Nom-Nomnom

Still not hungry?

2011-06-09T15:12:00.001+02:00

Remember my slightly rambling post about Flammkuchen from two years ago?

Probably not, though you should, really.
And just as a little reminder, here's a picture of a batch of Flammkuchen I made recently.

Now imagine this with a nicely chilled glass of white wine.
Still not hungry?

my own private tsukubai

2011-05-30T18:16:00.000+02:00

Completely unrelated to food, I have spent a few days of my recent vacation building a hypertufa tsukubai for our garden. (It's the brownish bowl on the lower right in the picture.)

It turned out really, really good and I am just so happy that it all worked out and looks just like I hoped it would.

YAY!

Dorie Greenspan & my marriage

2011-05-30T18:03:00.000+02:00

This year for christmas, my parents gave me a copy of Dorie Greenspan's
'around my french table'. A beautiful, charming book, full of equally charming and very french recipies.

Naturally, there's a whole bucket of recipies that I will try from this book, but one of them had my lovely wife instantly squealing with glee on her couch in the kitchen - proper éclairs. Vanilla éclairs, of all things. Right there, in her hands, with a husband easily swayed to make some for her.

Maybe I should add some more background information, otherwise my darling wife gets to look even weirder than usual in my posts.

She loves éclairs, those longish choux-pastry things, sugar-frosted and filled with pudding that you can get in any French pâtisserie deserving the name. Especially, she loves them with plain frosting and vanilla filling.
Unfortunately, that's apparently the least popular flavour in France, for they stock them only in the rarest cases. Which, naturally, leads to each of our vacations in France including at least one scavenger hunt through all bakeries in town hunting for vanilla éclairs.

In one case, we just gave up and asked our favourite pâtisserie in Cenac-et-St.-Julien how many we would have to order for them to consider making some vanilla ones in addition to their wide array of coffee-, chocolate- or caramel flavoured ones.
Suffice to say that her pleading looks and my 'rustic' French seemed to sway them rather easily, though we still ended up with a slighty embarassing amount of vanilla éclairs the next day. Though it was only embarassing in so far as we finished all of them that afternoon, but that's another matter entirely.

So basically, being able to make vanilla éclairs on my own would be a really grand thing in our household. 'Ganz großes Kino', as a friend of ours would say, 'big movie magic'.

And what can I say? Dorie might just have saved my marriage. Not that it was in any need of saving right now. But if ever there comes the day that I am in doubt, I'll now be able to whip up a batch of vanilla éclairs, and it'll work wonders. I just know.

This recipe is treasure. The éclairs are just as they are supposed to be, firm and rich and sweet and creamy and just right. Just look at them, lying in their little box, ready to be given away. For that recipe alone, Dorie Greenspan's book has earned a special place on my bookshelf, and in my heart.

vanilla éclairs
From Dorie Greenspan's 'around my french table', measures converted by me, so it's all my fault.
(makes about twenty)

for the filling

6 egg yolks

100g sugar

40g cornstarch
1,5 teaspoon vanilla extract
510g milk
50g butter

for the choux pastry
130g milk
120g water
110g butter
10g sugar
1/2 teaspoon of salt
140g flour
4 eggs

for the icing (my style)
250g powdered sugar
30g warm water
50g butter

on the day before serving
For the filling, combine the yolks, starch, sugar and vanilla in a bowl and whisk until smooth.

Bring the milk to a gentle boil and take off the heat. Gently pour a little of the hot milk onto the egg mixture, whisking until well combined. Then add the remaining milk in increasing steps, then return the mix to the pot.

Heat again while whisking constantly, until it starts to thicken and bubble. Take off the heat and leave to cool for a minute or so.

Add the butter and whisk until smooth.

Leave to cool a little longer, then seal tight and keep in the fridge over night.

On the day of serving
For the choux pastry, bring the milk, butter, sugar and salt to boil in a large casserole.

Once the milk boils, add the flour in a single scoop and start mixing vigorously, all the while keeping the pot on the stove. Once the dough is smooth and a thin, white layer forms on the bottom of the pot, remove from heat.

Immediately, add one of the eggs and mix until smooth again. Add the remaining eggs idividually, mixing until smooth after each addition. Leave to rest for a few minutes.

Preheat the oven to 210°C.

Fill the dough into a piping bag with a big, plain nozzle. Pipe straigt dough fingers onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper.
With a little bit of luck, I manage to get ten pieces onto a sheet, but rather keep them well apart as they will rise immensely.

Bake for 15 minutes at 210°C, then lower temperature to 170°C and vent the oven for a few seconds to let out the steam. Keep baking for another 10 to 15 minutes, then open the door a little and continue to bake for 5 minutes more.

Take the éclairs out of the oven and leave to cool on a rack.

Continue with the remaining dough, until you have an assembly looking more or less like the one to the right.

As soon as the éclairs have cooled, transfer the filling from the fridge into another piping bag, this one as well with a big, plain nozzle.
Actually, I use sturdy freezer bags with a corner cut off for this, but that's just me making do.

Cut the éclairs open along one side.
Make sure the cut is rather too high on the side, it's still better to have a less-than-perfect-looking sweet than one that spills its filling onto your lap at the first bite.

Pipe the filling into the éclairs.
I usually have a little vanilla cream left over after a batch of these, but I am very sure that I do not have to tell you what you can do with this.

For the icing, combine all ingredients and heat for a few seconds in the microwave until just warm. Mix until smooth and silky, then immediately pipe or spoon onto the éclairs.
Once again, I use a freezer bag for mixing and piping the icing, saves me a lot of stuff to clean.

Chill until serving, best after a few hours in the fridge.

Keeps well in the fridge for a few days, though must be covered tightly as it will catch smells from surrounding food.
Goes perfectly with the hot caffeinated beverage of your choice, but needs very little in terms of company.
I could imagine them handsomely with some finely chopped strawberries in the filling and a cold glass of champagne, though...

average

2011-04-10T20:30:00.001+02:00

It's an average though lovely warm spring weekend. Which means, baking bread, and lots of it.

a definite showstopper

2011-03-21T13:22:00.000+01:00

Gorgeous, organic beef fillet in my eyes can only be prepared in one way: seared and slowly roasted in the oven until just pink. Served with lots of vegetables, mustard sauce, hollandaise and home-made mango chutney, Saturday's dinner war a definite showstopper:

Sundays's woodruff jelly was pretty harmles in comparison, but so pretty and full of childhood memories I just had to include apicture here.

I bet it's the terroir

2011-03-08T15:29:00.000+01:00

'Übung macht den Meister', they say in Germany, 'With practice comes mastery'. Or, a little less stilted, 'practice makes perfect'.

Apparently, though, there are things that need much more practice than one might think to achieve even a modicum of mastery. Making baguettes seems to be one of those things, at least for me.

Ever since I started baking bread, baguettes had been on my mind. Wouldn't it be great being able to make those legendary breads at home? So many memories of my childhood, revolving around baguettes with rillettes, or with cheese, or just with leftover vinaigrette when there was nothing else I could see myself eating from the grown-ups' table.

So for the better part of a year now, I've been trying to bake baguettes.

The recipe below is deceptive simple, it's definitely authentic and everything. And yet, my baguettes still don't perfectly taste like the real thing.
They've sure got the look, and even that crust with bits of it flying all around the kitchen when you try to cut it.

But apparently, something is still different. Next time I'm in France, I'll check extra carefully to find any discernible differences. Maybe it's the flour. Or the yeast. Or something as intangible and sadly immobile as 'le terroir'.
I bet it's the terroir.

Still, despite the (percieved) lack in taste and my personal shortcomings in shaping and scoring baguettes, this recipe is way too good to be kept in the closet. After all, this already has become the go-to white bread in our household, and they turn out beautiful and reliable despite my sometimes rather creative scheduling.

Try it, for despite everything, it's so damn worth it.

Baguettes
(adapted from Anis Bouabsa's recipe via David Snyder here)
(makes two small baguettes)

500g hight-gluten flour (German type 550)
375ml cold water
1/2 teaspoon instant dry yeast
10g salt

One day before baking

Combine all ingredients and mix until the dough is smooth, about 3 minutes.

Leave the dough to rest for an hour, mixing again each twenty minutes for about a minute each.

Transfer the dough into a small(er) bowl and cover airtight. Leave to rest in the refrigerator for 20 hours.
I've retarded the dough for anything between 10 and 36 hours and have to say that 20+ hours works best for me.

On the day of baking

Take the dough out of the fridge and preshape into two rough rectangles.
The dough won't have risen by any noticeable amount, that's okay and no reason to worry. Also, I usually fold the dough a few times as if doing a 'stretch and fold', just to add some more stability.

Leave to rest at room temperature for an hour. Then shape into baguettes.
Shaping and scoring a baguette is an art in itself that I haven't completely mastered myself. Yet.
Luckily, there's tons of video's about the subject on youtube and its ilk. Here's my favourite.

Preheat the oven to 250°C. Leave the baguettes to proof for 45 minutes.

Score the baguettes and bake for 15 minutes at 250°C with a lot of steam. Then open the oven to let remaining steam escape and lower the temperature to 190°C for another 15 minutes. Leave to cool on a rack.

Keeps nicely for a day or two, then it'll get rather tough.

Goes with everything you'd put on a white bread.^^

one mean, cast-iron bastard

2010-12-31T17:16:00.000+01:00

Just a quick update on Christmas week's activities:

Flammkuchen. Thanks to my baking stone, they now come out very close to perfect.

Note to myself: fresh baker's yeast is more active than dired yeast. Much more active.

Currently on my list of things to learn: making croissants from scratch. They already taste gorgeous, but only look good until baked. Need much more training.

This year, Santa brought me a paella pan. One mean, cast-iron bastard of a paella pan, and I couldn't be happier. Recipe coming soon.

To all of you, I hope you've had a wonderful Christmas and the coming year will be full of joy, health and inspiration!

a dark, unctuous wave

2010-12-12T14:55:00.000+01:00

A few weeks ago, on a Spanish island, in an Italian restaurant, I had one of the best classic French desserts that I've had in my whole life.

And it had been a surprising evening all together already. We arrived too early (on vacation, we're early diners) and yet the staff was entirely charming and precise about when they would open. Which is not the usual way of doing business there, I have to add.
Despite the terribly touristy location at the heart of the fake 'old town centre' of Costa Teguise, the food was even better than what the staff had led us to hope. And when they insisted on the 'chocolate soufflé' being entirely house made, it wasn't really hard to convince me to order one despite already being close to bursting.

And, boy, what a luck I did.

Being used to the rather 'freestyle' translations of food on menus in Spain, I didn't actually expect a 'soufflé au chocolat', as defined by definitely not containing any flour. But the smallish chocolate cake on a huge plate that was put in front of me still smelled so good it made me grin like a four year old.

The real surprise, though, came right when I dug in my spoon and a dark, unctuous wave of molten chocolaty stuff flooded my plate.

Instantly, I was transported back to Paris, where the 'moelleux chocolat au coeur fondant' seems to be a basically canonized part of every menu. (When you're eating French, that is.) Having been to Paris countless times (and loved the food there almost as much as in the Perigord), this little cake triggered what felt like a million delicious memories. And it actually tasted as good as any of them.

Naturally, one of the first things I did when coming home was trying to figure out how to make these. Much to my profound surpise, they're almost embarassingly simple to make. The dough is whipped up in no time, they just need a few minutes in the oven and I am yet to find someone who doesn't love them.

The only drawback is that I still have to figure out a way to embed the preparation into a larger menu. So far, I've only had 'perfect' results when I baked them right after mixing. But on the other hand, it doesn't take much longer to mix and bake them than it takes to clean a table, so what. I'll probably just insert a course of cheeses and be done with the problem.

But one thing is for sure - I'll be making them often, and regularly, for my wife, or my friends or even just for myself, because they're a little piece of heaven in a cup.

moelleux chocolat au coeur fondant
(soft chocolate cake with liquid core)
(makes two small or four tiny portions)

50g dark, low-sugar chocolate (Herrenschokolade)
50g butter

two eggs
40g sugar

15g flour
30g ground almonds
10g cocoa powder (dutch process)

butter and flour for the forms

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Gently melt the butter with the chocolate, allowing the mix to cool a little until it barely feels warm against the lips.

In a high bowl, mix the eggs with the sugar until pale and frothy. (soft peaks)

Combine the dry ingredients in a separate bowl and mix until well combined.
Is it just me or does it feel distinctively weird to measure so little flour?

Add both the molten chocolate and the flour / almond mix to the eggs and swiftly fold in, stirring as little as possible to retain the air.

Lightly butter and flour two small ramekins (about 8cm in diameter) or four espresso cups.
Make sure to carefully shake off excessive flour, or your cakes will look a little dusty. Supposedly, yo can unmold the cakes after baking, but honestly I've never dared to risk them in that way. I just took pretty cups instead.

Fill the batter into the prepared cups / ramekins. Only fill the forms until about two-third of their height, as the cake will rise impressively.

Bake for 5 to 8 minutes, depending a) on the size of your cakes (the smaller the faster) and b) how liquid you want them to be.
Those espresso cups pictured, for example, felt all but liquid after five minutes and were done all the way through verging on dry after eight. It'll take some attempts to get it right, but as the warm, liquid dough is pretty delicious in itself, I'd say rather err on too little time than too much.

Serve immediately or at least warm. Can perfectly well stand alone but pairs well with anything else you would usually put next to a chocolate cake.
Next time, I'll try and put a boozy cherry in the bottom of each cup, or a spoonful of vanilla ice cream. Should really make for a nice surprise.

this time of the year - part seven

2010-12-07T15:20:00.000+01:00

What would a year be without the annual cookie craze? Not the same, I swear. So this year, we had a plain lineup of beloved classics, as we didn't really want to go all crazy on this.

But have a look:

First, the Pfefferkuchen, which turned out really, really good this year. One more iteration and I'll be ready to post an updated, much refined recipe here.

Second, plain 'black-and-white' cookies. Hardly noteworthy but for the admittedly pretty pattern that (accidentally) came up this year.

Third, coconut macarons. Not to be confused with the fickle french ones. These are slightly homely, crisp on the outside, chewy inside, easy to make and plain delicious.

Fourth - butter cookies. Like the french sablés, just a little more butter an sugar. These were gone so fast that I had to make another double batch right the following weekend.

The second batch of butter cookies, above. I didn't really have the mind to bother with different cookie shapes, so I just made those I like best and were easiest to handle. And they look pretty on the cooling rack, don't they?

And of course, last but not least, the Stollen. Very aromatic and moist this year, but oddly enough, the thick layer of icing sugar doesn't want to stick to the loaf properly. But that's not a real flaw, it only makes for rather messy eating.

Anyway, if the holidays pass as smoothly as the preparations so far, it'll be a lovely Christmas this year.

apple pie and whiskey

2010-10-28T14:57:00.001+02:00

As every year, we celebrated my father-in-law's birthday last weekend. And after the Hawaiian luau last year and the 60s revival buffet the year before, he wished for a 'Wild West'-themed dinner.

Of course we didn't really try and make it a historically correct pioneer / cowboy re-enactment evening, which probably would have been not entirely entertaining. But we tried to come up with a menu that all the guests could instantly relate to - which ended up being steak & onions, bacon & beans, grilled corn on the hob and ever so slightly charred jacked potatoes with herbed sour cream.

It was a much simpler thing to prepare than the years before, but very much to my surprise it turned out pretty damn near perfect. The individual dishes worked perfectly together, and with a nice mug of beer, it was simply a great dinner.

Speaking of beer in mugs - naturally we've had to have enameled tin plates and mugs. In out eyes, they felt at least as important as the cowboy hats (we've had one for each guest) and the red-chequered table cloth.

As for desert, there was little other option than apple pie. And considering that this was the first I've ever made (and eaten, for that matter) it was pretty great.

Apple pie and whiskey go surprisingly well together, especially when said whiskey comes in pretty huge tin mugs. Repeatedly.

Add a Dutch uncle who brought his ukulele and actually knew how to play it like a serious pro, you can imagine what a hilarious evening that was.

this time of the year - part six

2010-10-25T11:33:00.001+02:00

As the year turns, once again it is time to prepare for the upcoming holiday season. It is a little scary to think of Christmas before the leaves have even turned yellow here, but it's October already and some things you just can't speed up.

Like the resting time of this year's Pfefferkuchen dough.

I've added a lot more cocoa powder this year, so I added another egg for more liquid. Hence the dough looks even less savoury than ever before. But it definitely smelled nice, so I am pretty positive it'll turn out lovely.

Also, last weekend I set up a new jar of spice-infused rum for mulled wine.

A lovely scent, the hint of peeled oranges and lemons drifting through our whole place for days. If it turned out well, I'll see the coming weekend.

where we've been

2010-10-13T15:08:00.001+02:00

Guess where we've been for two lovely weeks lately.

simple, verging on the primitive

2010-08-30T14:35:00.000+02:00

Still smarting from my first experiences with a proper pâté de campagne, I was happily surprised when a few weeks ago I stumbled across a recipe for a simple chicken liver pâté.

And when I say simple, I really mean simple, verging on the primitive. I loved it instantly.

And of course, I had to try it first chance I had. It has bacon and butter in equal proportions, what could I possibly do wrong?

Not much, as it turned out.

Admittedly, this is not a refined something I could put next to a salad and call it a meal. But it is damn yummy for little to no work at all, and that's all the reason I need to put it up here and jot it down into my little brown book.

On fresh bread or on crackers, this would be an indulgent snack or lovely company to a salad. Or as a spread on an open sandwich. Or as a filling in a filet millefeuille. Just try it, I am sure you'll come up with several more ideas.

simple liver paté
(makes 500g)

125g fresh liver (The original calls for chicken, I used porc and was perfectly happy)
125g bacon
125g onions
125g butter
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1 tablespoon dry Sherry
salt & pepper

Roughly chop the liver and the bacon, peel and chop the onion.

In a small cast-iron pot, sear the liver in a little bit of the butter until it takes colour.
This is just for the taste, no need to actually get the liver done.

Add all the remaining ingredients and leave to simmer on low heat for two hours, or until the bacon bits fall apart easily.
As the bacon is already salty, be careful with the salt, but generous with the pepper.

Leave the mix to cool for a moment, then run through a food-processor or blender until smooth.
Depending on the occasion, you might want the paté very smooth or still a little chunky. Trust your own judgement.

Fill into jars and cool.

Kept in the fridge, the paté keeps about a week.
It keeps longer if you top it with a seal of clarified butter, but as easily made and swiftly gone as this is, I never really saw the necessity.

Take out of the fridge half an hour before serving. Goes well with any kind of bread and on crackers, pefect with beer or strong white and light red wines.

bunnymato

2010-08-21T14:51:00.000+02:00

Found a bunnymato on the vine in my garden this morning.
'nuff said.

of peaches and grapes

2010-08-16T09:18:00.000+02:00

For the second year now, the little peach tree next to out kitchen is bearing fruit. And even despite having had a bad case of leaf curl this spring, causing it to shed all leaves and fruit on the yearling branches, yesterday we harvested a whole bowl of incredibly tasty, fragrant white peaches.

Also, our grapevine is trying to outdo itself this year. The grapes themselves are still a little on the smallish side, but that is to be expected with a plant this young. But they are deeply aromatic, and even though not quite ripe yet, they fill the whole driveway with their scent.

Coming February, we will have to properly prune the vine for the first time, as it now is as large as we will allow it to grow. So excited to see how the plant will react to this.

my new best friend

2010-08-12T13:10:00.000+02:00

And another summer party over.

We had entirely improbable luck concerning the weather, sitting outside with friends and family until half past three in the morning.

(bigger version here)

It was a small party compared to other years, but this only made all the preparations much more relaxed. With the relentless help of my lovely wife, all food turned out lovely, the roast crisp and juicy, the salmon spicy but not salty, the hot potato wedges hot enough and best of all, by sunday noon, the house was clean again. We're a bit footsore but feeling very accomplished now.

I'll post a few of the recipes later, but first one tiny thing that really made my day.

Remember last year's gravlax? The one I didn't manage to get a single decent picture of?

Well, this year's salmon was much more cooperative - and here's the proof:

First the spices, then the prepared salmon inside it's tight glass coffin of clingwrap.

And finally, my new best friend, sliced and decorated just moments before we called in the guests -

And as you can guess, it was gone minutes later.

almost indecent

2010-07-30T12:26:00.000+02:00

Preparing for our summer party usually involves me trying countless new ways of feeding the masses while hopefully adding some excitement and reducing my workload. This year, I dusted off my recipe for quiche that I hadn't been using since my highschool days and tried making it 'presentable'.

As it nears august, the first chanterelles appear on the markets, and upon seeing a particularly nice batch, I decided to make a 'quiche aux chanterelles'.

The results were nice, but nothing overly memorable. We decided I would make a plain version with nothing but scallions and bacon for the party. What could possibly be wrong with that?

On the other hand, the liver terrine turned out a real stunner and will become a separate post one of these days. Believe me, it's almost indecent with how little work you get such impressively tasty results.

like a river pebble

2010-07-16T17:04:00.000+02:00

There is a sweltering heat hanging over Germany since several weeks now. After one of the longest and coldest winters I can remember, this already feels like one of the longest hot stretches in my life.

Not that I am complaining, mind you. Actually, I feel great in this weather, and I can sleep like a little river pebble at night.

Only thing is - I can hardly eat anything. There's so many nice things to cook, but hardly anything is worth writing about.

Grilled goat cheese and fresh tomatoes on bread - who needs a recipe for that?

One day, we tried a lemon cream. It turned out okayish, but really not anything I could brag with.

Of course, I've been baking bread. Lots of it, each weekend. But that's really old news to you, is it?

As I've already mentioned, we slice and freeze the bread for convenient use over the following week, and I thought, that's one picture I haven't uploaded yet. So, here's lots of sliced bread ready for freezing.

But already, our annual summer party is looming at the horizon, with the whole family planning what's to eat and how to organize things. It'll be a comparatively small affair this year, only 40 people or so, but one we're genuinely looking forward to.

And, most importantly, it'll bring a whole lotta new cooking experiments to this site.

delightfully busy

2010-06-29T20:57:00.000+02:00

This has been a delightfully busy weekend.

Baking, gardening, cheering on the German soccer team...

The garden is in full bloom, peonies and roses competing with bellflowers of all shades between white and cerulean. I even took some of the peonies inside to have a little of their lovely scent right at my desk.

And of course, more bread. My scoring still looks random, I fear, but the colour if the crust is great, don't you agree?

Peonies may be wonderful, and yet I still think fresh bread smells decidedly better.

very happy stranded whales

2010-06-16T18:14:00.000+02:00

Finally. Naan at last!

This must have been the single longest quest for a recipe / method that I've ever completed.

See, both my wife and I love Indian food. My wife especially loves naan, the fluffy, crispy, butter-soaked flatbread that's served as a side dish instead of rice.

So naturally, learning how to make naan was high up on my list of things to learn. Yet unlike most of the things my family has put there, naan seemed to be especially difficult to replicate in a home oven. At least, to replicate in a way that my lovely wife would find good enough, that is. (I think I already mentioned once or twice that she is rather discerning and open-voiced about her food... Bless ya, Honey!)

Anyway, these little rascals eluded my culinary grasp for at least two years. Two years, can you believe it?
But a few weeks ago, emboldened by my successes with Anis Bouabsa's baguettes, I tried them again, with a recipe I cobbled together as a median from all those I've tried over the years.

And believe it or not, they turned out perfect!

Crisp on the outside, feathery light and chewy inside, soaked with ghee but far from soggy. Perfectly delicious, and almost a shame to serve merely as a side.

We had them last Sunday with a bowl of nice, hot chicken curry, and we stuffed ourselves to the point that we felt like stranded whales afterwards. More precisely, we felt like very happy stranded whales, lying on our bed, holding hands and watching Germany play their first match in the world soccer championship and win. What a great end to a great weekend.

Naan is a traditional Indian staple, yet I make no claim of authenticity. I've never eaten proper naan in India, nor would I know if any of those I have eaten are 'the real thing'. What I can claim, though, is that these are perfectly authentic Indian naan as served in British restaurants as perceived by a German tourist couple. Though that's probably not even worth the time needed to write that sentence.

Anyway - try them, they're plain delicious and a great alternative to rice in many menus. And I really, really do not take any responsibility if you overstuff yourselves in the process.

Naan
(makes four medium pieces, as sides for two people)

200g high-gluten flour (German type 550)
50g whole wheat flour (German type 1050)
1/2 teaspoon instant dry yeast
1/2 teaspoon sugar
8g salt
150ml milk
50g unpasteurized yoghurt

2 teaspoons clarified butter (ghee)

On the morning of baking:
For the dough, combine all the ingredients except the ghee and mix for about a minute. Leave to rest for about an hour at room temperature.
The dough will be very wet right now, with hardly any elasticity, but that's okay.

After the rest, knead the dough again for about a minute, then leave to rest for another 30 minutes.

When the dough has rested, transfer into a lightly oiled, shallow bowl and give a set of 'stretch and folds'. Leave to rest for another 30 minutes.

After this rest, give the dough another set of 'stretch and folds'. Rest and repeat two more times, until the dough becomes smooth and stops sticking to your fingers.
Maybe you'll need one more set of 'stretch and folds' than I do, maybe one less. The dough is ready once it is elastic enough that you can lift it out of the bowl in one piece.

