thursdays food

Color stunner

theinversecook — Sat, 22 May 2010 19:41:37 +0000

Well, it looked rather colorful in real life

I was thinking of stark contrasts, both in flavor and in color and actually found a way to include turmeric and cumin in a spaghetti recipe.

Spaghetti with turmeric, cumin and caramalized tomatoes (3 small servings)

300g dried spaghetti
120g cream
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1/s tsp cumin
1/2 tsp pepper
a pinch of dried oregano
2 cloves of garlic, cut in thick slices
handful of olives
3 tomatoes
10g butter
1 tsp olive oil
sugar, salt

1. Half the tomatoes, cut out the middle stalk and sprinkle salt and sugar onto the cut sides. Heat up a grill pan, brush with a little olive oil and caramalize the tomatoes for about 3 minutes until they are quite brown and give off a pleasant aroma. Take out of pan, set aside.

2. Heat the butter in another pan and saute the garlic for 1-2 minutes, then take out the garlic. In a mortar, crush the cumin and the pepper and mix with the turmeric. Add to the pan and fry briefly, then the cream and the oregano and reduce by one half. Salt to taste.

3. Cook spaghetti very al dente and mix with the cream sauce together with the olives. Cut each half of the tomatoes in 3 pieces and add as well. Simmer until spaghetti are done have absorbed some of the liquid.

Another strange fruit…

theinversecook — Fri, 21 May 2010 15:54:05 +0000

…apart from my head with new haircut. When I saw this beauty in the supermarket I found my favorite scientific theory verified: Nature is not normal. The fruit with its rubbery lobes and candy-pink color looks rather tormented to me, radiating a phallic charme in an alien way. Its flesh looks like poppy-seed cheesecake.

The pitaya’s flavor (pitahaya, dragon fruit) reminds me of Kiwi, but has a strong aroma of nothing. In a fruit salad it would probably be nice with a dozen splashes of a good spirit, I take it.

Hot Currywurst (Upd. 4 June 2010)

theinversecook — Wed, 19 May 2010 16:49:01 +0000

‘Feuer Frei’ in Münster-Gievenbeck serves the beloved ‘Currywurst’, burgers and other grilled goods on a heat-scale from one to seven:

1 – Normal (not hot)
2 – Rookie
3 – Hot
4 – Fire in ze hole!
5 – Diabolo
6 – Inferno
7 – Apocalypse

(Liberal translations)

Upon ordering a Currywurst “5″, I was told it might be too much for a start with a nod towards the shelf where the bottles of ultra hot sauces reside, bearing names like “Vicious Viper”, “Black Mamba”, “Pain 100%” and “Da Bomb”.

So, being a careful person, I opted for a Currywurst “4″ with fries. It wasn’t that hot but the sauce had a nice garlic flavor and a thick and smooth consistency; and the sausage was quite good. Also, the Wurst did not drown in the sauce, but finishing the meal you are left with just enough sauce to eat with the remaining fries. I will report back when I had the “Diabolo”. Recommended.

Feuer frei!
Inh. Dirk Topheide
Rüschhausweg 18
48161 Münster
Phone +49 251 9173900

Update 4 Junie 2010. I climbed that step to “5″ now – “Diabolo”. And hot that Currywurst was! Probably the hottest I am happy to take at the moment. Oh boy.

Cauliflower and potatoes, with naan

theinversecook — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:27:56 +0000

It’s not that hard to properly cook a steak, no matter what chefs on TV are telling me. If you can’t cook a steak, don’t call yourself a chef, period. I don’t have a problem with the flavor of meat, but when I was still a vegetarian (what happened? I got weak over an Indian chicken curry…) transforming mild tasting vegetables, legumes or grains into something delectable was the thing. Should probably be done on a daily basis. This is delicious.

Cauliflower and potatoes

1/2 cauliflour in mouth-sized pieces
5 medium waxy potatoes, skinned and chopped in mouth-sized pieces
1 onion, sliced thin
2 cloves of garlic
1/2 tsp of cumin
1/2 tsp of turmeric
1/2 tsp of coriander seeds
1 dried bird’s eye chili
sea salt, pepper, vegetable oil or ghee, water

Heat 2 tbsp of oil to medium heat and add the onions. Saute for about 8 minutes, then add the ground spices, salt, about 100g of water and the potatoes. Cover and let simmer for 10 minutes, then add the caulifour and cook for another 10-15 minutes. Add a little water if the mixture gets too dry. Season with additional salt and pepper. Serve with naan bread. Recipe follows shortly.

Naan

250g plain flour
50g low-fat-yoghurt
100g milk
1/2 egg, whisked
5g fresh yeast or 1/2 tsp of dried yeast
pinch of sugar
black onion seeds (‘Nigella’)

Dissolve the yeast in the handwarm yoghurt and milk together with the salt and the pinch of sugar. Let stand for 20 minutes. Add the flour, the half egg and mix to a soft and smooth dough. Let rest for one hour at room temperature.

