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.

Dumpling variety cheese filled

Austria is dumpling country. Here are so many varieties to choose from. Many of the recipes are cooked in Germany too.

Bread dumplings are popular, others are made with potatoes or flour.

These two I choose are made with little cut up white bread. It should be dry. It gets mixed with eggs and liquid, or sauteed onions and cheeses are folded or stuffed in.

I had a soft green dumpling with chives and parsley that was stuffed with mozzarella.

The purple one was beetroot with tiny chunks of Austrian mountain cheese.

Both dumplings sat in Beurre noisette or browned butter.

A bowl of mixed salad came with the dish.

Hangar 7 Salzburg Breakfast at the Café

The Red Bull Museum Salzburg at Hangar 7.

After checking out all Red Bull branded airplanes and helis, the F 1 cars and all the art that was exibited there, I went to the café for some second breakfast.

I choose a Austrian Verlängerten as a coffee and an Omelet with cress and cheese.

A very fluffy folded omelett came with a basket of different breads.

Very tasty.

Austrian Pork Schnitzel with Mushroom Sauce

Served with homemade egg pasta. Mushrooms are called here Schwammerl, they looked and tasted like button mushrooms.

The schnitzel is from a certain pig breed that is local to this area. The restaurant has a kitchen that uses mostly regional and seasonal products. The food quality is high.

The Schnitzel was very lightly breaded and panfried. Fresh mushrooms sauteed in a creamy sauce were on top of the 2 schnitzel.

A huge portion of freshly made pasta was beside them, filling the plate completely.

I had an Austrian special soda with it: Almdudler.  A herb soda, I love since the time I was here as a kid in holiday.

Eating out at 12 Apostel in Arnstadt

I've visited an ex coworker at his new place to live. I haven't seen him for 10 years. He and his wife took me out to lunch in downtown Arnstadt. 

The city is called the Bach Stadt after the composer Johann Sebastian Bach. The city is  South of the capitol of Thuringa, Erfurt.

12 Apostel is a well known Italian restaurant and on a Sunday pretty busy. But we were able to catch the last table st 11:30 AM.

It was Pasta for all three if us.

I went for tagliatelle with radicchio in cream sauce topped with Parma ham. My friend had lasagne and his wife spaghetti bolognese.

These three dishes were good choices and the restaurant is place to go to again.