Leave to rest, covered at room temperature, until needed, two hours at least.

an hour before serving:
Preheat your oven with baking stone as high as you can. Mine tops out at 250°C.
I wouldn't suggest trying this without a baking stone. Maybe a heavy cast-iron skillet or an upturned dutch oven will work as well, but I really don't know.

Twenty minutes before serving, quarter the dough. On a lightly floured surface, roll each piece into an oval- or tear-shape, not thicker than your little finger. Cover with a dishcloth and leave to proof for fifteen minutes.

Five minutes before serving, pick up the naans and transfer onto the baking stone as swiftly as you can, trying to let as little heat escape as possible.

The naan will only need a few minutes in the oven. They will puff up mightily and start getting golden freckles. Once the first freckles start going from golden to hazel, they're ready.
Take a look at the naan in the picture above, they're a pretty decent guidance. And of course, they're ready when they look ready to you.

Immediately take the naan out of the oven. Put onto a large plate and flatten gently, if necessary. Divide the ghee between the four pieces and brush them with the melting butter. Serve instantly.

Naan only tastes good fresh out of the oven and doesn't keep at all.
Naan goes perfectly with all kinds of hot and spicy dishes and anything with a decent gravy. Watch out, you might eat way more than you should.

P.S.: This post will be sent to the YeastSpotting section of Susan's formidable blog Wild Yeast, a home baker's resource I can hardly recommend too much.

quite successfully, I'd say

2010-06-06T19:16:00.000+02:00

That's not my front yard, that's yesterday's starter.

Just as a quick note to say that I haven't been sleeping, but baking.
And quite successfully, I'd say.

In a word: Naan at last!

More to come soon.

But these are store-bought, aren't they?

2010-05-24T14:13:00.001+02:00

Last Thursday, 'the boys' were coming over for a pen and paper rpg evening. Most unusually, I had a little surplus time on my hands and I was eager to bake something.

So I grabbed my old, trusty cheese cracker recipe, threw away all parts of the recipe that would have needed my attention and added some bacon. Everything gets better with bacon, I'm sure you can relate to that.
Basically, I mixed up the least fancy, swiftest breadsticks I have ever made, and had a historic succes with them. I am still a little stunned at how well received they were.

Take, for example, one of our friends. He tried one, and after having been a little dumbfounded at how much of our food we actually make ourselves he asked:

"But these are store-bought, aren't they?"

"Nope. Made them this afternoon."

"I feared as much. But they're so... regular, and so... damn tasty."

As you can imagine, we had a lively laugh. Though, maby not as lively as the following day, when my father-in-law got caught eating several of them at the same time, looking rather embarrassed, claiming I was trying to drug him.

I personally blame the bacon. This is a yeasted dough with a very high butter content, leading to a structure that is pretty much halfway between bread and shortbread cookies. Ununsual, but very, very good. Try them, they sure have the best effort to compliments ratio I can imagine.

Cheese and Bacon Breadsticks (dirt simple version)
(makes about two dozen sticks)

250g all-pupose wheat flour
100g whole-wheat flour (German type 1050)
125ml lukewarm water
125g butter, softened
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dry yeast
1 pinch of sugar

100g cheese, finely grated (I used aged Peccorino)
125g bacon

Take all the ingredients for the dough and mix until just combined. Leave to rest for about an hour.

In the meantime, chop the bacon as finely as you can be bothered to. Put into a small pot or non-stick pan and fry until just golden, not crisp. Leave to cool.

After the dough has rested, add the cheese and the bacon and knead one last time until all ingredients are well combined. Transfer to a large bowl and give a set of 'stretch and folds'.

Leave to rest for half an hour, then add another set of 'stretch and folds'.
Even despite the high fat contend, the dough should be elastic and nicely workable by now. If not, give another half hour of rest and one last set of 'stretch and folds'.

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Leave to rest for one last half hour, then turn the dough onto a lightly floured working surface. Roll into a rectangle about half a centimetre thick. Cut into strips about one centimetre wide.
Of course, you could now roll them up or give them any number of fancy shapes, but there wasn't much time and I really wanted something as simple as I could get away with.

Transfer onto baking sheets lined with non-stick paper and leave to rest for a final, ten-minute proof.

Bake the bread-sticks with a little steam for about 15-20 minutes or until well browned.
This yields sticks that will be cripy in parts, chewy in others. For entirely crispy sticks reduce the temperature to 190°C and add 5 minutes.

Leave to cool on a rack.

Goes well with beer and almost everything else, keeps nicely for a few days and can be crisped up again flawlessly in a hot oven.

P.S.: And once more, this post wil be sent to the YeastSpotting section of Susan's formidable blog Wild Yeast, a home baker's resource I can hardly recommend too much.

on the way to moonshine

2010-05-15T14:33:00.002+02:00

Baking bread has become a regular activity for me.

The freezer is stuffed to it's figurative gills and I am getting very comfortable with the whole subject.

Alright, I still haven't managed the perfect Naan, nor can I churn out croissants like a pro. But I'll get there, I'm pretty sure of that.

None the less, yesterday I kicked off a starter culture of a different kind, as you can see to the right.

My maternal grandfather was an avid wine-maker, one of my uncles even burned his own moonshine. (Yep, the one I got the poppy seed mill from.) So, there seems to be a certain family tradition to uphold, which at least in this case I am more than willing to oblige.

I've started a batch of cyser, a mix between a mead and a hard cider, as my first attempt. Given a bit of luck, it should be drinkable at this year's summer party.

This is a really exciting new experiment for me, and you can bet I'll keep you posted on the progress.

unexpectedly interesting

2010-04-26T21:06:00.000+02:00

When my wife an I were on the island of Lanzarote this February, of course we stumbled on the occasional dish that was seriously, inspiringly good. And naturally, we took notes and pictures, trying to give us a chance to reproduce those dishes back at home.

Alas, you just can't really get good squid in the middle of Germany. And with seafood being so tricky, a good paella is a hard thing to make as well.
But have a look to that dish on the right - one of the many good dinners we had at the Taberna del Puerto at the Marina of Puerto Calero, where it was served as a starter.

Some papardelle, scampi, smoked salmon and oddly enough, fresh strawberries. I know it sounds like an unfortunate accident in the kitchen. Like one of these stories where the chef was drunk and just put everything into one bowl and served it.

But you know what? Even if it was an accident, it's pretty close to divine. I'm not necessarily one to eat anything that contains warm, smoked salmon, but I was positively dazzled by this one. The acidity of the strawberries go hand in hand with the soft smokiness of the salmon, making this dish an unexpectedly light and fresh and interesting like I haven't had one in years. And it's dead easy to prepare.

Below, you can see mhow the 'Pasta Puerto Calero' looks in my kitchen, and I am temped to say mine looks even a little better.
Have a try at this, it might just become your new summer evening favourite as well.

Pasta Puerto Calero
(Pasta with salmon, prawns and straberries)
(ingredients are given per portion)

50g - 75g broad pasta (Tagliatelle, Papardelle,...)
100g prawns, peeled
1 tablespoon butter
100g strawberries, washed and quartered
100g smoked salmon in slices

Cook the pasta according to instructions, keep warm.
Works perfectly with leftover pasta, so we plan in advance.

In a large pan, heat the butter until sizzling but not smoking. Fry the prawns on each side until just done, about two minutes.

Add the pasta and toss until the pasta is hot and covered with butter.

Season boldly with salt and pepper.
Don't skimp on the pepper, together with the strawberries this makes this dish so exciting.

Add the salmon and the strawberries, toss until combined and serve immediately.
If the salmon comes in large slices, shred them a little so they fit onto your fork.
You don't want to heat the salmon and the strabwerries, just distribute them and maybe make them lose their chill. If you keep them on the stove too long, the salmon will get flaky and the strawberries soft (and ugly).

Enjoy with a light rosado (maybe like the one below) and good company. Sunshine is recommended but not required.

speaking of dormancy

2010-04-26T20:30:00.000+02:00

This year, spring holds several unexpected surprises.

As you can see on the right, suddenly the snakeshead lilies (or checkered lilies) are blooming in our garden, after I had all but given up on them.

Windflowers have sprung up in many corners that I had thought they would never reach. It is once again lovely to see the garden coming back to life after having been dormant such a long time.

Speaking of dormancy - my bread making mode has been in full swing again this weekend, with several boules cooling in the sunlight on our garden table. I've really missed being able to go outside. Well, and there's hardly anything better than coming back in from the garden into a home that's filled with sunlight and smelling of freshly baked bread. At least, not in my book.

I also tried to make a ciabatta loave with chives, but that kinda turned out sticky and flat, for no reason I could figure out. But the chives are growing like mad anyway, so I'll just try again next weekend.

these ought to be butter snails

2010-04-20T08:20:00.002+02:00

This weekend, I made (even more) raisin snails.

And, as my wife asked me to, I added even more butter. 375g.
That is a fat-to-flour ratio of almost 40%. Is that what you call a high-butyrisation-dough? Whatever the name, it was quite a lot, and it made the dough noticeably harder to handle.

But, as you can see, this time I remembered to use the tea towel underneath the rolled-out dough, and it worked like a charm. And yes, those yellow puddles undeneath the raisins are even more butter.

Oh, and I sneakily soaked the raisins in unsweetened apple juice. Hardly noticeable to my discerning wife, but tremendously helpful in adding some acidity and (at least for me) very welcome complexity.

Needless to say, they turned out delicious. Kind of filling, too, which prompted my mother-in-law to state that if there was more butter than raisins in the snails, they ought to be called butter snails.

Very happy with the results, and definitely making these again.

ad hoc springtime adventures

2010-04-19T08:55:00.000+02:00

This has been a wondrously sunny, unexpectedly warm and summerly weekend. After a long and cold winter, spring has returned full force to Hessian Siberia.

The buttercups along our little (artificial) creek are flowering.

As are the muscarii.

Weather forecast hadn't been that good for sunday evening, but when everyone around us started firing up their grills, we couldn't resist.

On very short notice, my lovely wife and I scoured fridge, freezer and larder for anything you could put on a grill. We repurposed the porc cutlets that should have become 'Schnitzel' at some point this week, marinated and filled them. Some remaining leaves of wild garlic chopped and mixed with equally leftover ricotta turned into a surprisingly delicious dip.

In short - it took us about an hour to make a new plan for dinner and actually make it. And it was fun. I so love my wife right now for being able to join me in such ad hoc adventures and have as much fun as I did. Thanks for the wonderful weekend, love!

ye good olde times

2010-04-11T14:47:00.002+02:00

Apparently, everyone has this feeling that in 'the good olde times', everything was better.

For my wife and my mother, apparently, this is especially true for 'Rosinenschnecken', or raisin snails. (Think raisin swirls, just baked individually)

In the good olde times, the raisin snails were still moist, they were not that dark, not that sweet, had more raisins, less frosting, less 'stuff' and you could pull them apart like little springs. Short, they were better all around.

So as it is my solemn duty to make my wife happy, I started making raisin snails 'like they used to be'. At least, like they used to be in the memory of my wife.

I think the results are a little plain, but then again, sometimes that is exactly what is needed. I have found myself repeatedly at work during the 4-o'clock-sugar-craze, silently wishing I had though of taking one of these snails with me.

They're good stuff, the way they don't make them any more.

raisin snails 'like they used to make them'
(makes about 16 snails)

for the snails:
1kg all-purpose flour
0,5l milk, lukewarm
190g sugar
300g butter, softened
1 sachet vanilla sugar
1 teaspoon dry active yeast
1g salt (about a quarter of a teaspoon)

200g raisins (sultanas)
150ml water

100g butter
four tablespoons condensed milk

for the glaze:
200g confectioner's sugar
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon water

The day before baking, mix the flour with milk, butter, sugar, vanilla, salt and yeast until just combined and still shaggy. Leave to rest for about an hour as it is (autolyse).

After the dough has rested, knead one more time, just about a minute.
The dough will now be significantly smoother than just an hour ago and much easier to handle.

In a jar, add the water to the raisins and leave to soak overnight.
Of course, you can always soak the raisins in rum or something like Cointreau, but then that would be very... modern.

Transfer the dough to a large bowl. Pick one side of the dough, pull it up towards you and fold over, as if folding a towel. Turn the bowl around 90° and repeat with all four sides of the dough.
After the folds, the dough should already be very smooth and strong.

Cover and leave the dough to rest for another 30 minutes. After the rest, repeat the folds and cover tightly. Leave to proof overnight in a cool spot, even the refrigerator.

On the day of baking, melt the remaining butter and leave to cool a little.

Take the dough out of the bowl and roll out into a rectangle about 40 by 60cm.
Do not knead the dough. Just take it as it is and press it down until you can use your rolling pin.

Transfer the rolled dough onto a clean tea towel, this will make it easier to roll it up later.
I always forget this step, and could bite myself for doing so.

Brush the dough with the butter, using all of it. Leave a strip a few fingers wide at one of the small sides unbuttered. Brush the unbuttered section of the dough lightly with water.

Drain the raisins well, eventually even dabbing them with a paper towel. Put the raisins onto the buttered dough and distribute evenly.

Beginning with the side opposite the 'watered' section, start to roll up the dough, using the tea-towel as a handle. Put onto your working surface seam-side down.

Cut the rolled-up dough into slices about two fingers thick. Usually, that makes me come up with 16 snails.

Place each snail onto your working surface and press down until round and half their height. Cover lightly and leave to rest for 1,5 to 2 hours, depending on the temperature in your kitchen.
They won't rise much now, so don't worry.

Preheat the oven to 190°C.

When the dough has risen, transfer onto a baking sheet and brush with the condensed milk. Bake for about 20 minutes until they are nicely golden.

Put onto a rack an leave to cool.

In a small bowl, combine the confectioner's sugar with the lemon juice and the water. Add the water gradually, the glaze should be more like cream-cheese than like cream.

When the snails have cooled down to at least hand-warm, put the glaze into the microwave for a minute (or less if your's is especially powerful). Stir the hot glaze (which is very liquid now) and immediately drizzle over the snails.
The glaze will set almost instantly, so you might want to do this in batches.

The raisin snails are best enjoyed fresh, but freeze and thaw perfectly as well.

P.S.: And once more, this post wil be sent to the YeastSpotting section of Susan's formidable blog Wild Yeast, a home baker's resource I can hardly recommend too much.

Easter Renewal

2010-04-05T14:14:00.000+02:00

Easter monday seems to me quite a fitting date to get back to breathe new life into this place.

After one of the coldest, longest and snow-rich (is that even a word?) winters in the last 50 years, Germany has returned to a semblance of spring, which so far means it's raining instead of snowing.
But, crafty as we are, we can build our little spots of spring-time feeling right on top of our dining tables.

My absence from the web doesn't mean I haven't been busy in the kitchen, quite the contrary. I've been supplying the whole family with baked goods, becoming basically the sole boulanger we frequent.

Baking this much bread has justified the acquisition of a baking stone. A marvelous invention, and this little (heavy) thing really made baking a good loaf a lot easier. And of course, making pizza now is a pleasure.

Even my baguettes now start looking like baguettes. There's still a lot to learn in terms of shaping and scoring, but I think I am getting close.

One of the reasons I've been silent for so long is that my lovely wife and I took some time off of everything and left to Lanzarote for a while. We've been there a few times already, but this was the first time we rented a small house and a car. It was a lovely, lovely time and we've seen so much of this island we didn't know about before that it felt pretty much like our first visit.

Of course food played an important part - I finally learned how to make proper mojos! But moer about that later. Right now, I only want to say that if you go to Lanzarote, and you are looking for a great place to go out and eat - go to the marina of Puerto Calero. Not as sickeningly touristy as, say, everything else in that area, but sweet and charming and with a stunning bang-for-your-bucks ratio.

Especially the Taberna del Puerto managed to gather tons of good karma with their sometimes life-saving (or at least sanity-saving) food. Here's the rabbit in garlick sauce, which I still have to figure out how to make:

And my wife's daily ration of squid. How can a woman eat squid every day for weeks and still want more? But, on the other hand, a very reliable way to make her happy. ;-)

And, being in Spain, Paella, of course. Very varying in quality, though, but once again there were only pleasant surprises in the marina of Puerto Calero.

So, to all those still reading - thanks and a happy Easter to all of you!

a little more muscled

2010-01-11T09:35:00.000+01:00

In a very rare occurance, my hometown got some proper snow this year. Usually, it is just enough to make everything muddy, but now it's winter wonderland all around. Here, have a look at some pictures in the local newspaper. It's really, really beautiful here currently.

Apart from that, I have been busy baking bread, training myself to get a better handling on the dough and training my sourdough starter to become a little more muscled.

And thanks to the adorable Shiao Ping and her generous sharing of knowledge, this weekend's Tourte de Meule almost burst its container during retard.

This happened even despite the fact that I had cut down the dry yeast to a few grains instead of two teaspoons I would have usually added. Normally, this box would have hardly been half-full in the morning, and now look at this.

Thanks a ton, Shiao Ping!
Now I have to go buy bigger retarding boxes...

with or without pictures

2009-12-26T09:32:00.000+01:00

Now what's it with my 'Riz al Andaluz'?

I made it again the last days, and despite still smarting from forgetting to take pictures the last time, I forgot them again! Can you believe it?

That dish must be jinxed.

I'll try one more time, and then I'll post the recipe anyway. With or without pictures.

Anyway. I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a lovely time with your family and loved ones. Have a great time, eat a little to much, and don't forget to take photos!

the looming holiday season

2009-12-14T14:22:00.000+01:00

Last year, I experimented with infused rum as a base for mulled wine, which still is in regular use in my household.

So when it finally turned cold in my part of the world (as opposed to rainy), I sought for something similar to experiment with this year. Somewhere, I had read about home-made coffee-liquor, and I decided I would start making some of that.

The first thing that I learned was that coffee and liquorice absolutely don't go together. I had completely misjudged the amount of star anise in one recipe, and the results were... haunting. Actually, that batch was one of vilest things I have ever concocted in my kitchen. Imagine getting an electric shock from your espresso machine, with off-colour afterimages of liquorice floating through your jumbled mind. I still get a numb tingle on the tip of my tongue by even thinking about it, and I had merely tasted half a teaspoon.

Anyway. I had a steep learning curve.

Coffee and vanilla work great together, though, and allspice and pepper add a lovely, complex background. The liquor made with the final recipe below is more spicy than sweet, and in my eyes offers a really great alternative for those moments when you can't decide wether you want a strong schnaps or an espresso after a particularly rich meal. Looking ahead at the looming holiday season, there'll be many of those, I'm pretty sure of that.

This liquor works great when very cold, a little like Jägermeister. You could also mix it with cream for something like Kaluha, or pour it onto your icecream or mix it with hot coffee...

And of course, it makes a lovely small gift for people who basically have everything already. Especially, as it only takes a little less than a week to mature, you could start it today and still have plenty time to find pretty bottles before christmas.
Which actually reminds me that I still need some of those...

digestif de café
(makes a little more than half a litre)

for the infusion
0,7 litre brown rum (40% alcohol)
200g whole roasted coffee beans
3 vanilla pods
1 stick cinammon
1 small star anise
1 teaspoon allspice berries
1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns

for the syrup
200g demerara sugar
200 ml water

For the infusion, combine all ingredients in a large, airtight jar and leave to macerate in a cool, dark place for about five days.
Right in the beginning, the coffee beans will float on top of the liquid, so you may need a jar of about 1,5 litre volume to accommodate all without a spill.

After the week, take out all spices and filter the liquid. If you like, you can return the vanilla pods, as they will continue to add their arome without becoming too cloying. Discard the other spices.
Now that the coffee beans have soaked up a good part of the rum, there'l be surprisingly little liquid left, a little less than half a litre with me. It is kind of a shame to throw all the spices away, but the rum is really pungent already.

For the syrup, add the water and the sugar in a small casserole. Bring to a gentle boil and cook for about 10 minutes. Leave to cool.

Sweeten the rum with the syrup according to taste.
I usually use a little more than 100 ml syrup, as I do not want the final product to be too sweet, only sweet enough to make the taste mellow and lasting.

Store in a cool and dark place.
As this is the first time I made this, I have no idea how long it'll keep. Looking at the ingredients, it should keep pretty long, provided it is stored in the dark.

Serve very cold, on the rocks as a digestiv or mixed with cream in equal parts with a dusting of cocoa for a velvety dessert-like drink.

a bit on the lazy side

2009-12-07T13:34:00.002+01:00

For the last weeks, I've almost ritually been struggling with a bread each sunday.

It started with a harmless post on The Fresh Loaf Blog about Eric Kayser's Tourte de Meule. First it worked out nicely, then I tried to get a more open crumb with the flours available here in Germany.

From there on, things went downhill in many colourful ways.

But, after many attempts and enough (mediocre) bread to feed my neighbours, I have finally managed to stabilize one recipe that works reliably in my kitchen.

One of the things that mostly got me into trouble was my somewhat sluggish sourdough starter. Personally, I think he's a real sweetheart, bubbling and brewing, reliably awakening each time when I pull him out of his corner in the fridge. But apparently, he's a bit on the lazy side. Especially when comapared to the diligent starters of all the other (much more experienced) bakers out here on the net, he's seriously shy of work. I can hardly get the little bugger to raise my bread without some distinct shove by a spoonful of dry yeast.

But now that I know, I can always add some yeast, and for the last few times, it worked flawlessly.

My adapted 'Tourte de Meule' is a sourdough wheat bread with a distinct share of rye. I fell in love with the dark crust and the soft, moist and almost feathery crumb. The technique is untouched, and fits perfectly into my weekend schedule.
While trying the different sorts of flours available here, I figured that 'proper' wholegrain wheat flour totally kills the structure of the crumb I was trying to achieve. And I love, love, love the German type 1050 flour, which is 'dark' wheat flour. It is not quite a wholegrain flour, but flour ground longer so more parts of the shell and seed ending up in the final product, turning it distinctively darker, 'wheatier' yet still very fine.

I experimented with various combinations of flour and in the end just chucked all the complicated ratios and went for 100% type 1050 flour - and tada! The perfect crumb, at least in my eyes.

This has swiftly become my family's favourite sandwich bread, as it is light yet intensely aromatic, with a crunchy crust. It goes perfectly with cold cuts (important in Germany) yet its airy crumb is something close to unheard of here. Try it, it might just be perfect fór you as well, too.

sourdough wheat bread
adapted from Eric Kayser's Tourte de Meule
(makes two medium loaves)

1kg wholegrain wheat flour (German type 1050)
700ml lukewarm water
30g sea salt

200g sourdough starter (100% hydration, 100% rye meal)
1 teaspoon dry yeast

The day before baking, mix the flour with the salt and water until just combined. Leave to rest for half an hour (autolyse).

Add the starter and the yeast and knead until well combined and the dough comes together, about two to three minutes.

Put in a lightly oiled container or bowl and leave to rest for 45 minutes.
As bread baking seems to become a regular part of my kitchen efforts, I have finally invested in two large plastic containers that fit into my fridge just so. They're big enough for the whole dough to fit in at once, with enough room to handle the stretch and folds inside without having to take out the dough onto my counter. A few euros that saved me a lot of cleaning duty.

Do a set of stretch and fold after the first 45 minutes, then repeat three more times after 45 minutes each to a total of four folds.

Leave to dough to rest in the fridge for 20 hours, inside a sealed container of some sort.

Immediately out of the fridge, shape into boules and leave to proof en couche for about two hours, or until the dough stops springing back after being poked.
As I said, my sourdough is rather lazy, so maybe your version will need a significantly shorter time to proof. Just listen to your dough, not to me.

Preheat the oven to 250°C.

Bake for 10 minutes with steam at 250°C, then reduce to 200°C for another 30 minute or until the crust is dark brown.

Leave to cool for 10 minutes in the switched-off oven with the door cranked open. Leave to cool on a rack, cool completely before cutting.

Freezes exellently well, is great toasted.

sewing new drapes

2009-11-16T12:30:00.000+01:00

Apart from sewing new drapes for our living room, I tried my hands at two new kinds of bread this weekend. For one, I made another attempt at making baguettes, using Anis Bouabsa's recipe. They turned out much better than last time, and my scoring definitely improves, but I still got way to go.

The other one was Eric Kayser's Tourte de Meule. Those two turned out rather nicely:

Maybe a little dark, but with a nice, crackly crust and a great taste, at least in my eyes. My wife and the rest of the family deemed them 'boring'. But then again, she loves the baguettes, which I found a little uninteresting.
But I'll definitely try the tourte de meule again, maybe I'll even manage to get a more open crumb the next time.

this time of the year - part five

2009-11-02T14:46:00.001+01:00

First weekend of November.
Business as usual.
Another round of pre-emptive Christmas baking.

As the dough has been resting in the larder for four weeks now, I baked the Pfefferkuchen.

The dough was astonishingly dry and crumbly this year, and needed a sizeable glug of water to turn smooth again. But on the other hand, the cookies smelled much better than last year, richer and more buttery.

And of course there were the Stollen, like every year.

