Bacon Spaghetti with fresh tomatoes

This is such a simple and tasty dish. It is great for using up some leftovers and it one of the 15 minute meals I often prepare.

I had bacon and tomatoes left from the spoon cooking day and that needed to be eaten. The time the spaghetti needed was nearly the time the sauce needed.

First I had to crisp up the bacon slices and later dried them on kitchen paper. The bacon grease was used for the onions and garlic and for the tomatoes.  Just pull the bacon apart with your fingers and toss it back into the pan. Finish with a lot of fresh parsley, a good grinding of pepper and a little salt.
I used a good amount of pasta water to bind the sauce and chucked the spaghetti in to finish cooking in the sauce.
A bit of grated strong mountain cheese rounded up the taste.

When you cook you use your basic skills and all things you add to a dish fall into place. There is no need to plan everything ahead, just be spontaneous. That often makes the tastiest quick dishes.

Small dishes on Spoons again Part II

I am a huge fan of Filippino Adobo Chicken.

My friends did not know that kind of food. Taking it to the next level and serving that on a spoon is a real challenge.
I marinated the chicken drumsticks 24 hours ahead of our cooking to break down the protein of the chicken. Cooking it in all the marinate and later just frying the drumsticks again was easy.
But how do you present a dish like that on a spoon.

We took a veggie peeler and made fine strips of carrot, celeriac and leek and deep fried that together with some onion quarters and a bit of potato. Some drops of the sauce finished it.

Next came the breakfast of champions from Singapore, Nasi Lemak.

I cooked a small amount of long grain rice with coconut milk and water and added some Nasi Lemak seasoning. We used a small Parisian spoon and made some cucumber pearls, tomato bits and cooked some quail eggs. Served with roasted peanuts and a piece of chicken and some Sriracha sauce.

The last spoon for the day was a dessert. Austrian Kaiserschmarrn, or shredded pancake. It was served with fresh fruit.

Small dishes on Spoons again

The TV series "The Taste" is back here. Food presented on spoons. A whole dish compressed to sit on a tablespoon.

We had 4,5 hours to spare and realised 5 spoons. There was a lot more food in store to prepare, but the time ran out. That shows, that a time of 50 - 60 minutes is necessary to finish one dish. It has to look fancy on the spoon and the taste has to be spot on.

We prepared 3 spoons of each dish, about 40 g each. After 5 spoons all of us felt stuffed.

The first one was salmon with a sail of crunchy salmon skin, a piece of green asparagus, a fried potato slice, a bit of lemon and a little of a wine and broth reduction with a dollop of creme.
I brought some spice back from Japan. Yuzu Chili Pepper.
The skin of the salmon was packed into the oven under the grill at 175 C for 6 min. The  shallow fried in oil on both sides. Seasoned with salt.

The temperature of the oven was dropped down to 80 C and the slices of salmon with yuzu chili pepper and dark sesame oil sat on a tray in the oven for 8 min.
Flaky and moist fish!

The second spoon made with seared scallops. A sweet soy sauce base was served with it. A bacon sail and a concasse of carrot, leek, celeriac. A leaf of dark raddish sprout was the last piece on the spoon.

A dissapointing visit to a restaurant after one year

Nearly exactly one year after your first visit to a restaurant that left you excited about, you go there again and leave disappointed.

The Käfer's Rooftop Restaurant in Berlin at Reichstag was the place.
What has happened?

They changed their menu and went into the experimental or avantgarde direction. The well known classics were forced off the menu.

The start of the dinner was good. A pear and espresso Martini. Followed by bread with salt from Germany's most northern island Sylt with herbs, cream cheese, butter and oil.

Then the disaster started.
On the menu was dish with lobster and veal heart. There was no mentioning on the menu that these two components were served raw. It was made into a salad. The ingredients were manderin, mustard, kraut, leek, macadamia nuts and pink pepper berries.
Gross. When you do not like Sashimi.

The plate went half eaten back to the kitchen. Telling the waiter that it was not good did only get a shrug.

