Recipe 7 and 8 - Apple Pancakes with Maple Syrup Butter and Vanilla Café Latte

I wanted something fast and easy this weekend, because - frankly - I felt a bit exhausted. That's why this book sounded very promising.


Apple Pancakes with Maple Syrup Butter

The book
"30-Minuten-Rezepte. Süße Verführungen." (Parragon Books Ltd., ISBN 978-1-4075-1514-4) was a present, by I am not quite sure anymore who gave it to me (Sorry to whoever...). I have a sweet tooth and this book has nothing but sweet stuff in it, but I don't think I've ever used it before. The recipes are ordered by season, so I chose one of the winter recipes - apple pancakes!

The ingredients
Pancakes
200g flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
100g caster sugar
1 egg
200ml milk
2 apples, peeled and grated
1 teaspoon butter

Maple syrup butter
90g soft butter
3 tablespoons maple syrup

The recipe
Preheat the oven to 140°C. Sift flour, baking powder and cinnamon into a big bowl. Mix in the sugar and form a hole in the middle. Mix egg and Milk in an extra bowl and pour the mixture into the hole in the flour. Stir the egg and milk mixture, slowly adding more and more of the flour until it is all combined and you have a smooth dough. Add the grated apples.
Add the butter to a hot pan on medium heat. When the butter is sizzling, put 3-4 tablespoon-sized chunks of dough into the pan and fry for 1-2 minutes, until the dough produces little bubbles. Turn pancakes over and fry the other side until golden brown.
Once the pancakes are done, keep them warm on a plate in the preheated oven.
For the maple syrup butter melt the butter in a small pan with the maple syrup and stir until it's a smooth sauce. Serve the pancakes on small plates and pour the maple syrup butter on top.

The testing
I made these for our Sunday breakfast. The recipe promised that these would be ready to be served in 25 minutes, and in principle they might be right about that, but for me it took a bit longer, because:
1. I had to grate the apples first and made the mistake of using my grater/grinder thingy with the crank handle for that at first. It works well with e.g. almonds, but not for apples - the grated pieces got stuck in the machine and the only thing coming out of it was apple juice. So I quickly stopped using this finger-friendly option and used the mean little ordinary low-tech grater.
2. I was preparing the vanilla coffee at the same time.
3. My stove needs an extra setting between 3 and 4. 3 doesn't seem to be hot enough and the first batch of pancakes seemed to take forever, even though the pan should have been hot enough already. 4 seems to be too hot and one of the pancakes of the second batch was a bit too brown, too fast. Argh!
4. Preparing breakfast on an empty stomach, means I'm cooking while I'm in a bad mood, which means that minutes no longer seem to last 60 seconds and I was cursing at the apples, the grater, the pancakes, the maple syrup, the stove, my husband (poor thing!) and life in general. Now, in hindsight, I don't think it took much longer than those 25 minutes, only a bit, and maybe my kitchen tools and ingredients were not conspiring against me after all. Actually, looking at the whole process objectively and with a full stomach, these pancakes are very easy to make. Of course - they are just some bloody simple pancakes! What was I thinking...
I only used 50g of sugar, because 100g sounded like a lot, especially if the pancakes are served with syrup butter anyway.

The result
Haha! Thick, fluffy pancakes, with maple syrup butter dropping from top to bottom. Food porn!

The verdict
Thankfully, Roland was not holding a grudge against me after my rude remarks in the kitchen. Maybe the fact that the pancakes were delicious helped with that. He even said that these were the best pancakes he ever had in his whole life, even better than the ones from Herbstreet. I'm not quite sure about the last statement, but I agree that they were very, very good. Proof for the pancakes' goodness: according to the recipe these pancakes should feed 4 to 6 people - the two of us finished them all in one go! I think the dough would also work well with other fruits, like blueberries. 50g of sugar were completely sufficient, just like I thought.