Entirely contrary to the Pfefferkuchen dough, though, the Stollen dough turned out very wet, bordering on slimy, making it really hard to get decent shapes out of it. Still, about half of the loaves turned out picture perfect, while the other half somehow exploded into shapes that I cannot begin to descripe without resorting to words entirely unsuitable for a site like this.
What a luck they all were instantly covered in a thick coat of icing sugar, hiding beauties and beasts alike.

Both the Stollen and the Pfefferkuchen will now go back to the larder, carefully wrapped and tinned, to rest for another four weeks. And right on the beginning of December, they should be nice and mature and a perfect addition for any cookie platter.

Just so you know there was something else but christmas sweets on our plates this weekend - this is sunday's green prawn coconut curry on pasta, as pretty as they come:

P.S.: It has taken me a little over a year to reach yet another (tiny) milestone of this blog. This is the 100th post here on Nom-Nomnom, and there's definitely more to come. Thanks to all of you who continue to inspire and encourage me to go on cooking, and thanks to all dropping by and commenting.

a clear impression

2009-11-01T12:53:00.000+01:00

Just like I get better in cooking since I've started this project, I get better at noticing if a plate is gong to make a good picture or not.

I'm just snapping what's on the table and can't really be bothered with an extra setup and lightning, so taking a good picture of a dish sometimes is close to impossible. I don't necessarily mean taking a technically good pixture, I sure don't have enough of a clue to even start talking about that. But I mean a good picture in terms of conveying a clear impression of the dish, of its tastes and textures.

As I said - sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't.

It didn't work out, for example, with the photograph showing the 'stag bourguinon'. A black puddle next to two yellow triangles definitely isn't my idea of one of my favourite venison dish.

Last night's version of the very same 'stag bourguignon', though, gave me a much, much better opportunity for a good picture:

It's still far from perfect, but so much better already.

47 letters to name a single bread

2009-10-30T18:04:00.005+01:00

I have already written about Bäcker Süpke's wholegrain spelt bread with whole grains a few weeks ago.

But since then, I've made this bread several times, and it always turned out flawlessly. It's nothing I could claim any credit for, but I thought it too good a recipe not to post it here. And, seeing how charming Meister Süpke is in his comments, I don't really think he'd mind the extra publicity.

So I sat down and translated the original recipe, hoping to spread this around the blogosphere a little.

There are only two minor changes I made to the original recipe, apart from the translation, that is.

For one, I balked at the thought of adding the soft, boiled grains to the dough at the very beginning and kneading them for half an hour. I feared they would completely disintegrate and so I decided to add them only for the last ten minutes. And it works very well, the grains remain whole and apparently it makes for something like a double hydration technique, with the dough being able to build up strength before I add the final bits of liquid with the grains.

Also, the original recipe calls for a bit of 'Brotgewürz', bread spices. Which is all very nice, but also entirely undefined as far as I know. So I guessed and used ground caraway and coriander seeds in equal proportions. Which turned out to be one of my smarter ideas lately. Both spices blend pitch perfectly with the taste of the spelt, warming and brightening the taste without being really distinguishable on their own.

This bread has become a constant fixture of our diet, and I can only stress that it is the least 'healthy' tasting whole-grain bread I've ever come across. It never stops to amaze me that it's really brown and not grey, that it's rather sticky than crumbly, open-crumbed and yet perfectly sliceable with a nice but demure crunch to the crust.

Roasted in the oven with just a few drops of honey until the corners start to turn dark, this bread makes a perfect treat on its own, or a great coaster underneath a grillt goat's cheese, or basically anything that needs a solid, earthy partner.

The only thing I am not really happy with is the name, unwieldy as it is. Even in German with its infatuation with endless strings of words it's a rare thing to need 47 letters to name a single bread. But for a bread with such a long list of strong points, I am more than willing to put up with a lot, even this behemoth of a name.

Bäcker Süpke's
wholegrain spelt bread with whole grains
(translation and any mistakes are mine)
(makes two 850g loafs)

for the boiled grains
200g spelt grains
400ml water

for the sourdough
340g wholegrain spelt meal
10g ripe sourdough starter
340g warm water

for the soaker
200g wholegrain spelt flour
20g salt
120g water

for the final dough
190g wholegrain spelt flour
10g dry yeast (one sachet)
40g runny honey
1 heaped teaspoon ground caraway
1 heaped teaspoon ground coriander seeds (or more, to taste)

for decoration
rolled spelt, about 2 tablespoons

On the day before baking, bring the grains and the water to boil in a small pot. Cover and leave to simmer gently for about 10 minutes, then take off the flame, stir, and set aside, covered.

Mix all the ingredients for the sourdough until just incorporated. Cover and set aside.

Mix all the ingredients for the soaker until just incorporated. Cover and set aside.

Leave all three bowls to ferment overnight in a cool room, but not the fridge, for a minimum of 16 hours.

On the day of baking, combine the sourdough, the soaker and the final ingredients in the bowl of your mixer and knead at lowest speed for twenty(sic) minutes.
I am not kidding. The original recipe says twenty minutes and the dough really needs every second of it. You'll see, in this case it makes all the difference between wet flour and a dough.

Leave to proof for an hour.

Deflate the dough and add the boiled, cold grains.
The original recipe says to discard eventually remaining water, but I add it to keep the amount of added water identical each time. Never had much of it left with the grains, anyway.

Knead at low speed for another ten minutes.
That's half an hour kneading all together. Any wheat dough would be a neat rubber ball by now, but here, it just works perfectly.

Pour into a rectangular baking tin lined with non-stick paper. Even the dough and cover loosely with the rolled spelt.

Leave to proof in a warm place for about an hour to one hour and a half.
The dough will increase about 20% in volume at most, and when ready will stop springing back if gently poked.

Preheat your oven to 220°C. Bake with steam for the first minutes and immediately reduce temperature to about 160°C.

Bake for 100 minutes.

Take out and leave to cool on a rack. Rest a day or at least until fully cooled before cutting.

Freezes perfectly well, and tastes especially well toasted.
We usually bake on stock and freeze the sliced bread, thawing individual slices in the toaster. Talk about two sparrows and one stone.

Some more wise remarks of Bäcker Süpke:

Always add all the salt to the soaker. Otherwise, the enzymes of the wholegrain flour will produce harmful byproducts leading to a grumbling stomach.
Wholegrain doughs, especially wholegrain spelt doughs, have to be wet - rather add a little more water.
Bake long and 'slow' to get all that moisture out of the bread.
Always use very little yeast and long final proofs, else you wouldn't get a sliceable bread.
Playing with the honey and the spices is a great way of tweaking this recipe!

P.S.: And once more, this post wil be sent to the YeastSpotting section of Susan's formidable blog Wild Yeast, a home baker's resource I can hardly recommend too much.

one of the nicest gifts

2009-10-29T17:07:00.000+01:00

Last weekend, my parents came over for my father-in-law's birthday. And my dad brought me a special gift: a pot of rillettes, made by himself, after this recipe.

Of course he tweaked the recipe a little, but still. Does it make any sense that I feel poud about this? I mean, like, really happy and proud. Maybe it's the fact that my site here inspired him to cook something nice, my parent taking a clue from something I did.

What ever it it, that little pot is one of the nicest gifts I've been given in quite a while.

stuffed like Hobbits

2009-10-25T14:08:00.000+01:00

Other people have Halloween, we in our family have my father-in-law's birthday.

Not that I'm implying it's a scary event, but there is a certain amount of suspense involved every year. He likes to have themed dinners for his birthday, and after last year's classic German sixties buffet, we decided to aim higher and try to set up a proper Hawaiian luau.

Well, 'proper' in this regard surely is something of a stretch, as we have no beach, the weather here currently is nothing but drizzle, and definitely nothing tropical on offer right now. And I sure as hell wasn't going to go into our muddy garden and dig up an imu for a slow-roasted pig.

So, a little bit like last year, we didn't take the truly scientfic route and instead decided to stick with our idea of a luau - and it turned out pretty great, actually.

We had pulled porc made with liquid smoke in the oven, pineapple chutney and another one with green tomatoes. There were cheap silk flower leis for the ladies and equally thrifty shirts for the guys in lurid colours and palm leaves on the table.

We had honey-garlic meatballs, coconut-crusted prawns and lime-cured salmon salad, enough rice and sweet potatoes to feed a whole army. And of course, Mai Tais and beer, wasabi-crusted peanuts and what felt to me like one hundred nibbles I am too lazy to list up. We finished with coconut muffins and pineapple parfait, stuffed like Hobbits.

It was great, great fun and exceedingly exotic for German standarts. I learned a lot, and the coconut prawns with pineapple chutney were a real keeper.

Now all I have left to do is clean up the kitchen and then kick off my shoes for a truly lazy sunday afternoon of doing nothing. Aloha.

sunny side up

2009-10-24T12:07:00.002+02:00

The first time I heard of a 'fried egg cake', it was when some friend at school invited me over. His mother had some leftover cake from a birthday, and there would even be said 'fried egg cake'.

As I am struck with the mixed blessing of an extremely vivid and active imagination, the prospect filled me with disgust and fascination at the same time. Of course, I agreed.

It was both a relief and a disappointment when the 'fried egg cake' turned out not to contain even a single fried egg. Instead, it only looked like a platter of fried eggs, with dozens of halved apricots shining like so many sweet yolks, sunny side up.

Over the years, I have come across countless versions of this cake, and probably every household in Germany has its own.

This is my take on the 'fried egg cake, and it actually is one of my favourites. I love the combination of a crispy, crunchy base, creamy but not too custardy topping with chunks of tangy fruit and the bright notes of apricot jam spiked with lemon juice.

Unfortunately, this is one of the few cases my wife and I wholeheartedly disagree - while a crunchy base for me is an absolute must, she can't stand it. Actually, she would prefer me not to blind bake the base at all, turning the whole thing into a spoonable dessert rather than a cake to be eaten in slices.

Well, as much as I adore her, no chance in hell with this cake. It's mine.

fried egg cake (sunny side up)
(one baking sheet of 16 decent helpings)

for the pastry base
500g all-purpose flour
250g cold butter in small pieces
100g unrefined cane sugar
10g vanilla sugar
a pinch of salt
1 egg

for the batter
600g creamcheese
100g sugar
2 tablespoons corn- or potato-starch
20g vanilla sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
a pinch of salt
3 eggs

topping
about 700g canned apricots without sirup

glaze
2 tablespoons apricot jam
one teaspoon of lemon juice

Preheat your oven to about 180°C.

Combine all the ingredients for the pastry base in the bowl of your mixer. Using the whisk attachment, mix until crumbs form, about the size of coarse sand to small peas.
Once you are beyond the 'small pea' stage, it'll take only a few seconds more before the dough coalesces into one single, solid lump. Which isn't a real problem, but hard on your mixer and means additional work when rolling out the dough.

Line a high-rimmed baking sheet with non-stick paper. Pour in the crumbs and distribute them evenly, then press down (or roll out) and close any eventual gaps.
There's no need to form a rim as long as the baking sheet is high enough.

Bake blind for about 15 minutes, take out as soon as the first spots start to brown.

Meanwhile, mix all the ingredients for the batter except the eggs. Once the mix is smooth, add the eggs, one by one, always mixing until you have a smooth batter before adding the next egg.

Take out the base and pour the batter onto the hot pastry.
Please take note that this is the amount of batter filling my high-rimmed baking sheet as it should. That is, about a finger wide on top of the pastry. Your's may vary.

Put the apricots into the batter, with their rounded side up. Try to distribute them evenly across the whole cake.
Canned apricots can be a little difficult to get onto the dough 'sunny-side up', as the slippery bastards always try to end up the other way round. At least, that's what they do with me. If one of your apricots gets 'battered', take it out again and clean it under the tab - it'll just look odd and messy if you don't. (Actually, I always take more apricots than I need and eat those I dropped into the batter. Just between you and me...)

Reduce the oven temperature to 160°C and bake the cake until the batter is firm(ish) and starts to brown.
Traditionally, the batter should just set and shouldn't brown at all. But as I am one of those persons who like the fried eggs with a tiny, crispy golden fringe, I actually like it when my cake looks at least golden and not so anaemic.

Put the apricot jam into a small bowl and warm gently until runny.
A few seconds in the microwave should do the trick nicely.

Add the lemon juice and stir until smooth.
You could run the jam through a sieve at this point to get an extra-glossy finish, but I usually skip this part.

Take the cake out of the oven and glaze with the apricot jam while still hot.

Leave to cool slightly, then slice into squares. Best served warm and on its own, though still works nicely with vanilla ice-cream.

Keeps well for a few days, but gets messy when stacked. Try not to store in the fridge, as the jam glaze will attract even more moisture there and can turn the cake soggy overnight.

all is well in drizzly Germany

2009-10-20T20:29:00.000+02:00

Found out something new this weekend:

While fried octopus usually is a tough and sorry affair, cooked and skinned octopus, prepared as for a salad such as this, stays moist and tender yet gets perfectly crispy in the pan.

Deglazed with lots of lemon juice, this is almost a dish on its own... Add some garlic smetana, and all is well in drizzly Germany.

savoury cousins

2009-10-18T13:32:00.004+02:00

Two of my strongest childhood impressions concerning food are, once again, deeply connected with my family's vacations in France.

One of them is the image of 'Aunt' Odette, making crêpes in front of her caravan on a farm somewhere in rural France. I can vividly remember her lurid yellow frock, her long, pink-lacquered fingernails and her huge earrings, while she made the crêpes in a single pan on a camping gas burner. She challenged us kids to try and pick the crêpes out of the pan with our bare fingers like she did, but we never managed. Probably her long, artificial fingernails gave her quite an unfair advantage in that particular discipline.

There was a whole gaggle of kids waiting in line for her treats, orderly like you'd have never guessed only a few minutes before. And those crêpes were the best in the world right then. Filled with nothing more but sugar or jam, those filigree pancakes pacified a whole bunch of unruly children better than anything.

The other image is a memory of me sitting in the cool farmhouse kitchen of Mémé Bréard in Brittany, with with her short, smiling husband sitting next to me. At that time, my French was rudimentary at best, and Mémé needed gestures and a lot of smiles to teach me how to wrap my buckwheat crêpe, a 'galette', around a small, fried sausage and dip it in a 'bol' of buttermilk to eat.

It was an assembly of foods that was so very alien to me I could hardly believe it tasted so good. Her husband's gap-toothed grin made clear he was proud to have such a good eater with him at the table.

Those images are among the first memories of foreign food making a seriously positive impression on me, and probably are to be credited for making me (at least partially) the curious eater that I am today.

Crêpes and their savoury cousins, the buckwheat 'galettes', were among the first things I learned to poperly cook on my own. At least, that is how I remember it, they definitely were the first dish that no-one else at home knew how to make, the first dish I really 'owned'.
And the memory of Aunt Odette flipping the crêpes right in the pan with her bare fingers irked me for so long that I learned how to flip them without touching them at all. It took me a few years, admittedly, but now I look like a real pro handling several pans at the same time.

What I actually want to say is - crêpes and galettes have always been part of my cooking life, and can be everything from simple treat to a truly eye-catching, show-off dessert. I still smile when I think of that HUGE burning platter of Crêpes Guadeloupe, filled with caramelized banana and flambéed with rum, that I carried onto a dinner table one evening... I love them, and my wife loves them, and almost anyone I know agrees.

Though what astonishes me every time, though, is how many people think they're terribly difficult to make or that you need a special pan and whatnots to make them. You do need a little practise, right, but apart from that - nothing you don't already have in your kitchen.

So I decided not only to write down a recipe this time, but also to add a little tutorial for those who have never made crêpes at home, or galettes, for that matter. I'll put the tutorial into a separate post, as I do not want to clutter up the recipe and keep the tutorial as streamlined as possible. If you already know how to make crêpes, you can just skip the tutorial, I do not presume to be able to add anything to your method. But if this all seems very daunting, have a look, maybe I can help you make your first crêpe. It's well worth it.

I can only repeat how lovely and versatile both crêpes and their savoury cousins are. Variantions are almost endless, and range from simple sugar or jam to nutella and straberries, orange butter and cointreau or said caramellized bananas and rum for the sweet version alone.
The galettes are mostly eaten warm, with a bit of salted butter or some cheese and a bit of bacon inside, or a fried egg and ham. The classic way of eating them in Britanny (at least as I got to know it) is to shred then into small bits and then have them cold in a bowl of buttermilk for breakfast, pretty much like a cereal. If you roll up the galette and cut it into very fine strips, you end up with something like a cold buckwheat noodle soup, wich doesn't merely look nice but also tastes pretty amazing.

galettes bretonnes
(crêpes du sarrasin dit blé noir)
(generously serves four)

250g buckwheat flour, sieved
3 eggs

500ml milk
1 tablespoon butter, melted
1 teaspoon salt
a pinch of sugar

some neutral oil for the pan

In a large bowl, mix the flour, the eggs, butter, salt and sugar and a tiny bit of the milk, about 50ml. Mix with a wooden spoon until you get a smooth but still stiff batter.

To get the crêpes as thin and smooth as possible, you'll need a very liquid batter with as little incorporated air as possible. A wooden spoon or a dough whisk seem to be the only option, here, as all appliances I have tried so far gave me a foamy batter that yielded mostly failures.
You can try to work with a little more milk at the beginning to make the work easier on your arms. But as soon as the batter gets too moist, the flour will remain lumpy, and no beating and kneading will get 'les grumeaux' out again.

Add about 100ml of the remaining milk and mix until well incorporated. Then repeat with about 200ml first and then the rest of the remaining milk.
The batter should be very liquid, like a light creamy soup and barely cover the back of a spoon.

Leave to rest for at least half an hour, two hours would be best.

Start baking the galettes one by one following these instructions.
If you already know how to make your crêpes in a common non-stick pan, just make them as you always did. I do not presume to be able to add anything to your method. But if you are still convinced that making crêpes (or galettes, for that matter) calls either for a) some mythical skill or b) any equipment you don't already own, have a look. I learned how to make crêpes over a single gas burner on a camping site in 'la France profonde' when I was 10, and it really is that simple.

Stack them on a plate nearby and continue until you have used all your batter.

Serve hot with salted butter, or bacon and cheese, or cheese and a fried egg or even a fried sausage inside. Cold, the go very well with cream cheese, or smetana and smoked trout or basically anything you can come up with.
In Britanny, they were traditionally served in shreds in a bowl of buttermilk, the local lait ribot, as a breakfast, which is actually one of my prefered ways of eathing these.

The classic drink to accompany the galettes would be a nice, dry cidre, a sparling apple wine, though a crisp, cool beer works almost as well.

They keep very well in the fridge as long as they are tightly wrapped, but don't freeze well.

(Probably needless to say, but if you substitute the buckwheat flour with all-purpose wheat flour and add a lot less salt but much more sugar, you end up with a classic crêpe batter.)

crepe tutorial

2009-10-18T13:31:00.004+02:00

These instructions are meant to help those who have never made any crêpes before. If you already make them on a regular basis - skip this whole entry, you'll probably know better than I do anyway. This is purely they way I have learned how to make them and have tried to make the process more efficient and failsafe over the years.
(Actually, it's almost a quarter century of experience, now that I come to think of it. OMG.)

you need:
a common non-stick pan
a wooden or plastic spatula
a small bowl with about two tablespoons of neutral oil
some sheets of paper towel
an assortment of various soup-ladles
a plate for the crêpes
and of course, your batter (recipe here)

A few words on the pan:
A) non-stick surface has to be as unmarred as possible. Theoretically, crepes can be made in any kind of pot or pan with a flat bottom - but I'm really not bored enough to ever have tried.
B) Also, the lower the angle of the pan's rim, the easier it will be to flip the crêpes. Which, of course, would only be necessary if you'd want to show off. But sometimes, that's part of the point, isn't it?
C) The pan can be any size you like - but medium sized pans and their subsequent crêpes are best to handle and work for any filling or topping you have in mind.

the 'mise en place'
Ignore if you are working with one pan only. But if you're in a hurry and / or are using two or even more pans at the same time, thinking about the setup will save you some precious time and a lot of a mess.
These instructions are for right-handers, lefties please flip accordingly.

Batter goes far right of the stove.
Bowl with oil and small plate for paper towel and spatula front right.
Plate for crêpes front left.

This ensures that none of your hands will (normally) have to cross the stove. It also minimizes the ways both the batter and the oil have to travel to the pans.
This might seem silly considering what little distances your hands have to cross, but when keeping in mind that making a large batch of crepes can easily turn out several hundred of them, each milimeter makes a difference.

actually making crêpes

Preheat the pan(s) to medium heat.

Grease by wiping the pan with a paper towel dipped in oil, it really only needs a greasy sheen.
Yes, you wipe the hot pans with a paper towel. This is how you get asbestos fingertips. Or learn how to fold paper towel really thick...

The pan is hot enough when a drop of the batter dries in about ten to fifteen seconds.
You should be able to loosen the drop by merely nudging it with the spatula. If the drop sticks, wipe away with the oiled paper towel and leave the pan on the stove for a few moments longer before trying again. The oil should never start smoking, though.

Stir up the batter with a soup ladle before making the first crêpe.
Especially when making galettes, the batter might have separated a little, depending on the coarseness of your flour.
Also, pick the ladle according to the size of your pan - ideally one full ladle should yield exactly enough batter to cover the pan once. If in doubt, rather err on too small a ladle than one too large - it's easy to fill gaps, but impossible to make a thick, stiff crêpe thinner.

Pour one ladle of batter all at once into the pan, right below the handle.

Then, in a continuous motion, tilt the pan to the left, then down, then to the right, and then up. The batter will spread out and flow downwards, so by continuously changing where 'down' is you can effectively cover the whole pan with a whisper-thin sheet of batter before it has time to set.
Imagine you were rolling a ball along the bottom corner of your pan in a slow, controlled circular motion. If you are not sure of what I am talking, this actually is a great way of training it. Take the pan of your choice and a small ball (A tennis or a golf- or baseball, but an orange, a marble or even a glug of water would work just as well.) Try to roll the ball around in your pan by tilting the pan, in a slow, steady motion. You should be able to stop the ball at any place of the pan without the little thing rolling back and forth. If you can do that, you're only inches away from complete mastery of the batter in your pan.

My wife and I have tried to capture me 'rolling around the batter' in the pan, so you might get a better idea of what I am talking about here. I admit the images looks all very unprofessional, but I still think it helps a lot more to see than to read.

To the left and down...

Down and to the right...

And up...

Left and down again...

Easy!

Put the pan back onto the flame and mend eventual gaps with a few drops of batter.
Most of the times, that one darn drop hanging underneath the ladle will be just what you need to fix those tiny gaps that just seem to be unavoidable every now and then.

Once the surface of the crêpe has lost its wet sheen and the borders of the crêpe start browning, see if you can loosen the crêpe with the spatula.
In a really well-seasoned pan, you actually can just shake it loose.

Once the crêpe is nicely browned (as brown as you like it) turn around or flip in the pan.

When the other side is as brown as you like it, flip again and slip onto the plate to your left.

Wipe the pan with the oiled paper towel and start the whole process over, step by step creating a neat little pile of crêpes.
You can see that where the batter was poured up the rim of the pan, it turned very thin and crisp, almost tuile-like. This is one thing I really love about pan-made crêpes, something you would never get if they were made any other way. Those fringes always remind me of starched lace ruffles, don't they?

this time of the year - part four

2009-10-04T18:33:00.001+02:00

Once again, it's this time of the year. The leaves on the trees are starting to turn colourful, and the shops are already stocking up on stollen and other christmas sweets.

Which means that I have spent some time this weekend in my kitchen, making Pfefferkuchen. More precisely, I have been making Pfefferkuchen dough, as I do every year on the first weekend of October. This way, the dough can rest four weeks until the first weekend of November, to be baked together with the Stollen. Both will have to rest another four weeks before they are mature, which will be on the first weekend of December then. Right in time for the proper start of the cookie season.

And as every year, I have made a few changes to the recipe - if they also were improvements, we'll all see in eight weeks. I doubled the amount of butter, added more anisseed and less potash and salt of hartshorn. And I forgot to add the zante currants, but that's not a real change to the recipe, just a little sloppiness on my side. And despite making them for so many years by now, I am still excited how they will turn out this particular year.

In perfect keeping with the season, the weather has turned muddy and drizzly and cold. I am sure that somewhere I have still some of the spice-infused rum for my mulled wine... One of the very few advantages of this weather in this time of the year.

tasty pizza without cheese

2009-09-24T15:29:00.001+02:00

Within the confusingly meandering (yet hopefully charming) confines of my mind, there is a place where Sophia Loren, Alsace and the North-Hessian infatuation with smetana meet.

And whatever you might be thinking right now, it is entirely safe for work.

See, one of the deeply formative movie experiences of my childhood involves an early scene of 'Houseboat', that incredibly saccharine movie with Cary Grant and, you guessed it, Sophia Loren.
Sophia's character, Cincia Zaccardi, had just run away from her gilded-cage life as a rich man's daughter without a penny on her name, and drifts along some kind of fair, aimless and very hungry. She spots a little boy struggling hard to eat his slice of pizza, and, being the expert on Italian food that she is, decides to help him.

"See, Roberrrto," she said, her 'r's rolling with an Italian accent so strong it makes me giggle even today, "'dis is how you eat rrreal Italian pizza!"

Needless to say, her demonstration of 'fold first, then bite' consumed the better part of the young man's dinner.

