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.. :)