Vanilla Café Latte

The book
No Sunday breakfast without a coffee drink! Usually we have a latte macchiato, but I thought I'd try a variation of the usual stuff. The title of "Coffee & Espresso" (Zabert Sandemann, ISBN 3-89883-122-1) suggests that the book only has coffee and espresso recipes, but that's not all. It also includes snacks and sweet treats that you might be able to get at coffeeshops. It also has a recipe for blueberry pancakes with maple syrup butter, so chances are their coffees go well with the pancakes from the other book, hehe.

The ingredients
1 vanilla bean
300ml milk
300ml hot, strong coffee

The recipe
Cut the vanilla bean in half, scrape out the seeds and put the seeds and the scraped out vanilla bean into a pot together with the milk. Bring milk to a boil, remove the vanilla bean and whisk the milk until foamy. Mix coffee and milk and a glass and serve. Add sugar to taste.

The testing
I was convinced that we still had vanilla beans at home, so didn't even bother checking. Big mistake! Of course, by the time I needed the vanilla bean it was nowhere to be found. Instead I fished the dried, scraped out pieces of vanilla beans from the sugar jar in which I store my home-made vanilla sugar and used some of that vanilla sugar as well for more vanilla taste. For the coffee I just used regular espresso, made with our little Italian espresso maker. And even though I told Roland that he was stirring the milk "the wrong way", now that I'm in a much better mood than this morning, I don't think there's something like "stirring the milk the wrong way". Ahem, sorry!

The result
Well, it's a coffee-milk drink served in a glass. Not much to see here. The milk foam had already vanished by the time I took the picture. My guess is that the milk was too hot to make a good foam.

The verdict
Didn't taste like it was worth the extra effort of boiling the milk with the vanilla bean. I sometimes drink my latte macchiato with a teaspoon of vanilla sugar and that tastes pretty much the same, but with nicer milk foam. Maybe if I had found that stupid vanilla bean it would have made a difference, but somehow I doubt it.

Recipe 6 - Pizza with Smoked Salmon and Crème Fraiche

After the success with the dumplings I was keen to keep going, so tried the next recipe right the next day. My favorite cheesemonger's facebook status had alerted me to the fact that their Sally Barnes smoked wild salmon was on sale, so I looked for a recipe that would allow me to use it and found it in here:

The book
We got the "California" cookbook from our landlord in San Francisco and his girlfriend (Thanks, Michael! Sorry, can't remember your friend's name right now - Caroline?), when we left for Germany. It's by Janet Fletcher and was part of the Williams-Sonoma "New American Cooking" series (ISBN 0-7370-2039-3). It's packed with great recipes - the creamed steakhouse spinach and the crisp salmon fillet are my favorites - and a nice reminder of the yummy food we had in California, so a perfect going-away present.

The ingredients
Dough
1/4 cup (2fl oz/60ml) warm water (110°F/43°C)
1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2-2 cups (7 1/2-10oz/225-315g unbleached all-purpose (plain) flour

Topping
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 cups (6oz/185g) thinly sliced leeks, white and pale green parts only
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1/2 cup (4fl oz/125ml= crème fraiche, at room temperature
1 1/2 tablespoons minced fresh dill
1 teaspoon prepared horseradish
yellow cornmeal for dusting
1 1/2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
6 oz (185g) thinly sliced smoked salmon, at room temperature
4 lemon wedges

The recipe
To make the dough, put the warm water in a large bowl. Sprinkle the yeast over the surface, let stand for 2 minutes, then stir until dissolved. Let stand until bubbly, about 10 minutes. Whisk in the olive oil and salt. Stir in 1 1/2 cups (7 1/2oz/235g) of the flour. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes, using only as much of the remaining flour as needed to prevent sticking. Shape into a ball, transfer to an ailed bowl, turn the dough to coat it with oil, then cover tightly with plastic wrap and let rise at cool room temperature for about 2 hours. Punch down the dough, reshape into a ball, cover the bowl, and let the dough rise again for about 4 hours.
Position a rack in the center of the oven, then line it with with baking tiles or a baking stone. Preheat to 550°F (290°C) for at least 45 minutes. Punch down the dough and turn it out onto a work surface. Shape into a ball. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and let rest for 30 minutes.
To make the topping, melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat. Add the leeks, season with salt and pepper, and stir to coat. Cover, reduce the heat to medium-low and cook until soft, but not mushy, 7-8 minutes. Remove from the heat. In a small bowl, whisk together the crème fraiche, dill, and horseradish. Season with salt and pepper.
On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the dough into a 14-inch (35cm) round. Transfer to a pizza peel or rimless baking sheet dusted with cornmeal. Spread the leeks evenly over the round, leaving a 3/4-inch (2cm) rim uncovered. Brush the rim with half of the olive oil.
Slide the pizza onto the baking tiles or stone. Bake until the curst is crisp and browned, 8-10 minutes. Transfer to a cutting board and brush the rim with the remaining olive oil. Dot the surface with the crème fraiche mixture, then spread it to cover the leeks. Arrange the smoked salmon on top. Cut into 8 wedges. Serve with lemon wedges on the side.

