Tag Archives: autumn

Asian food, main dish, meat & fish

Listen to Your Heart

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Listen to your heart. It usually tells you what you truly need (and even on what you should give up).

Don’t let things which you can’t change anymore get you down. You can not change them anymore. But you can learn from them.

Be brave and reach for the stars. You are worth it!

And just say “no” from time to time. You are allowed to.

Treat yourself every now and then. No matter if it is reasonable or not – your soul will thank you for it.

Listen to your music. And do more of the stuff that you love.

Just breathe… first because you actually need air and second because calm serenity often brings you further than short temper.

Miso Salmon

And if the day still just does not turn out to be a good one… indulge in something delicious to eat! Because sometimes it is prepared easier than you might think. The salmon in miso paste almost cooks itself on its own in the oven, the rice cooker takes care of the rice, and you should always have gari at home anyway. To that some creamy eggs and a cup of heart-warming tea and everything looks a little brighter already. Wanna bet?

Miso Salmon

Ingredients for 2 portions

  • 2-3 tbsp white or yellow miso paste
  • 2 tbsp mirin
  • 2 tbsp make
  • 200 g salmon filets with skin, scaled

Mix the miso, mirin, and sake in a dish. Turn the salmon in the marinade, cover the dish and let it rest in the fridge for 60-120 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Line a baking tray with baking paper and brush a little oil on it. Put the salmon onto the tray, skin side down, and bake for 12-15 minutes.

Serve with freshly steamed rice and if you’d like some creamy eggs, some gari, and a cup of tea tea.

drinks, vegan

The Power of Yellow

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Orange Mango Kurkuma Smoothie

My Grandmother always used to call me her little witch. I must have been an amiable child. Always full of crazy ideas. Always full of silliness. And mostly laughing. Since then nothing much has changed. Once a joker, always a joker. And after all the awkward puberty was gone… some day I actually could embrace my kind of crazy side.

But every once in a while you need a small push into the right direction to let the slightly crazy trait of yours come out to play again. The wintery world outside is grey and bare-branched after all. Cold. And a little bit uncomfortable. It weighs on the spirit and sometimes even on the circulation.

So we need colours! Bright and lively ones that shine and bring some sort of beautiful light back into our lives. And if they also manage to refresh, reanimate and make our senses work again it is even better.

Maybe this smoothie helps. It is yellow like the sun – or like the stars… you see much more of them these days anyway. And it delightens by merely looking at it. Additionally you get a nice and strong vitamin boost from delicious mango, oranges, apple, turmeric and ginger that help you to shield against a cold. And it also provides you with a wonderful refreshment.

Der Muntermacher

Smoothie with Orange, Mango, Apple, Ginger & Turmeric

Ingredients for about 4 glasses

  • 1/2 mango
  • 2 oranges, filleted
  • 1 sweet apple
  • 1/4 banana
  • 1 peanut-sized piece of ginger
  • 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
  • a hand full of ice cubes

Peel the ginger and chop it into small pieces.

Put all the ingredients into the container of an an electric blender and mix until the drink is smooth.

main dish, meat & fish, soul food

Good Things Take Time (and Love)

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Venison Lasagna

Some caring attention and time is always nice for proper food, and sometimes exactly what makes the meal present itself in the best light. But time is something that likes to lack in this hasty world. Sometimes even almost too much. So you hurry through daily life, trying to find something – anything – to eat. Because eating is something you just have to do. Right?

But when most of the Christmas turbulences are over and the quiet, long desired tranquility between the years settles over the world, you actually could invest some of this preciousness again.

A nice venison ragout for example can taste a lot better if you just let it simmer patiently to let it soak up even more flavour. Also a bechamel sauce brightens up if you give it time with spices, that make it more aromatic. More fascinating. More round. And if you even have the time and the joy to make you own pasta, you will be rewarded with a lasagna that delights your senses with every single layer and that is worth every tiny bit of work. Creamy, spicy, soothing, and full of loving attention you can taste.

And best you share this piece of art with your most favourite person… because food always tastes better when it is shared.

