Category Archives: Food

the art of making bread

Mast Brothers chocolate – Brooklyn

Mast Brothers chocolate – Brooklyn:
They do not ship overseas but I guess I will definitely have a look at their shop if I will be around – sometime. Great video and great guys / Brothers, I guess that the Chocolate Mast have picked up some positive spirit by all this dedication.

ready to crumble – rosinenbrötchen

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ready to crumble – rosinenbrötchen:
Get ready for the weekend! Yesterday evening I put some flour, butter, milk, raisins, sugar, yeast, and vanilla in a pot and this morning the dough was ready to “Rosinenbrötchen”.
About 35 minutes at 160 C and 10 minutes at about 200 C with hot air (for the color) and
not only have saved you the time and money to queue in this morning at a bakery shop you also got the smell in the house.
Have a nice weekend !

(Notice the Herder Windmühlen Breakfast knife, a must have. Get in in carbon steel !)

Käs Spätzle or Cheese Noodles

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Käs Spätzle / Knöpfle or Cheese Noodles:
Last weekend we prepared a Käs Spätzle with some friends. What a feast.
It is a dish best eaten after hard work or a long hike and cold weather outside. We had cold weather but the activities were not too demanding. However preparing this dish and getting the best ingredients is an art form and best done with a lot of friends.

First of all you have to find good eggs – best from a local farmer with a strong orange color.

Then there is a special spätzle flour, which is quite “rough”, so the spätzle have some “aldente” taste when you bite them.

Not to forget the right composition of the different cheese types.You need to get Emmentaler for the ability to create the typical long strings of cheese, then a Bergkäs (mountain cheese) for the medium/base flavor and last of it some Räschkäs which is a very strong tasting special cheese, hardly eaten alone. (all three of them are hard to find if you live not close to Austria or in the South of Germany, some use Gouda or Gratin Cheese with some available stinky cheese)

And last of it there is always the issue of how to create the Spätzle.
Probably the most used way is with the Spätzle Hobel, it is a device where you fill the dough in a “open box” and by moving it back and forth the dough will be pressed to the holes. They fall in the salted and boiling water and are picked out of it just after about 2-3 minutes – when the swim.

I have to mention another way of creating the schwabian way of Spätzle
done with just a wooden board. This video show it just perfectly but do not try to understand the Mom oder Granmom with her strong dialect ;-). See here for making Spätzle (not Knöpfle) with just a board

The Spätzle are then put into a casserole in the oven at about 150 Celsius to keep them warm each layer will be covered by lots of cheese. When you are finished lots of roasted onions with lots of melted butter will be put on top.

Do also not forget to have some good Schnaps/Spirit handy for to “help” you digest all this lightweight meal.

– A video by a german looking freak in english, with Sauerkraut (never eaten it with Sauerkraut, strange)

– A video in german, good instruction but with the Spätzle Press

Drop me a note if you need further advice or instructions, Im we are pretty close to the perfect ones. (Says me)

The recipe for the Spätzle is quite simple take a lot of eggs and some flour, mix it together. Best is to only use little water to get the right dough (it has to form bubbles) so its about 2 eggs per 100g of flour I would say. Less is ok, then you add some water. Do not forget some salt. That´s it basically.

Peggy for president – a full box of x-mas gifts

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Peggy for president. We left Germany for Morocco right on the 25th of December and missed one of Maria´s sisters. When we came bag a full box of all homemade presents were waiting for us. We were overwhelmed by the effort to create – craft – cook – prepare – distill all this stuff.

Just to name a view of the presents:
– bottle of apple and cinnamon liqueur
– bottle of “schlehen” liqueur
– bottle of quince liqueur
– bottle of quince essence
– bottle of chilly oil
– jar of chocolate and plum jam
– jar of quince jam
– jar of apple, plum and cinnamon jam
– jar of tomato and peach chutney
– selfmade muslibars
– selfmade nudels
– a bunch of various pralines
– a bag of dried fruits and chocolized
– a bag of dried lavender with a cute lady beetle
…

Thanks a lot for all of it. We appreciate the time you spent in your kitchen and try to payback soon.

Pastéis de Belém – sweet delights from Lisbon/Lissabon

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Pastéis de Belém – sweet delights from Lisbon/Lissabon/Lisboa:

Mom traveled last week to honor my little sister achievements. Not being there we were still lucky to get a great dessert when we picked her up from the airport. Pastéis de Belém, a dessert/sweet made unchanged since 1837. Not just the nice wrapping of the dessert, the taste was great. Hard to imagine how they tasted when they came out of the oven and being still warm.