The testing
Instead of active dry yeast I used fresh yeast (Thank you, Polish supermarket!), because I tend to get better results with that. However, I didn't want to deviate too much from the recipe, so tried to do the yeast in warm water thing as described, but after 15 minutes of resting there were no bubbles at all. Stupid yeast - completely dead! So I had another go, but this time I stuck to my usual yeast dough routine and put the flour into the bowl first, then made a starter dough with the yeast, warm water and a bit of the flour and this time the yeast bubbled like crazy, just like it should be. The crème fraiche mixture I prepared just as described in the recipe. I actually have a pizza baking stone, but had no chance of heating it to 290°C, because the maximum temperature of my oven is 270°C, which still seemed hot enough to me. Half an hour before serving time I realized that I had forgotten to buy a lemon and send Roland shopping for one. I didn't let the dough rest for a third time, because I was getting impatient, hungry and kind of jealous - the dough was getting more rest than me! Couldn't have that.
After testing several recipes I was really happy with the detailed recipe and that they mentioned cups, ounces and grams - makes it much easier for those who don't have the right measuring cups or are not used to ounces.

The result
Yes! Looking good, even though the leeks are a bit - eh - burned.

The verdict
The pizza was very crisp and yummy! It was so crisp that I only cut it into 4 wedges and we just ate with our hands and took bites from the slices. After dinner I found the unused lemon in the kitchen - had completely forgotten that I was supposed to serve it with the pizza. Don't think anyone missed it, though. The smoked salmon was really worth its money as well.
We had friends over for dinner and for 4 the amount of pizza wasn't really enough, but thankfully Mairead had brought her famous profiteroles, which we had for dessert with a cardamom chocolate sauce (no recipe, sorry!), so we didn't have to starve. Our visitors volunteered to help us with eating any future salmon pizzas we might plan, which I think means they liked it.
Even though the recipe requires some planning - that lazy dough needs more rest than someone with chronic fatigue syndrome - it was really easy to make and the separate steps were done quickly.

Recipe 5 - Goat cheese dumplings with fried cepes

The book
I didn't have much time to decide on a recipe this morning, because we had slept in, were hungry and were trying to get out the door asap to go to Ranelagh for a weekend brunch (Dillinger's - yummy!). So I went for a book where I knew I would be able to find something good - fast. Tirol kocht! by Lois Hechenblaikner, Karin Longariva and Christoph Wagner (ISBN 3-85498-296-8) is one of the few cookbooks that we really use every once in a while - and even if I don't end up using a recipe from it, I always enjoyed just looking through it. It won an award for best regional cuisine cookbook and it's easy to see why - it's beautifully made with great photos of food and laughing chefs, who look like they are having a good time, and the recipes all sound really, really good. I've done several foodie trips to South Tyrol, so just looking at the picture of the "Schlutzkrapfen" brings back fond old memories and I also like the book, because Roland likes it, i.e. he cooks the fennel soup with tuna filet and the leek risotto with rabbit filet for me, when I'm lucky. As it's a Tyrolian cookbook the vocabulary for ingredients might be a bit odd for Germans (Brötchen sind Semmeln, Hefe ist Germ, Quark ist Topfen), but luckily I grew up in Bavaria and spent many vacations in Austria, so this doesn't cause any issues for me. Main issues, as always with German cookbooks, is rather that ingredients that are easy to get in South Tyrol, Berlin or Munich might not be supermarket staples in Ireland. The dumpling ingredients weren't too exotic, though.

