Sylter Fish Plate at a local Restaurant

In my hometown we have a restaurant that has seasonal or local specialities and changes the main menu according to it. Sometimes it is just a week or a couple of days. Like geese served a Saint Martin in November.

Restaurant Bölle is the name of the place.

This 5 weeks they have the theme of the northern most German island Sylt. I was there last September fir a week and was curious what was in the menu.  The catch phrase is:
From Dike and Sea.

I ordered a salad with pike perch, cod, salmon and prawns wrapped in potato curls.

The prawns were very juicy and tasted great. The other pieces of fish were good, only the salmon was on the overcooked side.

But as a whole plate, dinner was good.

My friends were not so curious about Sylt and had pizza and burger

Both dishes were good

Red Bell Pepper and Manchego Soup

This is a soup for leftovers sitting in your larder. I had 3 bell peppers from last weekend and a very tough piece of Manchego cheese from the Pintxos cooking two weeks ago.

There are many recipes that combine bell peppers and cheese, several are with Parmesan. Most of these recipes are pretty basic. With some more ingredients and a bit of seasoning you get a very tasty soup.

Since there was already cheese in the soup, I topped it at the end with some cream cheese chunks for additional cheese flavour. Great idea.

You can prepare it in a pot and then take a stick blender and make a finer soup. I cooked it in the Thermomix and blended it later in it. For more texture, I left a little bit of the bell peppers without mixing them completely.

recipe for 4:
500 ml chicken stock homemade
300 ml veg stock
100 ml red wine
60 ml double cream
1 onion
3 red bell peppers
100 g Manchego
1 tsp smoked Paprika
1 tsp Paprika
2 tbsp Paprika paste
3 tbsp flour
3 tbsp butter
8 pieces of Kiri cream cheeses
basil

Chop the onion and start in in the butter in the pan, add the flour and make a roux. Get the red wine and a bit of the stock in. Add paprika paste.
Clean the bell peppers and chop them roughly. Grate the Manchego cheese.
Add stock, peppers and seasoning and cook that for 10 minutes.
Take a stick blender, add the cheese and the cream and blend again.
Drop 2 pieces of Kiri in each bowl and add the soup.
A bit of basil on top is nice.

Pasta e Panini once again

There are City Festivals everywhere in the Moment. In Frankfurt is Opernplatzfest. -at the old Opera house in the square in front of it. But so many people are crowding the place and if you are looking for great food at the stands there, it is a bit dissapointing.

Now is the best time to go to your favourite Italian Restaurant. Not so crowded in the moment and great service. Luigi and his staff are always very hospitable and fun.

As a starter we had two different kinds of carpaccio. A beef carpaccio the traditional style and a tomato carpaccio topped with salmon tatar and prawns.

The hot summer is great for Hugo. A drink with elderflower cordio, lime juice and Prosecco.

For me it is mostly the Pasta dish with Nduja, I order. Nduja is the spicy kind of Salami from Calabria. I made a rice dish with Nduja 2 weeks ago.
Hand made Pasta with the hot and creamy sauce and some cream cheese and rocket to balance the spices.

My friend hat a piece of Loup de Mer with grilled vegetables.

For Dessert we shared a mixed bowl of ice cream. My favourite chocolate lava cake was out.

Having a nice evening with great food  and friends is wonderful after a long week of work.

Peach Cake with Rosemary Lemon Crumble

Peach Season is in peak season here.

Baking a cake with fresh peaches sounded good. Last week I baked the U.A.E apricot cake and that was an absolute favourite of my coworkers. Lets see how this peach cake is liked.

Today the heat finally came down. Last Sunday baking at 100F was not such a great idea, but today we just reached 71 F. Now a bit of rain would be nice too. It is too dry and water supply is getting down.

The recipe calls for peaches that are peeled completely. You can do this the same way you get the peel off tomatoes by sticking them into boiling water for a minute. But I took the easier way. I used a speed peeler to get most of it off.

recipe for the crumble:
2 organic lemons- just the zest
125 g unsalted soft butter
100 g sugar
150 g flour
4 tsp very finely chopped Rosemary

Prepare the crumble first in a stand mixer with a paddle. Just leave the rosemary to the side until the crumble is ready, then fold it in with your hands and make crumble. Stick that on a plate and let it rest in the fridge until you are done with everything else.

recipe for the batter:
Juice of 2 lemons
100 g butter
100 g sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt
2 large free range eggs
200 g flour
2 tsp baking powder

Heat up your oven to 175 C.

