damn, that feels good

There is one tiny side-effect of cooking that I really, really love.

It makes you independent.

See, we have this truly awesome bakery here in town. Their sweet stuff is best ignored, in my humble opinion, but their bread is legendary. Whole grain, slow raised, locally procured, organic, artsisan's bread in the very best sense of the idea. They have several outlets in town, but still on saturday mornings people cue up in lines on the sidewalk to get their bread. They are really, really good.

And for several years, they were making the best ciabatta I have ever eaten. The absolute favorite bread of my wife. The best bread you could think of if you hadn't a french 'pain de campagne' around.

And then, one day this summer, they stopped making their ciabatta. Just like that. They offered another white bread, but not even remotely what we were looking for. No brittle crust, no chewy, tangy bread.

My wife was devastated, to say the least. Teary eyed, she looked at me, pleading me to bring her beloved bread back. Well, maybe a little less melodramatically so, but I think you get my point.

And guess what? I did. I searched for recipes, figured out what it actually was what we were looking for, and over sevaral weeks now have been working on the perfect bread to go with all that rillettes, the mussels and the countless other things I make.

You can't believe my joy and satisfaction when yesterday's batch didn't only turn out good, but perfect. Sure, the loaves are still a little too crooked for my taste, but that's merely technical. I'll learn that too. But the taste and the texture were pitch perfect. Not only as good as the ciabatta we were so direly missing, but better.

So, my dear bakery. You didn't only lose a faithful, year-long customer last summer. No, you also taught me how to make my own bread. I don't need you any longer, and damn, that feels good. Now kiss my *bleep*ing *bleep* and go cry in your corner.

Did I mention I really, really love being able to cook?



Rustic Ciabatta
(makes two medium loaves or a whole lotta ciabattini)
(aioli not included)

adapted & evolved from here

for the biga
a pinch of active dry yeast
200 ml warm water

300g high-gluten wheat flour (German type 550)
2 generous tablespoons whole-grain wheat flour
2 generous tablespoons whole-grain rye flour
180ml warm water [Edit: use a little more water if the biga feels too tough to handle, especially when using a machine]

for the dough
350g high-gluten wheat flour (German type 550)
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
3 teaspoons salt
300 ml water


To prepare the biga, dissolve the yeast in the water.
This step is not meant to proof the yeast, but to measure a tiny little bit of yeast, see below. Probably using just a few grains would work just as fine, but so far I didn't see the reason to gamble.

Mix the different flours, add the second batch of warm water and a tiny tablespoon of the dissolved yeast. Discard the remaining yeasted water. Knead with the hook attachment for several minutes, until the dough gains elasticity.
Whatever you do, do not skip the rye flour. It is needed to bring in the necessary bacteria to get the fermentation started, else you'll end up with just another white bread.

Cover tightly and leave to ferment for two days(!).
I started yesterday's batch on thursday, and started with the proper dough on saturday morning. I think it wouldn't have hurt the dough to ferment even longer.

On the day of baking, add the remaining ingredients and knead with the hook attachment for several minutes again.
The dough is very soft and won't clear the sides of the bowl, but you should look out until you see that the dough gains elasticty.

Put the dough in a large bowl and leave to rest.

After about half an hour, take out the dough onto a well-floured surface. Do not knead but merely stretch the dough a little and fold the sides to centre. Put back into the bow and leave to rest. Repeat three more times after about half an hour each.
The dough will gain some stability by folding, while not noticeably losing air - a process that never fails to amaze me.

After the fourth time folding the dough, leave to reast another ninety minutes to two hours.

Take the dough out of its bowl (it should have at least doubled its volume by now) and cut into half, once again without kneading. Roughly push into desired form, put onto a well-floured tea towel and leave to raise a last time, about 30 to 45 minutes.



Preheat the oven as hot as you can get it, mine ends a 250°C. Put an old baking tray right onto the bottom of the oven and get a small glass of water ready.

Transfer the loaves onto a paper-lined baking sheed, turning them upside down. Pour the water onto the baking sheet on the bottom of the oven and immediately put in the bread. [Edit: Put the bread on the lowest rack possible.] Bake for about 15 minutes until the crust underneath all that flour is dark amber to walnut coloured.

Put on a rack to cool, and enjoy!



PS: Talking about great bread - have a look at Susan's tremendous WildYeast blog, where this recipe just might feature in the YeastSpotting section!

slightly cthulhoid fellows

We're currently seeing one of the longest cold stretches here since I can remember. Sure, in this part of Germany it's no great deal to have the occasional night well below minus ten degrees celsius. But since Christmas, it's been freezing, with 'coldest night on record' records coming in every other day.