The ingredients
For the dumplings:
200g goat cheese
2 egg yolks
75g soft butter
Salt, fresh ground pepper
Pinch of nutmeg
3 bread rolls, crust removed
125ml whipping cream
70g flour
40g semolina
2 egg whites

For the mushrooms:
4 little cepes
Some olive oil
Salt

For serving:
40g butter
40g parmesan cheese

The recipe
Beat butter and egg yolks with salt, pepper and nutmeg until foamy. Pass goat cheese through a sieve and add it. Cut the bread into small cubes and soak it in the whipping cream.
Add bread, flour and semolina to the butter and egg mixture and mix it thoroughly.
Let the dumpling dough rest for about an hour. Whip the egg whites until stiff and add to the dough.
Form dumplings with two tablespoons, put them into a big pot with boiling salt water and simmer for about 10 minutes.
Clean the mushrooms, cut them into leave-thin slices and fry in a pan with olive oil until crisp. Add salt and pepper to taste.
When the dumplings are ready, remove them from the pot and drain off excess water. Serve with the mushrooms, melted butter and parmesan cheese.

The testing
I was a bit afraid to try dumplings with semolina again, knowing that my bad Knödelkarma might make things difficult, as happened with the last recipe. Semolina is not one of the main ingredients here, so the risk was lower (at least, that's what I was hoping) and shying away from a problem doesn't solve it, right?
The type of goat cheese wasn't specified at all, which seems a bit dangerous, given that this could mean anything from a St. Tola log to Knockadrinna or Halloumi. I assumed it must be a soft cheese and bought a Ryefield goat cheese at Sheridan's cheesemongers and it turned out to be a good choice. I couldn't get cepes, so went for chanterelles and ordinary mushrooms instead. As I wasn't using the specified cepes anyway, I also decided to use a lot more mushrooms and I also cut them into bigger slices. Just four little cepes seemed a bit thrifty. I still had semolina at home, thankfully (not an Irish supermarket staple...), but if I ever run out of it the Polish supermarket would stock it.
Assuming that chef Hansi Baumgartner, whose recipe this is, was not using substandard supermarket bread rolls for his dumplings in Tyrol, I opted for a 400g loaf of La Brea Bakery country white sourdough bread. I knew it would not turn into a soggy mush after the crust was removed and the remainder cut into little cubes and I hoped the sourdough would add a bit more flavor to it as well. Removing the bread crust was weird! It felt like I was skinning a little animal. I've never skinned one, but this is surely coming close. I might have added a bit more cream than called for, because I didn't measure it and added it by instinct.
This time egg and butter were behaving nicely and didn't act up like the last time. The dough was a bit denser than I had expected, but turned out fine in the end.
The mushrooms I fried in three batches, keeping in mind Julia Child's advice: "Don't crowd the mushrooms!".

The result
YES! Perfect dumplings! Served them with the melted butter and parmesan and a green side salad with vinaigrette, accompanied with a glass (ahem, bottle...) of the excellent 2009 Schloss Gobelsburg Grüner Veltliner from Austria, thanks to Chris from Corkscrew.

The verdict
Oh my! It was like a party in my mouth!! The consistency of the dumplings was perfect - firm, yet fluffy at the same time. The flavors were well balanced, the goat cheese not too overwhelming. Just as I had hoped, the sourdough bread added a bit of extra flavor. The mushrooms and the parmesan were great as well and the wine a good match (No surprise there, because the three Corkscrew guys always give great recommendations for food-wine pairing). This is definitely a new favorite of mine and I'm looking forward to trying out a few varieties of this recipe, e.g. with different breads, cheeses, flours, herbs added, etc. The ingredients are easy to get, preparation is easy as well and the results are great. What more could one ask for?

