Cheese Chips/Crisps

This is a very very low fat cheese and it is not everyones favourite: Harzer or Handkäse

Here in the state of Hessen, Germany, we use it for Handkäse with Music. That is cheese in an oil and vinegar dressing with caraway seeds and lots of chopped raw onions. Hence the "music".

Others like to use this cheese for Kochkäse (cooked cheese). A combination of ingredients combined with the cheese and cooked. Eaten cold on bread or topping a Schnitzel.

This cheese chips are advertised as low fat and high protein and several recipes can be found on German cooking sites.

Something new is always a thing for me. I had to give it a try.

When I buy Harzer I look for cheese that is not too young, I prefare the more ripe kind of cheese. I cut it in very thin slices.

These slices are coated in paprika, herbes de Provence and dried chives. Spread out wide on baking paper. 

But spreading it out did not help a lot. The cheese slices mashed together.

Oven at 170 C baking time 17 min. When the cheese takes color, let it cool down and brake it up in chips.

Well, this cheese chips were not my thing. 

Puff Pastry with Asparagus, Cheese, Ham and Wild Garlic

Today is Wild Garlic Day! It's the time of the year.

My neighbor was at my door with a huge paper bag filled with leafy greens. I took 200 g off her hands.

What now? The wild garlic is not known to last many days. 

My plan for lunch today was asparagus filled puff pastry. I bought baby spinach and green asparagus and added cooked ham, goat cheese and Reblochon and a couple of wild garlic leaves.

But before I made lunch, I prepared wild garlic butter and wild garlic pesto.

Recipe for 4:

1 round puff pastry

4 tbsp wild garlic pesto

8 green asparagus stalks, steamed 

100 g baby spinach, blanched

30 g wild garlic

4 slices cooked ham, 4 slices goat cheese, 4 tranches Reblochon

Preheat the oven 200 C.

Cut the pastry in 4 pieces. Spread the pesto on top. Then the spinach. Add cut up asparagus, ham and cheese slice. 

The wild garlic leaves next and the Reblochon last. Fold up the edges of the pastry and slide it in the oven for 15 min.

Visiting a Persian Restaurant again

It was last year at September 20th that we have been here in Frankfurt at KISH Restaurant.

The great food last time made a deep impression, we had to come back to try something new from the menu. That was a tough choice for us. So many things to try.

We needed time to select some drinks, we both choose some alcoholic beverages. Then I decided in some Persian lemonade. That was topped with chia seeds. That looked quite funky on top of my lemonade.

I choose a starter with mixed salad with saffron dressing and potato filled fried pastries. My friend had the same salad but with sesame crusted falafels and hummus. We shared these plates.

I had chicken leg braised in tomato sauce with dill basmati rice with huge green beans. She had two skewers, one with chicken and one with lamb. Served with white and saffron rice.

A dessert plate for 2 and Persian mocca finished our meal. It was a pleasure to be there again and wont be the last time.

Breakfast with Dhal and Wet Wet Sauce

This is in no way a typical German breakfast!

Breadrolls and pretzels with sausages, cheeses and jams is more the way we have breakfast here.

But I wanted a kick to start my day and took some mung bean vermicelli and mixed a good helping of Wet Wet sauce in. A lentil dhal and some scrambled eggs completed the dish.

Other countries, other kinds of breakfast dishes. But this is more a fusion kind of thing. The vermicelli noodles are normally not eaten together with Dhal. But I did not want to eat a lot of bread.

My friend and I are going out to have lunch at Persian restaurant Kish in Frankfurt again. Rice, and lots of it is a staple there. Cutting back in the morning was a great idea.

Easter Sunday Lunch with Friends

A typical German dish for a festive Sunday are Beef Rouladen.

I rarely eat them, because only in larger quantities, the preparation makes sense. When my friend asked me to come over, I was happy that she mentioned Rouladen.

As a side she made green beans wrapped in bacon and I asked for potato croquettes to mop up the sauce. They come frozen and just need a bit of time in the oven to get crispy on the outside.

I brought the dessert: Tiramisu Truffles

An Easter Sunday Lunch to repeat next year. Something to look forward to.

Red Lentil Soup Egyptian style

Today is the second Easter Holiday- Easter Monday- and everything is closed.

It started raining cats and dogs early in the morning and the rain stayed. This is the best time for some soup.

I went vegetarian. But using an other kind of yogurt for the finishing touch, you can make it vegan.

The soup is blended in the end. That means less work preparing the vegetables. Just clean them and toss them in the pot in big chunks.

For better digestion, soak the lentils for 30 min in a bowl of water, then drain them.

I used a lot of vegetables, but if you only have carrots, shallots and garlic, that is fine.

Recipe for 4:

180 g red lentils

2 tbsp neutral oil

3 carrots, 2 shallots, 2 garlic cloves, 1/2 kohleabi, 60 g celeriac, 100 g leek

750 ml veg stock from homemade paste

3 tsp ground cumin, 3 tsp smoked paprika, salt and pepper

75 g Greek yogurt, bunch of parsley

Heat up the oil in a large pot and toss the veggies in. Roast them for 6 min. Add the drained lentils and stir well. Get the seasoning in.

Fill the pot with veg stock and bring to a boil. Cover with a lid and reduce the heat and cook for 15 min.

Take a stick blender and mix the soup. Chop parsley and add it together with the yogurt.

 

 

Tiramisu Truffles

I still do watch too many cooking reels.

The invitation for Easter Brunch came with a request for a dessert. I was looking though my multiple stacks of recipe sheets and still did not have a clou.

Then I watched a German YTuber Nicole99. She is doing 99 fast and often very simple recipes. This Ladyfinger Mascarpone Dessert was very simplied on YT. 

I went through Pinterest and found more facts about this dessert. As always, I made it my own version.

Recipe for ca 22 truffles:

24 ladyfingers or 200 g

200 g mascarpone

Double shot espresso cold / or triple

Same amount of Tia Maria Coffee Liqueur

2- 3 tbsp icing sugar.

Cocoa powder to roll them in before serving.

Put the ladyfingers through a blender and make cookie dust.

Cream mascarpone, sugar, coffee and Tia Maria together. Mix in the dust. It will take a while until everything is combined. Maybe a little more alcohol helps/ or espresso.

Press it down and stick the bowl in the fridge for 90 min. Form walnut size balls and back in the fridge again. I felt like I was rolling bonemarrow dumplings.

 

Roll them in cocoa powder. Serve them with a strawberry coulis and whipped cream.