ludja

That's quite a fun word to say. I need to try and remember that! And I agree, cucumber salad or gurkinsalat is a great accompaniement to many dishes

It will not be on the list, but I'll give a holler in support of Austro-Hungarian cuisine as an important, if not neglected, distinct cuisine---blending the best of Austria, Hungary, Germany, Czechslovakia, Yugoslavia, Northern Italy, and more... Wonderful pastries, cookies, strudels and tortes, Viennes coffee, fruit fritters, sausages and cured meats, roasted pork, sweet and savory dumplings, noodles and pasta, rye breads and white rolls, goulashes, schnitzel, crepes, soups and soup garnishes, potato a myriad of ways, wild mushroom and chestnut dishes, eau de vie, beer, wine. A short list of some of the typical and more distinctive ingredients: poppyseeds, rum, vanilla sugar, raisins, lemon, coffee, walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, chocolate, chestnuts, farmer's cheese, apples, cherries, apricots and apricot jam, plums, gooseberries, wild strawberries, red currants and red currant jam, lignon berries (prieselbeeren), elderberry blossoms, pears, honey, whipped cream asparagus, green beans, peas, green and red peppers, pumpkin, cauliflower, potatoes, green and red cabbage, beets, tomatoes, cucumber, spinach, radishes paprika, anchovies, juniper berries, capers, mustard, garlic, horseradish, vinegar, marjoram, parsley, sour cream, caraway seeds, buckwheat flour, sweetbreads, tongue, liver and all 'variety' meats, trout, pork including cracklings, speck, ham and bacon, veal and beef, chicken, goose liver, chanterelles and porcini mushrooms, pumpkin seed oil, pickles, sauerkraut, hungarian salami, liverwurst

Casual dinner for friends (vegetarian) after a beautiful hike in the Santa Cruz Mountains foothills... Liptauer Cheese w/good local (Acme) rye bread (omitted the anchovies from the Liptauer...) Salted Pistachios Gruner Veltiner from the Wachau (Stockingerhof, 2000) Green Leaf Salad with Cucumbers and Radish/Pumpkin Seed oil vinagrette Mushroom Goulash over Spatzle DeLoach 2001 Russian River Zinfandel Italian Apple Cake Coffee and Calvados Notes: The mushroom goulash was excellent; I make a lot of Austro-Huganan goulashes but have never before tried a vegetarian mushroom version. I based it on an old recipe from Fine Cooking using regular button mushrooms and it was actually very good. The apple cake is a great rustic recipe that I've made before. About an inch and half or so of firm yellow cake topped with 2 lbs of thinly sliced apples macerated in lemon juice and rind.

Thanks ms foodie for the lovely pics and food. The dinner looks stunning. Neat idea to serve the beef bourgignon on top of the garlic toasts. You and bleu d'auvergne definately share some wonderful style and taste when it comes to menu selection, cooking and presentation. To me this is a big compliment to both of you! So--were you sufficiently happy with amuse to make it again? It sounds like a intriguing combination; I haven't much had vanilla in a savory prep like that.

Bread Dumplings are common in Austrian and German cooking, called "Semmelknodel" in Austria. A semmel is a basic bread roll (white bread, thin, crisp crust) and knodel is german for dumpling. This recipe is an Austian version. In Germany, it may be called "Brotknodel" or bread dumpling; I'm not sure if the recipe would be different or not. A basic bread dumpling is as follows: 10 medium sized white rolls 2-4 Tbs cup minced onion 2-4 Tbs cup minced parsley 1/4 cup fat or butter 1 1/2 - 2 cups milk 2 eggs s&p 1/3 -2/3 cup flour Dice rolls. Sautee onion and parsley in butter. Add dice rolls and continue cooking until bread is slightly toasted and crisp. Put contents of pan in a bowl. In a seperate container mix milk, eggs and salt. Pour over rolls. Blend in flour as needed. (This you have to do by eye; may need less thant the 2/3 cup). Form dumplings and cook a test dumpling in salted and gently boiling water for ~ 10 min. They will rise to the top as they're done. (if dumpling doesen't hold together can add some more flour; it's better to ere on the underside first; then add in if needed). Should also test the seasoning on the "test dumpling and adjust if needed). Another famous variant is the "Tyroler Speckknodel". It has "speck" in it, which is a special double smoked and salted bacon/ham from Austria, Switzerland and N. Italy. (Tyrol is the the alpine state of Austria with Innsbruck as its capitol, Sud Tyrol is the northern part of Italy that used to Austrian.) Substiute could be cooked bacon or ham. Also could substitute other smoked sausages as well, like a smoked kielbasa--not the same as a Speckknodel but very good. You can make them using the recipe above; cooking the meat first. (Speck dosen't need to be cooked ahead of time). Other potential flavorings are chives. Sorry the amounts are not more definate; I make it by eye now; this is similar to the recipe I got from my Mom as a starting point. They aren't difficult to make though... Hope this helps! Note: Slightly stale bread is fine for this; probably better. This is one of the ways Austrians would use up their extra bread... akin to Tuscan bread soups and salads, bread puddings, etc