PS: For people living in Dublin, let me add that Una is back to Saturday's Temple Bar market with the fantastic "Le Levain" bread (after a break of several - very loooong - weeks). So if you would like to try this recipe with a great pain au levain or a chestnut sourdough, this is the place to go to. The stand is right next to Denis Healy's in front of the Button Factory. Flavors would be much more intense with those breads and it would be a shame to get rid of the crust, but I still like the idea. 

Recipe 3 and 4 - Vegetable and herb stock with semolina dumplings

I'm not behind on cooking, just the blogging. Had combined two recipes to one dish last week, so this will be a longer entry - brace yourself.


Vegetable and herb stock

The book

Many books mention the use of stocks, but usually I take the easy way out with OXO and co. I needed to get rid of a bunch of carrots and suspect I will have to get rid of many more during this year, so thought this might be a good opportunity to see if homemade stocks are an easy way to combine the necessary with the useful (carrots gone - stock in stock). I used a recipe from "Hausgemachtes. Pikantes für den Vorrat" from Reinhardt Hess (ISBN 3-7742-5452-4). I've used the book before, but less for the recipes, more for the useful tips on how to make preserves. 

The ingredients

1 leek

4 carrots

3 onions

1 potato

4 celery sticks

stems of one bunch of parsley

200ml white wine

2 cloves of garlic

2 tomatoes

1 bunch of mixed herbs (basil, thyme, marjoram, a bit of tarragon)

The recipe

Cut the leek open along its length and wash. Peel onions, carrots and potato, clean and wash the celery sticks. Cut everything into big 3 cm long chunks. Wash the parsley, shake dry and cut into 4 cm long pieces. 

Heat the prepared ingredients in a non-stick pot on medium heat for about 10 minutes, until brown. Add wine and let the mixture simmer until the wine has evaporated. Add 1.5 l of water and the unpeeled garlic cloves, slowly bring to a boil. 

Wash the tomatoes and cut them into big chunks and make sure to remove the green bits. Wash the herbs, shake them dry. Add both to the stock mixture and cover with the lid, but not fully, so that a small gap remains. Simmer for 2 hours on low heat. 

Put stock through a sieve. (I'm leaving out the part about the preserving of the stock in glasses, as I used the stock right away. Moreover, it would lead me to another recipe and I'm having issues with these two already.)

The testing

This was not my best day, I have to admit. I started after work, so was a bit under pressure to get things done fast. I first forgot to add the onions and gave them the wine treatment in a second pot and added them as soon as I could to the big pot. Then I forgot about the garlic until about halfway through cooking time. I do blame the book for that a bit as well (yeah, looking for excuses!) - they were apparently trying to save space and printed two recipes on one page so they listed the ingredients like this: 

1 leek | 4 carrots

3 onions |1 potato

To save space, or maybe because they thought is was unnecessary, they also didn't add any explanations - and I really could have used some. There's no oil or fat mentioned anywhere, yet they want me to put the vegetables into a dry pot for 10 minutes. This is the first recipe that I've ever used that was doing this without any fat. Couldn't bring myself to do this and used a bit of oil as I usually do, because I expected a failure without it. According to the recipe I also don't need to wash the carrots and potato (not mentioned anywhere), but they specify that the garlic should be unpeeled. Why? I don't know! I was also puzzled by the stems of parsley (in the German text is really says "Stängel von 1 Bund Petersilie". What about the leaves? Standing in the kitchen, shaking stems of parsley dry, I felt utterly stupid and decided to add the whole thing. If I put the whole thing through a sieve later on, does is matter? I couldn't get marjoram and tarragon, but apart from that I used the ingredients they mentioned. 


Semolina dumplings

The book

For the semolina dumplings, known as "Grießnockerl" in Bavaria, I used a recipe from "Meine Bayerische Küche" by Alfons Schuhbeck (ISBN 3-89883-097-7). I had inherited the book from my late father. Although he died in 2007 I can't remember using the book. About time! 

Schuhbeck is one of those "world famous in Germany" celebrity chefs. The name might sound familiar to tourists who went to the Hofbräuhaus in Munich. At the same location Schuhbeck enterprises have mushroomed from one to too many and you can now get Schuhbeck icecream, Schuhbeck spices, Schuhbeck chocolate and Schuhbeck whatever there. Last thing I heard about him was that he created a McDonald's burger. Despite all that the book seems nice enough; maybe a bit too many promo shots of the chef looking at ingredients somewhere in the beautiful Bavarian country side and not enough of the actual food. 

