creamy flavorful nuttiness.
The cheese makes the savoy cabbage promote its own nut-aspects, and so do the roasted hazelnuts. The onion supports the savoriness of the whole dish, and the tomatoes bring in the acidity of the late summer.

That is Savoy cabbage style savoir vivre.

Best Oktoberfest in town

Last saturday was Oktoberfest. In Nashville. No, not in Germantown, I had that pleasure once and found it, speaking from a culturally insulted point-of-view, rather dreadful.. well, maybe not that bad, but I was far from impressed and far from entertained, let's leave it at that.
But this one!!
That was real.

Oktoberfest as it is known in the USA, is not celebrated all over Germany, but is very specifically a bavarian festival, based on bavarian beer, food, culture and traditions. So, to have the real deal, it helps a whole lot to have real Bavarians there to bring in all these elements.

This Oktoberfest's hosts are a wonderful couple, she originally from Leipzig, he from Munich - she wearing a real Dirndl and looking pretty like the Okotober-Queen in it, and him in real Lederhosen, with a traditional Bierseidel (a ceramic beer mug with a tin lid), with visiting family, parents and kids and cousin, from Germany, all wearing traditional bavarian clothing.

Everything was right (albeit in a funny-silly party setting): the people, the looks, the tradition, the music (until someone started the Bluegrass), the atmosphere of the woody, tin mug decorated, house (if you ignore persian rugs and other art pieces from all over the world), a woodcarved Til Eulenspiegel overlooking the dining room and holding his mirror up to everyone at the table, with a porch overlooking a hill and foresty valley, in the most serene, almost alpine setting you can possibly find in Nashville.

And, importantly, the food, home made by people who grew up with that sort of thing, know how it is supposed to taste, and have cooked these dishes themselves since decades.

So much for the prelude praise - the menu is coming up in separate posts .. :)