For several reasons, this scene stuck with me, and there are two lessons I have learned:
1) When eating (thin-crusted) pizza, fold first, then bite, ignore the cutlery.
2) When a stunningly beautiful lady chats you up on a fair, offering to teach you something, she's after your food only. (As I said, I was really pretty young when I saw that movie.)

The first of these lessons came to my mind during my office's annual outing a few weeks ago. The lovely place we were having lunch at offered 'Flammkuchen', an Alsatian specialty very closely related to pizza. But as this is 2009, they added a local twist, using the regionally beloved smetana instead of the traditional crème fraîche.

And, boy, it was great!

Smetana is significantly richer than crème fraîche, and a little sourer as well. But with only onions, bacon and some flatleaf parsley as topping, that made all the difference. The smetana didn't curdle like crème fraîche would have done, and it added that kind of moreish creaminess that usually you can only get by using cheese.

Actually, in retrospective, this was the first time ever I ate any kind of 'pizza' without cheese that tasted great.

Eating these very flat 'pizzas' can be a little tricky, and using knife and fork on something with the rough proportions of a tea towel very swiftly bordered on comical. So me and those of my colleagues who had ordered the Flammkuchen as well abandoned all pretense of good manners and followed Sophia's (or rather Cinzia's) advice - cut roughly, then fold, then bite.

As you can imagine, we had a great time.

Of course, I had to try and replicate the recipe at home, and when the last time I refreshed our stock of chiabattini, I set aside some of the dough for dinner. It turned out just as great as I had hoped, despite me over-cooking the bacon just a tad and only having curly parsley which was a little too harsh for my taste.

Smetana might be difficult to come by west of Germany, but if you get some, you've got to try this at home. Even if it sounds hard to believe, there IS tasty pizza without cheese in this universe.

Flammkuchen, Hessian style
(generously serves four)

half a batch chiabatta dough

800g onions
250g bacon
400g smetana

half a bundle flatleaf parsley
salt & pepper

Prepare the dough as described, but set aside after the last fold.

Well in advance, heat up the oven as high as it goes.
Mine tops out at about 250°C, which is just barely enough. Simply make sure the oven is thoroughly heated up, not merely the air inside that'll go off as soon as you open the door.

Peel the onions and cut into fine rings. Bring a large pot of water to a roiling boil and blanch the onions for just about 30 seconds. Douse with cold water and drain thoroughly, then cover and set aside.
As the Flammkuchen will be done in a very hot oven, the onions will hardly have time to cook. Blanching them takes out just enough of that 'grassy' feeling, leaving them tender and sweet yet still with a little bite.

Cut the bacon into small strips or matches (lardons). Fry in a non-stick pan at low temperature until barely even golden, then cover and set aside.
As above, the bacon should be pre-cooked before going into the oven. But I fried it in a heavy, cast-iron pan and completely forgot that the bacon would be further browned by the residual heat of the pan alone. In consequence, the bacon bits on the Flammkuchen on the picture above were a little bit on the dark side.

Pour the smetana into a bowl and add about 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Mix until smooth.
If you decide to use more bacon than I mentioned above, you won't need this additional salt.

Sort the (biggest) stalks out of the parsly and roughly chop the leaves.

When you're about to sit down for dinner, take out the dough and deflate. Quarter the dough and form firm balls as you would for rolls. Then take the first portion, flatten and roll out until it is only a few milimeters thick.
Basically, roll out the dough as thinly as you can handle comfortably.

Take a quarter of the smetana and spread (as) evenly (as possible) across the dough, leaving a border of about a centimeter uncovered.

Evenly distribute a quarter of the blanched onions on top of the smetana. Sprinkle with a quarter of the lardons.

Put into the oven and bake until the rim of the dough looks almost burned. Ideally, this will take exactly as long as it will take you to roll out and top the next Flammkuchen. My oven took a little longer, but still only a few minutes, really.

Sprinkle with some parsley and serve immediately.

Goes best with a fresh, dry white wine or a similarly crisp, cold beer.
Lots of it.

Keeps surprisingly well in the fridge and reheats nicely, but really is best fresh out of the oven.

my heartfelt thanks

2009-09-20T10:49:00.000+02:00

Since I am now making a reasonably nice chiabatta and a mean bunch of raisin buns, the only thing we would need to be wholly independent from our (formerly) favourite bakery would be a way to replicate their whole grain bread.
Whole grain in this case not merely as in 'whole grain flour', but as in 'entire grains'. It is a rather heavy, somewhat brick-like loaf, dark and delightfully hearty. If we need some bread to put underneath a couple of fried eggs, that's the one.

You can well imagine my excitement as I found a recipe that's remarkably close to that bread by dear Bäcker Süpke, a German baker and creator of the famous 'Black Hamster' bread.

Of course I had to try it, and it isn't only all we had hoped for, it actually is much better. It is a 100% whole-grain spelt bread that delivers perfect slices, tastes great, has a lovely crust and even that slight sticky crumb that I love so much. Here, have look:

Just ignore the vein of dry rolled spelt that's running across the bread, that's entirely my own fault as I am a clumsy chaot and can't handle a wet dough. But that's the bread when I cut the first loaf about three hours after baking, and its already giving slices as neat as any white bread despite the relatively open crumb. So lovely.

It is Bäcker Süpke's 'whole-grain spelt bread whith whole grains' and you can find the original recipe here, even though it's in German. If anyone needs a translation, please drop me a line, I'll gladly help out.

The only variation I made (apart from the involuntary inclusion of rolled spelt) was that I didn't include the cooked spelt grains until the last five minutes of kneading, as I feared the grains would be reduced to mush if I did. But I don't think I should have worried, as the dough was moist enough to give them room.

So once again, the internet made my day and made us finally independent from that bakery. My heartfelt thanks to Bäker Süpke!

so German it almost hurts

2009-09-13T16:42:00.011+02:00

Germany.
Close your eyes and think 'Germany'.

Think autumn. Think Oktoberfest.
(Which never fails to irritate me as it is being held in September.)

You see beer? Lederhosen? Spit-roasted suckling pig? Cool.

But I wasn't aiming that high with my projects, at least not yet. No, rather simple but still so German it almost hurts: Brezeln.

Emboldened by my recent successes in baking, I have lately been trying my luck with 'Brezeln', or pretzels, and generally all kinds of baked goods dipped in lye.

Actually, is there any other way to translate 'Laugengebäck' other than 'lye pastry'? That really sounds too weird to my ears, like apple pockets and lye.

Dipping dough in lye before it is baked is a tradition in Germany and surrounding countries that is far wider than just pretzels. Though 'Brezn' are by far the most common version in many shapes, you can theoretically use any dough. A short bath in lye adds a very specific, savoury taste and a lovely deep colour. And at least in my area, lye croissants are giving the classic pretzels a real competition.

Curious as I am, I have been experimenting a lot, and together with this post on 'Hefe und Mehr' which I found via Yeast Spotting, I stumbled upon a real treat - kaiser lye rolls.

Very pretty, assertively savoury rolls with a glossy crust and a fine crumb and a nice but not overly obvious part of whole grain flours. And dead simple to make. What more could I ask for?

kaiser lye rolls
(makes eight rolls)

for the rolls:
350g bread baking flour
100g whole wheat flour (German type 1050)
50g coarse rye meal
250ml lukewarm water
50g butter
1 sachet active dry yeast (about 12g)
1 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoons salt

for the lye:
1l water
30g sodium hydroxide pellets

On the day before baking, mix all the ingredients for the dough in a large bowl. Knead until smooth (first gluten developement).

Store the dough in a cool place (cellar or upper area of fridge) for twelve hours.

On the day of baking, degas the dough and cut into eight pieces. Roll each into a string of about 60cm (four to six hands wide).

Make a knot (see here for instructions) and leave to rest for about 45 minutes, until the rolls have gained about one-and-a-half time their original volume.
Do not cover the rolls during this time. Just let them dry out a little, it'll make them easier to handle and they'll take up the lye all the better.

Meanwhile, prepare the lye. Pour the cool(!) water into a metal or glass bowl. Add the pellets and occasionally stir until the lye is clear again and the pellets are completely dissolved.
Two words on lye - while the final lye is relatively harmless, the pellets are not. Never touch them with your bare hands, never pour water onto them or use a wet towel to wipe them up if spilled. Just keep them dry until you put them into a lot of water, and all will be fine. Do not boil the lye.
Also, while the final lye IS caustic, it'll not eat away any of your equipment or digits if spilled. You can simply wipe it off, just use some clear water to wipe after.
But - if you have wooden countertops that are merely oiled, it will stain them a lovely dark brown, just like the rolls. My freckled countertop is living proof to that, sadly so.

When the rolls are ready, individually dip them into the lye for about 15 to 30 seconds each.

Transfer onto a baking sheet, making sure there is no (or only a little) lye pooling in the centre of the crown.
One tiny disclaimer - I have no idea of the effect of lye on silicon baking sheets. Don't blame me if things go boom.

Bake for about 20 minutes at 190°C, no steam necessary, until well browned.

These rolls are best eaten fresh, but can be quite well frozen and crisped up again.
Cold & old, they're plain vile.

The lye rolls hold up especially well against strong toppings. I had some smoked trout and horseradish on them for breakfast, and the combination was a perfect match. On the other hand, my wife prefers them with plain cream cheese, so what do I know.

P.S.: Again, I will submit this post to the YeastSpotting section of Susan's formidable blog Wild Yeast. As already mentioned above, it is a constant source of inspiration for me.

this morning's bread basket

2009-09-12T12:17:00.001+02:00

Recently, I have started experimenting with lye rolls an pretzels, which are a lovely addition to our bread basket each morning. I tried kaiser lye rolls with 20% to 40% wholegrain wheat and rye today, and they turned out nice enough I'll make a post out of them. Until then, have a look at this morning's bread basket:

After that, I cleaned up and made the cake for this afternoon, making one of the more memorable messes in the last months - while glazing, I made sure all stayed clean, at least that is what I thought. But then I turned the cake around and found this:

Lake chocolate. And it was already flowing underneath the cake platter... Well, I managed to get the cake clean enough to go into the fridge, and the mess on the table is still there, waiting to get hard enough so I can scrape it off.

But we're going to have 'flammkueche' tonight, so that'll make up for a lot of kitchen mishaps today. Really looking forward to them.

born with a third hand

2009-09-06T14:06:00.001+02:00

Now that I have been talking about home-made pasta not once, but twice, I think maybe it's time I add the recipe here for sake of completeness.

Making pasta yourself is terribly simple, it doesn't call for any special skill nor ingredients. What it does call for, though, is a bit of effort, some equipment and ideally a helping hand. Making pasta on your own isn't only a bore, it's also quite impossible unless you're one of the very few people born with a third hand.

But it makes quite a difference to store-bought pasta, and most of the times helps turning a good dish into a great one. And that's definitely worth the little extra effort, in my eyes at least.

simple pasta with eggs
(recipe given per person, scale accordingly)

100g bread baking flour
1 medium egg
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon olive oil (optional)

In a small bowl, mix the salt with the eggs until dissolved.
If you mix it all together like that, you'll end up with grains of salt in the rather dry dough, which will draw water during the rest, making the dough harder to get smooth.

Mix all ingredients and knead until all flour has been absorbed.
The oil is optional, but will make the dough less sticky and helps against the dough drying out. Definitely recommended when you do not plan to dry and keep your pasta on stock.
If the dough is sticky despite everything, add some more flour.

Wrap in clingwrap and chill for about half an hour.
The dough will dry out rather quickly, so if you insist on a box for the dough instead of some plastic, find one that fits with as little air around the dough as possible.

Cut the dough into pieces about the size of a small fist. Cover your kitchen table with tea towels or your proofing linnen and get a broomstick handy.

Using a pasta mill like the one you can see in the picture below, run the dough though on the largest setting. Fold in half and repeat until the dough comes out as a smooth sheet.

Set the sheet aside onto the towels and repeat with the remaining dough.

Depening on the size of the pasta you want to cut, roll out the sheets in increasingly thinner settings, this time without folding them in half.
Latest here you'll need a third hand, as cranking the handle, feeding the dough into the mill and getting it out again will be just one simultaneous task too many for one person alone.

Once the individual sheet is as thin as you want it, cut into the pasta of your choice.
I almost invariably make tagliatelle, as they are still fine enough to catch a lot of sauce and yet sturdy enough to hide any mistakes or sloppy handling.

Once cut, hang the pasta over the broomstick as shown - this way they will start drying and will be less prone to sticking to each other.

To cook, set up a big pot with salted water, and use more salt than you think you need. Boil for four to five minutes only, depending on the thickness of your pasta.

Serve with a little bit of butter and / or anything you can come up with.

Variation:
Instead of making tagliatelle, I sometimes make ravioli - filling the sheets in idividual parcels is pretty straight forward, and ricotta and store-bought creamed spinach in equal proportions make a great, easy filling.

a long way to go together

2009-09-03T15:12:00.003+02:00

Happy aniversary, Nom-Nomnom! (or is it a blogiversary, rather?)

Since one year now, I've been typing, taking pictures and learning a lot about home baking and hypertext.

I've actually had a hard time deciding if I were to make an extra post out of this. Birthdays and such are not really something I like, at least as long as it is me being at the centre of attention. But I really like other people's birthdays, so in the end, I decided, this isn't about me, this is about this blog, this place, this little book it has become.

Indeed, more and more often I catch myself using the red folder where I keep a printout of this blog as a cooking book - even if it is just to look up some measurements. This blog has become a great place I can refer people to when I am asked for some recipe, and looking at the hits this place gets, other people seem to think so, too. So I figured I'd make a post about 'the other people' actively and passively involved in this blog, as a way to mark the day.

The idea about writing about food was on my mind for a long time already, but then I stumbled across Molly's adorable Orangette, and it was her lovely, evocative writing that finally made me pick up the pen (the keyboard) and get my own act sorted out a little. Meanwhile, Molly has opened a restaurant of her own with her husband, her focus understandably but sadly not on writing any longer.

Our (once) favourite bakery stopped making their chiabatta - so I learened to make my own. And baking bread made me stumble across a lot of lovely places and people - among them Susan of Wild Yeast, a treasure trove for bakers, or the amazing Shiao-Ping on The Fresh Loaf blog who, with her talent and unique point of view, is a real inspiration.

But this place would neither have been created nor kept a live for this long if it hadn't been for my lovely wife, who is both my greatest fan (sometimes irrationally so, imho) and my most honest critic. Nothing inspires to kitchen greatness as easily as a wife with a clearly voiced opinion. So, kudos to her.
And if there is one thing I wish for my blog - it's that my lovely wife just keeps on being the way she is, for that'll make sure this blog, me and her will still have a long way to go together.

your new favorite Greek word

2009-09-01T14:16:00.007+02:00

My knowledge of the Greek language is pretty rudimentary, even though I did have Ancient Greek at school for a few years.

But, there is one word I haven't forgotten since I was a little kid - 'lagos' means 'rabbit'.

Very tasty rabbit at that, for 'lagos' showed up at my parents' place usually in the form of 'lagos stifado', a Greek rabbit stew with almost as much onions in it as there was rabbit.

I vaguely remember the original recipe being somewhat complicated, with ketchup and tomato juice and lots of frying and braising involved. But this here is the 'family version', a user-friendly, stunningly simple recipe that has evolved (or been stripped to the core) over the years in both my mother's kitchen and mine.

Basically, it is just rabbit, onions and canned tomatoes in roughly the same proportions, cooked until all starts falling apart.

But it is so, so very good. Especially good, actually, on home-made pasta, as we had it this weekend. I intentionally overcooked the rabbit a little, ending up with an almost dissolved rabbit and a very thick sauce that went so smoothly with my papardelle it was a joy. It was one the very rare cases that I was entirely satisfied with something I had cooked.

Try it, you'll see, 'lagos' might just become your new favorite Greek word, too.

lagos stifado (greek rabbit stew with onions)
(serves six)

1,5 kg rabbit (with bones, preferrably thighs)
1 tablespoon olive oil
200ml dry red wine

1kg onions
3 cloves garlic, optional
1,5kg canned tomatoes (more or less)
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
a generous amount of black pepper (about a teaspoon)
some tabasco or similar
1 tablespoon butter

Clean and pare the meat, if necessary.

Peel and quarter the onions. Peel the garlic.
Don't forget to uncan the tomatoes.

In a large, cast-iron pot, brown the rabbit meat in the olive oil.
This is just for the meat to catch some colour and taste, not to cook.

Deglaze with the wine, then add all the other ingredients except the tabasco and the butter.

Bring to a gentle boil, then put into the oven at approximately 170°C and braise for 1,5 to two hours, depending on how loose you want the meat to be.
I cooked mine for about two hours, as I wanted to use it as sauce on my pasta, and didn't need any extra-large chunks of meat.

Occasionally check if there is still enough liquid in the pot.
Ideally, the sauce should be thick on the verge of dry, but not burned, once the meat is done. Either add a bit of water if too dry or braise with the lid askew if too wet for a while to correct.

Right before serving, take out of the oven and adjust the seasoning. A bit of tabasco works great here. Add the butter for some luxurious taste in a still very lean dish.
Also, a pinch of cinnamon and / or anisseed would be typical and very nice, but as this is the plainest version possible, I usually leave it as it is.

Goes great with pasta or potatoes, but crispy bread will do just as fine. Serve with a salad and more of the wine you used for cooking, or try a glas of pastis or similar, as it goes great with the onions in the sauce.

Keeps great for a few days in the fridge or almost indefinitely in the freezer, though it might look a little worse for the wear once heated up.

I'll start considering

2009-08-29T07:51:00.001+02:00

Somehow, the more bread and rolls and cakes and stuff I make myself (as opposed to buying it at a bakery), the more of it my family seems to be eating...

I mean, seriously, are the bakeries in Germany that bad? They shouldn't be.

Admittedly, their bread goes dry in a day and moldy in two, which mine doesn't manage in a week. But still. Just saying.

I just realized how little we buy at the bakery these days. An occasional piece of pastry when I'm in the mood, nothing else. And I really don't miss anything.

It's only two weeks ago that I made a whole batch of raisin buns, and they're all gone already. Making new ones today.

As soon as our neighbours start asking me for bread, I'll start considering a career change.

nothing but pink clouds

2009-08-20T20:24:00.002+02:00

How many unsharp pictures you think one can take of the same object? A non-moving, well-lit object at that, while using a pretty foolproof point-and-shoot camera?

More than you think, apparently.

Going through the pictures I had taken at our summer party right before the hungry locusts (aka our guests) were called in, I found that none of the pictures I had taken of the gravlax, the cured whole salmon I had made, were even remotely sharp.

More than that, the salmon seemed to have poisoned the pictures it was in. Picture of cheese platter and italian vegetables - sharp. Picture of cheese platter and a tiny corner of gravlax - mostly sharp. Picture of cheese platter and gravlax - damn unsharp. Picture of gravlax - nothing but pink clouds. Tiny corner of gravlax and tuna tabouleh - sharp again!

What the fudge?!

So, this is what I could salvage, a cutout from a larger 'groupshot':

But despite the pictures, the gravlax itself was a resounding success. Especially considering how little work it actually had been to prepare.

I've been told it's a traditional swedish(?) way of preserving salmon, and the recipe is one I've got handed down from my mother. Curing with salt takes some of the moisture out of the meat, making it firmer, more intense and darker, pretty much like a cured ham. After two days curing, it is still recognizably 'fishy' in texture, but at four days, it really is more ham than salmon, except for the taste, of course.
My family is a little divided on how many days curing are best, but two days seem to be the best compromise.

The sauce that goes with it is traditional and pretty nice, especially if you make it completely from scratch and grind your own mustard, but that's not really necessary. Also, it is far from the only option - my wife skips the sauce completely and sticks with garlic smetana to go with the gravlax.

Whatever you put on top of it - the gravlax is a dead-simple way of preparing a different, intensely tasty salmon dish, perfect for a light summer dinner or as a nice starter.

gravlax (cured salmon)
(Serves 4-6 as a main, double as starters. Images show a whole 6kg salmon.)

for the gravlax
1kg fresh salmon with skin, in two equally-sized pieces
5 small bundles dill
1 tablespoon white pepper
3 tablespoons sugar
4 tablespoons coarse salt

for the sauce
3 tablespoons hot mustard
1 teaspoon mustard powder
3 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon plain vinegar

Wash the salmon and descale, if necessary. Pat dry.
When you buy the salmon, make sure it is very fresh. Curing will make it taste more intense, for good or bad. Also, making sure you get two pieces of the same shape helps a lot.

Roughly shop the dill and coarsely grind the white pepper. Mix both with the sugar and the salt.

Put one piece of salmon onto a large sheet of tinfoil, skin-side down. Cover well with the spiced salt-sugar-mix, then lay the other piece on top, skin side up.
In the end, you should have skin-meat-salt-meat-skin.

Wrap the salmon tightly with the foil and put into a high-rimmed dish. Lay something heavy, like a stone or a full water-bottle, on top of the whole thing, making sure there's some gentle but insistent pressure all over the fish.
I actually have a few cobblestones in my larder right for that purpose... and as doorstoppers, if need be.

Cure the salmon in a cool place (but not the refrigerator) for two days, turning the bundle each twelve hours.
Do not discard the brine running out, you'll need it for the sauce.

On the day of serving, unwrap the fish and discard the remaining salt and spices. Depending on how intense you like the dish, you can even wash it off, as long as you carefully dry the salmon afterwards.

For the sauce, add four tablespoons of the brine with the remaining ingredients, and stir or blend until smooth. Correct seasoning, trying to find a rather mild balance between hot/salty/sweet.

Serve the fish in thin slices with some fresh dill, the sauce and some fresh bread. Pickles or cucumber salad go very well with this.

The gravlax keeps in the fridge for a few days, but grows more and more intense and ham-like each day.
By the way, I've heard rumours about a version of this involving rainbow trout, coriander green and ginger instead of salmon and dill... My fingers twitch even thinking about this. MUST. TRY. SOON!

something similarly silly

2009-08-12T20:30:00.002+02:00

Well, I know I already mentioned I made all the bread for the summer party. But did I also mention what a fun it was, kneading and folding almost twenty pounds of dough in a laundry tub?

Or the mess I made when I poured the whole thing onto my kitchen counter for pre-shaping?

It was great. And I am actually looking forward on doing something similarly silly again next year.

Definitely one of the nicest sights of the whole event was the pile of loaves on my dining table on friday before the party, growing slowly but steadily, filling the house with their scent, crackling softly.

And with all the good food (and especially all the meat), it was little wonder that last weekend, we all longed for something a little less... meaty, actually. As not all of us are overly fond of piles of vegetables, pasta seemed the obvious choice.

Homemade pasta.

It's dead simple - should I write down the recipe and how-to, anyway? And with a nice heap of grated cheese, and a big bowl of long-cooked, almost caramellized tomato-basil sauce, there's hardly anything simpler and better to be had on a nice, calm summer evening.

somewhat accidentally

2009-08-09T21:49:00.005+02:00

This recipe has entered our household somewhat accidentally.

A few years ago, while preparing for our summer party, I realized I had much more zucchini and eggplants than I would have needed. Mostly, this was due to the fact that august is the month of the dreaded zucchini deluge, with all neighbours bringing some of them as a (only moderately welcome) gift.

But, you know, in the best sense of making lemonade out of life's lemons, I roasted them, doused them in balsamic and put them onto the summer party's buffet. It was an instant hit and has been repeated every year since.

As we are usually running out of these antipasti before 10pm on our summer party, this year we made an extra large batch of them. Which led my dear aunt to comment on the inevitable leftovers the next morning: "Oh my, look at this, that's almost two pounds of leftovers! What a shame..."

At which I only smiled wryly, saying: "Well, they ate twenty-two out of twenty-four pounds. I think that's pretty spot-on."

We serve really big bowls at our summer party, did I mention that?

Anyway, this is a great way of offering vegetables in a different way and can be varied endlessly to accommodate season and tastes. I've already added squash, chanterelles and oyster mushrooms to the mix, and they all turned out pretty great.

And in the rare case you do get leftovers - they keep perfectly for quite a few days.

grilled vegetables, italian style
(serves eight as a side, images show... a manifold batch)

two medium zucchini
one medium eggplant
four red and / or yellow peppers
two red onions
four cloves of garlic

one sprig each of sage, rosemary, thyme
two teaspoons salt
pepper or some peperonici
200 ml balsamic vinegar
400 ml mild olive oil
1 tablespoon honey

On the day before serving, clean the vegetables and peel the garlic and the onions.

Cut the eggplant and the zucchini into slices about as thick as a finger. Peel and quarter the onions. Arrange them on a baking tray lined with paper and put them under the very hot grill - without any seasoning or oil - until they are dark brown, almost charred, on top.
Charring and browning are important for the taste of the dish - actually cooking the vegetables not so much. If you manage to get them slightly charred while they still have a bite to them - you rock!

To save space, zucchini and eggplant slices can overlap like slates, as long as each slice will have a chance to cook and brown.

Meanwhile, clean the peppers and quarter. Arrange on a baking tray skin-side up, and grill until the skins show black blisters.