The ingredients

50g soft butter

1 egg (room temperature)

80g semolina

Salt

freshly grated nutmeg

The recipe

Whip the butter until foamy, add the egg and whip the mixture until it all comes together. Add the semolina and salt and nutmeg to taste, combine into an even mixture. Let it rest for at least an hour at room temperature. 

In a pot bring salted water to a boil. Use two teaspoons to form evenly shaped dumplings, dip the spoons into hot water in between each dumpling to keep the dough from sticking to them too much. Let the dumplings simmer in the water for about 15 minutes, until they are done (do not boil). Remove with a slotted spoon in serve in a broth (with chicken meat, vegetables, etc. as you like)

The testing

Did I mention it wasn't a good day? Well, this was doomed from the beginning, because Grießnockerl and me - that's a long, unhappy and complicated relationship. Those stupid little Nockerl never turn out right for me. In a little side note Herr Schuhbeck had mentioned how important it is that the egg has the right temperature, so that the butter keeps the right consistency. Usually, butter and eggs do what ever I like them to do, but the Alfons' comment must of jinxed it or maybe it was my bad Nockerlkarma. They stubbornly refused to come together and in my desperation I added a bit of flour first and the semolina without trying my luck with a new batch of egg and butter. They still looked like Nockerl anyway and kept their shape in the water without falling apart. That reminds me that my father had bad dumpling karma, too. Three crying kids at home who refused to eat the dumpling slush he had fished from pot with boiling water. Clearly it must be hereditary bad dumpling karma!

The result

Once everything was ready I added the dumplings to the stock, together with a few leftover carrot slices. 

The verdict

The stock was, of course, much better than the stuff you get from the cubes. Hubby remarked that the celery taste was a bit too overwhelming (I didn't agree with that), whereas I thought the tomatoes had come out too strong (hubby didn't agree with that). Despite the slightly confusing recipe I guess I got it right and I hope to be making this more often. I used the leftover stock for a risotto and it was great! I guess, though, I will better keep my eyes open for a less confusing stock recipe and I will not do this on a workday evening again. Dinner happened way too late that day. 

The dumplings, however, need some work. Or maybe just my karma. The core wasn't cooked through properly - or did it just feel like that, because of the butter-egg issue? Despite that they were much closer to the ideal Grießnockerl than most of the other Nockerl stuff I've tried so far. I think I will need to try making these again. 

Recipe 2 - Wild Mushroom and Potato Matafaim

While trying to find a new recipe to test, I realized that my main problems are:

• left-overs
• package sizes

Still haven't used the leftover sauce from the last test, because I also had to get rid of a bag of potatoes and the duck confit from the holidays. Unfortunately, the food industry seems convinced that a) the average family size is 6 people or more and b) there's no such thing as too much of a good thing. Why else would they sell carrots in kilo bags? While browsing through my books I noticed several recipes that called for 1 carrot and 1 celery stick - but they never tell you what to do with the rest of the celery and 950g of carrots. Stupid!! Guess we'll need to eat a lot of crudité this year...

The book

Anyway, finding a recipe that would help me get rid of some of my leftover food and wouldn't produce more leftovers was successful in the end. I settled for "A passion for vegetables" from Paul Gayler (ISBN 1-85626-476-9). I have no idea where I got it from. I thought I had bought it in San Francisco, but then I discovered that the price on the back is in £. It still looks pretty shiny and new, probably because I can't remember cooking anything from it. A pity, though! The recipes sounds great - red pepper spätzle, spinach salad with crisp prosciutto and goat's cheese dressing, braised fennel with sour orange and chestnuts, etc. Why did I not use this before? In the end, despite fantastic sounding alternatives, I settled for the Wild Mushroom and Potato Matafaim, which would help me get rid of the last potatoes and the parsley I still had. 

