*photo from unsplashWhat to do when the mopishness rules the day? When every movement in the kitchen seems like an impossible task? What to do when you want to seize the few precious beams of sunlight between the heavy clouds, to spend the golden evening outside? Continue reading Curry Always is a Good Idea
Misery is here. It’s creeping through locked windows and doors, sneaking up on us like an unwelcome guest. It is carried by dark, thick clouds that keep denying us a lasting glimpse of the wonderful spring sun.
You almost tend to get hermitical. Not being able to spend your time under a blue sky for weeks when this–spring–usually is the one time of the year that urges you to spend your free time outside. To get yourself some energy. To soak up joy. And sooner or later you are simply displeased with everything. Including (let’s be honest here) with yourself.
So, distraction is what we need from all this shit. A new book. Tying knots into the socks of your most favourite person. A bunch of flower to brighten up the greyness. Tickling each other’s ears (or one’s own). Making plans for a trip. A Sunday, dedicated simply to soul food.
And because the weather outside truly is dreary, we’ll make the hot dog almost completely on our own. It is definitely worth the trouble anyway. And when you bite into that self-baked brioche roll, rejoice in the homemade ketchup, and you can’t even decide on which side of the filled bread you want to stop the dripping content first… you will smile again. I promise.
Ingredients for 6 hot dogs
the brioche rolls are our own, the rest is after a recipe out of Stevan Paul’s „Auf die Hand“
For the ketchup:
For the brioche rolls:
For the cucumbers:
For the hot dogs:
Ketchup: Peel the onions and chop them roughly. Gently sizzle them in oil for 10 minutes, then add the other ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium, so everything just bubbles, and let it cook openly for 1 hour. Puree everything, put the pot back onto the stove and cook for 15 more minutes. Strain the sauce through a sieve and press everything through with a tablespoon. In the end there should remain only about 1 tbsp of solid ingredients in the sieve. Fill into sterilized jars, store them in the fridge and use them up within 2 months.
Brioche rolls: Combine all ingredients in a bowl and knead for at least 5 minutes. Dust a working surface with additional flour and keep on kneading the dough in it until it just doesn’t stick anymore. It will still be soft and slightly damp. Put the dough back into the bowl, cover it, and let it rest for 2 hours.
Divide into 6 equal portions, knead them shortly, then form them to balls. Roll them between the working surface and your hands until they have a long shape, just like a sausage. Put them onto a baking tray, covered with a sheet of baking paper, cover it with a dry and clean cloth and let it rest for 30 more minutes. Preheat the oven to 200°C. Mix the remaining egg yolk with the milk and brush it onto the rolls. Bake for 15-20 minutes.
Cucumbers: Cut the cucumber into thin slices. Put everything in a pan and heat it up. Cook on medium temperature until the cucumbers are soft.
Hot dogs: Heat up the sausages. Peel the onion and cut it into dices. Mix the ketchup with the mustard and the horseradish. Cut the brioche rolls lengthwise, put in a sausage each and a bit of salad. Garnish with the hot dog sauce, mayonnaise, cucumbers, and onions. Enjoy warm.
The Easter Holidays are coming and with that recipes for the big celebration pop up everywhere like the spring flowers on the meadows. Instructions how to prepare the perfect lamb roast, the best sauce, the most perfect side dishes, the most astonishing decorations.
To me it is a little bit overwhelming. The inner pressure rises with every year – because, don’t we all want to delight our family with simply the best? Last year it was amazing, so it should be even better this time, shouldn’t it? A new superlative with every year? And so we end up spending so much time on thinking about the greater stuff, worrying about the big picture, that we tend to forget the foundation. The things that really, truly make us feel good, loved, and comforted. Cherished.
Sometimes it takes merely time to give someone that feeling. After all time is a very precious thing these days. But mostly it also is simplicity what we need, so basic that it can be overseen quickly, and regrettably underestimated.
Bread is such a thing.
Simple, candid bread, baked with time and devotion can be is a feast. It can make you more proud of what you eat and serve your loved ones than a perfectly orchestrated course menu. It is pristine, pleasant, and perfect in its plainness, chummy even. It brings people together in its quiet, elementary way and pampers us with everything good.
Like new favourite of ours. Exclusively baked with sourdough and no additional yeast it is easy to digest and with its whole grain shredded wheat and rye flour it also is saturating and a perfect companion for a hearty meal or spicy cheese.
For the sourdough:
For the main dough:
Additionally:
Mix the rye flour with the water and the sourdough starter in a bowl. Cover it and let it rest for 16-20 hours.
On the next day mix the shredded wheat with the 200 ml of water and let it soak for 30 minutes. Put together all the ingredients and knead for 10 minutes. Cover the bowl and let the dough rest for 1 hour, while shortly kneading the dough from the rim of the bowl to the middle every fifteen minutes. After that let the dough rest for 1 additional hour.
Now fetch a longish baking basket and get the dough out of the bowl to knead shortly but thoroughly. Sprinkle the whole wheat flour on your working surface and roll the dough between your hands and the working surface to form a long loaf that fits into the baking basket and that’s dusted with the whole-grain flour. But the loaf into the baking basket and cover with a clean and dry kitchen towel. Let the dough rest for 3-6 hours, until it has almost doubled its size.
Preheat the oven to 250°C and place the loaf onto a heated baking tray with a sheet of baking paper. Put the tray into the oven, switch the temperate down to 220°C. Spray a little bit of water into the oven before closing the door and bake the bread for 30-40 minutes. It should give a hollow sounds when you knock on the bottom of the bread.
Let it cool down on a baking tray. Enjoy with savoury cheese, sausage or simply with good butter. Even better when roasted.
Time bar
Day 1, evening: 1 day before baking
Preparing the sourdough and letting it rest for 1 day.