It's great actually, it's white outside and the air is clean and crisp and lovely.

I really ought to be reveling in cold weather food, like cheese fondue and such. But I think I've had more than enough of that already before christmas, when it was merely rainy. Who could have known that for a change, we would get a proper winter this year?

As much as I enjoy our daily walks in the sunlit, icy forest that begins just at the end of our road, I already feel that longing for a different kind of food.

Oddly enough, it's the summer food I miss, not necessarily summer itself. Not yet, probably.

So I when we were at our local wholesale market, stocking up on the bare necessities of life - like toilet paper, olive oil and crayfish - I noticed them having fresh octopus. Immediately, my holidays in Croatia were back full force. My father is an avid sailor, and I have spent quite some weeks by now sailing among the Cornati Islands.

It is a lovely region, with crystal clear water, tiny cities dating back to roman times with pale slabs of stone paving the streets, worn smooth by countless feets so they shine in the mediterranean sun.



And of course, the lovely food of the adriatic. Grilled meat, great vegetables, fresh fish everwhere. And of course one of my all-time favorites - octopus salad.

Admittedly, nothing here can match an octopus fresh from the sea and real sun-ripened tomatoes you have bought from some black-clad granny on a farmers market down there.

But still, the longing struck me right there in front of half a ton of various fishes on crushed ice, and I knew I just had to try. After all, I was on holiday, so what was there to lose but some time?

So I bought some of these slightly cthulhoid fellows and tried to make that salad, and it turned out just fine. It's not really whipped up in an instant (meaning it takes more than 5 minutes of my attention), but it is lovely, and close enough to the real thing that you can almost feel the sun.




Octopus-Salad
(serves four)

1,2 - 1,5 kg octopus
200ml plain white vinegar
1 onion
4 bay leaves
1 tablespoon chilies
2 tablespoons salt

500g tomatoes
1 onion
2 tablespoons parsley, chopped
olive oil
vinegar and / or lemon juice
salt & pepper, a dash of honey



In a large pot, boil enough water so your octopus will have enough room. Add the vinegar, the salt, onion, bay leaves and chilies.

Clean the octopus under running water, check that the intrails have been taken out. Turn the 'head' sack back to normal it necessary, so that the colored skin is on the outside.

Boil the octopus until the meat is tender but not soft, probably about 40 minutes.
Cooking time varies greatly with size, age and type of octopus you get, large specimen can need up to 1 1/2 hours. It's ready when a fork inserted gets a proper 'meaty' but not 'rubbery' resistance.

Drop the octopus in cold water for a moment.

Clean them of their dark skin, make sure to remove eyes and beaker.
Actually you'll see immediately which parts you'll want to eat - you keep the ones that are pale and firm and get rid of everything slimy.

Chop them into bite-sized pieces and marinade in some salt, some vinegar or lemon juice and a generous amount of olive oil.
This mix keeps well a day or two in the fridge and can be perfectly prepared for a party.

Right before serving, chop up the onion and the tomatoes, and add them to the fish. Season with salt, pepper, parsley and eventually some more vinegar or lemon juice.

Serve with crisp bread and maybe some white wine, and enjoy! Maybe it's not quite as good as in Starigrad on Hvar, but really damn close.

a breathtaking sight

We were in France this spring, in the Perigord region near Domme, to be precise. It is one of the most beautiful places I have been to on earth so far, and it is not only because of the food.

Looking down from the market place of Domme onto the valley of the Dordogne, especially at dusk, is such a breathtaking sight that I wonder every time if maybe this was what God's plan for our planet had originally looked like.

But this year, there was another sight I will probably remember fondly for a very long time: It was early afternoon, and market day in Domme. We were strolling around on the market as I noticed a bunch of stall holders (local students, by the looks of them) gathering for a 'casse-croûte'.
A casse-croûte, literally 'breaking the crust', is a 'very simple meal', as the french wikipedia has it. But, being in France, this wasn't a bunch of sandwiches from the store and a bottle of 'coca' - no, these guys in all earnestnes pulled out a bottle of red wine, bought a loaf of bread from one of the neighbouring stalls, some cheese and a jar of rillettes, and just looked like having the greatest of all times.

It wasn't the admittedly picturesque scenery that made the moment so magical - for me, it was a reminder that great food wasn't something dreamed up by some foodies in their ivory towers, but something very down to earth, real and entirely charming - and happening every day out there, and not only in carefully orchestrated environments. For me, it was a moment to hold on to.

Alas, I can't take that place or the occasion with me, but what I can do is work on the food.