The main course was wild sea bass. A tiny piece of fish. Double or three times the size would have been nice to have. Here the combination of parsley root, mushrooms, beer vinegar, duck stock, onions and horseradish were good.

We shared a dessert from the menu. It wasn't a classic Käfer Dessert. It tasted good, it looked like a car crash on a plate. The pumpkin seed parfait looks like a sick glob of murky green stuff under a army camouflage netting. All other components were strewn around.

The nicest thing was the greeting from the Patisserie. A little deconstructed tart served with the espresso.

An evening out with a friend to experience high end dining, paying a lot of money and not getting satisfied is bad. It was a fun evening with great company though and the location is still an awesome place to visit.

The decision to not go there next year has already been made.

Risotto with bell peppers and chicken

Bell peppers are so versatile. Sauteed in a pan with onions and garlic and seasoned with smoked paprika goes well with a basic risotto.

SORRY - no pictures, camera trouble

I had some chicken stock left over and a bit of cooked chicken breast and that made a whole meal in a very short time.
Cut the peppers in same size small cubes. That is important when you will add them to a risotto. Huge chunks don´t look so good.

Wash the Rice before you start cooking it. This way it looses excess starch. Heat up 1 tbsp of butter and saute on finely chopped spring onion and 1 clove of garlic in.  When the onion gets soft, coat the rice in the mix thoroghly.
Next add apple cider and lemon juice. The rice needs a bit of acidity. If you have white wine, no lemon juice is needed.
Heat up the chicken stock to a boil and ladle some in, step by step. Do not forget to stir the rice often.
After 2/3 of the cooking time, pour in the sauteed bell peppers. Cook to the end.
Add butter and cheese and a bit more pepper and serve with the reheated chicken breast.

recipe:
1 cup of Carneroli Risotto rice
1 red bell pepper
2 spring onions
3 cloves of garlic
150 ml apple cider
1 tsp lemon juice
3 tbsp butter
3 cups of chicken stock
50 g Parmigiano regiano
salt and pepper
smoked paprika
cooked chicken breast

A friend's business trip with bad food

AMSTERDAM for a business trip! Does that not sound amazing?

Well, Amsterdam is a great city with lots of history. But people make a city and when you feel threatened and get molested by people, the city does not get remembered as so nice.

Food usually is something you will remember from a trip as well. But going out for dinner and ending up hungry is bad. Reading restaurant critics gives you only a tendency how the food will be, but when they are off completely, that is disappointing.

The Van Puffelen Cafe Amsterdam on Prinsengracht near Anne Franck House was the Restaurant. The open kitchen looked good and well organised.

First course was a cauliflower soup with a green oil on top. The oil was just green, but absolutely tasteless. As if someone put green food colouring into the oil.
A nice basil oil would have been great with the soup. Such a pity.

For the main course you had a choice between two dishes. Beef or salmon.
The salmon was dried out and sat on a bed of lentils. But the dressing of the lentil salad was missing and they were dry too. The cauliflower was the veggie on the side. The mayo as dipping sauce was needed.

The other choice was beef Mignon. Sorry to say, the piece was tiny and raw in the middle. Inedible. The potatoes were the best of the dish. The veggies were unseasoned and overcooked.

Look at the picture of the dessert. Dry cake and a one scoop of ice cream.

The kitchen did its best. But too many customers to serve at one setting did not help the quality.

Eating out at Pasta e Panini Restaurant

A nice evening dinner in an old part of Frankfurt. The Italian Restaurant Pasta e Panini in Bockenheim was our place to go to. Keep in mind that you need a reservation to get a table. Not too far from Frankurt Messe (exhibition), lots of visitors can be found here.

This night was black truffle the star of the dishes.
The linguine pasta with veal strips, turned in the Parmigiano loaf and topped with fresh grated truffle was one dish.

A loup de mer on a bed of Italian veggies with a side of truffle pasta was the other.

The Padrone of the restaurant came over with a table and a huge Parmigiano Reggiano loaf on top. It was hollowed out and every pasta dish that went in, loosened more of the cheese.
Call it a bit of show. Turn the pasta fresh out of the pan in some cheese makes actually more sense.