There's a previous egullet discussion here .

For me, seeing this recently at the supermarket was a "floor me" moment and the example I thought of when I started reading this thread. Whipped cream often makes an appearance with my desserts. It has floored me when people were semi-incredulous that it was "home-made".

I agree! In Amsterdam I tried out a bunch of frites shops and my favorite choice of accompaniement from a large menu of choices was the sambal mayo!

We should keep this thread on topic, but you may want to check out or participate in this thread re: american jewish traditions and onions in schmalz.... (this is where I learned about it). Sample quote: Fat Guy @ Dec 2 2003, 09:12 AM Also, here's a recipe from a jewish food web site: click

I don't do this, but I recall Susan Feniger or Mary Sue Milliken mentioning that they were fanatical about saving butter wrappers-- freezing if necessary--- to be used to butter pans!

I thought of something else I freeze-- corn cobs asa base for vegetable stock used in a corn soup. Also, if I'm using up a bunch of grapefruits to make a sorbet (a favorite flavor), I'll reserve the peels to make pamelas (candied grapefruit peels). Also, along the lines of saving parmegiano or pecorino rinds, I'll keep tough end of proscuitto or speck for flavoring soups.

I received the impetus to make my own chicken schmalz (with onions) from egullet. yeah! Just for info, in Germany/Austria schmalz generally means pork lard . As I understand it, in America, schmalz, via Yiddish roots, does usually refer to chicken fat. I grew up with the "pork version" of schmalz. With some of the cracklings left in it, it can be used as a spread for rye/country bread as a rustic snack to go with beer or wine. I know there are threads on this, but I have a quick question on chicken schmalz--does it always imply rendering the chicken fat with onions? (And are the onions just used for flavor and then strained out?)

Thanks for the mini-photo essay on Salumi. Both your sandwiches look incredible! Do you know what all was on the Cotecchino sandwich? raddichio? and ... Looking forward to the rest of your blog!

jason and rachel perlow had a nice pictorial essay on their visit there... don't have the link handy but it's somewhere on egullet! (maybe someone elses memory is better than mine...)

How would you prepare the jerusalem artichokes? Boil them until fork tender then rice them? ← yup, ~ 20-30 min depending on size. also, sometimes I add potato to the puree (jerusalem artichoke: potato, 2:1, w/w) silly trivia: I tasted this dish first at a cooking class/demo by Ron Siegel (of Iron Chef fame).

two favorites: celery root and potato puree, with cream, butter, s&p jerusalem artichoke (sunchoke) puree with cream, butter, s&p

I had almost forgotton eating these until seeing this thread. Growing up (in CT) my Mom used to make something like this also. One version was bacon wrapped around plain (good from our Austrian butcher) hot dogs (slit to prevent bursting) then cooked, I think, under the broiler. When I checked w/her the other day she said she cooked them a bit farther away from the broiler and rotated the dogs to make sure all the bacon was cooked. Sometime, she cut slits into the dog and filled this with cheese before cooking! (I'm guessing american cheese). So fun to be reminded of this dish and even more fun to find out it is served in Mexican border towns!!! Thank you very much for the photos and research, Esperanza. The mayo factor and other condiments are very interesting! I can't wait to try the Mexican version. (Wouldn't this be a great tailgate dish???)