Lately, I have begun making my own rillettes, a simple greasy spread of long-cooked meat. Nothing for those counting their calorie-intake, and much less for anyone who isn't a convinced carnivore. It doesn't even look like much.

But it is a great, simple dish and makes a lovely gift. And most importantly, it goes perfectly with some cheese and a glass of wine, which in my eyes is as close to a perfectly french casse-croûte without actually being in France.





Rillettes
(makes four to six medium jars)

2 goose legs (appr. 1kg)
400g porc belly
200g lard (porc or goose)

3/4 l water
5 juniper berries
4 bay leaves
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
2 teaspoons salt
1 clove

eventually:
more lard [Edit: You will most probably need about 200g+]
bay leaves for decoration

Clean the goose legs, but leave bones and skin. Cut the porc in rough cubes.

Put the meat and the lard in a heavy, ovenproof pot and sear the meat (especially the goose skin) until it takes colour.
I usually take my heavy, cast-iron pots for this. Though roasting the meat is not particular necessary, it adds a nice flavor and my wife loves it.



When the meat is nicely browned, add the water and the spices.
If possible, put the spices in something that helps getting them out again - like a cloth sack or a tea egg or similar. In this particular case, it really helps saving a lot of time.

Cover with the lid and put in the oven to simmer at approximately 150°C for 6-8 hours(!). The rilletes is ready when the meat falls apart at a touch and all eventual cartilage has dissolved.
There is hardly any way to overcook a rillettes, so if you have an oven you can trust, it's perfectly fine to put it in before you got to bed and switch it off in the morning - that is, if you don't mind a night saturated with dreams of delicious, greasy meat, as you whole place will smell of it.
On the other hand, it the lid doesn't close neatly or the oven temperature varies strongly, you might want to keep an eye on the pot to see if there is still enough liquid. If necessary, refill with some more water.

Leave to cool.

When the rillettes has cooled, take out the spices and all remaining bones and skin. Crush remaining chunks with your hands until everything is smooth and nicely spreadable.

Reheat one last time. Once it has boiled, turn off the heat and leave to settle for a moment.
Depending on how greasy your porc belly was, you'll have more or less fat floating on top of the meat. Normally, you'll want to have about a centimeter of surplus fat, as it will form a lid on your meat that'll keep it preserved.
Add more lard if necessary. This year, I was lucky enough to have kept the surplus lard from our annual goose roast in the freezer. I prefer goose lard to porc or vegetative fats as it is smoother and keeps the rillettes spreadable, but both would be fine in an emergency.

Fill the rilletes into wide-rimmed, screw-lid glass jars and cool.
If you want, you can put a single bay leave on top of each portion for decoration.

The rillettes keeps several months in the fridge, but even in the larder it'll stay perfectly fine for several weeks.

Enjoy as a spread on fresh, crispy bread, or even on a cracker as a truly indulgent snack.

of boars and cookie-tins

Christmas and New Year's eve have passed in a whirlwind.
I just removed the decorations and brought the last cookie tins back to their cupboard in the basement, where they will faithfully wait until next year. The cookies have neatly lasted till today, so that is a very good thing. No more cookies found in some corner in the beginning of august.^^

How comes that time even seems to accelerate when you do less?

Christmas dinner, as usual, has been great - with my mother's boar roast and the home-made potatoe dumplings earning a special mention. BIG movie magic, as a friend of our swould say. And, as a special treat, my mother had gone through the efforts and had prepared a two-tiered tray of various self-made sweets and brittles for my aunts and my mother-in-law each as a present. That was a great thing, both in look and taste and a really precious gift.

Short, I just want to express my gratitude for having such a lovely family and my luck of being able to spend this time with them.

I hope you're all having such nice times as well, and I wish you all the best of luck, love, happiness, prosperity, inspiration and plain good times for this brand-new year.

Happy 2009, all of you!

of head, heart and base

What is it actually that makes mulled wine, and especially his fiery cousin, the 'Feuerzangenbowle', a preferred metaphor for reminiscing?

Is it the fact that it is closely associated with dark winter evenings and miserable weather, when there is nothing else to do then think of better times gone by? (Like, summer, for example?)
Or is it that mulled wine can pack quite a punch and get you talking incoherently much faster than many other drinks?

Surely the eponymous German movie from 1944 helped a lot in cementing the reputation.

But for me, mulled wine so far only evokes memories of burned gums and icy feet, of cheap sweet wine, either overcooked and flat or stunningly cloying with destilled cinnamon.

A few years ago, a colleague of mine who lived in one of Germany's wine regions told me how they made their mulled wine: instead of simmering the wine with spices and citrus peel, they prepared a sirup in advance, and only spiced the wine as it was warmed.

