that is.. homemade, gourmet Käsespätzle sauce and store bought Spätzle. How could I spend another hour making the noodles when there’s perfectly good, fresh Spätzle in the store.. calling my name, Hees saa?

It’s fantastic! I could eat buckets full of this stuff. I jazzed up a typical cheese sauce recipe with Max’s “Ente Mehlschwitze”(Duck rue) (about a 30g/30g flour to fat ratio) and a splash of Vermouth before adding 250 ml Milk and 200 ml of water.

The story goes back to about two weeks ago during a dinner engagement at Max’s. He pulled out all the stops to impress us with a roasted duck and traditional Bavarian fixings. One thing he forgot to make in his all-too-tiny kitchen was a sauce for the duck and potato dumplings. So we together whipped up something of half-ready Roux with all of the fat to make enough for two gallon of sauce.

I rationed out just about the right amount of Roux for the evening and coyly asked Max if I could take some left over Roux home with me (Roux stores forever frozen and about 1 month in the fridge). I imaging he thought I was just trying to help him clean up the leftover chaos, but that stuff he had in the pot was worth hours of sweat over precious flavor and potentially heavenly sauces.

I could barely contain myself when he gave me a jelly jar full. Score! Still, because of time constraints (sauces take forever but the results are worth it) my sauce that evening was a bit too flourly. Still it was fun spending time with Max and Veronika.

My Käsespätzle sauce has about 150 g of Gouda and about two slices of some cheese called ‘old Amsterdam’, (a hard cheese, mildly sharp) but you could stick to Gouda or add some cheddar if you’re lucky. I added sliced cherry tomatoes and green onions to a pan of hot butter before browning the ready-made Spätzle and smothering it was my cheese sauce.

Did I mention? This isn’t diet food. It’s next to heart-attack food. Make sure you have your stationary bike near by if you attempt to make this dish. Happy Monday and Happy Eating.

P.S. Yes, I could tell you how to make homemade Spätzle but that burns too many calories for this post.

These blog entries are a conglomeration of recipes I have collected over the years. With an exception to the German Recipes, these are the recipes I have used over and over again, with good results.

The three main categories are:

• Asiatic Delights
• German Recipes
• Home Favorites

with subcategories for appetizers, soups, side dishes, main course, and deserts.

To search this site, use the search bar, read through the archives, or pick a category. All of this information is located on the right.

Since I use these recipes often, please feel free to contact me if you need help with substitutions or techniques.

There are a two different camps in my household: the soup lover and soup loather. Lucky for me, the people we invite to dinner belong to my camp: the soup lovers. With a “ha ha, my soup loather, you are out-numbered!” I can experiment with hearty liquid goodness without much coercion.

Last week I bought a butternut Kürbis from our local organic farmer and a winter soup was the first thing that came to mind. After I told my friends about the squash, most conveyed surprise that butternut Kürbis are available now. I had to scratch my head. For the most part the organic farmer only sells produce that falls within the season. So I guess my friends mistook the butternut for the jack o’ lantern kind because Kürbis means both pumpkin and squash in German. Although a pumpkin is a squash.. so?

My wish initially was to find a truly vegetarian soup that really didn’t need added cream to the mix to make it edible. You can’t imagine how throughly surprised I was to find a method that surpassed my expectations: so easy and only required about 10 minutes more effort than the normal recipes out there to produce a quality soup that blows the Mensa soups out of the pot.

The second surprise was that the recipe called for a corn cob. Cob? I’d never heard of that. But the aroma is heavenly. And now I want to try it in other soups.

So here is what I used to make my first attempt. It is amazingly beautiful in color and in texture. The flavor is highly addictive.

Sliky butternut “Kürbis” soup

Inspired by the Dackleprincess. This long-winded recipe is based on concise version suggested on Butter Pig. The recipe below makes enough for 6-8 soup lovers.

You can find these ingredients here in Munich rather easily.

You’ll need:
1 (approx: 1 kg) Butternut Kürbis (squash)
2 Tbs olive oil
2 (approx. 200g) Poree (Leeks)
2 (approx. 200g) carrots
2 (approx. 150g) celery stalks
1 cob of corn
150 ml of dry white wine
a few sprigs of thyme

Before Serving:
(approx. 2tsp) salt
fresh ground pepper
(approx. 2 tsp) white wine vinegar (infused with estragon)
(approx. 100ml) heavy cream (optional)

Deco:
Kürbis kernöl (pumpkin seed oil)

In a pre-heated oven at 180°C place the halved Kürbis in a pan and roast until tender. My oven needs an exorcist but for most normal ovens, Mr. Butterpig has it right and it will take about 90 minutes before it is easily scoopable.