The ingredients

250g new potatoes

50g unsalted butter

1 banana shallot

100g mixed wild mushrooms, cleaned

2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

50g plain flour

2 free range eggs, separated

150ml milk

A pinch of sugar

Salt and freshly ground pepper

The recipe

Matafaim, meaning 'to beat hunger', is a potato dish eaten by farmers in the south of France after they have brought in the harvest. Traditionally it is torn with forks to serve. (Quoting from the book, so no idea if this is actually true or complete nonsense, invented to make it sound a bit more fancy.)

Preheat the oven to 190°/375° gas mark 5. Boil the potatoes in their skins until just tender. Drain and allow to cool slightly, then peel and cut into slices 1cm (1/2 inches) thick. 

Heat half the butter in a 20 cm (8in) ovenproof frying pan and sauté the potato slices for about 4-5 minutes on each side, until golden. Remove from the pan and keep warm. Add the remaining butter to the pan, then add the shallot and wild mushrooms and sauté over a high heat until tender. Add half the parsley, season to test, then set aside. 

Sift the flour into a bowl, then beat in the egg yolks, milk and a pinch of salt to make a smooth batter. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites to a snow with the sugar, then fold them into the batter. Return the potatoes to the mushroom pan and raise the heat. Pour the batter in, and tilt the pan to let it run under the vegetables and spread evenly. Transfer to the oven and cook for 8-10 minutes, until puffy and golden. Tear into pieces with the aid of 2 forks and transfer to a serving bowl. Garnish with the remaining parsley and serve. 

The testing

I used the rest of the potatoes that I had already cooked earlier this week and the mushrooms I used were not extremely wild, but rather tame.  I also used goose fat, instead of butter, to sauté the potatoes. Why? Leftovers, that's why! Potatoes sautéd in goose fat are also extremely delicious, so why use butter if you don't have to? I also don't know how banana shallots are different from non-banana shallots and I also knew that I don't have shallots, but leftover pearl onions, so guess what I used...
I didn't use forks to tear the end result apart and after all the emphasis on how it's tradition and whatnot I felt a bit like a traitor, but the spatula worked just as well. 

The result

I served this on plates with a side salad with cherry tomatoes and bits of Irish cheese (St. Gall, if you need to know). Serving bowl, pah!

The verdict

This one reminded me very much of the "Bauernfrühstück" my mother used to make. A simple, easy-to-make, hearty dish - and great for getting rid of leftover potatoes, eggs and parsley. It feels, though, like the story about the French farmers and the beating of the egg whites was added to the recipe to make it look like something a bit more special. However, I don't see anything wrong with simple, yummy dishes and will definitely make this again. 

I'm also pretty sure that I will come back to this book for some other recipes. They sound too fantastic not to be tried - but other books first!

Recipe 1 - Tagliatelle with squash and pine nuts

The first recipe test! After work I decided not to wait for the weekend to start off the testing. However, while going through one of my trusted pasta cookbooks and the local SPAR market for ingredient shopping, I soon discovered that I was missing the most important of all cookbooks - the "Things you can cook with the food that you find at your local SPAR after 7:00 PM that still looks good enough to be eaten" cookbook. I finally managed to find the last squash without moldy bits, but can already see that some of the more "exotic" recipes will require longer shopping trips.

The book

The recipe I'm testing is from "Das große Pasta Kochbuch" (Publisher: Könemann, ISBN 3-8290-0433-8). Yes, German - and no, it's not just Spätzle with Sauerkraut. Recipes from all over the place and I'm giving you the English translation.

This was probably one of my first cookbooks. I bought it, because it seemed to offer good value for money and I've actually used it many times; some of my standard pasta dishes come from this book. Not being a big fan of squash I had avoided the squash recipe so far, but as the stuff is still available, I wanted to give it a try.

The ingredients

30g butter

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

380ml vegetable broth (oddly specific, isn't it?)

750g squash, peeled and cut into small cubes

nutmeg

pepper

250ml whipping cream

80g pine nuts, roasted

500g fresh tagliatelle

2 tablespoons chopped chives

freshly grated parmesan

The recipe

Melt the butter in a big pan, then steam the chopped onion for about 3 minutes, until it softens; then add the garlic and steam for another minute. In the meantime, prepare the vegetable broth, then add it to the pan with the squash cubes. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and let the whole thing simmer until the squash has softened.