[optional] To peel the peppers, cover them hot out of the oven with a wet kitchen towel and leave to cool a little. After that, the skin should come off easily.
As I have come to learn, this really is entirely optional. Usually, I made the effort and peeled all of the peppers. Last year, though, I had another kind of peppers that didn't want to separate from theirs skins try as I may. So I chucked them into the bowl, charred skins and all. Nobody complained, nobody left pepper skins on they plates. So I figured - why bother?

Combine the warm vegetables in a large bowl and add the remaining ingredients. Toss lightly until all is covered and leave to marinate for a few hours, best over night.

Toss again before serving, correct seasoning if necessary.

Serve with crusty white bread as a starter, or with grilled meat as a cold side.

Covered with olive oil, leftovers keep in the fridge for at least a week.

peaches!

2009-08-06T21:23:00.003+02:00

The peaches are ripe!

Admittedly, peaches grow and ripen all over the world, every year, so basically it's no big news.

But these are the peaches in our garden, and considering that we live in a corner of Germany that for good reason is called 'Hessian Siberia', this is a small miracle indeed.

There's a bowl of them standing right on my desk, filling the room with their sweet scent, all of them still warm from the evening sun. So very lovely.

candlelight and iced rosé

2009-08-05T19:16:00.001+02:00

A few years ago, I got my hands on a tub of harissa and decided I had to make something with it. Anything.

I would make tuna tabouleh, I decided.

The only problem I had was that I had never eaten any, nor consciously seen a recipe, or anything in that general direction. What I had in mind were half-remembered rumminations of... something, a salad of bulgur, herbs, and said harissa.

I had no recipe. More precisely, I had no idea of where I was going when I started throwing together the ingredients.

Even today I don't actually know if what I call a tabouleh actually IS one or not, though I am reasonably sure by now. If anyone of you knows more about mahgreb cuisine than I do, I'd really appreciate some help here.

But - and I bet you all saw that coming - my 'tabouleh' turned out great. A delicious, hot-sour-spicy summer fare that at least for German standarts is pretty exotic. When I am asked to bring something for a party, usually it is this salad I am asked for.

Also, you can make it in smaller quantities and make fresh tuna steaks instead of using canned tuna, and suddenly this dish turns into a great summer dinner, classy enough to be shared with someone special on a balmy august night with candlelight and iced rosé wine...

Ahem. Sorry.

Before I got carried away, I just wanted to add that bulgur, the cracked, parboiled and dried wheat is usually harder to find than its finer cousin couscous. You can use couscous just as well in this recipe, though the texture will be a little bit less appealing (at least in my eyes) and there will be a bigger risk of the whole thing getting a little soggy.

Bulgur will make for a more coarse, interesting salad, and I am pretty sure the difference will be worth a little time spend searching. Who knows what else you may find that inspires you, like that tub of harissa did for me?

tuna tabouleh
(serves 6 as a side)

250g bulgur (alternatively couscous)
500ml water
salt

juice of one lemon
50g harissa
100ml olive oil
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander seeds

one bundle each of flat parsley, coriander green and mint
a small bundle spring onions
one can tuna meat
(entirely optional) one more lemon and some borage blossoms for decoration

Prepare the bulgur (or the couscous) according to the instructions on the box - usually, that will mean boiling half a litre of water, pouring it over the grains and leave it until all the liquid has been absorbed, usually no more than a few minutes.
Some types of bulgur may require cooking, much like pasta. Won't make a difference here, though.

Leave to cool a little and mix to fluff up occasionally.

Mix the lemon juice, the harissa, the oil and the spices until smooth. Pour over the warm bulgur and mix until evenly distributed. Leave to cool for a while, even over night.
Depending on the brand you get, the harissa can be rather mild or pretty hot, so proceed with caution. Rather take less harissa and more cumin and coriander.

Clean the sping onions and chop very fine. Roughly chop the herbs and drain the tuna.
As much as I am for lazy cooking - I really prefer to take the stems off the coriander, as they can be a little too much of the good stuff for me.
Also, nothing forces you to use canned tuna here - a fresh tuna steak directly from the grill is absolutely lovely on this salad, though maybe not really the point when you're preparing for a party. Or exactly the point, depending.

Mix the bulgur to fluff up again and correct the seasoning, if necessary.
It should be spicy and leave a nice, moreish tingle in your mouth, but shouldn't incinerate your palate.

If the bulgur feels too dry, add some more olive oil and / or lemon juice.

Right before serving, add the chopped onions, the herbs and the tuna, and toss until well combined.

If you want, you can decorate the salad with lemon wedges and borage blossoms.
I picked borage blossoms for four reasons: a) they are edible b) they are all over our garden in summer c) their taste goes nicely with the salad d) their colour goes so lovely with the blue bowl we always serve the tabouleh in. Shallow, I know, but soo pretty...

Serve lightly chilled with crusty bread and maybe some greek-style yoghurt with a little bit of mint. Doesn't really keep well beyond a day or two.

Can be varied with some canned or cooked chickpeas or some other legumes added to the mix for more texture.

a real highlight

2009-08-04T14:12:00.008+02:00

Now this was a whirlwind weekend if there ever was one.

And what a wonderful summer party it was! Almost unbelievably, the weather remained warm and sunny, so unlike the years before, and we were able to sit outside all night, until finally the last guest had left at half past two in the morning.

The food was a great success, as we had hoped for. I made all the bread, two huge pork roasts with crackling, the cured salmon and, and, and... Even though we calculated the amounts rather generously, we hardly had any leftovers.

First thing we ran out of was my mother-in-law's indian cucumber salad, followed by the eggs in hot curry sauce and the tiramisu. I'm still stunned by the sheer amounts of food these people have stuffed themselves with! But happy with it, of course, and still glowing like a christmas tree with all the compliments me and my lovely crew have received.

Actually, the most complimented dish on the whole table was my wife's pasta salad - which enraged her ever so slighty, as she had made the exact same salad each year before, and it had never received much attention so far. Who said our guests were reliable eaters...

Anyway, it was a great party, and a real highlight of my year. I'll post some of the recipes individually over the coming days, while we sort through the remaining debris and the piles of unmarked (and mostly edible) presents that somehow have wordlessly accumulated on our sideboard. At least I assume they are presents, if not, someone please let me know.

Especially that tiny, elephant-shaped vase, wrapped in a red silk scarf, amazes me to no end. Where did that come from? And what am I supposed to do with it?

a few hours from now

2009-08-01T08:13:00.003+02:00

Just a few hours from now, close to seventy people will be flooding our house. The bread is ready, as is the salmon and the grilled italian vegetables.

All that's left is the meat, the salads, the sauces and the dessert. And we still have to set up the bar in the garden, and clean the house, and buy some wine that for whatever reason we forgot to get from the wholesale market...

It sounds so mad, I know, but I am looking forward to this whirlwind of chaos each year, and I am having a blast each time. Let's see what stories I'll have to report come tomorrow morning.

questioning my sanity

2009-07-27T11:57:00.014+02:00

Next weekend, we'll have our annunal summer party at our house. Both my in-laws and us have invited all our friends, families, colleagues and neigbours, and we'll be around sixty to seventy people.

And together with my lovely wife, we'll be cooking for all of them.

I know, quite some people have already mentioned in rather frank words that they think I am insane putting up with all that work. But I love every minute of it, it is like an extra holiday for me. Especially this year, as I have taken a day off work on both friday and monday and therefore all will be moving along rather leisurely.

Even the weather forcast look great *knocks on wood*, much better than the years before. Three years ago, we had 8°C on a early august afternoon, can you believe it?

But probably the main difference this year will be the fact that I will (try to) make all the breads myself. I already mentioned some people are questioning my sanity?

So I have been tinkering around with my favourite breads, trying to come up with something interesting to add a little colour to the bread basket. Yesterday, I finally made a version of a spiced rye bread, the way it is popular in south Germany, that I really liked. Mostly caraway, but also fennel, anis and cardamon blend so well with the sourdough rye that they add complexity but do not overwhelm the bread flavour itself.

It is not too different from my 'partial' rye bread - just a little tweaked with a darker crust. But it is a lovely bread to have with just a little butter and salt, together with a nice salad and a big, cool beer.

Just the right thing for a summer party...

Caraway Rye Bread
(makes one 1.2 kg loaf)

levain
100g wholegrain rye flour (German type 1150)
50ml water
80g sourdough starter (100% hydration rye)

final dough
200g medium to fine rye meal
100g high-gluten wheat flour (German type 550)
350g wholegrain wheat flour (German type 1050)
3 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon dry yeast
2 teaspoons caraway seeds
1/2 teaspoon anisseed
1/2 teaspoon fennel seed
1/2 teaspoon cardamon seed
420 ml water, lukewarm

The day before baking, mix all the ingredients for the levain and leave to ferment for 12 hours at room temperature.
Twelve hours are a rough guideline. It'll work just as good if you keep it fermenting longer.

The day of baking, roughly grind the spices in a mortar or a spice grinder. Mix with all the remaining ingredients and the levain and knead until medium gluten developement.
Of course you could leave the spices whole, but I find them too distracting, intense as they are, and prefer them a little broken down.

Leave to proof for 2 hours at room temperature.

Then, shape into a light ball, if possible without de-gassing the dough, and leave to rest for another half an hour.
Simplest way to pre-shape the dough would be pouring it onto a lightly floured surface and tucking the fringes underneath itself just once or twice so it is more or less round and the dough's surface taut as a bedsheet.

After that, shape the dough again as above, this time turning it around and sealing the seam with a few deft pinches. Put seam-up into a well-floured couche and leave to proof for another 1,5 hours.
Once again, I proofed the dough in a colander lined with a well-floured tea towel, and it worked flawlessly. I also made a longer loaf, almost like a batard, by using a rectangular cake tin instead of a colander.

Preheat the oven to 250°C.
More and more I come to the conclusion that it is not enough to have the oven thermometre show the desired temperature. If I let the oven heat up another twenty minutes then, the temperature loss from openeing the door and steaming is significantly less and makes for a much better crust.

Once the dough is ready, flip seam-side down onto a baking sheet and score.

Bake at a low rack with steam for about 20 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 210°C. Bake for another 40 minutes until the crust is dark and fragrant.
For baking with steam see my descriptions here.

Switch off the oven but leave the bread inside to cool for another 10 to 15 minutes with the door ajar inprove the crust.

Set on a rack to cool completely before cutting.

P.S.: And once more, this post is submitted to the YeastSpotting section of Susan's formidable blog Wild Yeast. I can't really recomment her site enough, it is a constant inspiration for me.

smelled so good

2009-07-26T18:12:00.004+02:00

Who says you can't have fun and learn something new at the same time?

Last night a dear colleague of mine had her annual summer party. You know, she of cantuccini and rasberry parfait fame.

As centrepiece of her buffet, she had a whole gyros skewer. A whole, life-size one for seventy people. So awesome!

(Not me, nor the actual skewers. As I didn't have my camara with me, this picture is curtesy of wikimedia commons, just to get an idea of what I am talking about.)

And best thing, I even got a go at trying to cut the meat properly! I can now honestly say that it takes a lot of practise to get thin slices off that huge beast, but it was great fun, very tasty, hot and smelled soooo good...

Now this makes for a very nice memory.

grandma's little helper

2009-07-19T14:04:00.011+02:00

The evolution of recipies is a funny thing.

This one started out as my grandmother's classic goulash, then became my mother's 'goulash with mushrooms', my 'meat stew' and finally, I realized it had become somthing rather close to the classic 'boef bourguignon'.

It is so far removed from its origins now that they hardly resemble each other, apart from both being braised meat with lots of gravy. But this version, with its intense taste, the gravy looking almost like crude oil and its endless adaptability holds a special place in my little brown book. (Which is where I scribble my cooking notes, edit and re-edit them until they become stable recipes.)

For one, this recipe works especially well with venison. You could use beef, but that would be a little unnecessary, especially as the cheaper venison cuts from legs and neck are really cheap when it's in season here. This is a recipe that explicitly benefits from more marbled meat with occasional cartilage and ligaments, as the long cooking time will mostly melt them and they'll add a wonderful, meaty and sticky quality to the gravy that you'd never get with a lean, expensive cut.

Most of the time, we use stag, as our wholesale market stocks it frozen and at a really good value all year round. But it works equally well with boar, or basically any other venison, even mixed. The stronger taste of game meat is perfectly suited to hold its own against the strong taste of the gravy, making it a perfect meal when you need something comforting, strong, invigourating your senses.

As almost any greens and sides work well with this dish, it is also one of my standarts when I want to clean out the freezer. And, as it freezes really well, I often make 'venison pie' from leftover stew and some puff pastry.

You see, it's just too useful (and tasty) recipe not to have in your repertoire.

stag 'bourguignon'
(serves four)

250g bacon in thick pieces

1kg stag (or boar, basically any venison except poultry)

1 medium onion, diced
4-6 cloves garlic
4 bay leaves
1 teaspoon juniper berries
1 teaspoon white pepper, ground
one bottle dry red wine
0,5l water

2 tablespoons black currant jelly (or more to taste)
salt

Cut the bacon into large pieces, like in the picture below, and gently brown in a large, heavy, oven-proof pot.
This is not to crisp the bacon, only to render out some of the fat so you don't need any additional oil to brown the meat.

Take out the bacon and set aside.

If necessary, clean the meat of any skin or thick tendons and cut into pieces the size somewhere between a golf- and a baseball. Fry at very high heat in the rendered bacon fat until very dark, allmost burned, though not necessarily done.
This step is essential for the colour of the final dish, so invest a little time here. (See 'Grandma's little helper' for troubleshooting, below.)

Return the bacon, add the spices and deglaze with the wine and the water.
If you have like a cheesecloth sachet for the spices, this would be the moment to use it for the juniper and the bay leaves. Juniper berries can be pretty vile if you bite on them, even though they are easy to spot and pick out later on. I never use one myself, I have to admit...

Put in the oven at about 180°C until the meat is spoon-tender, about two to two-and-a-half hours. Check occasionally if there is still enough liquid, if not add some water.

Take out of the oven and add the black currant jelly. Correct the seasoning if necessary, but usually the bacon will have been salty enough already.

Depending on how thick you like the gravy, thicken with a little flour mixed in cold water, some beurre manie or the commercial thickener of your choice.
Also, if the colour of the stew is not as appetizingly dark as one could wish for, I correct this with a few drops of caramel color, one of the priceless little helpers I gleaned from my grandmother. (This is especially usefull when in the hurry of the day one didn't have the time to sear the meat properly, and actually had to throw the block of frozen meat into the oven with the cold wine and the spices before hurrying off to the next appointment...)

Can be served with almost any vegetables, potatoes seem to be a must.
I prefer string beans, with lots of butter and garlic, and Rösti with a little molten cheese on top.

Keeps well in the fridge, freezes and reheats perfectly well.

take a pot of smetana

2009-07-14T13:03:00.005+02:00

Summer is barbecue time. And I just love the fact that I can throw almost anything onto the grill and it turns into a great meal with close to no effort, just a little sensitive timing. I mean, look at this:

This is basically nothing but a riff on my gambas con aioli. Only that instead of the delicious but rather heavy aioli I made a garlic smetana. Smetana is a close relative of creme fraiche, and is widely used in the cuisine of the region I am living in. It's got a relatively high fat contend, so it's far from being actually light, but much lighter than a purely oil-based aioli never the less.

And the recipe is basically the same as with the aioli, just instead of a mayonnaise base, you take a pot of smetana. Add the crushed garlic, the salt, honey and the lemon juice, and that's about it. Try it, you'll be surprised how versatile this dip is.

gorgeous stuff

2009-07-12T07:39:00.005+02:00

One of the nice things of summer apart from the weather is that my garden supplies me with a constant, well-ordered stream of fruit that somehow I have to incorporate into our diet.

The strawberries are almost over now, the rasberries are in their last hurrah, coming up next are gooseberries and red currants. The peaches and grapes are coming along nicely. The cherries seem to have skipped this year, for whatever reason, but the berries and apples are more than we ever had.

As I couldn't stand the thought of yet another rasberry cake (and they are my absolute favourites) it took me a while to come up with an idea of what to make with the daily harvest and the last few lonely strawberries.

For quite a while now, homemade ice-cream has been on my mind, but my experiments had yet to yield any edible results. And as I had shied away from buying a machine so far, it didn't look like I was going anywhere that direction any time soon.

But, (You knew there was a but coming up, didn't you?) bless my colleague, I had a recipe for rasberry parfait lying around somewhere, gathering dust. It seemed like a good moment to try my luck and see if it was as good as she had promised me.

And boy, was it good. This parfait doesn't use cream as main ingredient, but eggs, and it yields a surprisingly smooth, delicate ice with that luxurious, more-is mouthfeel that so for I only thought possible with custard-based, machine-mixed ice-cream. And even after a few days in the freezer, it turns smooth again after an hour in the fridge.

Gorgeous stuff.

As a special bonus, our fraises des bois were ripe now, yielding a total harvest of almost three tablespoons. Three incredible aromatic tablespoons, though, enough to fill out whole kitchen with their scent. They went into the parfait as tiny, sweet frozen brittles to add some structure.

This parfait has instantly become a staple in our household, and I bet we'll see endless variations of it over the time. Try it, you'll be surprised how great an ice-cream you'll get for how little work.

rasberry parfait
(serves eight)

4 very fresh eggs
150g sugar

400g rasberries (or other mixed berries)
1 sachet vanilla sugar
a pinch of salt

250 ml cream

In a large bowl, mix the eggs and the sugar until white and very fluffy.
This is where most of the air comes into your parfait, so take some time for this. Put it in your mixer and start preparing the fruit, I don't think you can overmix this...

Clean your berries and set aside some for decoration. Puree the rest and run through a sieve, if necessary.
With rasberries, I strongly recommend the sieve. Also, while small berries like my fraises des bois keep afloat in the mix, larger ones might need to be cut into pieces or else will sink to the ground.

Whip the cream until almost stiff.
If it gets too hard, it'll either remain as tiny chunks in the later mix (not necessarily a bad thing, though) or you'll lose too much air while working it in properly.

Take a few spoonfull of the fruit puree and fold into the whipped cream, then fold the remaining puree into the egg mix.

Next, fold in the whipped cream and whatever berries's you've held back for decoration.

Pour into a container of your choice, cover and freeze for at least three hours.
Freezing time depends on size and shape of the container you use, and on the power of your freezer.
If bad comes to worse and it's not entirely frozen yet when you have to serve it, claim it's intentional and point out that German for 'parfait' is 'Halbgefrorenes', half-frozen. It definitely tastes good even if still slightly goopy.

Keeps well in the freezer, though hardens significantly after one day. If served then, it should be taken out into the fridge for an hour or so before serving, it'll be a bit coarse but nicely scoopable still.

coppery eggs and curried spinach

2009-07-05T06:10:00.005+02:00

I know, I already have a post detailing my 'coppery eggs and curried spinach'.

But we had them again a few days ago, and apart from being really good, they were so pretty.

I was a little unhappy with the image of the original post, so I decided to put up a new one. And here it is:

military grade ABC hazards

2009-06-28T20:53:00.009+02:00

Saturday morning I leapt onto the little balcony of my kitchen, gasping for air, crying like a lost child. Tears and snot were running down my face and I had to grab the railing just to keep standing straight.

Most embarassingly, said balcony is on ground level, a pygmy porch really, and right next to our neighbour's garden. Of course, said neighbour was just out, fixing some corners of the pavement, and was now staring at me with that certain blank expression.

"Morning..." he said, choosing his words carefully, the way people normally do when dealing with other people covered in blood and wielding sharp objects. "Hay fever...?" he asked cautiously.

He's a sweet guy, though not a man of many words. As I was still struggling to regain my composure, all I could do was shake my head, which did little to restore my sanity in his eyes. Finally, after wiping my face with my t-shirt, I managed to get my head straight enough to reply.

"No. Onion soup."

Our neighbour just smiled politely, nodded and walked away. You know, that moderately swift, very inconspicous kind of walking away.

Poor guy.

I mean, it's probably not easy for them. Their house is build on the rear end of their lot, and basically every time they go anywhere, they have to pass right next to our kitchen. And in summer, our kitchen door onto the little balcony is always open.

So they have the questionable pleasure of being forced to witness stroboscopic snapshots of our life as it happens in the kitchen, or on the balcony respectively.

Somehow it always seems to be the guy standing around when I do something that looks especially eccentric, taken out of context as it is. Like dusting all the flowers with flour, or washing a hundredweight potatoes in a pink plastic tub or things like that. And just don't get me started on the burning pan...

This weekend, he learned that in my household, making onion soup apparently is an activity that entails military grade ABC hazards.

So what, he'll get over it. I did too, though I admittedly needed the help of a very dry Dry Martini. Well, maybe he did, too.

Onion soup has always been a staple in my family, growing up with francophile parents as I did. And it is dead easy to make, so it actually was one of the first proper recipes I added to my repertoire as a kid.

It is a simple hearty dish, yes, but with such a complex flavour that is rightly has its place among the great kitchen classics. At least that is what I am convinced of.

I especially like onion soup in summer, even though it's a rather warming dish. But it is a markedly assertive vegetarian option for a light summer dinner, filling yet not stuffing.

And by the way, concerning that other ABC hazard many people are concerned about when dealing with a lot of onions - I have never had that happen with anything made from fresh onions, nor do I know anyone. Maybe it's got something to do with the preservatives in pre-roasted onions. Or maybe something else entirely. Whatever the reason, as far as I can tell this soup is perfectly sociable. Apart from the teensy little bit of garlic, that is...

onion soup
(serves four)

about 1 kg onions
2 cloves garlic
100g butter

2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon sweet paprica
1/2 teaspoon ground anisseed
1/2 teaspoon thyme
cayenne pepper to taste

500ml dry white wine
750ml stock or water

crusty white bread
250g mild cheese (minimum!), like Gouda, Greyezer or Fontina, grated

Peel the onions and cut into fine rings (or rather half-rings, for that matter). Peel and chop the garlic, or just throw into the vegetable slicer with the onions.
Usually, I have no problem cutting onions. Breathe in trough the mouth, out through the nose, and don't let the onion get close to your eyes. But this time, the combination of a still-lingering cold and the fact that I barely ever use my kitchen mixer's vegetable slicer for cutting onions made me drop my caution. All was fine while slicing the onions, but when I opened the thing to clean it, I got a whole whopping lung full of onion mist, and it worked like teargas. Hence me scaring our neighbour, again.
At least the cold was truly gone afterwards.

In a large pot, melt the butter over medium heat and add the onions. Boil until the moisture has evaporated, but make sure not to brown the onions. Reduce to low heat and simmer until very soft and fragrant, while stirring occasionally.
If you want, you can go all the way here and caramelize the onions in this step. That is, continuing to gently simmer them until they are brown(ish) and really sweet, without ever letting them get too hot else they would burn. This adds some more taste, but I can't find any real difference in the finished soup as long as the onions have had enough time to simmer on their own.

Add the flour and the spices, stir and simmer for a few more minutes.

Turn up the heat and add wine and stock, if you use water you might want to add some salt.
This recipe gives the wine / water ratio I prefer, but it works nicely with pure wine as well. Though I can't imagine the recipe working with water only... A shot glass of pastis or another strong anise liquor can be added at this stage for added complexity - if you like anise.

Bring to boil, then reduce heat and leave to simmer. Cook until the alcohol has evaporated, and the soup tastes sweet and harmonious, at least an hour, though longer is better here.
This is one thing that never fails to amaze me. The difference such a long cooking time makes is stunning especially as it is just time you add, no special ingredient. Well, then again, maybe time IS the special ingredient here. But it harmonizes the strong flavours of the soup, turning it from so-so to nom-nom.
I usually prepare this dish late morning, then leave it to simmer until I return into the kitchen for an afternoon tea. So I'd say, three or four hours simmering would be optimal.

Right before serving, heat up the grill of your oven. Slice the bread and toast lightly with some butter until crisp.

Distribute the soup into ovenproof bowls, put the bread on top and cover with cheese. Run under the very hot grill until the cheese is molten and bubbly, then serve immediately.

Can be served in small portions as a starter, or as given in this recipe, as a moderate main. Goes perfectly with most dry white wines.

Julie, Julia and I

2009-06-27T09:40:00.005+02:00

In this time of ever-spreading media cross-pollination, the usual order of 'How we learn about things' sometimes is more than just a little askew.

Several weeks ago, I stumbled across a new movie trailer for a movie I had never heard about before. Which is unusual in so far as I am a rather avid moviegoer and usually quite well aware of what's coming up.

Well, in this case, the whole affair had skipped me by. But the blib said something about cooking and it featured one of my favourite actresses, so I gave it a look.

Much to my surprise, this was a movie about a blog project, or at least half of it was. The blog project of a young woman cooking her way through all the recipes of some cookbook. The movie combined it with the life of the original cookbook's author herself, after her respective memoirs.

I had never heard of Julia Child nor the utterly adorable Julie / Julia Project before.

Which is was really a shame, for both Julia's recipes and Julie's adventures were things I could instantly relate to.

Julia's food is simple and basically saturated with butter, her instructions charming and wholeheartedly born out of a deep love for good eating - what's not to love about that? Her tips on how to make (and rescue a curdled) hollandaise are priceless on their own, let alone the wealth of useful information she has packed into her book. Somewhere in the introduction is a passage that strongly reminded me of Remy's imaginary chef telling him that 'anyone can cook'. If that's not a good thing, I don't know what is.

