not a question to ask a lady

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

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

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...

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

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'

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

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.