Venison Lasagna

Venison Lasagna

Ingredients for 2-3 portions

For the venison ragout:

  • 1 tbsp butter
  • 250 g minced venison (without bone)
  • 150 ml strong, red wine (for example Shiraz, Primitivo or Pinotage)
  • 200 ml meat broth of your choice
  • 200 g tomato sauce or simply sieved tomatos
  • 2 laurel leaves
  • 2 juniper berries
  • 2 springs of rosemary
  • 2 springs of thyme 
  • salt and pepper for seasoning

For the pasta layers:

  • 250 g wheat flour
  • 125 ml water
  • 1/2 TL salt

For the bechamel sauce:

  • 25 g butter
  • 25 g flour
  • 450 ml milk
  • 1laurel leaf
  • 1 clove

Additionally:

  • 75 g freshly grated parmesan
  • 75 g freshly grated cheddar

To prepare the ragout melt the butter in a pan on medium to high heat, then add the venison to fry it. Deglaze it with the wine and pour in the broth and tomatoes. Put in the laurel, juniper, rosemary, and thyme, put a lid on the pan, and let the ragout simmer for 2 hours on low heat. Remove from the stove and best let it rest overnight. Season with salt and pepper to your taste and remove the laurel leaves, juniper berries and herb stalks.

Knead the ingredients for the pasta until you have a firm and smooth dough, that is neither wet and clingy nor too dry and dusty. Cover it, let it rest for 1 hour and roll it out very thinly (the thinnest adjustment on your pasta machine, if you happen to have any).

Melt the butter for the bechamel sauce in a pot, mix in the flour and after 2 minutes stir in the milk. Let it simmer on low heat for 5 minutes whilst stirring from time to time before adding the laurel and clove and let it rest on very low heat for about 20 minutes. Remove the laurel and clove.

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Pour a thin layer of ragout into a dish or casserole and cover it with one layer of pasta. Add on thin layer of bechamel sauce and cover that with another layer of pasta. Continue until all the ingredients are used up – the last layer should be a bechamel sauce. Sprinkle it with the cheese and bake for about 40 minutes until the surface of the lasagna is golden brown and bubbly.

Asian food, main dish, meat & fish

Let’s celebrate!

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It is time for a party. And we truly need it. The year is almost over, the cosy winter solstice is right ahead and with the brighter days afterwards it just seems likely to dedicate a feast to life itself. To sitting together, to laughing, and – because what would a good party be without it, eh? – a lovely and highly enjoyable meal.

Today a little less traditional and far from goose and Christmas duck; these delicious roasts I want to attend to without traditions implying it to me, even if they may ask for it all so quietly. Let’s just have a look at the rest of the culinary season and discover venison. Beautiful and gorgeous in its dark, and almost purplish-coloured, red tone and spicy in its very own and special way it is quite a good fit for such a feast. And it even goes well with the Southeast Asian flavours, that I adore so much.

Reh Teriyaki

Simply marinated, sizzled in a generous amount of good butter (because especially on Christmas we please do not want to start skimping on that one!) and finally served on perfumy, steaming rice along some gari, spring onions, sesame and a fine sauce it truly is a delight. And it is my contribution to Zorra’s eleventh culinary Advent calendar.

Venison Teriyaki on Rice

Kulinarischer Adventskalender 2015 - Tuerchen 20Ingredients for 2 portions

  • 250 g venison
  • 1 tbsp butter
  • 3 tbsp soy sauce
  • 2 tbsp sake
  • 2 tbsp mirin
  • some wasabi paste
  • 1 additional tbsp butter
  • 1-2 spring onions
  • 2 portions freshly steamed Japanese short grain rice
  • some gari
  • some sesame

Let the venison adapt to room temperature first, then wash it and pat it dry. Heat up the tbsp butter in an pan on medium to high heat. As soon as it foams and starts to turn brown, add the meat and fry it shortly on each side, all the way around. Let it fry for 1-3 more minutes so it still will be at least medium rare in the middle.

Mix soy sauce, sake, mirin and wasabi and pour in into the pan. Switch heat down to medium and let it cook down a bit. Add the rest of the butter and let it melt in the sauce. Turn over the meat in the pan so it will be covered with the sauce, that should have thickened by now, and put the pan off the stove. Get out the meat and let it rest for a minute.

Meanwhile chop the spring onions into rings and divide the freshly steamed rice onto two bowls.

Cut the venison into thin slices and arrange them on the rice, adding the gari, the onions and some sesame for garnish. Pour the sauce over it and enjoy.

Reh Teriyaki

sweet tooth, vegetarian

Comfort for the heart

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Baking. Butter. Sugar. A dream team in December, when the cold, wet and grey as its grip on us. The world outside has become complete stark during the last past weeks and becomes more and more cheerless with the all surrounding darkness that creeps closer and closer.

