Duvel

Test run ... Homemade corned beef with mixed veggies. Was good ...

Sunday evening: Family movie („Madagascar 3: ratatatattaa afro circus“) and pizza night. Tonights favourites were classic Margarita and tuna & green asparagus ...

Tonight: pork collar roast (1.6 kg for 4.5 eaters), tightly wrapped around a bread dumpling filling. Onion gravy, steamed carrots with butter & parsley. No pictures (except for my sons plate), no complaints, no leftovers ...

Nothing beats Mett for breakfast ...

To stay with the „lent“ theme, today fish dinner with everything the German cuisine has to offer on that subject: herring, in many, many ways ... Overview ... Brathering ... Matjes (with onion ponzu) ... Heringssalat (left) and Fleischsalat (right, for good measure) ... Smoked ... Omelette with brown shrimps ... Helped by a Glengoyne 21yo (or was is two or three ?) ...

Yessssssss !!!

A long day at work, so stopped at the butcher on my way home: Schnitzel, Fleischsalat and Rohesser ... accompanied by one of the left-over Christmas beers from 2019 !

The beginning of lent - time to give up precious habits, if only for 6 weeks. I decided for alcohol and carbs ... Flash forward - feeling a bit deprived I found a Netflix show called „James May - Our man in Japan“. After the first episode I was feeling very much sorry for myself not living in Japan (or Asia in general) anymore and I decided to toast to myself ... Whiskey highball (with one my last Hakushu bottles) About half way in the second episode I feel the sincere urge for some Japanese food. Luckily I found a pouch of Kaigun Kare (Japanese Navy Curry) and I remembered some frozen Udon in the freezer ... The combination of Kaigun Kare (augmented by some cubes of SV corned beef) and a decent highball works so perfectly ! So, I modified my lent theme to „give up good intentions“ until Easter, which I believe I will suceed in 😉 Ganbarimasu !

Pizza Margerita - 5-day cold rise dough, San Marzano tomato passata, Mozzarella di Buffala, Parmigiano, olive oil and fresh basil. So simple, so good ... 3.30min baking time ...

Yup. ChefSteps recommended 48h and 52h fitted my schedule better. Corned brisket was tender and moist ...

As promised, some “real” cooking: homemade corned beef (9 days curing, 52h@65 oC SV) with a bit of a BBQ note (liquid smoke, pimenton a la vera, brown sugar, cajun spice mix). All put on whole grain rye with some raclette cheese and grilled ... Very, very satisfying (with some help of a aperitif/digestive/whatever ...)

Tonight, the third of my lazy evenings in a row. I promise I start cooking properly tomorrow again 😉 So, Raclette it was. With a couple of french cheeses (Raclette, Morbier, Reblochon, Gruyere, ...) and a variety of cold cuts and Weisswurst leftovers. Augmented by sweetcorn, fried onions, mandarin oranges, asparagus and my mom’s strawberry marmalade (for the strong cheeses). Roasted bread (from our last Strasbourg trip) and a good Portugese red - what else you need ...

They were quite good and “short” ... I guess thats why they appear plump. Usually, I buy them fresh so they don’t actually change during the brief time the get warmed in salted water.

Hahaha, I am so relieved that the “forgotten in microwave” thing doesn’t happen to me alone 🤗

It’ll go through several stages of “brown” before the roux will actually burn. Take it slow and you will be fine. And when you think it is brown enough, check out a Youtube video with a Cajun lady making Gumbo and you’ll see that it can get much darker 😉

These are Berliner. Typically they would contain plum or raspberry jam, but these were selected by the little one and were filled with vanilla custard (white ones) and the yellow one contained “Advocaat”. There are in season now for the Carnival and will disappear next Wednesday, and since I am all into seasonal food ...

My in-laws arrived yesterday night from Spain, so we had a “full” German-style family breakfast ...

If it tastes great - no worries 😉. For the look, my thought would be: Not sufficient caramelization: either at the (a) roasting stage of the meat, (b) during the roasting of the veggies for the gravy or (c) while making the roux. Options would be to do a harder sear/roast (a,b), using some promoters, e.g. icing sugar (b) liquid aminos, soy (a) or cook longer (c) to promote browning. Other than that, you can always prepare a quick caramelized reduction (toasting icing sugar, red wine, oyster sauce) to amp up your gravy ...

Laziness from yesterday continues ... Weisswurst, Brezel & süßer Senf (sweet mustard), plus an alcohol-free beer - still yummy !

Sheer Friday evening laziness ...

Yup, I did fry them ... but that doesn’t mean I ate them 😉 I peeled them like asparagus and except for one they were too tough and stringy. The stems, that is. Rest was great !

Fried artichokes with a yogurt-mayo dip ...

Or a takoyaki pan ...

I used to teach in university and would identify that look as “not paying attention and eyeing the snacks instead” ...

Veal medaillons with mushrooms and a cucumber/olive/cheese salad ...