Coffee Break – self roasted coffee beans:
Some close up shoots of my just roasted coffee beans, made in the Whirley Pop popcorn pot. Not possible to get an espresso more fresh and tasty. And another nice side effect, the whole flat is enriched by coffee roasting flavour.
Schmalznudeln Café Fischhut:
The Café Fischhut is a must if you are in Munich close to the Viktualienmarkt and suffer from “hunger”. I usually eat the Schmalznudeln there “to go” but this time we went inside and I have to say they are even more “out of the fat/pan”. Great stuff!
Cafe y medialunas y dulce de leche:
This is the Argentinian way of having a breakfast, Cafe y medialunas y dulce de leche. One of the best ways to start a day. Dulce de leche can also be used to accompany a flan con crema.
Pan roasted coffee and Bialetti espresso:
As a regular reader you might know I use the Whiley Pop Popcorn Maker to roast my coffee. But I actually never roasted coffee beans in a pan before today. It is possible but I have to tell you that a lot of movement is involved shaking the iron or iron cast pan every 5 seconds for about 20 minutes. So you will earn you breakfast after it for sure.
So this is how I did it:
– Use a proper pan, iron or iron cast is perfect. One with a higher rim is absolute perfect.
– Fill it with geen coffee beans just a bit less than all the ground is covered. They will expand to about double the size.
– The most tricky part is how to know the right temperature of you oven plate. I would start with 2/3 of the maximum. E.g. I got 9 max. so I choose 6 or 7.
– Too hot will burn the beans to fast. You sould be able to roast the beans for more than 20 minutes until they are dark brown.
– Constantly shake the pan with the cover and make sure they are evenly covering the whole surface of the pan.
– Avoid dark spots by not moving the beans around, about max. 5 seconds is ok.
– After 10 minutes you should hear the first cracks of the beans
– Ater 20 minutes you should hear the second cracks, this about the time when the beans
are close to be ready.
– Wait for the beans to be a darkish brown close to black for espresso, dark brown for regular coffee.
– Fill the roasted beans in a huge bowl and shake off the skins of the beans, your coffee will taste bitter if you leave them with the beans.
– Cool them down and fill them in a jar.
– Keep the cover from the jar open for about a day so the beans can breath out the carbon monoxide
– After about 24hours the coffee is ready to be grinded and ready to drink.
The cheapest, one of the most tasting and most joyful method to make coffee is using the typical Bialetti Espresso maker. A 3 or 4 cup sized Bialetti is the perfect choice for a breakfast for two. Not too much attention is needed, the smell of fresh made coffee is distributed wonderfully through the whole apartment and the end is announced by a nice bubbling sound of the espresso maker.
Alan´s Pasta Workshop – Bregenz:
Recently we were on a saturday and around lunchtime in Bregenz – Austria. Sure lunch could not be delayed. Luckily we walked by Alan´s Nudelwerkstatt. There we had some superb fresh made ravioli with sage and dried tomatoes.
Alan Cohen from New York manufactures in Bregenz with two Italian pasta machines, filled and plain pasta. A quite and unique place with lots of character as the owner itself. Up to 8 persons can be hosted on 4 tables. His pasta is accompanied by a fine selection of Italian wines, olive oil, Cantuccini, Panettone and his home made Pesto.
How you can find him?
Adress: Deuringstraße 2, 6900 Bregenz
Phone number:+4355-745 2929
Open monday – friday 9:30am – 1pm and 3:30pm – 6 pm
Closed on saturday and sunday
Armagnac Vaghi from 1989:
Breaking the tradition of buying a good bottle of Cognac XO for christmas. I went for a Armagnac this year. Armagnac Vaghi sells brandy back to 1928 and probably even older ones are hidden in their cellar. Made from Ugni-Blanc grapes and the rougher not as smooth version of a Cognac, be-cause only distilled once. But after some decades in barrels he will catch up. Sharing with family and friends who will show up. The glass is empty right now, a bit too early. But soon it will be preheated with some hot steam from the espresso machine and filled to Prost with someone. Cu soon.
Ristorante Bologna Varese:
Travelling to Italy, food is always one reason why we love this country. Just after the border of Switzerland there comes Varese, and Ristorante Bologna is the place to see and to eat, if you want it rustic and authentic italian. We enjoyed to stay there for two nights and were lucky to get at least one table to celebrate Maria´s birthday and sadly the reservation for the other Birthday guests the next day did not work out so well – anyway, Italy was great, as always.
Bread and Pizza Evening!
Nothing better to start the weekend with a great night cooking/baking and celebrating it with friends. So we did this friday. I explained the basics of how to make a good loaf of bread while and we also had pizza made of the same recipe (only that the dough did not ferment for about 24 hours). See one of a image where the crispy pizza slice 1/16 did not collapse.
Here are the basics for a good pizza:
– Do not try to buy cheap ingredients its ruins everything from the beginning.
– Take your time if you are not a pro. At the beginning all are hungry but they will slow down tray after tray
– use lots of olive oil on the tray so the pizza does not stick and gets more crispy
– 320 C would be perfect but most ovens only make it to 270 C which is ok.
– put the baking tray on the lowest level of your oven and do not use “hotair” mode take “ober- and unterhitze” (heat from top and bottom). You need the extra heat mostly from below so the pizza gets extra crispy.
– Use lots of olive oil to sprinkle the pizza before you put it in the oven, it keeps the pizza moist and just tastes better.
– Do not overload the pizza, less is better.
Thats it I would say. Baking a loaf of bread just seems logic after the oven is already hot. Also a great gift for your friends to take home. Probably ensures they will come back for more.
Homemade Gnocchi with spinach and gorgonzola:
It always sounded too much hassle to make gnocchi by myself – but Maria finally challenged me yesterday.
Here the recipe:
1000g of potatoes
200g of flour
2 egg yolk
bit of salt
Boil the potatoes until they crack, peel them and mash them. Knead them with the four, eggs and salt while they are still warm. Make about 4 rolls and cut them into even “slices”. Press them with a fork a bit. Put them for about 3 minutes in boiling water and keep the ready ones warm in the oven until you made them all. Thats it! The recipe above has to be fine tuned a bit, be-cause they turn out a bit too soft – just a bit. 1/2 semiola and 1/2 flour might be the solution.
Montfort Mühle goes Stelzenmühle:
The small and family run Montfort Mühle in Langenargen was mostly my source for the flour of my bread. Unfortunately the mill needs an overhaul but due to lack of funds they stopped the mill. A college stepped in also from the region the Stelzenmühle. A sad story wich shows how hard it is to survive with “products” which need taste and understanding for a higher price as from a discounter. Already the amount of small bakerys in my area dropped to two, which was around ten only 20 years ago.
Even knowing that the mill is out of service I decided to ride my bike for about 12km one way to load my bigger Swiss Army Backpack with 20kg of flour. I think it is important to support this small run business.
It was worth it check out the result from this fine flour – what a loaf of bread!
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