With all that it’s time to attend to your heart again and to what it needs most during this time of the year: Warmth. Some rest whenever you can take it. And some endorphins, caused by crumbly shortpastry out of everything that’s good. Carbs, fat, vitamins (almonds!) and sweet things. Add a few lovely spices to that and the soul can smile again – a happy smile, not a creepy one – and make us endure this year’s final spurt much more easily again.

All of that is even better, when the recipe is easily done. And like that it isn’t really that sad, when all the delicious little half moons are eaten up almost too quickly again.

Chaikipferl

Chaikipferl

after a recipe by the lovely Lena

Ingredients for about 40 pieces

For the Kipferl:

  • 150 g unsalted butter at room temperature
  • 100 g cane sugar
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 200 g wheat flour
  • 100 g ground almonds
  • 1 pinch of salt

For the sugar mix:

  • 80 g cane sugar
  • 1 TL freshly ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 TL freshly ground cardamom
  • 1/4 TL freshly ground cloves
  • 1/4 TL ground ginger
  • some freshly ground pepper

Mix up the butter and the sugar. Add the egg yolks and keep on mixing. Add the flour, the almonds and the salt and knead to a firm dough.

Roll it out into one or two logs that are about as thick as a 2 € coin (or 2 £ coin) and wrap it in cling foil to let it cool down in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 160°C (hot air) and lay out baking sheets on two baking trays.

Cut the dough logs into 1-2 cm thick slices and roll them between your hands. They sould be about 5 cm long in the end and a little thicker in the middle. Slightly curve them to get a half moon shape („Kipferl“ in Germany) and distribute them on the baking trays.

Bake for about 12-15 minutes (with the hot air you can bake both trays at once), until the tips of the half moons start to turn slightly brown.

Meanwhile mix the ingredients for the sugar mix.

Let the baked Kipferl cool down on the trays for about 5 minutes, so they won’t crumble apart at once. Place them into the sugar mix and sprinkle them with more oder very carefully turn them around in it.

Let them cool completely on a roast and store them in tin containers.

Chaikipferl

Asian food, main dish, meat & fish

Wrap, hide, fry, steam, eat! Gyōza

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Gyouza

Wrapping, wrapping, wrapping. It almost feels a bit like Christmas already. Small, precious treasures are lovingly cloaked, lashed, sealed and piled up, almost like on a table for presents. The eyes are sparkling in anticipation of things to come, the heart is beating, the soul is singing… the stomach is rumbling. Isn’t making noodles a delight? I always calm down in my noodle sessions, it’s almost like meditating, just way better: I can handle food here! Cabbage wants to be chopped with care, then gently mixed with minced meat and spices to finally nuzzle into gauzy slices of silky noodle dough, in which it will be fried and steamed into glorious perfection. 

Gyouza

Yes, making filled noodles is always a fun thing to do and a process which is better made at 200%, so all the effort pays for not just one… but a few portions and/or meals at once. And it will feel like something special then. Like a feast. Something precious. And something you should definitely enjoy in company. Because it is always good to have people around, especially when it comes to enjoying life. The lovely Julia also prefers to cook and eat in company and so we will have a double portion of recipes for you today. Both traditional, delicious and best enjoyed with at least one more person at your side. Julia has a recipe for vegetarian Swabian Maultaschen for you today and I will be cooking Japanese again to make you some traditional gyōza. I hope you enjoy them!

Gyouza

Yaki Gyōza – Fried, Traditional Japanese Dumplings with Cabbage, Minced Pork and Ginger

Ingredients for 3-4 portions

Gyōza dough*:

  • 250 g wheat flour
  • 125 ml water
  • 1 tsp salt

Gyōza filling:

  • 1 piece of ginger (the size of a peanut)
  • 300 g cabbage
  • 1 tbsp salt
  • 300 g minced pork
  • 1 tbsp soy sauce

For cooking:

  • some vegetable oil for frying (like peanut oil for example)
  • water

Dip:

  • 20 ml soy sauce
  • 20 ml rice vinegar
  • a few drops of chili oil

*You could also buy gyōza dough instead of making it from scratch. Check out the freezers in the Asian supermarkets; you will probably find some packages there. 