Put dough on the floured counter, sprinkle with the onion seeds and fold dough in half and shape into a sausage. Divide into four pieces. Let rest for 10 minutes, then roll out each to a thin circle. Bake on a hot baking stone at 250°C for 4-7 minutes or until blistered. Brush with olive oil as it comes out of the oven. Or shallow-fry in a hot pan with a little vegetable oil. A tandoori would come in handy. (Dreamy eye moment?)

Chili con carne

theinversecook — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:03:13 +0000

I’ve used black beans instead of kidney beans in this fiery chili con carne to suit my very personal taste; I am not too keen on big fleshy beans. Also the black beans have a slightly sweet and, I find, an almost smoky flavor. The small amount of lentils give the chili more flavor and also soak up any excess liquid.

I like this hot, deseeding the habanero will not take away the heat at all, since the capsaicin sits in the white flesh of the habanero fruits.

Chili con carne

250g minced meat (pork and beef)
1 onion, roughly chopped
1 reddish-green bell pepper, chopped into strips
2 big tomatoes, skinned, deseeded and chopped
1 clove of garlic, chopped
75g dried black beans, soaked overnight
1/4 tsp of turmeric
25g red lentils
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 twig of thyme
1/2 habanero chili or 3 dried bird’s eye chilis
100-150g water
sea salt
vegetable oil
splash of olive oil
splash of lemon juice
25g good quality dark chocolate, chopped (optional)

Cook the black beans together with the tumeric and a teaspoon of salt in about 1.5 litres of water.This takes about 60-120 minutes depending on the beans. Drain.

Put cumin, coriander and pepper into a mortar and grind it to a medium-coarse spice blend.

Put a large pan on highest heat and add the vegetable oil so the bottom of the pan is just coated. Just as it starts to smoke, add the chopped pepper and onions. Leave for a while then give it a stir. When you smell the roasting aromas of the onions, add the meat and let it sizzle still on highest heat until the bottom of the meat ball is quite dark. After two more minutes break up the minced meat and stir everything together.

Add the tomatoes, some salt, the garlic, the thyme,the chilsi and some (if not all) of the spice blend to taste. Reduce heat and let simmer until tomatoes start to fall apart and get all mushy. Add about 100g water, the black beans and the red lentils and let simmer for 15-20 minutes until lentils are soft. Remove thyme and add a splash of olive oil and lemon juice.

For a creamy finish, add the chopped cocolate before serving. Good with a spoon of sour cream and/or crusty bread.

Stuffed camel (T.C. Boyle)

theinversecook — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:52:09 +0000

This is perfect for a large number of guests and you can make it in advance. If you can’t get fresh bustards, chicken is fine, but you might want to increase the number of dates to 600 as it is a dry meat.

Stuffed camel

500 dates
200 plover eggs
20 two-pound carp
4 bustards, cleaned and plucked
2 sheep
1 large camel
Seasoning

“Dig trench. Reduce inferno to hot coals, three feet in depth. Separately hard-cook eggs. Scale carp and stuff with shelled eggs and dates. Season bustards and stuff with stuffed carp. Stuff stuffed bustards into sheep and stuffed sheep into camel. Singe camel. Then wrap in leaves of doum palm and bury in pit. Bake 2 days. Serve with rice.
Serves 400″

Source: T.C. Boyle: Water music

Sweet tea biscuits (Paul Bocuse)

theinversecook — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 22:23:05 +0000

Sweet tea biscuits. First batch right, second batch left

These brittle biscuits make a fine teatime snack. Or pop them on the coffee table and watch them disappear. The dessert chapter alone in Paul Bocuse’s “Standard Kochbuch” (German edition) is 200 pages thick, the entire book being a 830 page opus. As paperback it absolutely qualifies itself as a candidate for the aspiring cook’s vademecum though.

Paul Bocuse’s desserts, cakes and baked things are rich. His brioche dough is 500g flour, 500g butter and 6-7 eggs. The recipes that I’ve used so far used half the butter. His ‘brioche mousseline’ is made from 500g brioche dough and 125g extra butter, that is folded in. I trust Normandy butter is delicious eaten directly from barrels with big wooden spoons.

This recipe is simple but still I managed to burn the first batch a little. The second came out better. I’ve halved the recipe, should you wonder about the half egg. The other half made a mini galette with ham and cheese. Cute, isn’t it? (No pics)

Tea biscuits (makes 50)

250g plain flour
250g sugar
Pinch of salt
150g good sweet butter, cold
1/2 egg, whisked, cold
2 eggs, cold
1/2 tbsp crème fraiche, cold
1 tbsp orange blossom essence

Amass the flour on the counter or your preferred workspace, add the rest of the ingredient and either mix with a large knife with cutting motions or use your ice-cold hands (if you are cool like that…). Do not overknead the dough. In fact, do not knead the dough as you would a bread dough to improve elasiticity, which is the last thing we want in cookies. Instead keep cutting through it with knife or hands until everything is incorporated and there are no pieces of butter left. Put in the fridge for one hour.