My mom made us limoncello a few years back which was great. Other infused liqueurs would be nice as well. I've also bought items and then supplied a collection of key recipes to go with the gift. Example: recipe for mascarpone cheese and tartaric acid along with sweet and savory recipes for mascarpone... else, a tart pan along with a booklet of my favorite tart recipes...

Not a restaurant rec, but rather a "dish" to try in Morgantown--pepperoni rolls! It's a yeasted roll filled with pepperoni or pepperoni and cheesse, quite tasty! ( the sum is more than the parts) Maybe someone else can jump in on their favorite places to get these. It's a specialty that's quite regional. This link has some background and recs on some places. edited to add: I spoke to a friend that went to WVU a while back-- two places he mentioned are "Montmartre" and a restaurant in the Old Seneca Glass Factory (don't know name). Does anyone know more about these to say if they're worthwhile? Also, I should have re-read the posts again b/4 I posted--pepperoni rolls already mentioned by Troutman.

Yum, what a nice sounding (and looking) meal. Nice to have such an abundance of avocados. (I like what you and jinmyo suggested above...) Do you guys have Haas avocados out there or what kind do you have and like for eating in salads like above? (I think at one point Haas were "west coast" and that Florida had other varieties...)

I hope Paula's Cornish Hen recipe is online somewhere; I don't have the cookbook. It looks so good. If I can't find it, I might be asking you to tell me about it... ← Definately worth getting the cookbook; I've cooked lots of wonderful dishes out of it. I'm pretty sure Wolfert is working on a new edition so you may want to wait for that though... I had a great dinner tonight that I thought up in my little ole head ; it came out great so I decided to post even though I don't have a digital camera. (It was very pretty too...) carrot soup potato gnocchi with speck and zucchini sauce green salad with lemon vinagrette The new item was the sauce for the gnocchi. My mom had sent me some wonderful speck (Austrian double or triple cold smoked 'bacon' with plenty of lean. It needs no further cooking to eat and is delectable). Usually I just thinly slice it and eat with good rye bread, pickles, a boiled egg, some cheese, etc. But for this dish I sauteed up a mirepoix with lots of onions and carrots in a butter/olive oil mix. Then added minced garlic and diced zucchini. A minute before serving I added in chopped parsley and thinly sliced and diced speck, then added in a little heavy cream and allowed it to thicken up a bit, salt & freshly ground pepper. Poured this over the gnocchi and added some freshly grated pecorino. (This would work well with pancetta or proscuitto bits as well). It is delicious and reminded me in my imagination of something you might have in the mountains of Northern Italy or the southern parts of Switzerland or Austria (i.e. fusion of German and Italian cooking). I thought of Boris_A when eating this!

toast dope

I agree in general with Marie-Louise' accessments of Mendocina dining scene--it is pretty middle of the road. Caveat being that I haven't tried Cafe Beaujolais and some of the other "places to try". That said, we've always had a wonderful time in Mendocino; we just do not expect the ultimate in casual/upscale dining-- compared to SF/Bay Area standards. We liked Moose Cafe also, had a very good lunch there (the home made soup stood out) and specifically went back there another time for dinner which was good. The atmosphere is nice but seems to be laid back enough for children, especially at lunch. Other place we ate at was McCallum House--we enjoyed our dinner but I'm not sure that I would go back there. It is located in a beautifully restored old house though and if you don't mind some inflation w.r.t. to price/food quality/sophistication; it could be nice. It is not ultra-formal but may not be right for toddler at dinner time... (lots of romatic couples dining with candles, etc). If you go north a bit, you can check out the fish restaurants that Marie Louise mentioned in Noyo Harbor. Can also get good microbrewery pub food at the North Coast Brewing Co in Fort Bragg; definately kid friendly. On a nice day, it's fun to catch breakfast with the locals and a scattering of tourists upstairs at Bayview Cafe (next to the Hotel Mendocino).

Good idea; I have to remember this. Sounds like a nice way of having a discrete item that can be served as an entree--also fits well with the abundance of carbs already on the menu. Plus, it sounds good tasting!

But hey, if a piece of greenery looks wan, droops wan and tastes wan... it is wan! (I think it's an apt descriptor for uninspired greens... it tells you what you need to know. )