Fish Curry with Tahini and Coconut milk

A quick curry with a creamy and mild sauce.

Do use good quality white fish. I used Skrei and Halibut, they both are good for cooking in a sauce and will retain their structure and not fall apart. This kind of fish is on the expensive side here at the fishmonger, but worth it. Treat yourself and your friends to something good.

I never had a curry that contained Tahini or sesame paste. It makes a mild curry with a subtle flavour. Serve it with Basmati rice.

Recipe:
250 g Skrei
200 g Halibut
3 spring onions
1 clove of garlic
1 knob of ginger
1 lemongrass stalk
2 parsnips
Parsley
1 tbsp coconut oil
Salt and pepper
3 tbsp red Thai chili paste
60 g Tahini
2 tbsp Nuoc Mam
200 ml coconut cream
100 ml cream
1 lime
1 tsp chili Ancho

Chop spring onions, garlic, parsnips and ginger and fry it in a wide pan in coconut oil with the broken lemongrass stick.
When it is soft, add the red Thai curry, tahini, coconut cream and cream. Season.

Add Nuoc Mam and lime juice.
Cut the fish in good chunks and add it to the sauce. Cook on low heat until the fish is done. Do not overcook it.
Sprinkle with parsley or coriander and serve with Basmati rice.

Tasty Hotel Breakfast

Hotel nights end and you are looking forward to a good breakfast.
I do a lot of travelling in Germany.
Many times you just get something to eat without any satisfaction. Pick the item you like the most and that is it.

But it can be so different. Waking up and thinking about the great breakfast to come.

Staying at the NH Hotel Berlin Mitte at Friedrichstrasse is such a place. There are photos on the hotel website that look promising. Usually I am sceptical, when I see those photos. But NH Hotels every time hold what they offer. The standard is very good, great beds, nice service and always friendly.

My favourite are the freshly made omelets.
Yum. A reason to come back again.

The NH Hotel in Frankfurt even has an Asian breakfast corner with fish soup and salads and funny seasoned pancakes. Asian travellers love to stay at that place.

Spiced Eggnogg or Eierlikör

Ingredients for 2 bottles á 200 ml

150 g double cream
A pinch of salt
1/2 cinnamon stick
10 green cardamom pods, only the seeds
1 vanilla pod
Pinch of Anis seed
Pinch of Fennel seed
1 slice ginger
1 slice organic orange peel
25 quail egg yolks or 5 free range egg yolks from happy birds
100 g sugar
750 ml Vodka min 38 %

Heat up the cream with salt and all the spices and the orange peel anf let it rest 10 min.
Beat egg yolks with sugar until creamy and pour into the hot spiced milk.

Prepare a bain marie with a pot filled up 2 to 3 cm boiling water and set the bowl on top. Take care that the bowl does not reach the water.
Heat the egg mixture and stir with a spatula until it reaches  75 - 78 C
Add vodka  and pour the mix through a sieve.
Fill into sterilized bottles. Keeps in the fridge for 6 weeks.

Friends of mine have 7 quail hens. They have a lot of room to run around and 3 different stalls with a wide open space to enjoy warm weather. Now they rest and do not lay eggs. They are not forced to do it by lights that suggest that it is summer. They are happy Ladies.
The better the life of the hens is, the better are the eggs.

Hot Chocolate with Mint

Do you love the thin After Eight chocolates?

If you have a craving for something like this, but no shops are open, get into the kitchen and check your basic ingredients.

Is any kind of milk in the house. Animal or plant based.
Do you have instant chocolate powder, solid dark chocolate or unsweetened cocoa on hand.
Now for the mint: use basic mint tea bags or Moroccan mint bags or even fresh mint leaves.

My friend is a YouTuber and sells her own homemade scented melts. She has one melt that smells like Peppermint bark. Smelling it you get a craving for After Eight.

She posted a video on Sunday on her channel  Rosesandivy77

The moment I finished watching it, I went into the kitchen and prepared a cup. So tasty.

Potato Goulash

Serve it Vegan or not  - your choice!