You do not have to clean the bowl of the stand mixer. Just add all ingredients and put the balloon whisk in. It just takes 1 min. Scape down the sides and the bottom and set aside.
Butter and flour a 26 Diameter loose bottom baking dish.

Topping:
600 g of peach flesh  /do not weigh the stones or skin

Put the batter in the baking dish, add the peaches and crumble on top

Bake for 60 min.

Sweet Potato Banana Mango Curry - vegan

Served with Lemongrass Rice.

I tried to cook the dish I ate a couple of weeks before at the vegan/vegetarian restaurant Tibits. I blogged it shortly after the visit there.

I remembered the key ingredients but added a little of my own things to it.

This is such a tasty curry and you feel very satisfied after eating it. I am looking forward to have the leftovers on Monday at the office.

Recipe for 2:
350 g sweet potato
2 bananas
1 ripe mango
2 spring onions
1 knob of ginger
2 tbsp coconut oil
300 ml coconut milk
3 Tsp Madras mild curry powder
Chives
Chili salt and pepper

Lemongrass Rice:
1 cup basmati rice
2 Stalks of lemongrass
1 Tbsp lemon juice
2 Cups of vegetable stock
Some turmeric or annato as yellow dye

Peel the sweet potato and cut the onion in rings. Start a wide pan with coconut oil and onions. Then chuck in the pieces of sweet potato. Season with salt and pepper. Aftet 3 min add 100 ml coconut milk, reduce the heat and close the lid and let it cook for 5 min. Add more coconut milk and cook until the potatoes are soft.
Peel the mango and make cubes if possible. Cut the peeled banana into wide slices. Add these both with the rest of the coconut milk to the pan.

Meanwhile cook the rice with the other ingredients.

Serve with some fresh chives or parsley.

Adria - Visiting a Croatian Restaurant

It has been a very long time since I was in a Croatian restaurant in Germany. They were plentiful 15 years ago, but today it is not easy to find any restaurants serving Balkan food.

I was out with friends for an evening of red wine tasting in a rose garden from a castle. But wine tasting started later then we thought.

Some food is always a good choice before you start drinking wine. We looked around in the lovely town of Klingenberg on the Main river and found the Adria restaurant.

We were lucky to get the last table without a reservation.

What is typical on a Croatian menu?
Dishes with meat or minced meat. Djuvec Rice. French Fries. Sheep Cheese.

I ordered Pleskavica. Minced meat filled with lots of sheep cheese. The cheese gets soft and oozes out when you cut up the meat.

A bowl of salad went as first course.

Apricot Coconut Cake

My friend visited the U.A.E. a couple of weeks ago. She likes to experience supermarkets. She went into different ones. SPINNEY's is a large one. Like our large supermarket chaines they have chain magazine issue free of charge to promote products.
The Spinney one was a very glossy one, more highend than the ones here. There was a sperate recipe booklet inside.

They used all kinds of Spinney products in the recipe, but you can easily use the ones from your supermarket.

The recipe had a messurement fault. The amount of flour in the crumble  was way to high, 2 1/3 cup of flour jumped into my eye. With the other ingredients a no go.
Preheat the oven to 170 C. Use a 15x30 cm baking dish. Grease it and put baking paper in

Recipe:
180 g soft salted butter
150 g coconut flower sugar
2 large free range eggs
200 g flour
2 tsp baking powder
180 ml coconut milk
Pinch of salt
80 g dried apricots with 50 ml orange juice
Lemon zest
60 g dessicated coconut
6 ripe fresh apricot

CRUMBLE:
2/3 cup flour
2 tbsp salted butter
2 tbsp demera sugar
2 1/4 tbsp dessicated coconut
2 tbsp coconut flakes

In a stand mixer combine soft butter and coconut sugar until creamy. That will take a couple of minutes. Add one egg at the time.
In a bowl mix the dry ingredients.
Soak the cut up dried apricots in orange juice.
Pit the ripe apricots and chop the roughly.

Add a third of the flour mix to the mixer and a third of the coconut milk, then repeat. Do not overmix the batter.
Fold in the soak apricots. Pour on the baking dish and top with fresh apricots.

Prepare the crumble and cover the apricots with it.
Bake for 60 min