Here you get the stuff:
Antiga Confeitaria de Belém
Rua de Belém 84-92
Lisboa/Lisbon Portugal
www.pasteisdebelem.pt

Vee´s Cafe and Cakes – Munich

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Vee´s Cafe and Cakes – munich / Vee´s Kaffe und Bohnen (und Kuchen).

A true jewel and a coffee to stay place I decided to share with you today. In Munich right behind the Viktualienmarkt there is Vee´s, a great place if you need a break, a good coffee and a good piece (or two) of cake.

With what to start? Vee Tismer and her husband are not only roasting superb coffee she is also a master of amazing cakes. On the 7.2.2007 I bought her book “In meinem Paradies steht ein Backofen” – “In my paradise is an oven to bake cakes” by Ulrike von Jordans. The book is full of great images and recipes and more than worth to buy. The spirit of the book is really showing her passion about cakes. If you are too lazy to bake them by yourself you can have a variation of them daily baked at her cafe. A true insider and it never failed to even impress friends who live in munich.

Home coffee roasting – with the “Whirley Pop” in 20 minutes

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As I promised in my post about grinding coffee with the lenartz mill and preparing good coffee, here now finally my roughly step by step instructions of roasting coffee at home with the “Whirley Pop” popcorn pot.

Here the green beans, they actually smell green or like fresh peas. About half the size when they are roasted.

Sorting out the bad beans, too small ones or pieces. They will over roast and make the coffee smell burnt.

A “Whirley Pop” popcorn pot, perfect for turning the beans with it´s mechanism integrated in the grip and the mover at the bottom of the pot. But I guess a good pan with a cover will do as good.

A close-up where you see the top mechanism to the pot – and also a bit of dust (sorry the pot is standing most of the time on the cupboard).

Put about the amount of beans in the pot that they just cover the surface once. Do not fill in too much. At the beginning you need to find the right temperature. The overall roasting process should not be less than 20 minutes. For me it´s is “7” on my plate. So start not with full power, give the beans some time. Above you see the beans after 10 minutes. After 5 minutes you should see the first smoke coming out of the pot. They look a bit like peanuts now.

The coffee beans after 15 minutes, the beans start to pop now be-cause they roughly double in size and the skin gets loos as you see in the image.

The beans are ready after about 20 minutes, check after 15 minutes very often the color of the beans. They should be dark brown but not black. You see the skin and the nice oily surface of them.

If you put the beans now on a plate the skin will stick to the plate, but not all of them.

Get a huge bowl with a big rim. And do moves as you digging for gold. Throw the beans in the air and try to catch them again. From time to time blow into the bowl to get rid of all the skins.

Look at the beauties! It is said the full aroma develops now in the next few days. And is gone at about 2 weeks after the roasting. Put the beans in a airtight box in the freezer for storage and grind them fresh when you use them.

Straight after the cool down into the grinder and portafilter. The powder should not be powderish, more like a brownie. Fresh roasted coffee tend to form small “balls/crubles” it´s be-cause of the oil (which is mostly gone after 2 weeks).

Vola! What a crema, that image was taken about 1 minute. And the crema stays like that. As a friend of mine says, a piece of sugar should stay on top of the crema and not start to sink immediately. I have to admit the crema looks a bit white but lets wait for tomorrow after the beans had some rest.

There might be some mistakes in my instruction where baristas or pro roasters might disagree. But I have to say that the beans I roast beat most of the stuff I have bought so far with that method. Sometimes they are superb, sometimes it´s just good. It might be also the fact that I overrate the result but to be honest – It´s not rocket science.

And to make it clear, I rather cop off my right hand to ever buy coffee which I can not see – be-cause they are sealed in aluminum.

PS: If you ask a local coffee roaster nicely, they will make you a mix of beans for your need. And If you are lucky you can even get some nice printed coffee sacks for free.

Comments? Questions?

Eat-aly – Piemont

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Italy / Eat-aly, what a feast. Part of the family went to Turin and to the heart of the Piemonte to see friends. For four continious days a bombardment to the senses. To summarize it, whatever “poor and standard & moodys” says, they have no clue outside their numbers. Poor or rich can not be defined so easy. We experienced a country with its culture so rich it was totally mind-blowing.

Just a few images. Images of the evening dinners are missing due to bad light to use the camera or too much good food and good atmosphere to be interrupted.

I got finally in touch with the best truffles, the white ones. And begin to understand the hype about it. Accompanied with top wines like a Barolo or just a simple Barbera with fresh pasta and butter or grated on top of fried egg the “profumo” of the truffle is untouched.

But also the simple dishes in down to earth restaurants where you have to speak no word, just sit down an enjoy. Plates of just perfected dishes come out of the kitchen one after another. No worries about what to choose from a menu. Leave the decisions to the people who know what is the best – the owners. And needless to say we have not once been unhappy about their judgement.