Hey Michelin, I’m ready for my star

August 5, 2008 · Filed Under An American Expat in Deutschland, Food and Drink · 5 Comments 

For my birthday last year, Rainer got me a cooking class with star chef Christian Graf von Walderdorff at the Restaurant Rosenpalais. I was pregnant at the time, and during my pregnancy, I couldn’t stand to touch raw meat and the thought of fish made me nauseous. I decided to put off the class, and I kept putting it off, and off, until this past Saturday.

The class started at 10am and ran till 2:30pm, with a light lunch that we prepared together with the chef. During our approximately 3.5 hours in the kitchen we prepared the menu that we would be eating together later that evening.

Our menu consisted of:

  • Pressack vom Oktopus mit klarem Tomatensugo (octopus cold cuts with clear tomato sauce)
  • Salzwassergarnelen mit dreierlei Fenchel und Gnocchi (salt water shrimp with three types of fennel and gnocchi)
  • Etouffé Taube mit Blattspinat in der Artischocke gegart auf Selleriepüree (smothered pigeon with spinach cooked in an artichoke served with celery purée)
  • Schokoladenkrapfen mit Gewürzorangen (chocolate doughnuts with orange sauce)

I basically worked on the etouffé pigeon dish, starting with cutting the meat from one of the pigeons, to helping to pull the cooked meat off the leg bones, to cutting out an artichoke heart, to chopping the shallots for the stuffing, to assembling the ingredients, to wrapping the entire assembly in caul fat. Apart from that, I also helped form the gnocchi. By the way, etouffé here means that the pigeon was suffocated and the blood was left in the bird (instead of the typical slaughter method of cutting off the head and draining the blood). Yes, the pigeons had heads when we got ‘em, and no, this was not disturbing to me at all; I grew up with a Thai mother, animal heads were common place in our kitchen.

We reassembled in the evening and sat out in the restaurant’s lovely garden courtyard for our meal. I really had a ball getting to know the fellow students better and I gotta say, we prepared a pretty damn good meal. I especially loved the shrimp course. Handmade gnocchi are not that hard to make and are totally delicious and worth the effort. I’m not sure I can eat non-handmade gnocchi anymore (according to the chef, Rosenpalais is the only place in Regensburg where you can get handmade gnocchi).  I’ve put the Gnocchi recipe we used up on my recipe pages (translated to English and with some detail added in).

Rainer declared Rosenpalais to be the best restaurant we’ve been to in Regensburg (I’d agree), and in case you were wondering, Oliver loved the octopus and the shrimp dish, along with the raw salmon amuse geule we had. He breastfeed through the pigeon, and spit out the chocolate dessert. Strange kid, I know!

In the end, it was really a blast and I’d love to do it again sometime. I highly recommend the Rosenpalais course as a present for your foodie loved ones in the Regensburg area. Don’t live in Regensburg? Try searching for a cooking class in your area (“Kochkurs” auf Deutsch).

At the Rosenpalais cooking class

That’s me preparing the etouffé pigeon next to the chef

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Get 25% off at Hello Food!

June 8, 2008 · Filed Under Food and Drink · 3 Comments 

Hello Food, a German site that carries American and Canadian foods, is discontinuing their online store. All orders over 35 Euro are 25% off. This almost makes the prices palatable. So get over there and see if there’s something you want to order before everything sells out. Happy shopping!

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Christina’s Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies

October 14, 2007 · Filed Under Food and Drink · 8 Comments 

Mrs. Fields ain’t got nothin’ on me!

Christina's Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Although I’ve heard expats complaining about the consistency of their cookies being off, I’ve never had that problem with this recipe. For flour, I use Gold Puder type 405 für feine Backwaren, for butter I use Meggle die Alpenbutter, and for chocolate I use Sarotti and/or Côte D’Or brands.

ingredients
200g each semi-sweet chocolate (Halbbitter), at least 70% cacao bittersweet chocolate (Edelbitter) and milk chocolate (Vollmilch), chopped
225g butter
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups unsifted flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
225g pecans, chopped

directions
Heat over to 375 degrees F. Whisk together flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter well, then add the white and brown sugar. Once these are well combined, add the eggs and vanilla. Slowly blend the flour mixture into the creamed mixture. Stir in the nuts and chocolate pieces. Drop by tablespoon onto ungreased cookie sheet (I usually get a dozen on a German-sized sheet). Bake for approximately 10 minutes, or until golden brown.

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Wissenshunger

October 12, 2007 · Filed Under Food and Drink · 7 Comments 

Lately, I’ve taken to watching the German TV show Wissenshunger (Hunger for Knowledge), which is a show about all different kinds of food topics. Tonight, I learned about Bienenstich (Bee-sting) cake. It’s called Bienenstich because apparently some bakers in the 15th century were up early and a little more aware of what was going on just outside the city walls than the guards were, because they noticed the city was under attack. They happened to have some beehives available that they were collecting honey from, so they threw them down on the opposing forces, which were so surprised by this form of attack that they fled. The townspeople were so happy, they threw a festival for the bakers and created a special cake for them, which they named the Bienenstich.