And Julie's experiences, with all their ups and downs, so often painfully and hilariously reminded me of my own. I think many of us can share the trauma of murdering a lobster, or the guilty embarassment of spending absurd amounts of money on some foodstuff, just as well as the beaming joy of seeing plates being licked clean and the deep feeling of accomplishment when you succesfully pulled off a dish that you barely even dared to tackle in the first place.

In short: Great stuff, both the book and the blog, and hopefully the movie, too. Go read.

And here's the trailer that, at least for me, started it all:

While thumbing my way through 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking', I came across this recipe for a 'gratin de poireaux', gratineed leeks with ham. Julie's comments on this had made me curious, and so I made a first attempt at it last night. Given that I always thought I didn't like leek that much, this dish was stunningly delicious. Deeply aromatic, plain and yet a little sophisticated, it just hits all the right notes for me.

Just remember that with the right combination of passion, fearlessness and butter, anything is possible.

gratin de poireaux
adapted from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking
(serves two as a small meal)

4 leeks, about two fingers thick
1/4 teaspoon salt
150 ml water
50g butter

4 large slices cooked ham

180 ml cream
2 eggs
pepper
150g swiss cheese, grated
about 20g butter

Cut the roots and the greens off the leeks. Discard the roots and keep the greens to use in stock.

Clean the white stalks and put into a wide pot with the water, the salt and the butter. Boil until most of the water has evaporated, then reduce heat to barely a simmer and boil with lid on for about 20 minutes, until the leek is soft but not mushy yet.
Usually, the leek I get gives me whites about 20cm long, which fit nicely into the ham and my gratin dish both. Cut the stalks to the size you need before boiling, but usually the larger the pieces, the less work later.

Leave to cool for a moment. Take the stalks and wrap into a slice of ham individually. Put side by side into an oven-proof dish.

If there is more than two tablespoons of cooking liquid left in the pot, reduce until there are.

Combine the eggs, the cream, a little ground pepper and the reduced cooking liquid until smooth.
If your ham is particularly mild, you might want to add some more salt, but usually this should be more than enough.

Add the grated cheese, fold in and pour over the leeks, evenly distributig the cheese. Dot with butter.
Don't forget the butter. This is a Julia Child recipe, after all.

Bake in the oven at 190°C, until the top is nicely golden and puffed.

Can be served as a rich side or as a small main with salad and some potatoes. Reheats perfectly well.

bread that actually tastes of something

2009-06-21T12:58:00.010+02:00

As I have written in several places, this blog is at least partially about 'reclaiming lost favourites'. Most of the times, though, this means just trying to figure out how to make something I have eaten somewhere and never found a recipe for.

So with me currently working hard on learning how to make bread, it was only a matter of time before I started making the rye bread I knew from my childhood.

It is a rather common, plain bread that is sold all over Germany under what seems to me like several different names per town. What they all have in common is a dark crust, a moderately open crumb and distinct, hearty but not too pronounced taste. It is my bread of choice when you want a sandwich with bread that actually tastes of something.

I started out with Michel Suas' formula for wholegrain wheat bread, navigating by trial and error until I ended up with the bread I was looking for.

But can you imagine my utter astonishment when, after several attempts, it slowly dawned to me that what I had bought as 'rye bread' all my childhood long actually contained mere 30% rye flour?

I mean, those breads always were labeled 'Roggenmischbrot' in the small print, which roughly translates as 'partial rye bread', but 30%? Come on, you gotta be kidding!

But, as widespread tastings in my family confirmed, not kidding at all. This IS the bread I was looking for, and it is as good as any store-bought version. Well, actually I think it's better, because even though I'll probably never get this thick crust in my oven as they do in a bakery, it tastes great, keeps much better than a normal one and makes me proud each time I look at it.

Not much more one can ask of a bread, can you? (Except calling it the right name, for that matter...)

'Partial' Rye Bread
(makes one 1.2 kg loaf)

levain
100g wholegrain rye flour (German type 1150)
50ml water
80g sourdough starter (100% hydration rye)

final dough
100g wholegrain rye flour (German type 1150)
100g high-gluten wheat flour (German type 550)
350g wholegrain wheat flour (German type 1050)
3 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon dry yeast
420 ml water, lukewarm

The day before baking, mix all the ingredients for the levain and leave to ferment for 12 hours at room temperature.
In my household, twelve hours are over exactly when I am ready to make the final dough the day after I made the levain. ^^

The day of baking, mix all the remaining ingredients with the levain and knead until medium gluten developement.
Meaning: until the dough starts clearing the bowl or stops being a sticky mess.

Leave to proof for 2 hours at room temperature.

Then, shape into a light ball, if possible without de-gassing the dough, and leave to rest for another half an hour.
Simplest way to pre-shape the dough would be pouring it onto a lightly floured surface and tucking the fringes underneath itself just once or twice so it is more or less round and the dough's surface taut as a bedsheet.

After that, shape the dough again as above, this time turning it around and sealing the seam with a few deft pinches. Put seam-up into a well-floured couche and leave to proof for another 1,5 hours.
My 'couche' is a colander with a floured tea-towel inside, and it works like a charm. It even leaves a faint pattern on the loaves as the colander's holes are arranged in circles, so I don't see any point in getting something 'professional'.
90 minutes are the absolute maximum for the final proof - I somehow lost my schedule this morning and the bread went into the oven 15 minutes later than planned. As you can see, it was already overproofed, not yielding any mentionable oven spring.

Preheat the oven to 250°C.
Do this ahead of time, unlike me. See above.

Once the dough is ready, transfer onto a baking sheet and score.
Score - cut a cross or some pattern into the top of the loaf with a very sharp knife.

Bake at a low rack with steam for about 10 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 230°C. Bake for another 30 minutes until the crust is dark and fragrant.
For baking with steam see my descriptions here.

Switch off the oven but leave the bread inside to cool for another 10 to 15 minutes with the door ajar inprove the crust.

Set on a rack to cool completely before cutting.

P.S.: Once again, this post is submitted to the YeastSpotting section of Susan's formidable blog Wild Yeast. Check it out, it is a great resource and inspiration for all home bakers!

fraises des bois

2009-06-17T19:49:00.003+02:00

I always knew it was a good idea to have a garden that's not exactly neat, and filled with all the pretty plants I could legally drag out of the nearby forest.

But now look at this:

Veritabel fraises des bois have conquered the shady rear corner of our 'tea pavillion', and they are as fragrant and tiny and delicious as they look. I am so proud of them, as if I had anything more to do but spot them in a corner in the forest and dig out a few tiny plants to relocate in our garden.

But I am so happy to see them thrive like this!

naturally more annoyed

2009-06-15T14:17:00.003+02:00

Last weekend, I had actually planned on posting about our 'Riz al Aldalus', the dish that passes as paella in our household.

Unfortunately, it was also the weekend that my old computer kind of decided to finally quit his post and the new one was acting up a complete *bleep*. Which of course didn't do any real harm but ruining my plans for the weekend, and actually getting my so annoyed that I completely forgot taking any pictures of the food. Which in turn got me even more annoyed, naturally.

As there is little to no point in posting recipes without pictures in my eyes, I decided to make up for this miserable failure by posting an old picture of my gambas con aioli that I found while installing the new computer.

Nothing new, I know, but it is a nice picture of a lovely meal and a nice memory of a lovely evening. See, I am feel much better already.

And as I will surely make the 'Riz al Aldalus' again one of these days, there'll be more than enough opportunities to post it here properly.

skip the meal in favor of the bread

2009-06-15T12:50:00.006+02:00

Finally, there seems to be some kind of consolidation in my household.

After the last weeks seem to have been filled with nothing but cooking experiments (with no proper results to speak of) and not only one, but two computers simultaneously acting up (that being my old one, which had a proper meltdown, AND the new replacement), slowly things become a little more productive here.

Most importantly, the cheese sticks now are up to standard, finally. I have already complained about my first failure here, but since then, there have been quite some more. Most annoying was the last one, with the sticks turning out nicely but me being a complete slob and forgetting to note how much water I used in the final dough, that way rendering my complete recipe useless (insert the sound of grinding teeth here).

But, as I already mentionend, they turn out nice each time by now, and I have the recipe here to prove it. Can you tell I am happy that I can now finally discard the note on my kitchen pinboard saying 'bake me: cheese sticks'?

I bet you can.

These cheesesticks basically are strips of bread dough with cheese in between, both chewy and crispy at the same time, and a perfect snack or addition to a salad. The combination of rye and spelt in a sourdough make for a surprisingly complex, tangy taste, and the salty-creamy cheese just goes along very nicely.
The only drawback is that they are quite filling, and definitely nothing I'd serve as a nibble with a drink before the actual meal. But, as with pretzels or similar goods, one can always skip the meal in favor of the bread...

Sourdough Cheese Sticks
(makes about one dozen)

250g wholegrain rye flour (German type 1150)
2 tablespoons rye sourdough starter (100% hydration)
125ml water

250g wholegrain spelt flour (alternatively: wholegrain wheat flour, German type 1050)
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
220ml water

250g Gruyere cheese, grated

On the day before baking, mix the starter, the rye flour and the water to a firm dough. Cover and leave to ferment at room temperature for a day.
This dough is too dry to show any significant raise during this time, but this is mostly to build taste, and (I think that) the final product benefits from a drier pre-dough. (Does this qualify as a biga, actually?)
Also, during the chaos of the last days, I was forced to keep one batch fermenting for two days. It didn't do any harm, actually, I found the taste strong but rather pleasant.

On the day of baking, add the spelt flour, the salt, the yeast and the remaining water. Knead until smooth, or, if you are using wheat flour instead, until you can see the first signs of gluten developement. Leave to proof for an hour at room temperature.
Once again, as this dough has no need to hold any significant amounts of air, proofing time isn't crucial, though I personally find that a longer and cooler proofing phase always adds to the final taste.

Preheat the oven to about 250°C.

On a well-floured surface, roll out the dough, trying to get it as rectangular as possible, about as thick as a pencil.
This dough can be rather sticky at times, so be warned.

Spread the grated cheese over one half of the dough. Cover the cheese with the remaining half of the dough and press down slightly to get (most of) the air out.

Cut the dough in strips about two fingers wide and as long as they fit into your oven. Transfer the sticks onto your baking sheet and twist them like you can see in the picture above. Also, place them closely together, this way you'll lose as little cheese as possible.
For me, the easiest way was to take the dough with one end in each hand and then twisting from the middle outwards, with as much of the dough resting on the baking sheet as possible. This way the rather soft dough wouldn't break.

Bake at a low rack with steam for about 15 minutes, until the tips of the cheese-sticks start turning dark brown, then take out onto a rack and leave to cool.

If not served right away, the cheese sticks keep best if immediately wrapped airtight, else they dry out quite quickly. They keep like this for up to three days but also freeze very nicely, as long as you let them thaw at room temperature.

They hold very well on their own as a snack with beer or wine (think pretzels), but also make a great, hearty side for a salad.

P.S.: Once again, this post is submitted to the YeastSpotting section of Susan's formidable blog Wild Yeast. Check it out, it is a great resource and inspiration for all home bakers.

such petite little things

2009-06-01T16:29:00.004+02:00

I think there has been written more about madeleines than those delicate little things can bear. From Marcel Proust to almost every blogger out here everyone has an opinion on them.

So far I managed to abstain from adding my pinch of salt to this sea of words. But, as it seems to be the thing with resolutions, this week I see no way around it.

I mean, this blog is supposed to be about what I do in my kitchen, about learning new things and reclaiming old favorites. I couldn't just omit a crucial staple of our household just because it is a common thing, could I now?

Basically, it is all the fault of my father-in-law. Since I have known him, he's been very fond of madeleines. Bagged, industrial fare with more additives than can possibly fit into such petite little things, but still he loves them none the less.

Naturally, his favourite brand was 'discontinued' one of these days. When we were on holiday in France last spring, he tried various brands of madeleines from the french shops, and was reasonably happy with the stock we brought home. But naturally, those didn't last forever, and soon enough it was my job to learn how to make them myself.

I had never been much a fan of madeleines, I have to admit, until the moment I pulled my first batch out of the oven. They are not more than rather plain, cookie-sized cakes really, but they are lovely, suffused with the aromes of brown butter and caramel when fresh, and still moist and soft and comforting after two weeks in a jar.

I am pretty much in love with them right now, and there is hardly a month where I am not making at least one batch of them to refill the big bow of them in our larder, as it was the case this weekend. It just isn't a proper home without them.

This particular recipe was adapted from Suas' Advanced Bread and Pastry, a book I can only recommend to anyone interested in the matter.

It is the plain, unfancy version, delicious and by far my favourite, but there are like a million ways to add some more colour to this recipe. Have a look at Dorie Greenspan's marvelous blog, for example, she'll give you enough ideas to last a lifetime.

Madeleines
(makes about 60 small cookies)

300g butter

300g flour
9g (about three flattened teaspoons) baking powder

280g unrefined cane sugar
a generous pinch of salt
50g honey
5 eggs

In a small pot or measuring jar, melt the butter and set aside to cool.
Some recipes suggest to use brown butter, but I have tried and couldn't find any difference, so I skip that part.

Sift the flour with the baking powder and set aside.
Usually, I am not one for sifting flour as it seems a pretty pointless effort to me nowadays. But in this case, where you try to agitate the dough as little as possible, getting the flour as fluffy as possible actually makes a difference.

In a mixing bowl, blend the eggs with the sugar, the salt and the honey with a wooden spoon or a rubber spatula, until the sugar has mostly dissolved.
There is no need to work in air at this moment, and also you don't have to go on mixing all the time. I usually just stir the eggs into the sugar and then clean up the kitchen, once I am done the sugar has almost gone already.

Gently fold in the flour, mixing only until the flour is almost incorporated.

Add the cool but still liquid butter and fold in until just incorporated.

Cool for at least two hours, best overnight.

Preheat your oven to 240°C, and prepare your madeleine molds.
My madeleine molds are well-used, so I don't have to grease them any longer. I merely wipe them with a paper towel before each use, and never put them in the dishwasher. If yours are new, you'll probably have to grease them lightly.

Pipe the cooled dough into the molds, filling each shell to about three quarters.
If you don't bake them immediately, put the molds in the fridge. It seems the colder the dough, the nicer the madeleines.

Put the molds into the oven and immediately reduce the temperature to 170°C. Bake until well bronzed and matte on top.
Madeleines are a little sensitive to variations in heat, so baking time and position in your oven might vary significantly from mine.

Once done, take the madeleines out and leave to cool for a few minutes. Unmold the madeleines as soon as you can and leave them on a cookie rack to cool completely.

They are best fresh, as long as they are still a little crisp and taste of brown butter caramel. From the second day on, they are still very nice, and keep amazingly well in the fridge.
My father-in-law keeps a constant reserve of these little treats in the office fridge to go with his daily coffee, and he swears they would last perfectly for several weeks if ever he would let any of them get old enough.

severe overexposure in early years

2009-05-25T17:54:00.007+02:00

Slowly, spring is giving way to an early summer here, and I couldn't be happier with it. The last weeks have been unusually warm and moist, and everything outside is growing like crazy.

It looks as if we are going to have a historic harvest of all kinds of berries this year, and even the little peach tree next to my kitchen is carrying fruits.

Nicest of all is the herb garden right below the kitchen balcony, only a few steps away from my stove. I love cooking with herbs, and especially I relish in the fact that I can just step outside, gather some greens and can come up with something tasty.

Actually, I think, it was herbs that helped me overcome one of my (very few) childhood traumatas.

See, at my parents' home, we had a very international cuisine compared to everyone else around. But in many ways, it also was a very German household. I mean this in the best way possible, but in terms of cooking this meant that no 'proper' meal was complete without potatoes, preferrably peeled and boiled.
You might have some pasta every now and then again, or the odd dish with rice, but that wasn't 'proper' food. I still vividly remember my grandfather ordering potatoes as he wasn't going to eat rice.

And although there is nothing wrong with potatoes, the whole story filled me with that deep, heartfelt kind of loathing that only severe overexposure in early years can accomplish.

It took me years after moving out and having my own household to even consider cooking potatoes, and even several more years to accept them peeled and boiled on my plate.

And of all things, it was potato salad that lured me back to eating (and loving) spuds. Not that heavy, mayonnaise-laden version, nor the slicky, luke-warm lardy version of my grandmother, but a light, summery salad that owes a lot to my mother's 'potatoes vinaigrette'.

It is a perfect dish for a light summer meal, or as a slightly substantial side for a lemony grilled salmon, which incidentally we had on saturday. With the temperatures rising and herbs as abundant as they are now, this is the perfect time to try it yourself.

summery potato salad
(serves four)

750g potatoes, approximately
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
salt

roughly one cup or 250ml loosely packed fresh herbs, preferrably chives, origanum, rocket, a few leaves of sage and rosemary
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons mild white vinegar (cider or balsamic)
1 tablespoon honey
salt & pepper

1 handfull cherry tomatoes

Clean the potatoes, but do not peel. Bring to boil in a pot, barely covered with water, the caraway seeds and some salt. Boil until almost done, about 20 minutes depending on the size of your potatoes.

Once done, pour off the water and leave the potatoes to cool without a lid on the pot.
They will go wrinkly and maybe dusty gray from the salt, but that's okay here.

Once cooled, peel the potatoes and cut into slices not thicker than your pinkie.
The potatoes do not absolutely have to be cold, but shouldn't be hot either, as the herbs would wilt and turn unsightly gray then.

In a high measuring jar or your blender, combine the herbs, oil, vinegar and the honey and blend until the mix resembles a slightly runny pesto. Season with salt and pepper, and maybe a little more vinegar or honey, until the sauce is intense but well-balanced.
I prefer to take about half chives, half origanum. Sage and rosemary I usually employ only sparingly, as they can swiftly overpower the whole dish. But basically all soft, green herbs (as opposed to the rougher, dustier ones from mediterranean climates) will do nicely.

Pour the sauce over the potatoes and leave to marinade for a while.
Up to here, the salad can be prepared a day ahead, as it only gets better.

Right before serving, dice the tomatoes and toss with the rest of the salad.

Serve cool but not right out of the fridge, either with crisp bread as simple meal or just as it is as a side. Goes well with fish (as seen above) or with any other light summer fare.
Diced onions can make a great addition, but then the salad would be much more assertive than the mild, breezy version I like so much.

at peace with the pâté

2009-05-21T07:26:00.004+02:00

Somehow, I just couldn't keep my fingers off the 'pâté de campagne'.

After the miserable, depressing failure on saturday, I had to get right back into the saddle and searched for another recipe and got new ingredients for a small batch on monday.

And, to my immeasurable relief, it turned out nicely:

Nice, but not really good yet. The texture is a little to dry, and the taste of liver and calvados is a little too pronounced. But, and this is the important part, it is working, and tasty, and all that lacks is a little tweaking and testing and then I'll be at peace with the pâté again.

I think I am in mourning

2009-05-18T09:17:00.004+02:00

This weekend has also seen several kitchen experiments, with the two biggest of them turning out to be failures, unfortunately. One of them was merely not-quite-perfect, the other one was much more of a disappointment.

But let's stick with the proper order.

First, I felt adventurous on saturday morning and as we hadn't planned much for the weekend so far in terms of cooking, I decided it would be time for me to try my hands at a 'pate de campagne', a coarse terrine of porc and bacon, something that is about as french as wine, cheese and rillettes.

And I was so happy finding a recipe by my admired Molly Wizenberg of Orangette, so I really felt on the safe side of things.

I packed my lovely wife and we went shopping, loading our basket with so much meat and bacon that it made us all giggly. That was, until we arrived at the till - damn, if you buy A LOT of bacon, it really turns expensive.

But that didn't dampen out spirits for long, and soon I was back in the kitchen, mincing and chopping, sautéing onions and reducing cognac and so on.

The farce even smelled right, creating a faint memory of the large slices of pate de campagne I knew. And it looked pretty, there's no denying.

What came out of the oven, though, wasn't pretty at all. It smelled wrong, and greasy, and was weirdly pale. Also, it had a certain wobble that had 'disaster' written all over it - a certain, rubbery wobble that most unpleasantly reminded me of a hot meatloaf.

And yes, a first bite confirmed my worst suspicions: I had, with a lot of effort, many dirty pans and bowls and a whole heap of perfectly fine ingredients, created the world's saltiest meatloaf.

It was disheartening, to say the least, made worse by the fact that I have no clue on what went wrong. It was pretty close to inedible, and so very far away from what I had hoped to make. I think I am still in mourning for all that wasted food.

---

The next experiment turned out much better, though still not really good. At least, I know what went wrong, and there is still hope.

Do you remember I told you about the favourite bakery of ours here in town? The one that stopped making our chiabatta and indirectly taught me how to make my own? Probably not, and why should you.

Anyway, said bakery has now raised the prices of their 'cheese-sticks' again, now taking 1 Euro 30 cents for a soft strip of bread the size of a ruler, covered in cheese.
This isn't all over the top, but quite a lot of money for what you get, especially considering the fact that I had learned I could easily replicate and even surpass their quality.

Easier said than done, at least this time. I got some sourdough starter from my mother-in-law, bought a block of Gruyere cheese, and went to work.

The first deep irritation came up on saturday evening when my mother-in-law showed me how to get her sourdough reactivated. I am surely not a by-the-letter-of-the-book kind of cook (see above), but her completely free-flying approach was startling, to say the least. It felt like watching a child making mud-pies to me. I'm not saying she did anything wrong, but as great as we usually get along, her and my way of baking are worlds apart. Many worlds.

But the dough came along nicely, and this time, I pulled out of the oven what looked like a pitch-perfect copy of those expensive little things:

Smell and texture were pretty perfect as well - only the taste was a severe let-down. I had taken a generous teaspoon of salt for no more than 500g of flour, assuming that the cheese would be salty enough. Yeah, right.

Did I already mention I suck at guessing? Or assuming, in this case?

Turns out the cheese was salty, but not salty enough, and the first bite of the 'cheese sticks' is so startlingly tasteless that you could just as well be chewing on pillow stuffing. I mean, like, really tasting of nothing, I have no idea of how this is even chemically possible.

But, after a few bites, it gets getter, almost good, actually. And I think with another teaspoon of salt they'll be up to my usual standard.

As you can see, this leaves quite some work for the next weekend, and maybe one day I'll even find our what killed my 'pate de campagne'...

not a question to ask a lady

2009-05-16T06:29:00.006+02:00

I replenished our stock of cantuccini this weekend.

Once again, this is a recipe that has come a long way. I got this one from a colleague of mine, who's about as picky as myself when it comes to food, so this was an endorsement indeed.

She, in turn, had the recipe from a lady working at the municipality we currently have a contract with. I am not sure, but we think that woman got the recipe from some kind of 'Weight Watchers' program which she participated in at that time (and very succesfully so, I must add).

But definitely this is not a question to ask a lady, is it?

Anyway, these cookies are 'classic' italian fare. I have no clue whatsoever if they are 'authentic' - they're lovely, and they taste way better than any of the industrial bricks sold unter the same name.

These cantuccini are a stock item in our household, for several reasons. Not only does close to everybody I know really like them - no, they go with every hot drink, they keep perfectly for months, they are great to nibble along while working just to refill some sugar and they are relatively healthy with the tiny amounts of sugar and butter used. Also, to top it off, put them in a cute jar with a ribbon around and you'll have a great little present that surely won't gather any dust.

They're real multi-purpose cookies, or, as I say: Never make a home without them!

Cantuccini (almond biscotti)
(makes about 60, the pictures show a double batch)

200g almonds (unroasted, with their brown skin)

250g flour
100g sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 sachets vanilla sugar
1/2 flask bitter almond essence
1/2 teaspoon salt
25g butter, softened
2 eggs

The evening before baking, boil about half a liter of water and pour over the almonds. Leave to soak for a few minutes, then pour away the water. Cover the wet almonds and leave until you need them the next day.
This is not to peel the almonds, but to get them moister and a little softer. If your almonds were too dry after the first bake, it'd be close to impossible to cut through them and you'd end up with a whole lot of crumbs and almonds instead of nice slices.

For the dough, mix all of the remaining dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add the butter and the eggs, then mix until just combined. Add the almonds and mix until they are (roughly) incorporated, then cover and chill for at least half an hour.
Adding more butter improves the handling significantly, but then the cantuccini don't keep as well.
If you knead the dough until it's fully developed, the final cookies will be smoother and have a more uniform crumb. It's good for handling, but feels quite industrial - see mine in the first picure for a bad example.
At this point the dough can be chilled up to a day or two before baking.

Preheat the ove to about 150°C. Quarter the chilled dough, shaping each piece into a long roll about as thick as a walnut or a small egg. Put them onto a baking tray lined with non-stick paper and bake until they start browning on top, about 15 to 20 minutes.
The loaves will flatten a little while baking, but not much. If you prefer your cantuccini more elongated, you should flatten them a little before baking.

Leave the loaves to cool. Once they are cool enough to handle, take a really sharp knife and cut them into slices about as thick as your thumb. (That's where 'a rule of thumb' comes from.)
It's a bit tricky to get smooth cuts at first. For me, slightly serrated blades like those for tomatoes work best.

