What do you do, when you have cooked to many potatoes and as a consequence have leftovers? For my father this was never a question. The only possible answer was fried potatoes. Therefore this was one of the regulars.
Anyway, I don't know, whether I should still be doing this, but after all, this is the game, Bloggers Around the World. So I keep on going ... or keep on cooking adding more work for myself later on for doing the mammoth round-up. I got some chanterelle mushrooms and some medallions of pork, so I had to go for this one.
There is really no big deal to it, but quite some butter. The Medallions of pork go to the pan in some butter and are seasoned with salt and pepper.
The chanter ell mushrooms go to the pan in some butter and are seasoned with salt and pepper. Fine I added a chopped up onion as well.
You know, the potatoes are cooked and then ... yes, guess ... fried in some butter and seasoned with salt, if you still wish.
Now, this all is somehow not with much variation of colour, but for that you can add a salad on the side. If you do it all right, you can enjoy a lovely meal, that is, if you like those ingredients.
Well, those goes for Germany today, although I would have preferred some baguette, cheese and red wine.
I still can ... do another post along the World Cup games. The next few days might get a bit more stressful, so that the chances are limited then. Well, Germany ... hm ... fine, I'm there very often ... fine, most of the time. Often I ask myself, why? Fine, but not now. Often I ask myself, what is a typical German dish? Shall I say, Bratkartoffeln (fried potatoes) or Currywurst with chips? Anyway, potatoes are often involved, but as in many Western countries around the world you have very often dishes from other countries, maybe here in Germany Italian or Chinese food. So, sometimes I ask others what is a typical German dish? The answer I got today was: Käsespätzle. Honestly, I have never eaten it before, maybe only Spätzle without cheese and then only the packed ones. You can so easily do them yourself, as you will see very very soon ...
The following recipe is supposed to be for one person, but when you put a salad on the side, it's for sure for one greedy person (me?).
A tool like this will come in handy, otherwise you have to could the Spätzle from a board into the water.
I borrowed this from a friend, but I am sure you can find something suitable.
Ingredients:
2 small onions, cut in rings
2 eggs
Water
Flour
Butter
Salt
Pepper
Grated cheese (in Germany Bergkäse or Emmentaler would be used)
Method:
I told you, it will be very very easy. After all I did it right the first time I tried.
You can already get a pan ready fry off the onions with a knob of butter.
In fact, you can also get your water boiling, really boiling, bubbling away. Usually that takes some time, too.
Now the dough for the Spätzle (noodles). Crack the two eggs into a bowl. Be careful, to break the egg properly. You can use one half of an egg to measure the amount of water you need to add to the dough. So, add half a shell of water to the mixture. A pinch of salt and now we only need flour. Add until the dough stops to be runny, so it will slowly ooze down from a spoon.
When it is like this, you can spoon it on your plate with a hole and scrape the dough through the holes into the boiling water. Otherwise you have to cut small pieces of dough to let them drop into the water.
They will take about two minutes to cook. Then do with them as they were fresh pasta. Rinse off the water.
Afterwards put them into an oven proof dish.
On top of that we add the grated cheese and the onion rings. That goes into the oven to melt away the cheese. Check it!
Maybe you could wait a little longer than I did, but ... hey, I was very hungry. I only had a banana for lunch and ... yes, maybe a cereal bar. Ah, right, not maybe. I indeed have a cereal bar as well, although I could have had some more Engadine Nut Pie.
Anyway, meal is ready. Have a simple salad on the side and ... that is, if you have some wheat beer along. Why not!?
Yes, yes, that was totally delicious and totally simple and ... the salad gives you some alibi to make it all a bit more healthy. After all you don't have to have such a big portions of the Käsespätzle and you don't need to have a bear. Some water will do as well.
Finally, I closer look ...
Maybe you know, that Germany won the game against Portugal 4-0 (I didn't even care to watch). Well, I already planned to do this post before I knew, Germany would be winning. That makes four posts in a row for the winning team ...
I am feeling a bit tired today, but still I refuse to have a nap, although I didn't have too much sleep the last few days. For next week things should run normal and I will get enough sleep. So, no need to interfere.
I rather use the time to write a recipe down for you. Some say, you should eat more fish. Then that is what we are going to do. There are one or two items in my pantry, I could ask myself "why did I buy them?". There has to be a reason.