Combine the ingredients for the dough in a bowl and knead until you have a very smooth and firm dough. Knead for 5 more minutes (to make the dough more elastic), wrap it in cling foil and let it rest for 1 hour. Knead again and now roll it out very thinly. If you use a pasta machine for this you will want to roll it out with the finest adjustment. Cut out circles (I used a glass with a 4 cm radius). Combine leftovers to another ball of dough and roll out again until you have no dough left. 

To prepare the filling peel the ginger and chop it finely. Remove the stalk from the cabbage and chop the rest finely, too. If you have a kitchen processor, you can perfectly use it for this; it will save you quite an amount of time. Mix the cabbage with the salt and let it just rest for a couple of minutes. Then, using your hands, press out the excessive water, then mix the cabbage with the other ingredients.

Place 1-2 tsp of the filling in the middle of one slice of dough, apply a little both of water on the edges of the dough and wrap it in the typical gyōza way. This video shows it quite well if you don’t know how to do it. It will take a few gyōzas to get it right, but it is quite easier than it may look at first, so don’t give up! Make as much gyōza until you are out of dough and/or filling. If you still have some filling left, you can just fry it later (you can store it in the fridge for about a day) or freeze it. Remaining dough slices can be dried to be cooked later.

Put a pan on medium heat. Add 1 tbsp of oil and plave one layer on gyōza in it. Fry them for about 5 minutes without moving them, they should just be fried on the side they are standing on. Add 50 ml of water to the pan and cover it with a lid. Steam the gyōza for 5 more minutes. Cook the remaining gyōza in the same way. Don’t crowd them in more than one layer in the pan; you’ll have to cook them in batches anyway.

Mix the ingredients for the dip and serve the gyōza with it. Enjoy!

And if you want to check out Julia’s Maultaschen recipe, please visit her lovely blog here.

Gyouza

Asian food, main dish, meat & fish, soul food

Self-Discovery and Soup

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To be adapted. To swim with the tide. That is what one seems to expect us to do, isn’t it? When we are little we still are allowed, encouraged even, to be who and what we are. With all our quirks, ideas, dreams… but some day everyday life begins and starts to pull all those special things away from us. Little by little but still effectively. We are supposed to be ideal students. We are supposed to show interest in every school subject we have to attend to, to being able to proceed in life. Maybe that is justified. Perhaps. Somehow we have to be „valued“, to be stereotyped so one can see what we have accomplished. But what falls by the wayside? We want to belong to the cool kids. We want to be part of the „coolest clique there is on this world“. So we start to bend even more and hem ourselves in, without even recognising. Everybody keeps on telling us: „All of this will be better once you’ve grown up“. That feeling of being lost. That imaginary (?) loneliness. But does it really work this way? Because suddenly they don’t tell you to fit in anymore. They tell you to be yourself. So be unique. To trust in your strengths! But how do you do that?

Who are you?

Tonjiru

To dig up all these traits that make us special after all these years of suppression, like precious treasures of the past, is exhausting. You have to put a lot of effort and energy in it and sometimes even a little bit of bravery, just to find back to yourself again. You have to try new things, even just out of impulse. Risk to jump in at the deep end. Get to know (and to love) new and wonderful people. And maybe let go of others that do you no good. Nothing ventured…

And if things are really bad, maybe a warming soup might help. A soup that strengthens from inside. That makes you brave again. A soup that caresses your soul and that is so simple to prepare, that you have enough time left in-between, to indulge in all of those new (and maybe a little crazy) hobbies that come with being just who you are. Even if that means to be a thirty year old woman that dresses herself as a 16 year old teenage boy with amazing pink hair and red eyes…!

Tonjiru

Tonjiru 豚汁 – Japanese pork soup

Ingredients for 1 big pot

  • 600 g pork belly
  • 3 spring onions
  • 3 cm ginger root
  • 100 ml sake
  • 1 piece of kombu (about 10 cm long)
  • 2 l water
  • 400 g potatoes
  • 2 large carrots
  • 3-4 tbsp yellow miso

Cut the pork into bite-size pieces. Finely chop the white part of the spring onions, chop the remaining green part into slices. Cut the ginger into coins.

Put the pork into a large pot on medium heat and let the fat dissolve. Add the white part of the onions and the ginger and let it cook until the pork is done and you have a light brown crust on the bottom of the pot. Pour in the sake and scrape the bottom of the pan to free those lovely flavors, then add the kombu and the water.

Switch the heat to high temperature and bring the soup to a boil. Use a spoon to scrape off the foam on the surface of the broth until no more foam starts rising up. Turn down the volume, put on the lid and let the soup simmer gently for 30-45 minutes. Meanwhile peel the carrots and the potatoes and cut them into bite-size pieces or chunks.