Shape into two sausages and put in fridge for 30 minutes. Then cut off disks. Bake at 170°C for 15-20 minutes. Why do they take so long? I don’t know. “They don’t if you almost burnt the first batch of them” – No, they didn’t brown for the first 15 minutes at all. Blame the oven that suddenly got all hot. The maestro did not include baking times as far I can tell, so…

Source: Das Paul-Bocuse-Standardkochbuch

Important notice (Updated 18 March 2010)

theinversecook — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:44:36 +0000

Jürgen Dollase, the food critic, eats a hamburger.

“[The hamburger] is probably not made for being eaten with a knife and a fork”

Duh.

Update of 18 March 2010 …and the follow-up. Here, Dollase can be seen suggesting introducing “crisp” elements for a better mouth-feeling of the hamburger like salad. Finally he decides it is enough and leaves us with the remark “Boy, this spiced mush really clings to your palate for hours…”

Even though I am not a huge fan of his, there is something very refreshing about his intellectual obsession with food. But in terms of curiosity for the culinary life around him and voracity for facts about food he is not half a Jeffrey Steingarten.

Why all of this is filed under “Books” on the newspaper’s site is another mystery. But not food-related.

Cooking mysteries: #1

theinversecook — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 23:33:59 +0000

#1: Why do chefs use white pepper for white sauces but are delighted by flecks of real vanilla in dessert sauces?

Just wondering…

Gerolsteiner “Fit – Apfel Zitrone” in zwei Farben? (Update 5. März 2010)

theinversecook — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:17:45 +0000

Das gleiche Produkt laut Etiketten, aber in verschiedenen Farben. Wie seltsam. Habe vor einer Woche bei verbraucherservice@gerolsteiner.com gefragt, was es damit auf sich hat. Bisher keine Antwort.

Nun eine Antwort von Gerolsteiner per Brief. Quintessenz ist, dass man sich die Farbabweichung nicht schlüssig erklären kann, weist aber darauf hin, dass ein Nachdunkeln entweder durch Oxidation wie bei einem angeschnittenen Apfel oder durch Einfluss von Wärme möglich ist. Als Vitamin C-Quelle habe man sich bei “Gerolsteiner Fit” für Acerolakirschsaft entschieden, dem man vor der Zugabe den Farbstoff entzieht. Durch Wärmeeinfluss könne es geschehen, dass der Acerolasaft seine natürliche dunkle wieder Farbe annimmt.

Außerdem sei man bereit, Proben einer genauen qualitätstechnischen Prüfung zu unterziehen. Eine kleine Entschädigung sei mit separater Post unterwegs. Dem Brief lag noch eine Image-Broschüre und eine CD mit einem Unternehmensfilm bei.

Die Erklärungsansätze stehen meiner Meinung nach auf etwas tönernen Füßen, da die Farbabweichung doch recht drastisch ist. Vielleicht gerade der Fall, in dem alles zusammengekommen ist? Ich glaube nicht, dass ich Proben einschicken werde, ist auch gar nicht mehr möglich, da ich schon fleißig getrunken habe

Offensichtlich lebe ich noch, es ist also zu hoffen, dass die Farbabweichung in der Tat keine gesundheitlichen Folgen haben wird.

Nun ist ein Riesenpaket von Gerolsteiner eingetroffen…
was mag da drin sein?

Sechs kleine Trinkbecher! Eine schöne Entschädigung, auch, wenn die Frage nach den Ursachen nicht beantwortet werden konnte. Vielleicht war es die Apfelschorle in falscher Flasche.

thursdays food

Color stunner

Spaghetti with turmeric, cumin and caramalized tomatoes (3 small servings)

Another strange fruit…

Hot Currywurst (Upd. 4 June 2010)

Cauliflower and potatoes, with naan

Cauliflower and potatoes

Naan

Chili con carne

Chili con carne

Stuffed camel (T.C. Boyle)

Stuffed camel

Sweet tea biscuits (Paul Bocuse)

Tea biscuits (makes 50)

Important notice (Updated 18 March 2010)

Cooking mysteries: #1

#1: Why do chefs use white pepper for white sauces but are delighted by flecks of real vanilla in dessert sauces? Just wondering…

Gerolsteiner “Fit – Apfel Zitrone” in zwei Farben? (Update 5. März 2010)

#1: Why do chefs use white pepper for white sauces but are delighted by flecks of real vanilla in dessert sauces?

Just wondering…