Day 2, afternoon and evening: baking day
Making the main dough and baking.
– – –
*Making your own sourdough starter
To make yourself your own sourdough starter you only need water, rye flour and a few days in a row in which you will be at the same place at the same time of the day. And an airtight jar, alongside a small place in your fridge for that exact jar. Maybe even a name for your new baby, but that is not too necessary.
Day 1: Mix 10 g rye flour with 20 ml water, cover it airtight and let it rest for roughly 1 day.
Day 2: Add 10 g rye flour and 20 ml water, mix it, cover it airtight and let it rest for roughly 1 day.
Day 3: Add 10 g rye flour and 20 ml water, mix it, cover it airtight and let it rest for roughly 1 day.
Day 4: Add 10 g rye flour and 20 ml water, mix it, cover it airtight and let it rest for roughly 1 day.
Day 5: Add 10 g rye flour, cover it airtight and let it rest for roughly 1 day.
Day 6: Congratulations! You just made your first sourdough starter! Put it into the fridge and use it for baking. For example as in the recipe above.
There are only a few things that are as essential as a loaf of bread. For me the last home baked bread, made with my own sourdough, is already too long ago. Fate seemed to be against me, killing first not only my first rye sourdough, but also its successors, and soon after that the wheat starter followed as well. So yes. I needed fresh dough. Because self-made bread is a delight that can hardly be explained.
And so one beautiful day my new sourdough starter was finished, and ready to be to a good use. His name is Eren… let’s see how this one will turn out. My fingers are crossed!
The bread that we are baking for Lena today is a mild one with mainly wheat. The adding of potatoes gives the bread a wonderful juiciness that helps making it stay fresh longer. The crust is not too thick and not to thin and the crumb is amazingly soft and fine pored. A perfect companion for cheese and a new favourite.
Ingredient for 1 loaf
For the sourdough:
For the main dough:
Mix the ingredients for the sourdough in a bowl, cover it with a lid or cling foil and let it rest for 20-24 hours at room temperature.
On the next day peel the potatoes and mash them thoroughly. Add the remaining flour, the water, the yeast and the honey and mix it with the kitchen machine for 5 minutes on the lowest setting. Add the salt and mix another 5 minutes. The dough is very soft and will be steadied by the pot during baking anyway. But if it seems to be too runny add 1-2 tablespoons of additional flour with the salt.
Cover the bowl again and let the dough rest for 90 minutes, whilst folding or rather kneading it once to the middle of the bowl after 30, 60 and again 90 minutes. Now get the dough out of the bowl and roll it around in 1-2 additional tablespoons of wheat flour so it it covered generously and put the flour dusted dough back into the bowl. Cover it again and let it rest for 60 to 90 minutes once more.
30 minutes before the resting time is up put an iron cast pot including the lid into the oven and preheat it to 250°C.
Get the pot (caution: very hot!) out of the oven and cautiously let the dough drop into it. Cover the pot again with the lid and bake the bread for 30 minutes at 250°C. After that time switch down the temperature to 200°C and bake the bread for another 30 minutes. For a nicer crust remove the lid during the last 15 minutes of baking. Turn the bread out of the pot and let it cool down on a cooling rack.
Time bar
Day 1, evening: 1 day before baking
Preparing the sourdough and letting it rest for 1 day.
Day 2, afternoon and evening: baking day!
Making the main dough and baking.
– – –
*Making your own sourdough starter
To make yourself your own sourdough starter you only need water, rye flour and a few days in a row in which you will be at the same place at the same time of the day. And an airtight jar, alongside a small place in your fridge for that exact jar. Maybe even a name for your new baby, but that is not too necessary.
Day 1: Mix 10 g rye flour with 20 ml water, cover it airtight and let it rest for roughly 1 day.
Day 2: Add 10 g rye flour and 20 ml water, mix it, cover it airtight and let it rest for roughly 1 day.
Day 3: Add 10 g rye flour and 20 ml water, mix it, cover it airtight and let it rest for roughly 1 day.
Day 4: Add 10 g rye flour and 20 ml water, mix it, cover it airtight and let it rest for roughly 1 day.
Day 5: Add 10 g rye flour, cover it airtight and let it rest for roughly 1 day.
Day 6: Congratulations! You just made your first sourdough starter! Put it into the fridge and use it for baking. For example as followed.
It is so comforting to make burgers with an agitated mind! The hands are moving almost automatically; the brain knows what nice things to do out of flour, milk, egg, butter, and yeast and a somewhat odd looking piece of transverse rib, while the thoughts are actually distracted completely. They are far away, still so lost in reverie and concerned with the impressions just experienced. The feelings do not care at all about the fact that it was not real and „just an anime series“ which you almost inhaled during the past hours: The head is still full with the pictures, filled with the music, and the impact. The heart is still racing and also feels a bit numb. The thoughts are in uproar, while I almost feel a little sad because it is over and I had to leave that world… So they really still exist, those gripping TV-series, that just won’t let you go and that achieve to really bother you deep down! Even if you have to look at the subtitles for understanding everything. Continue reading Film food: The Heart Warmer
When I grow up I want to be happy. That takes a bit of practice, concentration and observation. At the first sight of grumpy wrinkles they are being straightened and the Great Canyon between the eyes is filled up again. Loud music helps a lot, as does dancing and eating. Of course. Yes: Food isn’t love… but still… it helps! If everything seems to be helpless there’s nothing better than a bomb of carbs that give you quite a serotonin boost. Happy, almost moronic, you start to grin again. You laugh at life and it’s sorrows and you feel as if you were invincible… almost like Batman. We all should feel like Batman way more often! Continue reading C₁₀H₁₂N₂O, Batman and croissants