Scrape off the fat on the surface of the tonjiru. Add the carrots and potatoes to the soup, cook for 15 more minutes until tender. Switch off the heat, then stir in the miso. Depending on the brand and kind of miso you use you might have to add more miso, so season it to your taste. Serve hot with the green parts of the onion.

The tonjiru is very delicious when still fresh but you can store it in the fridge as well and heat it up on the next day.

Tonjiru

how-to, soul food, vegetarian

Treasure hunting in the woods

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Enough with the autumnal melancholy! Enough with cheerless and sad glances through the windows! Enough with the resignation when you realize that this year is beginning to draw to a close! It is Novembre – the month of the last golden sunbeams. The almost-end of the delicious mushroom season and the beginning of the long awaited venison season. The month with beautiful star falls of autumn foliage, warm sunny afternoons and also the first misty and lazy evenings on the couch. It’s this month, when we finally can smile at the long-forgotten staple of book again, with a glass of red wine in one hand und a comfy blanket; a cuddly pillow in our arms, with our favourite person by our side. So many hobbies (left unattended during summer) await me, that I almost find it difficult to choose.

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But today the sun is shining so wonderfully… so let’s go into the forest again! To inhale the autumn air and catch those precious spots of light between the trees with our freckles. The wind blows away the spiritlessness and the melancholy and makes us feel alive again. Autumn has come! And maybe we will find one or two of my most favorite mushrooms on our way: The shaggy mane mushroom.

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Shaggy mane mushrooms are a delicacy. And sadly very short-lived, why we will never be able to find them on the farmer’s markets or in supermarkets. As soon as they start to show their caps between the fallen leaves, they are ready to be picked up.

20151022-20151022-DSC_9102

If not done so we can almost watch them how they start to compost themselves: The cap will part from the stem and curve outwards until it finally begins to turn into thick inky black liquid that drops down. Not very pretty and the dripping indicates the mushrooms have surpassed their lives as edible fruits of autumn. The three photographs of this single shaggy mane I took within tree days, all about 24 hours apart. But if you are lucky and spot a freshly grown shaggy mane…  gently pick it up with a careful grip and a twist of the hand. Also it is best to immediately remove the stem in the same way so your mushroom will definitely survive the way back home. And there you should directly get a pan, because yes: They really start to decay very quickly! 

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Like almost every mushroom the shaggy manes are best when you simply fry them very shortly over high heat and in a generous amount of good butter. A little bit of salt and pepper on top, maybe a little thyme and a slice of roasted bread to that is all you need for a little bit of luxury in your belly.

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Shaggy mane mushrooms in butter

  • shaggy mane mushrooms… as much as you can find
  • at least 1 tbsp good, unsalted butter
  • a pinch of salt
  • freshly ground pepper
  • thyme leaves

Carefully clean the mushrooms of dirt and remains of the forest. Do not wash them or they will turn soggy. Just use your fingers or a gentle brush without crushing the mushroom. If you haven’t already removed the stems of the mushrooms gently twist them to separate them from the caps and cut everything in bite-sized pieces or chunks.

Put a big pan on the stove and heat it thouroughly. Add the butter and when it starts to sizzle and almost smokes it is time to add the mushrooms. Do not crowd the mushrooms: They should have space in the pan so they can turn brown and crispy within a minute. Gently flip them over to fry them from the other side, too. Season them with a little bit of salt and pepper and some thyme if you want. Serve quickly and best with a slice of golden roasted bread.

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– – – –

Shaggy mane mushrooms taste like a wonderful mixture of porcini and green asparagus. The flavour is very mild and still remains for quite a time. A real delight! You can find them on meadows, all the time between March an Novembre, and even fertilized lawns in residential areas are a likely place for them to grow.

You can recognize them by a tall, slim growth, a reddish or brownish offset tip on the otherwise almost white cap, that is covered with upturned scales.

When you pick mushrooms in the woods always be aware of evil twins! Shaggy mane mushrooms for example have a twin that is edible too but that’s poisonous when eaten with alcohol. Always be sure to pick only those mushrooms you definitely know are edible! Go to mushroom counseling if you are just the slightest bit unsure. Always double-check to be certain or just let it be completely and buy pre-selected mushrooms, if you crave for them! Life is too precious and short to eat a bad mushroom.