Of course, I tried it out, but the results were only marginally better than what I could buy in a shop. The aromes were somewhat flat, and there just wasn't any chance to strike a balance between the citrussy and spicy flavours.

So I abandoned that project.

But, as these stories go, a few weeks ago another dear colleague of mine got us talking about said 'Feuerzangenbowle'. And somehow, the rum traditionally used to set the sugar-loaf alight turned into the missing link and sparked a whole bunch of quite delightful experiments in my kitchen.

Making a dish and composing a perfume isn't all that different in my eyes. It is about harmony, complexity, and head, heart and base notes, however you might call them.
To keep with the perfume image, it was the head notes I had been missing in the usual mulled wine. Macerating the spices in the cold rum instead of boiling them for a prolonged time preserved much, much more of the more volatile essential oils, and the resulting drink is astonishingly fragrant and the taste much more complex.

Also, the ingredients gives off their flavours into the rum after a different amount of time. So you get the citrussy aromes fully developed before the spices come in. Which means that you can time the whole process perfectly to suit your very personal perferences in the citrus vs spice department.

Also, the prepared infusion is just perfect to make single servings of mulled wine - just warm a glass of wine (like, the one glass traditionally left over from last night's dinner), spice it up and there you go. Not as good as a whole bucket for the whole family, but still better than not having any because you're the only one wanting some.

The only drawback is that the final infused rum won't burn properly on its own, even if you started with 54% alcohol content. But that's really only a minor drawback, especially as I see no problem at all at using some other, unspiced rum to light the sugar.

And then you can lean back, enjoy the show, and reminisce in olden times. Or you can act the nerdy foodie, happy about the fact that you now have a hot drink with head, heart and base notes.





mulled wine - single serving edition

for the infusion
4 organic oranges
5 organic lemons
6 sticks cinnamon bark (about 15g)
12 star anise (also about 15g)
10g whole cloves (about 20 cloves, I guess)
1 vanilla pod (optional)
750 ml dark rum, 50% alcohol minimum

to serve
red wine
sugar or honey


As long as you are not in the lucky situation to have grown the oranges and lemons in your own yard, give them a thorough wash. Peel the fruits, leaving as much of the white pith as possible.

In a large bottle or screw-lid jar, place the spices as they are, and add the fresh citrus peel. A one litre bottle or jar should be big enough.

Cover with the rum and close tightly. Leave at a dark but not too cold place for about a week (inside a cupboard, for example).
By then, the citrus peel will have given off most of its aromes to the alcohol, with the dry spices only gradually beginning to macerate. So each day you can check if the cinnamon / clove taste is strong enough for you yet or if you'd prefer to leave ot for another few days. I wouldn't leave the mix longer than two weeks, after that the cinnamon becomes too cloying, I think.

Strain the liquid into another clean bottle and store dark and cool until use.

To make the actual mulled wine:
Heat a glass of wine but do not let it boil. Add some sugar or honey to taste (three teaspoons of sugar for me per glass) and some of the infused rum (also three teaspoons for me per glass). Stir and enjoy.

For the 'Feuerzangenbowle' version:
As above, but do not add sugar. Instead, place the desired number sugarcubes onto an absinthe spoon and drizzle with some high-percentage alcohol, dark rum preferably.
Do not use the infused rum on the sugar as the essential oils it now contains will prevent it from burning properly and if it burns, it'll smell real funky.
Light the rum-drenched sugar, switch off the lights and enjoy.

(mostly) unfounded

Some ingredients I can only treat with a certain cautious reluctance.

Every now and then again, I come across something that strikes me as so odd, so entirely against the grain of what I have become to consider edible, that it just gives me the shivers.

And I am not talking about something generally off. I mean, as a kid I just couldn't imaging raw fish to be edible. I have been eating raw minced porc on bread since I can think, but fish was just... mind-boggling. And now I love sushi.

But I think that is cultural, and just a question of what you are used to eat in general.

No, I am talking about those single ingredients that just seem totally out of place and can not possibly taste good when you encounter them the first time.

Like licorice and anything containing pineapple.
Apricot jam in chicken stir-fry.
Honey and raw tomatoes.
Strawberries and pepper.

The list is probably endless.

Over the years, I have learned that those preconceptions are (mostly) unfounded, especially when such ideas come from people I usually attest knowing what they talk about. Still, I have to admit that there are some of those combinations that I do not dare to try on my own, as I have no idea what it's supposed to taste like, and rather wait and see if I can catch up on it in some restaurant somewhere.

The whole subject was brought to my mind the last weekend, during our annual cookie-craze, when a dear friend of ours completely balked at the thought of using lard in a cookie recipe.