Now there is this jar of beetroot. Why did I get it? No idea. However, I know what I can do with it. One thing is German Herring Salad. Then I am going for some fish at the same time. That sounds good.
Let's do it then ...
"I take you to be my lawfully wedded wife, to have
and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer,
for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part."
Does this sound familiar? Sometimes you hear such a vow or a similar one at a wedding. These days, sadly, things turn out differently with the "until death do us part". Well, you know. There is no chance in denying. That's the reality of life.
However, there are other things, which are impossible to separate. No chance. When you hear about one, you automatically think about the other. For some it even applies beyond death, like Romeo and Juliet, or David and Goliath, or Bonnie and Clyde. What about nitro and glycerin, Paris and the Eiffel Tower, Rome and the Colloseum.
Now we could go on for ages like that, but we like to talk food here. What comes to your mind in connection with food and inseparable? I have a try: Hamburger and chips (or fries). Oh, I have a triple one (at least for me): baguette, cheese and red wine.
Today, though, I want to go for something you might not be so familiar with: Federweisser and Zwiebelkuchen.
Oh, that's German. What is it all about?
There is quite some Indian cooking going on in my kitchen right this moment, but that doesn't mean I can't write you some other things, too.
Do you like Hawaiian pizza or Hawaiian toast? Strangely I can't see the direct connection to Hawaii here ... must be the pineapple. However, it was invented or made popular in Germany in the 1950s according to Wikipedia. Didn't give that much thought to that before and I most likely will forget about again tomorrow or one or two days later.
However we want to use that idea now on some smoked pork chops.
Once more, it's no big deal putting it together ...
Ingredients:
600 g smoked pork chops
6 slices of pineapple
200 g crème fraîche
200 ml full fat milk
Black pepper
Olive Oil
Preparation (or call it assembling):
Start heating up your oven to 200 °C. The preparation won't take too long.
Mix the milk and the crème fraîche together. Unintentionally I ended up with a version of crème fraîche that included herbs ... no worries ... if you like that. Season with pepper.
Now get your oven proof dish and put in the smoked pork chops and pineapple ... chop, slice of pineapple, chop, slice of pineapple and so forth.
Then pour the milk and crème over it and add a few little splashes of olive oil.
Transfer to the oven for 40 minutes and ... do something else in that time. You could ready a book for a change.
Eat it with some nice bread for mopping the lovely cream sauce. It would be nice to have a salad with it as well. You will get some ideas. Whatever suits you.
Dig in! Well, since this is not reall to do with Hawaii, there will also be no hula right now, although we might try that another time ... as soon as I figure out ...
This month I set out with you on a journey around the world in a challenge kind of way. We start our trip in Germany. Therefore it's time to cook something German. I have eaten German food more often than I have cooked it myself (ah, that should not be too difficlut - well, yes, but I mean more more often). So I was thinking hard on what to cook. After all I didn't want to do something Bavarian kind to just repeat the more known things.
After some days of thinking and talking and watching, I got an idea: Kohlrouladen. It's time for cabbage and so I want to work with it a little bit.
What we will need:
3 leaves of cabbage per roulade
500 g minced meat (pork and beef)
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 tbs of bread crumbs
1 egg
A splash of Worcester sauce
Salt and pepper
A knob of butter
1 tbs of corn starch
Water and white wine
How we do it:
First of all blanch the cabbage.
Then you can go for the filling, mixing together the meat with the egg, onion, Worcester sauce and bread crumbs. Season with salt and pepper (I fought the temptation to add chilli this time).
Take three cabbage leaves for each roll (then you can afford to loose one layer later) and fill it with a handful of the meat mixture. Try to roll it together as good as possible.
Heat up a large pan at medium high heat and melt a knob of butter in it. Done? Good! Place the cabbage rolls in the pan and fry from both sides.
After that, put on a lid and let it sit there for about 20 minutes at a lower temperature, checking occasionally whether things don't get seriously burned.
Should you manage without greater loss, you can then remove them from the pan. I decided to get rid of the outer layer, because it wouldn't look so nice on the picture.
With the remains in the pan, you can whip up the gravy with some water, white wine, maybe more salt and pepper and some corn starch.
Serve it all together on a bed of salted potatoes and enjoy it. So far my entry for this September's Bloggers Around the World blog challenge.
Why not have a go yourself?
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