This kind of recipe is found in the middle and southwest of Germany. It is a very old poor people food. We brought it into the 21th century.
While preparing it, we realised that we made a vegan dish until the moment we dropped the grilled sausage slices in. Leave them out, and you still have a very filling and tasty meal.

recipe for 4:
600 g potatoes
2 onions
2 carrots
1 yellow bell pepper
1 red bell pepper
1 lemon
2 cloves of garlic
1 organic lemon
2 tbsp parsley
1/2 bunch of chives
1 tsp fresh oregano leaves
500 ml veg stock
salt and pepper
sunflower oil

sausages
yogurt
A little greated cheese

Peel the potatoes and cook them in salted water, drain and steam off.
Peel the carrots and cut in 1 cm discs.
Cut the bell peppers in bite size bits
Chop the onions.
Zest the lemon and mix it with chopped garlic and parsley = gremolata
In a pan in some oil soften the carrots and bell peppers. Season with salt and pepper. That takes nearly 15 min.
In an other pan saute the onions until tender and a little brown.
In the former potato cooking pot, heat up the veg stock.
Pour 1/3 of it into a high blender container and add 1/3 of the potatoes, 1/ 3 carrot and bell pepper mix and make it a fine blend.
Pour that back into the hot stock and add all the veggies. Season with the gremolata and finish with chives.

For the carnivores:
Now you can grill some Frankfurter sausages and add the slices to the mix. Top
each serving with a little yogurt and cheese,  enjoy.

Frozen grilled Egg Yolk on a Ham Toastie

This is a pimped up version of an old German classic:  Strammer Max   or strong max

Today we prepared some dishes that are from the old times, Mother or Grandmother recipes taken up to the 21 century.

Many chefs are going back to traditional recipes and are using the basic ingredients to make something that is in today's restaurant style. The old classics in a new interpretation showing the generation now, that these are as tasty as the modern food.

Nearly forgotten vegetables, poor people food, eating meat from nose to tail. All this styles are found in many kitchens.

Strammer Max is basic: a good piece of sourdough farmer bread, very good air dried raw ham and some fried eggs on top, served with some gherkins.

Freeze the fresh eggs in the carton for at least 48 hours, get them out 3 hours before you cook them.

Out take on that was a frozen egg yolk that was thawed and grilled and set on the ham.
Homemade "caviar" from pearl sago as a bonus on top.

With a ring cutter make some discs of bread and toast them in butter in a pan.
Add a slice of raw ham on each.
In the same pan grill the egg yolks and flatten them a bit.
Set it on top.

In a small pot in water with curcuma, smoked paprika and salt cook the pearl sago until clear. Takes about 20 min, drain and mix with a little shoyo.

We served it with a second starter.
A toasties with smoked trout cream.

Braised Pork Neck

This is a cheap cut of meat.

Braise it with lots of vegetables and some wine and stock, you get a great pork roast with a very tasty sauce. The meat is still on the bone and braising that with the bones intensifies the flavour.

This is good to eat with a couple of people or to eat over a couple of days when you are alone.

Our butcher at the supermarket had the meat as an offer this week and I could not resist. Pork Roast is not something I cook often. So it felt like a special treat to me.

The spirelli pasta works great with it and soaks up a lot of tasty sauce.

recipe for 3:
850 pork neck on the bone
2 tbsp sunflower oil
2 tbsp flour
salt and pepper
3 tbsp hot Hungarian Goulash cream
1 carrot
1 piece of leek
1/3 celeriac
1 onion
4 cloves of garlic
2 bay leaves
3 tbsp Bourbon
1 cup red wine
2 cup chicken stock
2 cup water
1 tsp cornstarch
2 tsp water


Season the pork with a good rub of salt and sear it in the hot oil in the pan on all sides.
Add the Goulash paste, onion and garlic and sprinkle the flour on top. Stir well. Put in the Bourbon to deglaze the pot.
Add the other veggies and stir again. Add bay leaves.
Add wine, stock and water until the pork is nearly covered.
Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and cook for 1 hour with a lid on.
Mix starch and water and bind the sauce a bit.