In the meantime, clean and slice poree, cut carrots and celery into medium pieces. In a 4-Liter pot with about 2 tablespoons of olive oil, cook the veggies over gentle heat, until they release their moisture. Then pour in the wine and allow the alcohol to evaporate a bit before adding the thyme and covering the veggies with water.

At this point add the corn cob and maintain the soup temperature just below boiling while the Kürbis finishes cooking.

Once the Kürbis is done, remove it from the oven, and throw away the seeds and dried stringy parts. Using a spoon, scoop out the flesh and added it into the soup pot leaving behind the skin. You may need to add more water to cover the veggies. Continue simmering until all veggies are soft.

Get out a blender. You can use a hand mixer but I’d recommend a blender because you really want to puree this soup good before you pass the soup through a metal sieve (or strainer). Before blending, remove the corn cob.

In batches, blend the mixture until completely smooth, then pour that batch into a coarse mesh strainer over another pot. You may need to use the rounded back of a soup ladle to press the mixture through the sieve. This gives the soup its velvety texture. There maybe some strings or bits of pulp that can’t be pressed through the strainer. But there should only be a little bit remaining in the sieve. (don’t give up) This rest can be throwing away if you don’t want a chunky stringy soup.

Keep simmering the soup. Once the liquid is reduced to a desired consistency, add salt and pepper. That means taste the soup first, then add about 1/2 tsp of salt, then taste again. It won’t be the right amount of salt yet, so add another 1/2 salt then taste again. Repeat this until you’ve gotten the right amount of salt (about 2 tsps for my soup and I used sea salt). Do the same with the some fresh ground pepper (I didn’t add too much pepper, maybe about 3 turns)

Now taste your soup again and you’ll notice it needs a kick of something acidic. If you are new to seasoning a soup with an acid, I’d recommend dipping your finger into the wine vinegar and tasting it alone for reference. This is what you don’t want to taste from your soup.

Stir in 1/2 teaspoon-wise wine vinegar and taste in between until you noticed that the soup flavor is brighter (opposite to dull, watery, bland) (about 2 tsps for my soup). Don’t add so much that you notice that there is wine vinegar in your soup.

Now you can serve this as it is or add about 100 ml of heavy cream or more to taste and heat the soup up again until it is steamy warm. Check the taste again in case you need to re-seasoning. And of course, you can drizzle (probably better than I can) some roasted pumpkin seed oil on top to a add another flavor dimension.

Now that it is the holidays, I get these weird cravings for home. Thank god I can’t get Cracker Barrel or a Grandy’s here, I’d look like a balloon in no time. These are very easy to make and with ingredients I use in Germany. I love these with homemade sausage gravy, which I briefly state how to make below.

Makes about 12 mini-biscuits.

Ingredients:

120g (1 cup) sifted flour (405 Weizenmehl)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon sugar
3 tablespoons cold french butter (Semi-Salted Butter, i.e. Isigny Sainte-Mère)
1/4 teaspoon salt
about 100 ml milk
fresh ground pepper

Sift the 120 g of flour with the baking powder into a large bowl and stir in the salt and sugar. Cut in the butter with your hands by rubbing the butter into the flour. Gradually add the milk a little at a time until it is uniform then stop adding when soft dough is formed. On a slightly floured surface turn out the dough and lightly knead it for about 30 seconds to give it some shape. Roll the dough until it is about 1 to 1.5 cm thick and cut with a floured biscuit cutter or I used a tall shot glass to make little baby ones. In a pre-heated 200°C oven bake on ungreased sheet for 10 minutes.

I take some German bratwurst out of the casing and shape it into a patties, leave some as bits for the gravy. Fry the patties and bits up in some lard (Schweineschmalz or Ganzeschmalz is good) then leave a little bit of grease in the pan (about 2 Tbs) and add a equal volume of flour to the hot pan. Reduce the heat to about medium. Scrap the bottom of the pan continuously, never leaving the flour on the bottom for more than a few seconds in one spot. Do this until the flour starts to smell a bit nutty. Then add some milk. Increase the heat and stir the milk until the roux is uniform with the milk. Add more milk if it is too thick or if you need more gravy. Just when it is thick enough, taste and season with salt and pepper as needed.

