Chicken Strips in Tomato Sauce

I am in a new AirB&B near the Nuerburgring to take part in the Green Hell Driving Days over the German Unify Holiday Weekend.

Since Saturday is the holiday, all shops are closed, Sunday they are always closed, I used my arrival day to do my grocery shopping on Thursday.

A busy place 2 days before the weekend. I did not want to go to a Restaurant on the weekend. Everywhere is crowded.

I decided on a meal I can eat on two days. Having a microwave in the kitchen to reheat the dish was easy.

Recipe for 2:

400 g chicken breast strips

1 jar tomato basil sauce

2 green onions

3 garlic cloves

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp butter

Italian and vegetable seasoning

Salt and pepper

300 g pasta

I used very thick pasta that needed 15 min cooking time. I started that first.

In a pan heating up oil and butter, the chopped onions and garlic went in. They needed 3 min. Then the chicken strips. They had to take color on all sides. Don't forget to season.

Next the tomato sauce with a bit of water to clean out the jar. Use pasta water for better consistency. Let it cook 5 min, then the chicken is done.

Dump in the pasta and stir everything.

Burger with BBQ Kraut

I am spending a long weekend at the Nuerburgring for the Green Hell Driving Days.  

After a 2 hour drive I stopped at Raeder Motorsport for a check up of my trackcar. Now breakpads are coming in November.

Then I drove South to Kelberg. On the outskirts beside the gas station I went to Eifel Rast for the third time. During my last stay I was here twice.

The homemade burger are always a good choice and the French fries are very tasty too. These are the fries seldom left on the plate.

I choose the Burger with BBQ Kraut and Cheese. The kraut was sauteed and sweet tangy and went well with all the other ingredients on the burger.

Eating out at an Asian place again

My friend celebrated her 72nd birthday in the middle of September. Since I was away on a racetrack, we went for lunch yesterday.

We went to Lotus Sushi & more in Gross-Umstadt. Last year we've been there too.

They have inproved their menu. It is a bit bigger with some more choices now.

I went for "hot" duck in Oyster sauce with rice and lots of vegetables. I only missed the "hot".

The other dishes were thin rice noodles with salad and seared beef and Udon noodles with duck.

As a small starter we shared some fried wan tans with chicken and carrot filling.

We all loved our food and will come back again.

Pork and Potato Soup

After my Austrian trip I needed something basic with lots of vegetables. Soups are my go to very often. 

I took out a couple of veggies from my fridge, potatoes from a bucket and a freshly grown Salsa Pepperoni from my balcony together with fresh herbs and a bay leaf.

I've bought ground pork in the morning. It is enough soup for 2 days and a portion for my neighbor.

Peeling and chopping all veggies was the main work today. After potatoes and carrots were done, I started to brown the ground pork in some oil. Di not forget to season with salt and pepper. That gave me enough time to prepare the onions, garlic and pepper. The kettle heated the water for the soup.

The veggies needed a couple of minutes together with the browned pork to get some color. Then water, stock cube and herbs went in. A little more seasoning followed.

That all cooked for 25 min. A small dash of soy sauce for depth of flavour and the soup was ready to serve.

Ingredients:

500 g ground pork

2 tbsp grapeseed oil

Salt and pepper

2 carrots

2 shallots

1 red onion

1 large green onion

4 garlic cloves

4 medium potatoes

2 carrots

50 g green top of a leek

1 red bell pepper

1 red chili

1 bay leaf

3 stalks of oregano 1 of majoram

1 beef stock cube

750 ml water

Spaghetti Guanciale Muffins

This is a leftover bake made with tasty ingredients.

I came home yesterday after an 6,5 hours drive from the Salzburgring in Austria. I only took short breaks on the Autobahn and ate a snack while sitting in backed up traffic. No lunch break on the way.

After I came hone, I dropped my stuff and decided that some pasta would make my day today. No fuss, just some tomato paste, passata and even some chopped fresh tomatoes I brought back from Austria. Onions and garlic as a base, sauteed in olive oil, tomato pasre and then a good gluck of Noilly Prat. This bottle is my go to when I need a bit of wine in a dish. 

I learned that on my first trips to France a very long time ago and since then an opened bottle sits on the back of my counter. When it runs empty, it will be replaced. I need about 3 bottles a year in total. I am doing this for over 30 years now, 100 bottles may have passed through my kitchen. The fun thing is, 2001 I have spend 2 weeks in Marsaillon Plage and visited the factory if Noilly Prat and did a tour though the plant.

A way back in my history, but that made my simple tomato sauce spaghetti or the day. A good portion was left over on purpose. I wanted to use it for Sunday lunch with things from the fridge that had to go.

I've baked Twarog Croissants this morning and that left me with 3 egg whites. A small chunk of Guanciale was sitting in my fridge, 3 green onions that still looked fine, even that they stayed 2 weeks in the veggie drawer of my fridge. An open bag of shredded mozzarella needed to be eaten. 

The first step was to cut up the guanciale and put it in a cold pan. Heated up slowly to render the fat out. I used the fat to brush the muffin tins to prevent sticking later. It nostly worked great.

Then the chopped green onions went in with the guanciale to get soft. I mixed that all with the tomato spaghetti and added the egg white. Pasta in the muffin tins first, the other ingredients with the runny egg white on top. Then crowned with mozzarella.

The muffin tin went in the oven at 180 C fan for 20 minutes.

Ingredients:

1 serving of cold tomato sauce spaghetti

3 egg whites

30 g Guanciale

3 green onions

Mozzarella cheese, grated

Twarog Croissants

Since I made Sryniki with Twarog, I am a huge fan of this very dry curd.

All our supermarkets and Discounters have it in stock, no problem to get it and no need to drive to the Polish Shop or Eastern European Mix Markt.

German curd has a lot more liquid and is very creamy. To use that in this recipe, you have to put the curd in a cheese cloth and hang it on a rack with a bowl under it in the fridge for 24 hours. Twarog is the easier choice.

Recipe for 16 pieces:

250 g Twarog

100 g soft unsalted butter

2 egg yolks

120 g sugar

2 tsp vanilla sugar

1 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

300 g flour

To brush: 1 egg yolk +2 tbsp milk

Use a big baking bowl and toss everything in except the flour. Use either your hands, a fork or some other kind - I used my potato masher- to get everything broken up. Then add the flour and press it in a ball. Let it rest 10 min.

Use baking paper and flour it. Cut the ball in 2 pieces and with a rolling pin make a more or less round plate of dough. Use a pizza cutter and divide it in 8 triangles. Cut 2 line in the small end. 

Roll them up from the wide side and pull the cuts wider on top. Put on baking paper and brush with eggwash.

Bake at 180 C on lower shelf for 15 min, then put on top shelf and use fan/grill function to get color on top 3 to 5 min.

Vienna style Schnitzel from Strohschwein

Vienna Schnitzel is usually made from veal, but here they use the pigs from a local farmer and flatten that very thin and prepare it the same way as the real one.

The breaded crust was in bubbles on top if the pork, the way it should be. That means that the breadcrumbs were not pressed down on the pork and it was cooked swimming in clarified butter.

The Schnitzel was served with boiled potatoes with some parsley and wild preiselbeere, a kind of cranberry. A lemon wedge on the side to go on the Schnitzel.

It was a huge piece of pork, even flattened a lot. I actually had a problem to finish it completely.