Wiener schnitzel is actually much too rare for me. The last time must be years ago. Unfortunately, the butcher cut the meat a bit too thick this time and there was also quite a lot of skin and sinew to remove. I then plated the reworked cutlets between two layers of foil and breaded them normally, with flour, egg and breadcrumbs.
While the unbaked schnitzels wait in the refrigerator, I prepare some clarified butter from a packet of butter. If you want to make something more, for the stash, right away, Steph’s instructions are recommended.
The biggest difficulty with roasting is that veal gets tough easily if you’re not careful. – So take good care! The schnitzel should swim in clarified butter and must not get too hot at all. Roasted nice and slow, the meat becomes butter-tender.
We have a little salad of rocket, tomato, spring onion and basil. The potato-cucumber salad with vinaigrette I have already prepared yesterday.
Sunday, 22. April 2012
Conjured out of a hat
Move forward, to the bacon guglhupf! Go right there, don’t pull over Los! Do not fry bacon and soak raisins in warm water! – So do everything exactly the same as with the savory Gugelhupf. Only the thing with the bacon is omitted and instead 200 g raisins are added to the dough. And a total of 3 tablespoons of sugar. – Beautiful Sunday breakfast!
Legend has it that the Gugelhupf was invented in Alsace, by the Magi themselves. They wanted to make a quick stop in Bethlehem to deliver gold, frankincense and myrrh. Last but not least they wanted to pay homage to the baby Jesus and then probably the press found out about it. Anyway, the story did not remain unknown and so it became somehow exhausting for the gentlemen.
In all the hustle and bustle they decided to take a spontaneous short vacation. To relax it should go to the Alsace. Recover from the homage with Gewurztraminer and foie gras, that seemed to be a good idea! One treats oneself nothing else. Again, the press must have been very well informed, because a kitchen event was already prepared on site, where celebrities should bake something. The Epiphany team came up with their own invention, a yeast cake that was supposed to look like an oriental hat. The Alsatians were very impressed by the art of the great magicians. They called the pastry Kougelhopf and prepared it from then on at every possible opportunity. Thus Alsace had discovered another specialty for itself.
Friday, 20. April 2012
Unsauregurkenzeit
The sour cucumber season is over, there are finally cucumbers again! – As an old newspaper aunt I knew the expression Pickle time so far only as a name for the summer hole in reporting. All celebrities and politicians are on vacation, no one at home, nothing happens. And we make up stories that never happened. The Loch Ness monster makes a regular reappearance at pickle time. But in fact was originally with Pickle time once meant the time when winter supplies were running low and the first harvest was still a long way off. Sour cucumbers were then usually all that was left.
Fortunately we get now again fresh greens from the region. I am especially happy about the small pickled cucumbers every year. I do not mean those miniature versions of the normal cucumbers and also not the, always somewhat bitter tasting, garden cucumbers. No, it’s about cucumbers, which are actually meant for the pickling season and usually go into the jar with vinegar and spices. A few years ago, a vendor at the weekly market told me that these pickled cucumbers are particularly tasty. Since then I am a huge fan of these aromatic green crackers. You really have to try it. However, it is worth not to dig out the smallest ones from the box. The big ones taste better.
I usually pickle the cucumbers in one piece, albeit without the peel. However also salad profits from the intensive aroma of the pickling cucumbers.
Today at lunch I had a potato and cucumber salad made from Belana and cucumbers with a Melfor vinaigrette, seasoned with Cologne mustard and sugar.
Tuesday, 17. April 2012
Beginner’s dumpling
Most likely I am on the verge of obtaining the dumpling diploma. Or of the small Latinum for dumpling lore. With today’s lunch I have in any case completed another leg of the journey.
In general, bread dumplings are not considered difficult, and I can confirm that now. The dumplings made from massacred buns could even pass for decidedly beginner dumplings. Still, in my personal dumpling history, they came after the half-silk, after the boiled potato dumplings, after the napkin dumplings, after the pureed gnocchi, after the classic gnocchi, and after the spinach dumplings. The reason for this is quite simple to explain: Unlike in southern Germany, here you can not buy dumpling bread on every corner. And in my household as good as never leftover bread. – Except sometimes, so today. In the past few days, I had collected 200 grams of dry bread rolls and cut them into pieces for drying. Unfortunately I read only afterwards that thin slices are better.
Bread dumplings
200 ml. Boil milk and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.
Let the milk cool down a bit and stir in 1 egg.
Put 200 g dry rolls in pieces (or better: in thin slices) into a bowl and pour the egg milk over them. Cover with a plate or foil and let stand for 20 minutes.
Mix the mixture very lightly and form into 5 dumplings. Wrap each dumpling individually in cling film and close tightly. Put the foil packets into very slightly boiling water. Turn the heat down to the lowest setting and put a lid on it. let it stand for 20 minutes. Immediately free the dumplings from the foil.
Saturday, 14. April 2012
Safety first
Unfortunately, I can’t claim to have reinvented a sport. However, I like to boast that my friends revolutionized red wine hiking in the winter of 2011. Maybe it was actually preceded by years of planning with reckless selfies. You can never know that exactly. But for me it seemed as if the ingenious idea came up just like that, quite by the way.
One day my friends invited me to a "red wine hike without hiking" a. – Ingenious, or? Not only do you save yourself the hassle of running, but you may also avoid serious accidents due to loss of control. I don’t even want to talk about the dangers on the steep slope in connection with the balance problem.
The wonderful evening with champagne and wonderful wines led to a larger group now meeting again quite enthusiastically for a repeat performance. I took a Speckguglhupf with me, which already met Facebook friends on the spot and was recognized immediately. The savory pastry is very easy to make and goes really well with wine.
Speckguglhupf
500 g flour
1 cube of yeast (or 2 sachets of dry yeast)
250 ml of water
1 tsp salt
125 g soft butter
1 egg
1 tablespoon of sugar
ca. 200 g streaky bacon
half of a small onion
ca. 1 tablespoon of soft butter for the mold
Cut the bacon into small cubes and fry in a pan with a little oil. Do not roast too long, otherwise the cubes will become dry. Cut the onion as finely as possible and let it sweat with the bacon for a very short time. Drain on a double layer of kitchen paper and leave to cool.
Knead a soft yeast dough from flour, yeast, water, salt, butter, egg and sugar. Generously grease a cup cake pan with butter. After 20 minutes knead in the bacon and onions and put the dough into the form. Put a clean plastic bag over it like a tent and let the dough rise for about 1 hour.
Heat up the oven to 180° C and bake the Guglhupf on the 2. Bake on the lowest level for 1 hour. Once baked, immediately remove from the pan and cool on a cooling rack.