This post is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

This recipe makes a sweet, tangy, nutty sauce.

for 2 People
Ingredients:

100 ml Red Port Wine
30 ml Balsamic Vinegar
50 ml robust dry Red Wine (Madeira, Bordeaux)
half of a white onion, fine diced
125 ml Beef, Veal or Stock
salt and pepper
Roux from about 30:30 gram flour to butter ratio, caramel color

I make the Roux ahead of time because it takes about an hour to get to the nice caramel color. If you want to learn about roux try these sites:

Making a Roux: Barzelay.net
A Basic Saucemaker’s Skill..: Tigers & Strawberries
Making Roux: chow.com
How to make a Roux: Southern Gumbo Trail

Heat the pre-made roux in a water bath. So in a pan heat about 2 tablespoons of oil or lard over high heat. Toss in onions and fry until they are brown. Then add the balsamic vinegar and prepare to burn your eyes a little. Reduce over high heat until there isn’t much liquid left. Then add the port wine and cook it off over high heat until it is reduced to a third of the volume. Then add the red wine and cook for a few minutes more. When it is the right consistency (Maybe about 5 minutes. There is a lot of play as to the “right consistency". You’ll just have to try it out.) Then add the beef stock and reduce the sauce a little bit more (about 5 minutes). The beef stock mixture should be between simmering/ just at a boil. Taste for acidity. If it’s still to acidic, let the sauce simmer longer.

Before adding the roux, stir the roux to get a uniform mixture (you’ll notice the butter and roasted flour have separated). I know that some people advise to add the stock to the roux but I didn’t find any clumping problems with added a warm roux to a near boiling stock. By the teaspoon full, add the roux to the sauce and stir vigorously. After about 3 teaspoons, if you don’t want to keep the onions, you may want to strain the sauce. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Now that the sauce is strained add the rest of the roux teaspoon-wise, until you arrive at the desired thickness. Dip a spoon into the finished sauce and watch it slide off the spoon to judge the thickness.

What if it’s too sweet:

Sweetness comes from the port wine and a little bit from the balsamic vinegar. You might want to reduce the amount of port wine and substitute that volume for more red wine.

What if it’s too acidic:

The second time I made this sauce I changed to a balsamic vinegar that was much strong than the first attempt. I was left with a very acidic sauce but just the right sweetness. If you know you are using a very good balsamic vinegar, be sure use less to avoid having an over powering acidic taste. If it’s too late, then letting it simmer for a while before adding the roux should weaken the acidity.

Multiplying the recipe

Just remember the time to reduce the liquid will increase and adding the balsamic vinegar is not a linear function so, for example, when making the recipe for 8 people add about 80-100 ml of balsamic vinegar instead of 120 ml.

This post is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

So for this Thanksgiving, Alex and I drove to Laaber on Saturday and enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving feast at Christina’s. I’m posting this recipe after a number of requests, although there are already a gazillon recipes on the Internet. Although I have converted the measurement to life in Germany, a bit metric, although I haven’t a digital scale to make it worthwhile to use grams, not yet. I never made this for 26 people so I was pretty impressed that it turned out pretty good. I forgot to add the whipping cream on Saturday but it didn’t seem to break the recipe. Eventually I’ll also have the ingredients in grams, which as Christina pointed out last Saturday, is very handy after you press the magic tare button.

Finding the Flour

The flour isn’t too hard to find. I found the flour at the Asia Supermarket in Munich but I also saw some Mais Mehl at the Turkish stores. [Update: Galeria Kaufhof sells the bio-versions of these corn flours.] Just find two different flour packages and compare the grain sizes. See below. The corn on the left is the courser polenta corn meal and on the right is the corn flour.

This recipe is enough for 6 people. Preheat oven 175°C.

In a large bowl:

• 1/2 cup -> 100 g butter softened (beat until creamy)
• 1/3 cup -> 50 g masa harina (coarser corn flour, polenta corn)
• 1/4 cup -> 60 ml water

beat and mix well

In a food processor or blender:

• 285g -> 1 can of corn (if from Germany, don’t need to drain)

process until about 90% is mushy (Don’t process too far, you still want to see a few corn kernels in the mix) Stir into butter mix in large bowl.

In Medium bowl:

• 1/4 cup -> 40 g corn meal (finer corn flour)
• 1/3 cup -> 60 g white sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking powder

Mix well, then stir into large bowl contents.
optional although makes it fluffier

• 2 Tbs whipping cream (Schlagsahne)

into the mix.

Pour batter into 8in x 8in (or similar) ungreased pan. Smooth batter and cover with Aluminum foil. Place corn cake pan in a 9in x 13in baking dish (or similar that is larger than corn cake pan) and fill 1/3 with water. Bake 50 to 60 minutes. Let it rest for a few minutes then scoop from pan.