Season to taste with pepper and nutmeg on low heat and add the cream. Heat the squash-cream mixture a bit, but don't let it boil. Puree it in the blender until smooth.

In the meantime, cook the pasta in a big pot of boiling saltwater until it's al dente. Drain the pasta when it's done and put it back into the pot.

Add the sauce and pine nuts and garnish with the chives. Serve with parmesan on the side.

The testing

I had to make small changes to the recipe, but the essentials stayed the same. Had only one clove of garlic left (will have to put that onto my next shopping list) and I used a big pot for steaming the squash, not a pan. I also used a red onion, because they looked better (as I said - SPAR after 7:00 PM...). The non-moldy squash resulted in slightly less than 750g of cubes, so I reduced the amount of broth a bit. Maybe the broth wasn't "brothy" enough, as I had to season with a bit of extra salt to make it taste nicer. I also didn't use fresh tagliatelle, but dried tagliatelle that I had made myself from scratch two days earlier - some colored with beetroot, some with a bit of pepper in the pasta dough - and it was definitely not 500g of pasta, only enough for 2, so we have some left over sauce.

The result

Here's what it looked like. Wanted to upload a photo from the cookbook for comparison, but blogger gave me an error message. Surprisingly, it didn't look much different. Using their somewhat silly serving suggestion of adding bay leaves just for show might have helped my dish to earn points in the look-alike department.

The verdict

My husband Roland took his first bite and exclaimed: "So squash can actually taste nice!" - I tend to agree. Still not my favorite veggie, but a nice dish for those seasons with less tasty vegetable options. The pine nuts gave it an interesting note - depending on the amount of nuts with each fork the taste changed a bit with each bite; without them it would have been abit boring. Will make this again, but would probably try to give a bit more zing, more tanginess the next time, possibly with a dash of lemon juice or some goats cheese mixed into it. This would actually also make a nice squash soup.

2012 - my year of recipe testing

When I was going through my recipe books before Christmas, trying to make up my mind for our Christmas dinner, I ended up not using any of them. Instead I did an internet search for recipes that I knew I wanted to cook. That's when I realized that:

1. I have too many recipe books.

2. I do not use them.

3. This is insane!

It's not that I don't like to cook - I love cooking! I just end up using the same old recipes or recipes from the internet. Often, I just throw some random stuff together in a pot and that works fine most of the time. At the same time, I am running out of space for my recipe books and I keep getting more. I don't buy them anymore, but I get them as presents and I love leafing through them, too. I just rarely use them!

So in 2012, I'll put an end to this madness. I will use at least 1 recipe from one of my books each week. I will also try to use recipes from as many books as possible. To stop me from just using my old favorite recipes, I will also need to make sure I use only recipes I haven't tried before. That still leaves me with a lot of flexibility. I can do starters, main, desserts; I can cook, bake or mix drinks. I can do some of the quick and easy recipes on weekday evenings or some more complicated ones that need a few hours of preparation. The only thing limiting me is the choice of recipe books - only the ones I own.

So, to see how much of a limit that is, I took stock:

• Vegetarian dishes: 7 books (I'm not a Vegetarian, but I like good meatless dishes)
• Wok cooking: 3 books (interestingly, I no longer own a wok, after my old one got moldy and rusty in our old apartment)
• Fish: 2 books
• Wines and cocktails: 5 books (yes, no recipe needed for drinking wine, I know...but wine pairing is easier with some advice)
• Baking and desserts in general: 16 books!
• Books dedicated to chocolate: 6!
• Rice, pasta and potato dishes: 4 books
• Regional cuisine: 14 books (includes Indian, Californian, Bavarian, Irish - to name only a few)
• Also, some books from famous or not-so-famous cooks and food lovers and some that are difficult to categorize ("Modern lounge"? What the...?).

I guess that shows that I love my carbs and chocolate in particular. It also looks like I should buy a new wok. Let the cooking begin!