Put the slices back onto the tray and bake at 150°C for another 15 minutes, until they are nicely golden all over. Put on a rack to cool, or into a colander if you make multiple batches, and leave to cool completely. Once cooled, store in an airtight container.

The cantuccini are not very sweet, but go very well with any unsweetened hot drink. I really cannot share the fondness of having them with wine, but that shouldn't keep you off anything.
They also make excellent 'brainfood', something to nibble on while working with your mind, as they are a good combination of carbohydrates releasing their sugars at different times.
Best of all, they keep close to indefinitely and can be made well in advance in large batches, so you'll always have some around.

lovely, plain lovely

2009-05-13T19:36:00.004+02:00

Is there anything worth mentioning about a grilled steak with Sauce Mornay, green pepper and some fries?

I don't know. But coming home from work this was a simple and delightful dinner, prepared in less than half an hour including a swift kitchen cleanup.

Not even the Sauce Mornay is really mentionable, being nothing else but a Bechamel with grated cheese whipped in to melt. But lovely, plain lovely. I mean, come on, cheese!

I really have to think of something to cook that's worth posting a recipe one of these days...

for no reason but extra taste

2009-05-09T19:25:00.004+02:00

With our annual summer party looming at the horizon, we're starting to get even more creative in the kitchen than usual. Therefore, I have nothing really substantial to post but a whole lot of pictures of half-successful experiments.

But let's start at the beginning:

Constantly on the search of some new dessert for the party that will survive both several hours on display as well as our quite discerning guests, we came up with the idea of 'truffle pots', as a simplified version of my wife's banana cake. So basically, we gathered up all shotglasses in the household, and some espresso cups on top, dropped some diced fruits in each and topped it with a ganache of (hopefully) complementing chocolate.

Look & handling turned out close to perfect for the occasion, but the tastes and textures still need a lot of tweaking. Especially disappointing were the rasberries, which surprisingly were completely overwhelmed by the dark chocolate ganache they were covered with.

Next was an attempt at making cigar 'börek' myself, a turkish specialty made of yufka (or filo) dough sheets and a filling of goat cheese, parsley and lemon juice. The pictured filling was pitch perfect and a real treat, but I had attempted to make the dough myself, and it was awful. Just... awful. I still feel like wailing when I think of the wasted food.

But I definitely have to note down the filling, for it was really good. I mean, it had butter for no reason but extra taste in it, how bad can it be? Julia Child would have loved this.

My wife made marbled muffins today, also an experiment. And those turned out flawlessly. I so love her, she saved my day.

And apart from that, tomorrow is another day, and I'll have quite some more things to try. We'll see how those turn out.

Now talk about simple pleasures...

2009-05-06T19:32:00.004+02:00

This blog exists, at least partially, to give me a reminder to improve on my cooking. Less so in technical terms, but to remember me that food is something emotional, sensual and wholesome, and not merely a necessary part of physical maintenance.

And tonight, I realized (once again) how perfectly this is paying off. We had a salad of tomatoes and mozzarella with some roasted bread - nothing fancy, but it was great. I had my own ciabattini, some of them roasted with honey, some of them roasted with a 'pesto' of sorts, made from the herbs that grow right next to my kitchen door in the garden - sage, rosemary, origanum, chives, arugula - some olive oil, salt and pepper.

I really, no, profoundly enjoyed it. It made me happy.

I don't think I ever consciously enjoyed food so much as of late, or that I ever was able to be grateful for a rainy spring just because of all the things that will grow (and the herbs are growing like weeds, I tell you). Paying a little more attention to my food added a quality of life I never knew I was lacking.

Basically what I want to say is: I am feeling happy and grateful as a man possibly can, and all of that over a piece of bread with herbs. Now talk about simple pleasures...

next time, I'll hide the frogspawn

2009-05-03T12:29:00.004+02:00

Sometimes, you're longing to re-create something you've eaten a long time ago. Out of a childhood memory, perhaps, or something that connects you to a special moment.

And if you do, it is good. Food can connect to memories in a way that only scent can match.

Unfortunately, those memories are rarely shared with others. Which led to my wife and my father-in-law leaving our table in disgust, yesterday evening.

I had made my grandmother's rhubarb and strawberry tapioca, just the way I remembered it. It was delicious. At least, that is what my mother-in-law and I thought of it.

My wife and her father just squealed as I put the bowl onto the table and left a few moments later. Admittedly, the dessert looked like pale, pink frogspawn, and everything but tasty.

But that't just the way I remember it!

Scratching our respective heads, my mother-in-law and I remained at the table, wondering what could be so wrong with something so delicious. Rillettes don't look any better, and no-one has ever complained about that in my household!

In retrospective, I have to admit that it might have been a little more diplomatic to boil fruits and tapioca separately, as the fruits wouldn't have completely disintegrated that way.

But hey, you live, you learn. Next time, I'll hide the frogspawn between pieces of fruits. ^^

And just to be nice, I'll give you another picture of the flowers in front of our house instead of the final dish. Pretty, eh?

rhubarb and strawberry tapioca
(serves six)

1kg fresh rhubarb
500g fresh strawberries
100g brown sugar
100 ml Cointreau (or similar)
150 - 200g tapioca (or sago) perls

Clean the rhubarb and the straberries, cut into small pieces.
Especially the rhubarb shouldn't be bigger than a few inches, as longer pieces will make the final dish draw strings like cheese.

In a large pot, gently heat the fruits, the sugar and a few tablespoons of the Cointreau. Bring to a gentle boil.

Once the fruits have drawn enough liquid to be submerged, add the tapioca while stirring gently. Keep on lowest heat until the pearls are soft with just a tiny, white eye in the middle, about ten to fifteen minutes.
This is the lazy man's version, as I have eaten it at my grandmother as a child. You could, of course, just blanch the fruit, boil the tapioca separately until they are neatly clear and mix them in the end. This lazy version is much less of a hassle, but it'll look like pink frogspawn. It'll taste just as good, and maybe you got some kids who'll love the thought of having frogspawn for dessert...

Take off the fire, and leave to cool for a moment. Add the remaining Cointreau and stir to incorporate.

Fill into a glass bowl or individual glasses and chill before serving.

Serve as it is or with some lightly whipped cream.

not 'too German'

2009-04-23T12:32:00.006+02:00

Goodness gracious.

How comes that, when you plan on taking a few days off, all sort of s**t hits the fan? The last weeks went by in a flurry, and looking back now, I can hardly remember what all the fuss was about.

That is to say: I am on holiday now for a few days, and I am absolutely thrilled by the fact. We're not planning on going anywhere, we're just going to stay at home, work in the garden and at the house, cook, eat, write and generally plan on having a wonderful time.

Which actually is coming along quite perfectly, for just in time with my days off, spring has taken a solid hold in my corner of the world.

We have tadpoles in the pond, flowers everywhere, and the birds are singing their little hearts out. And spring wouldn't be spring without new potatoes, asparagus and, of course, lamb.

We had a wonderful lambshank for easter sunday, a riff on my lemon chicken, actually. And as lovely as the lamb was on the first day (see recipe below) the real stunner was what we did with the leftovers the next day.

I was baking ciabattini anyway, so I turned a few of them into two large, airy flatbreads. I cut the remaining lamb as fine as I could and fried it with a generous dose of oregano. Some green salad, a few onions, some yoghurt with mint (yes, the very same stuff you use for tea, mixed into rich yoghurt) and assembled all of this at the table - voila, the poshest döner pide ever.

Unfortunately, I have no pictures of this, but it was just as delicious as it was messy and a real feast. And damn, was it messy. There's still some yoghurt on the paving outside underneath the table...

But, back to the original lamb. My wife wanted lamb, but it shouldn't taste 'too German', whatever that is supposed to mean exactly.

So I took the lemon chicken recipe and added more cinnamon, something I learned from the Lady my mother worked for as an au-pair who originally came from Greece. Lamb and cinnamon may sound unusual companions, but they go along perfectly well. Together with a lot of lemon and olive oil, they make a wonderfully fragrant, light and summery dish that is both exotic and familar.

And defintely not 'too German'.

lemon lamb with cinnamon
(generously serves four)

for the lamb
1 lamb shank, deboned
1 large lemon
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon rosemary, dried and ground
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon honey
1/2 teaspoon cumin, ground
1 tablespoon sea salt
some olive oil
a pinch of chilli

for the potaoes
1,5 kg of potatoes
1 large lemon
200 ml olive oil
1 heaped tablespoon thyme (or more, if you like. I do.)
1 teaspoon of rosemary, dried and ground
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon sea salt
chili to taste

If necessary, clean the meat, cut off all sinews and skin.
When using a deboned shank, I prefer to cut the meat in a way that it comes to lay like a flat rectangle, instead of bundling it up again into its original shape. This way, I feel, I get more surface, meaning more crust, more taste, and a better distribuion of the spices. And of course, it's done much faster.

Cut the zest off the lemon, chop it very finely. Juice the remaining lemon and keep the juice for the potatoes.
Only use the yellow peel of the lemon, with none of the white stuff as it gets bitter. I think it is easiest to get off the lemon with a really sharp potato-peeler.

Mix the spices and the lemon zest with salt and honey; add some olive oil so the rub will be moist but not too runny.
If you have a mortar and pestle, this is the moment to use it, especially to get the fragrant lemon oils out of the zest. Probably a food processor will do just as well.

Rub the meat all around with the spice mix, using all of it.
Use the entire rub, if some falls off, it’ll just spice the potatoes.

Leave the meat to rest.
Half an hour is fine, two hours or three is better.

Meanwhile, clean the potatoes if necessary, and cut (unpeeled) into wedges.
Try to keep the smallest diameter of the wedges approximately the same, so they will all be done at the same time. I usually quarter them along their longest side.

Mix the lemon juice of both lemons, the olive oil, spices, honey and salt.
Spice with a little chilli if you like, but normally the lemon alone will have enough zing to keep things interesting.
I usually add the second lemon’s zest to the rub, but you can also add the lemon peel to the potatoes for added scent. Just warn your guests that it is decoration and not very tasty…

Put the potatoes in a big bowl and toss with the dressing until they are evenly coated.

Pour the potaoes onto a high-rimmed baking tray (or into a large oven dish), the lamb on a gridiron above them and put into the oven at about 180°C. Bake for 40 to 60 minutes (depending on the weight of the meat), and turn the potatoes once or twice so they have a chance to brown evenly on all sides.
There should be hardly any liquid left among the potatoes, and they should be crisp outside and soft inside. Both the tray and the potatoes should be smudged with a fine, brow layer of caramelized, partially burned lemon juice. Actually, you might want to line the tray or the dish with non-stick paper, as the lovely, tasty stuff is close to impossible to get off again.

Take out of the oven and leave to cool for a moment, then serve.
This is mostly to allow the juices recover a bit and resolve some of the caramelized lemon juice. And of course, the wedges are fragging hot inside, and we have had more than one unhappy accident with overeager eaters…

As a side, you can serve any green salad, and my mother-in-law and me especially like to have heavy, Greek-style yoghurt to go with it as a dip.

Leftovers make a perfect döner pide the next day, as mentioned.

ever so slightly charred

2009-04-05T12:59:00.003+02:00

So now it's official - winter is over.

Yesterday, we had the first official barbeque of the year. And damn, I have been missing this. The rest of the family insisted on sausages (we're Germans, after all), but I had been hungering for something else.

The meat skewers that were on my mind already when it was still snowing outside are called 'shashlik' here. I bet they have very little in common with their eastern original, apart from the fact that they are on skewers. They have some vaguely Hungarian connotations here, but I have never seen anything like this anywhere outside a German supermarket.

Yet the combination of marinated meat, bacon and vegetables isn't only extremely tasty, it's also something quite... archetypal. You know, one of those combinations that work just this one way, and click and fit together as if it had never been intended otherwise. I love shashlik, and in the rare cases we have some leftovers, I eat them cold the next day.

One thing I had to learn with these skewers is that they only taste real good once they are ever so slightly charred. It's quite inevitable anyway, with pointy vegetable corners peeking far into the fire, but still. Think of Italian antipasti, where the bell peppers have to be thorougly blackened before marinating. It would taste bland if not, and it's mostly the same here.

Try it, it is a great and unique addition to any barbeque repertoire. (And a great opportunity to get some vegetables into my otherwise strictly carnivorous wife...)

Shashlik
(Serves two to four, depending on how greedy your folks are. It's generously enough for my wife and me.)

400g lean beef (we use rumpsteak end cuts)
juice of one lemon
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1 slight teaspoon chili or cayenne pepper
some ground pepper
3 tablespoons olive oil

350g bacon (one chunk, not slices for frying)
2 bell peppers, one green, one red
2 medium onions

Cut the beef in chunks of about 5 by 5 centimetres.

In a bowl, mix the lemon juice, olive oil and spices, but no salt. Marinade the meat for a few hours, best over night.
There is no need to add salt to the marinade, as the bacon will be more than salty enough.

Once you've lit the coals, cut the bell peppers, the bacon and the onions in into chunks that are about as large as the pieces of meat and keep at hand. Take a look at the picture, you'll see what I mean about the sizes.

Start putting the ingredients onto skewers, beginning with bell peppers, then onion, meat, bacon, bell peppers, and so on. Try to end each skewer with a piece of bell pepper, as they'll hold best.
It may be pure superstition, but I try to get the meat always wedged in between some onion and some bacon, as those are the two ingredients adding some taste.

Once you are done, baste the skewers with the remaining marinade and set aside until the fire's ready.

Grill on direct heat, medium to hot, until the vegetables start charring. Serve immediately, with some bread and the condiment of your choice.
If you want, you can baste the skewers with some of the remaining marinade immediately after grilling for some extra juiciness.

hard to spoil, yet harder to master

2009-03-29T19:26:00.004+02:00

There are things that just can't be improved on.

Sometimes, food falls into that category. Especially when it's a classic, perfectly simple and delicious recipe, with only a few ingredients that come together to form something much better than the sum of its parts.

Even, as it is the case with this recipe here, if this means making a desert from nothing but chocolate, butter, eggs and a lot of air. This definitely is nothing for people counting their calorie intake, and probably not even for those with a sweet tooth who need to be able to eat substantial amounts of whatever there is for pudding.

This mousse au chocolat is perfect, it is velvety, sumptuous and voluptuous to a degree that anything more than a small bowl of it will leave you unable to stand up from your chair again. It'll steamroll you with magnificence, so to say. Please apply with appropriate consideration.

This is a recipe from a German Paul Bocuse cooking book 'Bocuse a la carte'. The book was my first foray into 'celebrity cooking', and apart from this one dish, I can't remember a thing of it. I've always been wary of anyone needing to see his face on the cover of a book.

Yet for this one recipe alone, the 'king of cooks' definitely deserves some of all those accolades in my eyes.

mousse au chocolat
(generously serves six)

200g dark chocolate (65% or more)
125g butter
6 very fresh eggs, separated
130g sugar (or less, if you like)
[edit: a pinch of salt]
20 - 50ml mocca or espresso (optional)

In a small casserole, gently melt the butter and the cocolate. Leave to cool for a moment, until no warmer than the inside of your wrist.

In a large bowl, whip the egg whites with about a third of the sugar [and the salt] until they form soft peaks.

In another bowl, mix the yolks with the remaining sugar until white and fluffy and quite stiff as well.
If you are in a hurry, you can save time by first just mixing the yolks with the sugar, then starting to beat up the whites. Once you are finished with those, most of the sugar will already have dissolved in the yolks, and they will go fluffy much faster.

Carefully fold the butter-chocolate mix and the coffee into the yolks.
No need to have both creams really incorporated, just mostly so. Each time you have to touch the mousse is once too often.

Gently fold in one third of the whites, then the rest.
If your whites are too stiff, you'll have chunks of the remaining like little 'îles flottantes', if they are too soft, the mousse will deflate before you get it well incorporated. This sounds much worse than it actually is, but after a few times, you'll see the difference. This is one of those dishes that is hard to spoil yet harder to master.

Pour into a glass bowl or individual containers and chill for at least twelve hours.
Due to the high amount of air, the mousse will cool down and solidify only very slowly.

The mousse goes well on its own, or maybe with some whipped cream or vanilla custard.

Due to the use of raw eggs, it doesn't keep at all.

tiny dark patches

2009-03-24T09:47:00.002+01:00

This weekend brought another success in terms of baking: home made pizza

I used the ciabatta dough as a base, and didn't add anything but some pulped tomatoes, a pinch of oregano, some fresh cherry tomatoes and sliced peppers and a generous helping of cheese.

It was gorgeous, and I am so in love with my new oven right now. The pizza was really great, crisp but not tough, with lovely tiny dark patches underneath. I think it was as good as it can get as long as you don't have a proper wood-fired oven handy. I am definitely going to make these again.

breadroll-bashing at the breakfast table

2009-03-23T09:41:00.010+01:00

Rituals are a nice thing.

Those little things we do, just because that's the way it's done, every time again. Comforting, reassuring, and something pretty essential to feeling 'at home'.

This weekend, I fear, I ruined one for good.

See, since my in-laws and we moved in together, we try to have a family breakfast each Saturday morning together. Every time it works out, my father-in-law drives to the bakery, fetching some bread rolls. And every time, with confounding regularity, something is less-than-optimal with the bread rolls.

Either they didn't pack him those he ordered, or too few, or too many. One Saturday, the bread rolls were hard and tiny, another one they were oddly light and airy and dried out already during breakfast.

Over the time, we changed our bakery several times, but the peaceful bickering around the breakfast table has become something of a charming little family ritual by now, at least for me.

Most of the times, it's the raisin buns that we find lacking somehow. There's the occasional chocolate chip bun in between, or the already day-old raisin bun. The crust too dark, too little raisins, the crumb too dense, the dough sticky, you name it. The final straw was the raisin bun that contained exactly one single, solitary, mortally depressed raisin.

As we already have home-made ciabattini on the table by now, my wife asked me to make raisin buns next. And so I did, and they turned out great. Definitely better than the slightly industrial fare we get from our local bakers.

And another step taken towards self-sufficiency! Well, at least in terms of bread rolls and buns...

But I am afraid the days of friendly bread roll-bashing at the breakfast table are finally numbered.

raisin buns
(makes 16 buns)

1kg all-purpose flour
0,5l milk, lukewarm
190g sugar
200g butter, softened
1 sachet dry active yeast
a pinch of salt

200g raisins (sultanas)

four tablespoons condensed milk

The day before baking, mix all the ingredients except the raisins and the condensed milk in a large bowl. Knead until well combined (no visible butter pieces left), but no longer. Leave to raise in a cool room over night.

At least two hours before baking, knead the dough one last time, incorporating the raisins.
Usually, you can use the raisins straight out of their box. If they are especially hard and dry, though, you might want to soak them in a few tablespoons of water before.

Cut the dough into sixteen pieces of equal size (that is, halve four times in a row). Roll into buns, and leave to raise on a floured tea towel for about 90 minutes in a warm room. The buns should have increased visibly in volume (about 150%), but do not need to have doubled.
Pick off raisins remaining on the outside of the buns, they would only burn in the oven. But, as you can see in the pictures, I was rather sloppy on this myself. To my excuse, I have to say it was very early on Saturday morning when I made these.

Preheat the oven to 190°C, and put an old baking tray onto the bottom.

Right before baking, transfer the buns onto a baking sheet and brush with the condensed milk.
You can theoretically substitute the condensed milk with eggwash, but then the buns wouldn't smell the same... I'd use eggwash only in a dire emergency here.

When the oven has reached temperature, open the door, swiftly pour a small glass of water onto the old baking tray, put in the buns (somewhere in the lower third of the oven) and immediately close the oven door again.

Bake for about 15 minutes, or until the buns are well browned all around. Leave to cool on a rack.

They are best when still slightly warm, with some jam or plain butter, though my wife seriously eats them with cheese. With some filling and a little bit of frosting, I can even imagine one of them making an adorable emergency cake.

These raisin buns freeze and re-toast well, so you can make a whole batch in advance and get out just a few for each weekend breakfast.

some of this, some of that

2009-03-18T18:41:00.003+01:00

Some arugula, some radiccio, some mâche, a few raisins and a sprinkle of my granola, and that's all it takes for a lovely, filling salad.

And quite a pretty one on top, don't you think?

PS.: Picture taken before I added the dressing. 'cause afterwards, it wasn't that pretty anymore...

something that tastes of adventures

2009-03-17T14:50:00.004+01:00

As long as I can think back, I have always loved lamb. Not the cuddly animals, but the meat.

Lamb roast with lemon, generous amounts of garlic and very British mint sauce was a common sight in my childhood home. (Actually, that was what we had on my mother's birthday, and it was lovely as ever.)

Later, there was lamb curry. Hot and darkly spicy in its Indian version, hot and fragrant in the Thai variety. Love it both.

It took me a while to figure out that there was another way of lamb I really loved, bridging the the two (or rather three) cuisines I had covered before. Spicy and hot, yet bright and lemony, exotic but not Asian.

We call this recipe 'lamb couscous', though the proper name ought to be 'stew of lamb we serve with couscous' or better even 'delicious oriental lamb'.

It's very simple in preparation, nothing fancy, but over the years I have gathered up many ideas I liked from various Turkish, Middle Eastern and Moroccan recipes, and ended up with this personal blend. It's a lamb stew that is heavily fragrant with bright lemon zest, a lineup of spices that leads from the lemony coriander seeds to the dark comfort of cinnamon, with just enough chili to make your mouth tingle.

Short, it is what you cook when your stomach needs some filling, your soul some inspiration, and your mouth something that tastes of adventures in faraway lands.

lamb couscous
(serves four, generously)

one lamb shank, about 1,5 to 2 kg
3 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons ground coriander seeds
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon chili flakes
3 teaspoons salt
ground pepper
garlic to taste

juice and zest of one lemon
2 cans whole tomatoes
1 tablespoon honey

1 medium zucchini
1 small can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 bundle cilantro (coriander green)

Debone the lamb shank and clean the meat of eventual sinews, cut into roughly walnut-sized chunks.
We get frozen lamb shanks of very good quality here, but it works with any cut of lamb that isn't too dry.

In a large cast-iron pot, heat the olive oil and sear the meat until well browned.

Add the spices and leave to roast for a moment, until fragrant. Deglaze with the lemon juice.
The amount of spices is merely a guesstimate. The proportions are right, but you might need a little more or a little less of each depending on the taste of the lamb and the tomatoes.
Generally, I try to have enough coriander in it to bridge the taste of the lemon with the tomatoes, and enough pepper to have something hot to balance the chilies.

Add the tomatoes, the lemon peel and the honey. Add the peeled garlic, if you want.
Once again, use only the yellow part of the lemon peel, not the white pith, it would make the whole stew bitter. I try to peel it off the lemon in one large curl, which apart from looking nice is much easier to get out again. But you might just as well chop it very fine and leave it in, the lemony taste will just be more pronounced then.

Simmer on low heat or in the oven at about 160°C until the meat is tender, approximately 90 minutes.

10 Minutes before serving, add the chopped cilantro and the chickpeas. Cut the zucchini into slices (or cubes, whatever you like) and brown with a little olive oil in a separate pan. Add to the stew right before serving.
You can, of course, also use eggplant here, and put both into the stew at the very beginning. But I prefer the different tastes, so I take the little extra effort of using another pan.

Garnish with a little chopped cilantro and serve with steamed couscous.

The lamb couscous freezes well, but will need serious re-seasoning once warmed up.

a bit behind

2009-03-15T19:41:00.003+01:00

Again, it's just been salad for us tonight. Not that that's anything to complain about, especially as it was octopus salad once more, as you can see above.

It's been my mother's birthday this weekend, so we're a bit behind in terms of cooking. But there's going to be some nice lamb couscous tomorrow night, and I am sure there'll be plenty to write about.

two glimpses of weekend baking

2009-03-11T14:02:00.005+01:00

Once again, this weekend had been very nice and quite successful in terms of baking - nothing much to write about, but lovely to look at.
Above, a batch of madeleines, as they are quite a hit around here, and below a 'fried egg cake' my wife wished for.

I just wish I could offer pieces to taste here...

short and round, always smiling

2009-03-07T12:26:00.011+01:00

I already said that for me, cooking often is connected to memories of some sort. Some recipes more than others, and this special cake has gathered up a surprising payload of emotional connections for me.

There is my beloved grandmother, short and round, always smiling. I have never met anyone else who even at the age of 92 was still excited about new things, and who would boast among her (usually much younger) friends about her latest adventures.

One of these friends was a surprisingly tall lady, a little shy and a great home baker. One day, she brought this great poppy seed cake with her, and my grandmother called me downstairs because it was soo good. And it was, I basically forced her friend to hand me over the recipe on the spot. I still remember her her dentures clicking while she dictated me the ingredients, beaming with all the attention her cake had gotten her.

The third person connected to this cake is one of my uncles. A great gatherer of things and stories, a one-of-a-kind adventurer and clutterbug. Living in an old farmhouse with foundations reaching back into the deepest middle ages, he collected old kitchen stuff, among many other things.

One day, when my brother and I were sleeping over, I noticed a small hand-mill among his latest findings. Curious about kitchen things even then, I asked about it, and he explained. It was a mill for oily seeds, like sesame, linseed and poppy seeds, as they would just clog an ordinary mill. I was intrigued, and at the end of our stay, he gave me the mill as a present. Quite a treasure for a boy at my age then.