What really got my attention though, was when they performed a taste test between bakery-made Bienenstich and frozen supermarket Bienenstich. It was not the outcome of the test that I found interesting (it was a draw), but the method of baking the Bienenstich. They showed how the factory and the baker make it, and the baker uses vanilla extract (“Vanille Extrakt”, to be exact). He had a huge liter sized bottle of it that he squirted liberally into the giant, industrial-sized mixing bowl. So, clearly, Germans do use vanilla extract and it is available here, somewhere, possibly only in industrial-sized bottles.

But then Wissenshunger moved on to showing how Presssack is made (head cheese, that is - I always thought the “head” part was not literal), and I was so grossed out that I had to turn off the TV.

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Panang Beef Curry

September 9, 2007 · Filed Under Food and Drink · 2 Comments 

ingredients
19 oz can of coconut milk
3 T. Panang curry paste
400g beef, sliced
1 cup green peas
2 T. Thai fish sauce
2 t. palm sugar (brown or regular sugar can be substituted)
12 pair Kaffir lime leaves, finely sliced (lime zest can be substituted)

directions
1. Scoop the thick cream from the top of the coconut milk and stir fry with curry paste until paste is fully dissolved and mixture is fragrant.
2. Add the rest of the coconut milk, the beef, green peas, fish sauce, sugar and lime leaves, then bring to a boil.
3. Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes.

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Christina’s Rockin’ Lentil Stew

August 16, 2007 · Filed Under Food and Drink · 7 Comments 

In looking for healthy, hearty, easy to make recipes, I came across a Curried Red Lentil and Swiss Chard Stew With Garbanzo Beans recipe. I had to make some adjustments: no chard available, Rainer requires meat in his meals - hence the sausage, and we both dig garlic and I thought it should be in there. I think my version turned out pretty darn yummy. For a vegetarian dish, just leave out the sausage.  Now, without further ado, I present my version…

Lentil stew

ingredients

4 tablespoons olive oil
2 large onion, thinly sliced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 stalks celery, sliced
4 medium Mettwürstchen, sliced (or sausage of your choice)
8 teaspoons curry powder
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
4.5 liters vegetable broth
200 grams spinach, chopped
1 kg red lentils
2 15-ounce cans garbanzo beans (chickpeas), drained

preparation

Heat oil in heavy large soup pot over medium-high heat. Add onion, garlic, sausage and celery; sauté until golden, about 13 minutes. Mix in curry and cayenne. Add broth and spinach. Increase heat; bring to boil. Add lentils and garbanzos; reduce heat to medium.

Cover; simmer until lentils are tender, stirring twice, about 10 minutes.

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Citrus buttercream frosted layer cake with lime curd filling

June 19, 2007 · Filed Under Food and Drink · 6 Comments 

I almost forgot about it, but here you go. This cake tastes even better on the second day after spending the night in the fridge. And it IS worth all the effort!

citrus buttercream cake

Citrus buttercream frosted layer cake with lime curd

 

Cake

2 3/4 cups sifted cake flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 large whole eggs, at room temperature for 30 minutes
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup whole milk

Lime Curd

3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 cup water
2 large egg yolks, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon grated lime zest
5 tablespoons fresh lime juice

Citrus Buttercream

8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
3 cups sifted powdered sugar
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
1 teaspoon grated lime zest

Directions 

1. Place a rack in the middle position in the oven and preheat oven to 350°F. Generously grease two 9-inch round cake pans with solid vegetable shortening, then dust with flour, knocking out excess flour.

2. Sift together flour (2 3/4 cups), baking powder, and salt into a bowl.

3. Blend together butter and sugar with an electric mixer (fitted with paddle attachment if using a stand mixer) on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then add vanilla and continue beating 1 minute more. Stop the machine and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula, beat 3 to 4 minutes more. Reduce speed to low, then add flour mixture and milk alternately in 4 batches, beginning with flour mixture and mixing until batter is just smooth. Divide the batter between the prepared cake pans, spreading evenly.

4. Bake cake layers until they begin to pull away from sides of pans and a wooden pick or skewer comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes in pans on racks, then invert cake layers onto racks, the invert again onto another rack so cakes are right side up. Allow to cool completely, about 30 minutes more.

5. Meanwhile, prepare the lime curd. Combine the sugar and cornstarch in a 2-quart heavy saucepan. Gradually whisk in water. Place the pan over medium heat and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens and boils, about 3 to 4 minutes. Boil, stirring constantly, for 1 minute more. Remove the pan from heat and spoon about 1/2 cup of the hot mixture into a small bowl with the egg yolks and stir quickly until combined. Stirring constantly, turn the egg mixture into the saucepan. Return the pan to medium heat and cook, stirring, until the curd is thickened and lemon colored, 2-3 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the butter, lime zest, and lime juice. Allow to cool.

6. Prepare the buttercream frosting. Place the butter in a large mixing bowl and blend with an electric mixer on low speed until fluffy, about 30 seconds. Stop the machine and add the powdered sugar, lime juice, and lime zest. Blend with mixer on low speed until sugar is well incorporated, 1 minute. Increase speed to medium and beat until the frosting lightens and becomes fluffy, 1 minute more.

7. To assemble cake, transfer one layer, right side up, onto a serving platter and spread with lime curd to within 3/4 inch of the edge. Top with the second cake layer, right side up. Frost the sides and top of the cake with the buttercream frosting. Place the cake, uncovered, in the refrigerator until the frosting sets, about 20 minutes. Slice, serve, and enjoy.

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