Her wide-eyed stare, unbelieving and mostly hoping that I was only kidding, probably was met with equal surprise on my side that she was so stunned. It quite markedly reminded me that even among our most every-day things, even tiny details can seem quite freakish to someone else.

She trusted me eventually, but as unfortunately I am not immune to Murphy's law, those were the cookies that died in the oven. No chance for me to convince her that everything is fine and these are lovely cookies despite the lard.

Actually, they are quite common cookies in Germany, with many households having their own, handed-down-from-generations, absolutely bestest, version of it. They are called ox'-eye cookies, for the obvious look of them, in most parts of the country. Also, as in my family, they are known as what only roughly translates as the-longer-the-dearer, because they keep very well and become all the tastier with the time passing. (At least, that is how the legend goes, mine never last long enough to find out.) Our lard-loathing friend, of course, named them pig's eye cookies, because they were a) too small to be ox' eyes and b) were made with lard, of all things.

However they are called, they are crumbly, melt-in-your-mouth soft little things, they look just adorably pretty and the lard adds that certain je-ne-sais-quoi to both texture and taste that makes them even more irresistable.

And just to reassure you, no, they don't taste of porc, nor will your cookie box smell like you hid a slice of bacon somewhere at the bottom. Trust me, as long as I don't forget half the flour, I usually know what I do.





the-longer-the-dearer (pig's eye cookies)
(makes 50 to 60 cookies)

140g lard
140g butter
140g sugar
3 eggyolks
420g flour

jelly to fill
yolk to glaze

In a large bowl, mix the fat until soft. Add the sugar and then the yolks, one by one.
If the mix curdles, add a tablespoon or two of the flour, it should be smooth and dough-like already before you add the flour.

Add the flour, and mix until all flour is well incorporated.
The dough should be rather on the brittle side of smooth, a standing mixer is really usefull here. Try not to knead with your hands, as the dough will get too warm and the cookies won't be that tender then.

Cool for at least two hours, better overnight.

Cut the dough in small portions, rolling balls of each of them.
I usually make two large rolls of dough, each about two fingers thick, and cut them into pieces a finger wide each. That swiftly makes for a lot of nuggets that are sufficiently close in weight to each other.

Arrange the balls on baking sheets lined with baking paper, spacing them a little apart.

With the rear end of a cooking spoon, punch a dent in each ball, so they look like broad-rimmed bowls.

Pipe or spoon the jelly into the indentions. Do not overfill as the jelly will turn liquid in the oven and should stay inside their little basins.
We prefer blackcurrant jelly for this, but I think any jelly or marmelade that is not too sweet will do fine.

Glaze the raw cookies with beaten eggyolk.

Bake in the pre-heated oven at about 160°C for about 15 minutes, until they just catch some colour.
Leave to cool on the tray for a moment to cool before transferring them to a rack, as they are very soft and brittle for the first minute or so.

They keep nicely several weeks in a cool and dry box.

some you win...

Remember what I wrote last week about the slightly mishappen Pfefferkuchen?

That they were quite vile and only suitable for decoration?

Well, as usual in that case, I took a bunch of them with me to the office. Just to see if someone there liked them after all. They were lying in their tin box together with all those other cookies, and probably because I had warned everybody else, no one touched them. Actually two colleagues of mine shared one and precisely described that notorious, soapy-chemical aftertaste, just to tell you that I have witnesses and was not hallucinating.

Because (cue drumroll) - that taste is gone.

Kitchen chemistry will never fail to amaze me.

It was, I think, wednesday afternoon, during the usual 5 o'clock sugar crave (also known as the irrational afternoon feeding frenzy), that I was so low on sugar I ate a handfull of those Pfefferkuchen.

And much to my surprise, no soap, no chemicals. Just plain, lovely, if a little dry, Pfefferkuchen.

Back at home, I tried one of the vast batch that was still standing around in its corner, and they were still... heinous.

So after a long, head-scratching moment I decided that the only difference between the nice ones in the office and the vile ones at home was the fact that those in the office had been standing around in an open box for two days by then, whereas those at home had been constantly tightly lidded.

Consequentially, I openend the two boxes at home, leaving them open. They were doing a nice job as a room scent, actually, but that was not the point. Because, perfectly in timing four weeks after they were made, the Pfefferkuchen taste lovely now.

I am still a little dumbfounded.

But they are and seem to remain perfectly spicy and dark and sweet and everything. Apparently they just didn't have had enough time to rest, with the first of Advent being the last weekend of November this year. And leaving the boxes open to breathe did the trick of speed-aging them.

Actually, I couldn't have thought of a nicer gift for St. Niclas.