Though for whatever reasons, I never came around to use either the recipe nor the mill until a few years ago.

It was when I stumbled across a batch of unmilled poppy seed in the supermarket that I remembered the cake and that I had always wanted to make it. But all of the people I connected to this recipe had passed away by then, and it took me a while to realize. It was quite a shock.

So, this cake remembers me of so many things: people who have touched my life, loved ones I miss dearly. It remembers me of the great things that come to us, sometimes in the simplest forms. It's like a little shout-out, saying look, I am here, and your memory lives on.

But even without the emotional baggage, this recipe is one of the best I have, and actually one of the very, very few I have never been tempted to meddle with. It is just so pitch perfect - the chunky almonds add structure, the raisins fruity highlights, and the lemon peel in the dough most pleasantly balances and contrasts the dark, mellow spicy taste of the poppy seed filling.

The name of this cake has given me quite some headache in terms of how to translate it.
The direct translation of 'Mohnrolle', poppy seed roll, would't work, because it's rolled but not a roll.
It might be called a strudel, but then every self-respecting home-baker in central Europe would (rightfully) rip my head off, because it's made with yeast dough, and not with proper strudel dough which is a class of its own. Neither would it be a roulade, as they are made with sponge...

In the end, I settled for 'poppy seed crown', as it seemed the least controversial option. Nothing controversial about the taste, though.

So, grandma, Mrs. Berkemeyer, uncle Günther, this one's for you.

poppy seed crown
(makes twenty generous slices)

for the dough:
500g flour
100g sugar
250ml milk, lukewarm
1 scant teaspoon dry yeast
100g butter, soft
a pinch of salt
2 eggyolks
zest of half a lemon, or more to taste

for the filling:
500g poppy seeds
3/8l milk (375 ml)
250g sugar
65g butter
65g almonds, unpeeled and coarsely chopped
150g raisins
2 tablspoons dark rum
2 eggs

The day before baking, put the raisins in a jar or little bowl and soak with the rum. Leave overnight.
I think it might work with 2 tablespoons rum exactly, but I just top them up with rum so they're plumb and juicy the next day.

For the dough, combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix with the kneading hook attachment until fully developed.
The dough will have to hold quite a lot of filling, so don't be afraid to knead it till it feels like a little rubber ball.

Leave to rise until doubled, best over night in a cool room.

Mill the poppy seeds right before you need them, as their oils, once exposed to the air, go rancid very quickly.
I have once tried to use pre-milled poppy seeds and found them atrocious. There really is no substitute for the real, handmade thing in this case.
Also, I have read several times by now that you actually can run them through the food processor until they are smooth, but I doubt this. And, given the history of my dear trusty handmill, this will hardly ever be an option for me.

In large pot, bring the milk to a gentle boil together with the butter and the almonds. Once the milk is infused with the almond taste, take off the fire and leave to cool for a moment.

Add the poppy seeds and the sugar and stir until well incorporated. Leave to soak for half an hour.
Mrs. Berkemeyer rather sternly pointed out never to boil the poppy seeds. I have no idea why, but consider yourself warned.

When the filling has soaked, add the eggs and the raisins. If there is some rum left, add to the filling. Stir well and keep at hand.

Take the dough and roll out to a large rectangle.
So far, I have never found proportions that wouldn't lead to a mess, so feel free to trust your instincts. It helps to transfer the dough onto a sheet of some kind, a kitchen towel or proofing linen, once it's ready, to roll it up later. (But as you can see in the picture below, I was lazy, and didn't, and got the mess.^^)

Pour the filling onto the dough and spread onto roughly 2/3 of it. Brush the remaining third lightly with eggwash.

Beginning with the filled side (opposing the third you left bare), start to roll up the dough. Put onto a braking tray and shape into a ring.
Of course, if you end up with a rather stocky roll, you can just leave it like that and call it poppy seed strudel instead. Or a roulade. Or whatever...

Brush the top with the remaining eggwash and bake at 175°C for about half an hour, until a skewer inserted comes out dry.
There will always be some poppy seed bits clinging to the skewer, so I didn't say 'comes out clean', but you'll see the difference.

Leave to cool on a rack and only cut once completely cooled.

Keeps nicely several days if wrapped, and in my humble opinion is better on the second day.

P.S.: Once again, this post is submitted to the YeastSpotting section of Susan's formidable blog Wild Yeast. Check it out, it is a great resource for all home bakers.

like an old friend, with no surprises

2009-03-02T15:01:00.011+01:00

It was a baking weekend again. Not as maniacally stuffed with baked goods as three weeks ago, but still.

All the ciabattini I had made were gone already, so I made new ones. Slowly, the sight of the blue and gray linen on my kitchen table, bulging with the small breads during their final proof, is becoming one of my all time favorites.

Apart from that, I started a new experiment: Indian naan.

My wife loves it, and I think some of our visits to indian restaurants were inspired more by her desire for flatbread than for curries. I found a heap of recipes online, and so I boldly ventured where I had never gone before.

It turned out to a mixed success. The taste was right, but the texture was close to awful. Instead of downy, slightly elastic disks, I ended up with rather soft, entirely un-elastic slabs that were a bit sticky inside. Meh. This will need a lot more experiments before I can check this off as well.

Also, the weather has become warmer and rainy, which means it's about the most unbearable weather I can personally think of. Drizzle just above freezing point should be prohibited by law.

So, I had two good reasons to insist on comfort food on Sunday. Which, for me, means simple and a little classy, preferably something with a bit of cheese and some garlic. Something trusted, like an old friend, with no surprises.

All combined, I ended up with a distinctive longing for potato gratin the way my mother made it.

See, in my parents' home, boiled potatoes were a consistent staple. Actually, they were so much part of my childhood diet that even today I can barely stand them. But out of the oven, with a creamy, ever so slightly garlicky sauce and some cheese - I loved them.

Most unfortunately, my attempts at replicating the recipe so far had been mediocre at best. So what's a boy to do? He calls mum.

And look, just a tiny phone call later, I had all I needed to set my world right again. Okay, it wasn't that tiny a phone call and naturally encompassed not only food but also their dog's love for mud, the new tree in their garden and my brother's broken toe, but still it was much faster and way less fraught with risks than attempting another try just based on my memory.

Which, as it seems, wasn't too reliable in this case, because I could have sworn the potatoes had to be in the oven with a mix of cream and eggs. But no, seems I was to make a plain bechamel, making this gratin actually a very classic 'gratin dauphinois'. But that's just names, because for me, this was right what I was looking for - warm, cheesy, garlicky, well-known and entirely without surprises.

Well, actually there was one tiny surprise - it was even better than I remembered.

gratin dauphinois
(generously serves four)

1,5kg potatoes
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon caraway seeds

3 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
1/2l chicken stock
1/4l cream
1 clove garlic, minced
salt and pepper

150g mild cheese (gouda or similar), grated

If necessary, wash the potatoes, but do not peel.

In a sufficiently large pot, cover the potatoes with cold water, add the salt and the caraway, and boil until the potatoes are just about done. Drain and leave to cool a little.
As they will continue cooking in the oven, rather undercook them now.

In a small casserole, gently heat the butter until it foams, then add the flour. Stir gently until the flour starts to smell aromatically. Swiftly add the stock and the cream, stirring vigorously.
I have come to the conclusion that it is easier to add cold liquid instead of hot (at least for me). Provided you pour in the stock swiftly enough, the roux won't have time to thicken, and instead is still able to dissolve properly in the cool mix while you heat it.

Bring the bechamel to a gentle boil while stirring constantly, then keep cooking for about ten minutes. Add the garlic and about one third of the grated cheese and season to taste. Stir until the cheese is completely incorporated, then set aside.
Rather err on the pungent / salty / hot side here, as the potatoes will drain quite a lot of taste.

Peel the cooled potatoes and cut into slices about as thick as a pencil. Stack them in a slightly buttered oven dish.
If you want to, go for nice scale or roof tile pattern. Also, this is perfectly adaptable into portion-sized timbales or cups, if you want to make an impression at the table. But it doesn't taste one bit different if you just pile and pour...

Cover the potatoes with the bechamel and the remaining cheese. Bake in the pre-heated oven at about 180°C until bubbly and golden, about half an hour.
In the dish for the pictures, I was a little too generous with the flour and consequently had to add more liquid and ended up with much more bechamel than I usually would have made. It looked a little sloppy, but tasted great. There's never anything wrong with more gravy, in my book...

This is a classic side dish for good cuts of meat. But honestly, together with a salad it makes a perfectly decent main course just as well. Also, any leftovers can be microwaved perfectly and make great office lunches - just add a few chives or a pinch of herbes de provence for a slightly more complex taste.

dressed in fearless pink

2009-02-24T12:44:00.013+01:00

As I have mentioned before, our 'moules a la creme' are a rather recent addition to our repertoire.

Before that, my mussels were invariably made the way I had learned them from Odette. Who, in some ways, has to be credited with being the third grandmother who taught me how to cook (the first two being the natural ones).

Our families have been fast friends since around my third birthday, and I have spent many summer holidays in St. Malo in Brittany where they live.
So it was in the dining room of their small terraced house that I got acquainted with all the other things from the sea that you could eat besides fish.

I still vividly remember squatting in the tiny yard with the other children, playing, while in the shadowy house the grown-ups were preparing for dinner. In those memories, Odette is invariably a massive presence, dressed in fearless pink and yellow, with clunky jewellery and long artificial fingernails.

A little bit like a weird aunt serving weird food, both she and her crustaceans held an unusual allure.

Admittedly, most of the food I had to grow accustomed to over the years. The stinky cheeses, the weird innards of crabs and countless other things were tough to sell to a young German boy.

But some dishes I liked quite instantly, one among them the way she prepared her mussels. Much bolder than the rather shy 'moules a la creme', Odette's version comes with heaps of garlic in a slightly hot tomato broth.

With their vibrant taste, these mussels are a pretty perfect way to pick you up when this dull, gray winter weather has worn you down and you just think you need a little jolt to get you going again.

moules aremoricaines
serves two as main, four as a starter

2 kg mussels
2 tablespoons butter
1 onion, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
one bundle parsley, chopped (about one cup)
1 heaped tablespoon flour
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
0,5 l dry white wine
0,5 l water or tomato puree
optional: a shot glass Pernod or Pastis

Clean the mussels as needed, discarding all the dead or damaged ones.
Once again, we got some galician mussels, but they were oddly clean and not as good as the usual ones. I really wonder why the dirty mussels are always the best ones...

In a large pot, melt the butter and add the onion. Fry until soft, then add the garlic and the parsley. When the garlic is glassy and fragrant, add the flour, stirring until well incorporated.
Odette's version calls for a proper persillade here, which would be half parsley / half garlic and no onion. But as I have co-workers and try not to intrude upon them more than absolutely necessary, I thought reducing the amount of garlic to this manageable amount and adding an onion instead would be only appropriate.

Once the flour has taken up the fat, leave on low heat for another moment. Add the tomato paste and the cayenne pepper and stir until the floor of the pot gets 'foggy', that is until there is a fine layer of the paste sticking to the ground. Swiftly add the wine and the water (and the Pastis, if wanted) and return to strong heat.
If you want to, you can substitute the water for more wine or some tomato puree, whichever you'd like to be more prominent in the final broth.

Bring the broth to a heavy boil, then add the mussels. Cover with a lid and leave on high heat for three to four minutes, stirring once, until all mussels are opened.
If you want to make this dish for children or people who'd prefer to have no residual alcohol in their food, you can leave the broth to boil for a little longer before adding the mussels until the alcohol has evaporated.

Season the broth, if necessary, with more salt or pepper and serve immediately, with crispy white bread and more white wine.
Usually, there is no need to add salt to the broth as the mussels will have added plenty of their own.

a perfect little treat

2009-02-23T10:35:00.004+01:00

This is not much of a recipe, just a note and a few pictures to let you see what we have been up to.

The weekend was busy and relaxing as weekends should be, and of course we had to have some kind of treat to go with our tea on sunday afternoon. This time, the wife wished for 'her' banana cake, and it once again turned out quite lovely.

It's nothing but a shortbread pastry case filled with sliced fresh bananas and topped with a thick, dark chocolate ganache. So, for a pastry base of 30 cm in diametre I use 200g of cream and 200g of dark (65%) chocolate to make a ganache of the proper texture. The wife is very discerning in that regard.

This cake is crisp and creamy at the same time, the rather bitter chocolate a very welcome foil for the mellow sweetness of the bananas. Cool out of the fridge, it is just a perfect little treat when you are looking for something sweet and indulgent but not too heavy or fussy to prepare.

if you're adventurous, take coarse sea salt

2009-02-17T17:59:00.008+01:00

Living in Germany, foodwise, is pretty great. It isn't France, nor Italy, nor anywhere near the Mediterranean sea, for that matter, but food quality and variety is great for comparatively low prizes.

Yet, for all the variety and cosmopolitan influences of my childhood home, some things just skipped me by.

For example, the only two options for breakfast cereals you have here are either the entirely artificial commercial cereals or some dusty muesli.

Somehow, I instinctively knew that there had to be something missing between those two options. Something crunchy, slightly sweet, (almost) as healthy as muesli just without the dust.

I actually had no idea that something like granola even existed.

So you can imagine my immediate intrigue when I first stumbled over a granola recipe in this wondrous treasure cave of the Internet. Soon, granola became a household staple and has enjoyed international acclaim since then. (Greetings to Denmark, btw!)

This recipe has already come a long way - I adapted it from Molly of Orangette's french chocolate granola, which in turn has evolved out of David Lebovitz' honey crunch granola. Now talk about evolution...

Anyway, it is right what I have been looking for all these years - slightly sweet and crunchy and nutty, with flavors of caramel and bread and sun. An entirely good-natured treat and a great anti-depressant.

my (french) (honey crunch) granola
(makes three to four large jars of about a litre each - which is what I comfortably eat in two months)

500g rolled oats
250g coconut flakes
300g almonds in flakes
100g hazelnuts in flakes

4 tablespoons unrefined cane sugar
4 tablespoons neutral oil (ie sunflower)
12 tablespoons light honey
1 teaspoon cinnamon powder
1 teaspoon salt (if you're adventurous, take coarse sea salt... I love it^^)
1/2 teaspoon ground aniseed

In a small casserole, gently heat the sugar, oil, honey and spices until the sugar has mostly dissolved and the mix is very runny. Stir often.
Watch out, honey can get very hot and sticky and might give you burns to remember better for the rest of your life.

In a large(!) bowl, mix the oats and the nuts. Pour over the warm honey and stir well until all grains are coated.
Once the honey cools down, the mix will turn sticky and quite unwieldy. I used a ten liter bowl just to make sure I wasn't making a mess of my kitchen.

Heat the oven to 150°C and roast the granola on a sheet lined with parchment / non-stick paper. The surface will brown quite swiftly, so stir the mix once or twice to have as much sugar caramelize on the grains without letting it burn. Depending on the moisture content of the oats and the honey, it will take about 20 to 25 minutes until it is sufficiently browned for me, but you might want to adapt the time to suit your personal taste.

Let the granola cool down completely before putting it into airtight containers.
Stir the granola once or twice while cooling, else it'll coalesce into one large brick instead of myriads of glassy-sounding little flakes.

As long as it doesn't catch any moisture, this granola keeps very well, at least two to three months.

I prefer this with some sultanas and a banana with a lot of plain creamy yogurt as a light office lunch, but it is equally nice on plain yogurt with some honey, on ice cream, or as a crunchy topping for your porridge.

roasted with honey

2009-02-11T11:12:00.001+01:00

Just so you don't come to think that we subsist on cream and bacon alone:

This was our dinner on monday night, just a few vegetables fried with honey and a lot of pepper and some of my chiabattini, roasted with honey as well. Nothing much of a recipe to talk about, but tasty, filling, healthy and definitely pretty enough, isn't it?

stocking up on spices

2009-02-09T16:15:00.011+01:00

Since tuesday last week, our pantry is now a veritable larder.

See, we have this charming lady coming over every few weeks or so to cut our hair. And as she has a large garden, a large family and is friends with my mum-in-law and generally plain sweet, she usually brings some surplus seasonal vegetable with her for us to eat.

Only this time, she and her husband had recently started home smoking their own meat. And probably just to show off, she brought us a sizeable slab of glistening, home-smoked fat bacon. So gorgeous.

It is now hanging in the larder, making the room deserve its name properly for the first time. The whole basement is flooded with the scent of wood smoke and it makes me smile each time I pass the door.

Having a decently stocked larder is such a good feeling.

And with 'decently stocked larder' I do not only mean 'having all you need', but rather 'having a comfortable cushion if things go wrong'. Of course, I do not honestly consider a famine a serious possibility where I live, and there will always be a supermarket around the corner. But even though, there is a deep, gut-level satisfaction in having stored at least a little more than what we will need in the immediate future.

It felt good already when we moved into our current home and suddenly had a room in the basement that would be dedicated to nothing but the storage of food. But the real jolt came when my mum-in-law order a hundredweight(!) sack of wheat and rye each(!) for making her own bread. Seriously, there was more than my own weight in grains standing in the corner.

But after my initial shock subsided (How long exactly did you think we will be living on these?), I felt happy. Positively glowingly happy.

It took me a while to figure out why having this (apparently) unreasonable amount of cereals in my basement made me anything other than worried. It is hard to put in words, but it was something along the line of 'let the winter come'. It felt secure, on a very instinctive level. As if somewhere, in the deep back of my mind, evolution had managed to genetically engrain the fact that a stock of food large enough to see me through a hard winter will significantly ease my mind. Actually, that makes some kind of sense.

Maybe, as I come to think of it, humans didn't descend from apes after all, but from squirrels. At least, that would explain a lot about myself.

Anyway, I ususally strife only to stock up on things I can reasonably expect to use up before they expire (unlike my mom-in-law). So, that means dry goods and spices, which work just fine with me.

One of my special darlings is my jar of pre-mixed curry powder. Just a few spoons of this mixture will turn an otherwise rather bland dish into something extraordinarily complex, spicy, fragrant. And as it wouldn't make sense to mix microscopic portions of the various ingredients each time, I mix it in bulk and keep until I need it.

Which is more and more often, especially after I found out how the curry mix improves something lovely but a little bland like spinach and eggs. I like spinach and eggs, but the 'indian' version we are currently making is in a completely different league.

Try it and see for yourself - it'll just give you the reason you were looking for to go stocking up on spices.

Curry Type I

1 tablespoon each of
curcuma (tumeric)
cumin
coriander seeds
sweet paprika

1/4 tablespoon chilies (or more to taste)
1/4 tablespoon cinnamon

If necessary, grind the spices. Mix them and store in an airtight container in a dark place (ie a screw-lid jar, see above).

Curried Eggs
serves two

400g spinach, frozen
200ml coconut cream, unsweetened
2 tablespoons curry type I
salt

4 eggs
2 teaspoons tumeric (curcuma)
1 tablespoon clarified butter (ghee)

roasted onions to taste

In a medium casserole, thaw the spinach and gently heat with the coconut cream and the spices.

Meanwhile, boil the eggs.
I prefer them at 8 minutes, when the yolk is firm but still glossy.

When the eggs are ready, cool them a little under running cold water, then peel.

In the same pot the eggs were cooked in, melt the butter at medium temperature. Add the curcuma and the peeled eggs. Fry gently until coppery all around.
The eggs should sizzle gently in the spiced butter, but not hiss or spit.

Salt the spinach to taste, it should have a consistency somewhere between gravy and ordinary spinach.

Serve immediately with the eggs (and roasted onions if you like), and maybe some bread as a side.

therapeutical baking

2009-02-07T19:03:00.002+01:00

Our stock of ciabattini was running low, so I decided I would make a new batch to keep in the freezer.

That is actually my grandmother's mangle linen the ciabattini are resting on. It had been part of her dowry and been hiding away for years in my cupboard, but now it is perfectly serving its new purpose of helping me making bread.

Also, my copy of Suas' Advanced Bread and Pastry arrived this week. Good god, now this is the first cooking book I really, really find helpful. If ever you wondered 'why' during baking, this is the book for you.

So I was eager to try some new things, and naturally I wasn't short of comissions. My dad-in-law asked me to try and make some Madeleines, as the ones he used to eat with his afternoon coffee in the office were no-where in the shops anymore. So, I bought a form and made some Madeleines -

They turned out marvelous. Only thing is that I will need another form with bigger and more Madeleines per charge. Well, we'll see how they keep, and if^^.

Also, I wanted to try and make croissants for my wife. So I did a batch of them as well.

Those didn't turn out that good actually, because the butter I used for layering was too thick and too cold and kinda messed up the whole process. So, the structure was way below optimal, though the taste already was pretty damn close to what I was looking for.

I learned a real damn lot today - especially
a) Madeleine dough gets better the longer it is cooled (the last batch 6 hours after the first one produced the best ones).
b) a triple batch of ciabatta is about the maximum I can comfortably bake at once in my kitchen, because the last ones were pretty overproof already.
c) I spent a whole day baking and I feel like I had a week of holidays. Talk about therapeutical baking - only my feet hurt.

a hand-me-down souvenir

2009-02-02T16:58:00.006+01:00

Even the best vacation has a definite drawback - eventually, you'll have to get back home.

Sure, there are vacations where going home is the best part. But, right now I am talking about good holidays, those trips far away where you lose the track of time and everything seems somehow enchanted.

And yet even those vacations end eventually, leaving nothing but memories.

Though, of course, we can always bring some physical proof that we had been there, some trinket that'll remind us when our memories start to fade.

We can bring souvenirs.
(Which, incidentally, is the french word for 'memories'...)

I love going on vacations. But I really cannot stand stuff that clutters up my place, being of no use until one day it is forgotten along with the original memory and yet can still be found.
(Alright, even I keep a tiny stone that I found at the Cape of Good Hope. It's just to nice a thing to throw away and not really cluttering up my place.)

So usually, I try quite hard not to buy some trinket that hangs around. Instead, as a reminder, I try to learn things. New skills, new recipes, things that are immaterial but innately useful.

Like the way I learned to flip crepes in the pan without touching them. Like the 'moules a la creme' that my wife found at the Mont St. Michel. Like learning how to make mayonnaise from scratch when I was in Portugal with 60 hungry boyscouts.

Those skills are 'things' in terms of not really being memories of events. They are part of me like breathing, I don't have to remember them. And yet, each time I make mayonnaise, I can recall the scent of the pine needles on the camping site north of Porto where I first made some. Those skills all have the added benefit of reminding me of vacations, and they can't gather dust.

Best of all - they work with second-hand vacations, too!

This week's recipe has been brought back home by my mother, after a vacation my parents spent sailing with some of their friends. I don't even remember where exactly they were, and I hardly know the friends they were with, but I am so sure I can recall it was a vacation with great food. That's what I call a hand-me-down souvenir!

This is a rather simple ragout, with only a few ingredients. But the flavours are astonishingly well matched, with a tablespoon of mustard working some serious magic in the background without ever being prominent enough to be noticed by anyone who didn't see me putting it in. It looks rather unassuming but is quite a stunner, trust me on that.

(And if you close your eyes, and chew carefully, I bet you too will be able to feel the yacht gently rocking in the evening breeze...)

Ragout Ashkelon
(serves four)

800g chicken breast (deboned)
2 bundles of scallions
1 tablespoon butter, clarified
0,5 l chicken stock
0,5 l cream
1 generous tablespoon mustard
flour to thicken
salt, pepper

Clean the meat, if necessary. Cut into nicely bite-sized pieces.

Clean the scallions of dry parts, discard the roots. Roughly half the batches so you have one part predominantly white, the other one predominantly green. Separately chop into rings.
Actually, look at the picture below. This was what greeted me when I came home from work, all clean and chopped and neatly 'mise en place'.
I am married to the best commis in the world.

In a high-rimmed, heavy pan, heat the clarified butter and sear the meat.
At this step, turn up the heat as high as your stove can give you. Even try to get a nice, hazel color on the chicken and even some crisp corners. No need to actually have the meat thoroughly done right now, it'll get enough time later on. Right now, this is about color and getting some inportant taste.

Once the meat is nicely browned, reduce to medium heat and add the white part of the scallions. Gently fry together for a minute, until the scallions turn glassy.
Now it is important not to have the pan too hot, cause once the scallions burn even ever so slightly, you'll never get that taste out of the dish again.

Add the stock, returning to full heat. Bring to a boil and leave to deglaze for a moment. Meanwhile, whisk the flour into the cold cream until well dissolved.
As you can see, this will give quite a lot of sauce, which I love. Usually this amount calls for about two tablespoons flour, but you can always take the shortcut and use some commercial thickener.
Or you can go the long way and take the time to prepare a proper roux, of course, adding a perfect silken texture to this already luxurious dish.
Whatever your time management allows for.

Add the floured cream to the pan and bring to a soft boil, stirring gently.

Season with the mustard, salt and pepper.
Usually, I take mustard 'a l'ancienne', with coarsly ground grains for this dish as it looks much better. But half of my eaters that evening weren't too fond of mustard in general and so I took the smoothly ground one and didn't tell them.

Right before serving, stir in the green parts of the scallions.
Not really cooking the greens will give a lovely crunch to the dish and a nice, lively flavour.

Serve with rice and a cool, dry white wine.