a turkey day meme and then some
Found this on Christina and Tammy’s blogs and thought the questions were kinda funny. At first they reminded me of Thanksgiving and then, well, you’ll see..
- Do you like potatoes? What kind? Yes and in this order: chips, baked and loaded, mashed with sour cream and butter.
- If you were dressed up in a fish costume and you went underwater and a shark saw you, what would you do? Pretend I was a dolphin. They can kick a shark’s butt.
- Does Jello make you happy? Jigglers did as a kid. The memory still does even if I don’t eat Jello anymore.
- If you could have any animal, exotic, extinct or other type, what would it be? I think I’ll stick with a puppy. I read Jurassic Park and know I don’t have the stomach for exotics or things extinct.
- Would you fill up a pool with pudding and jump in? It would have to be warm pudding. Sounds like a fantastic idea!
- When you are feeling icky with the sickness feeling, what is your first choice for feel-better medicine? sleepy time, I’m not a fan of medicine when my body can do the trick just as well.
- Do you count with your fingers or in your head when it comes to mathematical equations? Does waving a finger in the air count as counting with fingers?
- Do you have any key chains on your keyring? How many? What kind? I have a pocket knife Ping to gave me.
- What do you dunk your french fries in? Honey
- When I say “Moo I’m a duck” do you think of a cow or a duck?I think: When you say Moo, I say duck! Moo! Duck! Moo! Duck! ..um, What was the question?
- If you had the chance, would you go to the very bottom of the ocean? Why not? We know less about the bottom of the ocean than we do of outer space.
- Would you rather be in a hurricane or a tornado? If I could survive without a scratch? Then a tornado, out of curiosity. This Florida girl knows enough about hurricanes.
- Do you like pumpkin pie? Do you cheat and buy a premade one or do you make it from scratch? Heck, do you even make pumpkin pie at all? I like only my dad’s pumpkin pies, he makes them from scratch. I have to get his recipe!
Hope my friends in family back home have a good turkey day in Florida! Sorry to miss it again.
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LeberKäseSemmel, chili-style
Food that sounds unpleasant when translated from German to English, case one:
Translation
Leberkäse, directly translates to, “Liver Cheese”, although the simple form of Leberkäse in Bavaria doesn’t contain liver or cheese. The word part, Leber, is a dialect misinterpretation, most likely stems from the word Laib meaning loaf. The word part, Käse, is more a description of the consistency rather than an ingredient. It also goes by Fleishkäse.
What is it?
pinkish (cured) or whitish (not cured), loaf of meat, made from beef, pork and spices, cut into thick slices and served between two halves of a bread roll, or auf Bayerish, Semmel. It is served warm.
My thoughts
The name grossed me out when I first arrived in Munich so I avoided it for a good year until a friend convinced me to give it a go. That first time was at the underground ‘food court’ at Karlsplatz (Stachus). Not bad. It reminds me of a really thick slice of American baloney that taste better than American baloney. It’s great with hot mustard but watch the sleeves, the mustard tends to run. I usually scout one out when I find myself suddenly starving, low on cash and on the go. Leberkäsesemmel is a great pick-me-up for less than 2 Euro and is typically eaten while standing. If you are a health freak, do not attempt this energy source.
Where to get Leberkäsesemmeln
Leberkäse is sold in all Metzgerei (butcher shops). Look in a chain delicatessen called Vinzenzmurr or bakeries. They can also be found at an Imbiss at train stations or in the subway station shops. Do try other variations if you luck upon them, i.e., Bärlauch, Mexican, and Pizza. The one featured here is chili style and surprisingly hit the fiery mark.
What do you think of Leberkäse?
Making Cheese
results of my 1 liter fresh cheese fiascoThis has been my cooking thrill of the past month. White, creamy, fresh cheese..infused with anise, black cardamom, a bay leaf and seasoned with some salt.
I’m totally fascinated with making cheese and eating it as Paneer. I won’t go into much detail about how to make it. But I will tell you that with my small German kitchen (about 6 sq meters), I can only work with about 1 liter of milk in my 4 liter Ikea +365 stainless pot at a time -beyond this point, cheese making becomes a major fiasco.
Some great links for making fresh cheese:
- Do you make your own paneer? – beautifully photo documented but I think the next one explains it better.
- Cooking with Kurma – I got an ‘ah ha’ after reading this
- Ricotta Making Illustrated – what to do with the whey
Yes do save the whey! Use it for the following:
- add to curry, like chicken masala,
- soak the paneer before use or after the paneer is fried in oil,
- soak (not cook) beans for at least 24-hours,
- substitute water with it when making slow-rise bread,
- in pickles or Sauerkraut making
sliky butternut Kürbis soup
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.
