Mirza Ghasemi - Iranian Eggplant Dip

This is a recreation of one of the dips we had on our Eat-the-World food tour at the Iranian restaurant.

When you google the name of the dish, you will find lots and lots of varieties of the dish. But the main component is the eggplant.

My coworker loved the dip so much that she ordered me to prepare it and bring it to the office that we can feast on a larger quantity.

If you have a charcoal grill, do the dish the favour and grill the eggplants on it. Traditional is the dish a little smokey. I helped myself to some smoked tasted by using smoked salt in liquid form "King of Salt" Rauchsalz.

The base is a tomato sauce. Very easy for me, I just had to get a bag of tomato sauce from this summer out of the freezer. To make the sauce even richer, I grilled to red bell peppers in the oven and took the skin off later. That gave a good amount of flavour to the sauce.
A special seasoning is usually in the mix - Advieh. You can find it on the Internet or in middle eastern spice stores. But I used my trusted Baharat seasoning, it fits more or less the other spice blend.

recipe for 4:
2 eggplants
2 red bell peppers
2 Chinese single garlic
2 tbsp tomato paste
olive oil
2 eggs
smoked salt
salt and pepper
turmeric
baharat seasoning
lovage
1 1/4 cup tomato sauce

Heat up the oven to 180 C fan.
On baking paper place the halves of the peppers.
Cut into the eggplant a couple of times and place them on the paper too.
Bake the peppers for 30 min, then get them out and put them on a plate and cover them with plastic wrap to steam. Get the skin off.
Bake the eggplant for 40 min longer, get them out and peel the skin off. Spray with smoked salt.
In a pot heat up a bit of oil and chop one garlic, and fry it off with the tomato paste.
Add the defrosted tomato sauce and cook for 5 min, now in with the cut up peppers.
Season with Baharat, turmeric, smoked salt, pepper and lovage.
Get the creamy part of the eggplant in and mix a bit with a stick blender.
Cook a bit more.

Mix the eggs with salt and pepper.
In a pan heat up some oil and add pressed garlic. Make a dry scrambled egg. Stir halve of that into the tomato mix, set the rest on top.

Cod on top of tomatoes, capers and olives

Italy to the rescue.

I bought a great looking piece of cod in the morning.

Usually I coat it with breadcrumbs and put it in a pan. But I had a whole bunch of green Zebra tomatoes ripened sitting on my counter. They were ready to eat.

Fish and vegetables sounded like a good combo. An open jar of olives was in the counter too.

Just use a pan with a lid.

Recipe for 2:
350 g cod loin
2 onions
2 spring onions
2 cloves of garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
50 ml white wine
6 green Zebra tomatoes
50 g green olives
2 tbsp salted capers
Mixed frech herbs
Salt and pepper

Cut the onions into strips and chop the garlic. Slice the tomatoes and drain the olives. Wash the salt of the capers.
Heat up the oil and saute the onions for 3 Minutes with the lid on. Add the tomatoes and season.
When the tomatoes are soft, add wine, olives and capers. Mix well and place the seasoned fish on top. Close the lid.

Cook for 4 min on one side, then turn and finish. Serve with rice.

MainNizza Restaurant- eating out beside the river

I wrote about the food here before.

The place was not so full when we came here on Germany´s national reunification holiday on the 3rd of October. We had a reservation for 7PM and after some cruising found a parking space near by.
The restaurant was only half full at the time and got less crowded afterwards.

The waitstaff was fast, very friendly and competent.


As a starter I had grilled goatcheese with lambs lettuce and lentils.

The second dish was veal scallops Vienna style with a side of potato salad and pickled cucumbers. A dollop of cranberry sauce was on the plate too.

As Dessert I choose a Creme Brulée.

My friend had beef carpaccio as a starter.



There is one thing about this place what I hate and that is the lighting. There is some kind of purple light directly above the tables on the window front and you and your friends look like you just came out of the morgue. All kinds of make-up look garish and so do look the pictures of your food.

Eat-the-World- Food Tour Frankfurt

We held our yearly team event. In former years it was always a December trip to some restaurant. These Christmas Celebration team events got boring after a while. Less team members attended year after year. When you came into a location, you found a lot of other guests from different firms and it was loud and mostly unpleasant.

After a while, we looked for some things to do as a group to build up team spirit and use that as a "pre X Mas celebration". We had a cooking course, drove Segways in the mountains and went on a Scavenger hunt. To come up with an idea that interests a group of more than 20 people is not so easy.

Frankfurt´s Bahnhofsviertel (Station area), the area that begins on the other side of Frankfurt Central Station - not including it - had a bad reputation for so many years. Drugs, Sex and Violence.

About 15 years ago, it started from the inside to build a better reputation. Business owners, Shop keepers tried to include the locals in revamping their turf. Now a lot of small shops, restaurants and bars are located here. The social workers helped the still going drug addicts with special rooms and medical help, the brothels tried to get the crime rate down.
Now a lot of hip joints with special food are located here. Some are of the "Speak easy" kind. Not much advertising or bling, just the understated way of presenting good food and drinks.

Eat the world tours help the local communities by touring with interested people and tourists though owner help properties and local shops. Some are so closed off the main routes, you would not find them on your own.
But not only food is the interest of Eat the World Tours, you get interesting information about the place and its history.
Now I know, the the Frankfurt Central Station has nothing to do with the Bahnhofsviertel. Before the Central Station was build in 1888, there were 3 small train stations just in that area. 3 different train lines ended there.

Now finally the food of our trip.
The first stop was a Speak Easy Pizza Joint:  Pizzeria Montana - the name originates from Tony Montana (movie Scarface).
You will get only and only Pizza here. Neapolitan Style baked in a Stefano Ferrara oven.
Nearly as good as the pizza I ate in Naples.

Next stop was the Turkish bakery Central Pastanesi. They are famous for their Baklava with the best Turkish pistachios from the Antep region. It is in the hallway of a mosque.
Sticky sweet Baklava to taste.


Third place was an Iranian restaurant Babam. They are well known for their great Meze. We had some super tasty dips, warm bread and salad and lots of fresh herbs.

Next we went to a small Afghan supermarket. They sell all kinds of dried fruits and pulses, rice and tea directly imported from Afghanistan.
We tasted dried Mulberries, raisins, chickpeas, apricots and different nuts.

We went to the new redeveloped Kaiserpassage. A lot of Indian shops selling clothes, food and other stuff are in the passage. It is like a little trip to India without the cows.
A vegetarian pastry filled with potatoes, peas and onions with lots of cumin and fenugreek was served warm here. Very good. The market sells all kinds of Indian food items and you can buy packages and jars of food here.

When you stay out all night and get hungry, there was not a lot to go to. A former doorman of one of the man only walk in brothel houses wanted to make it easier to get some food after a long night.
He opened the Curry Wurst Taunus 25 shop just around the corner of his former work place.
He serves local produced sausages with lots of good sauces and great fries.
We tasted 4 different kind and some fries with mango chutney sauce on top.

We came to the end of our tour after more than 3 hours. The final stop was one of the best ice cream shops in the area.
Fontanella   - I had a scoop of Fig and Walnut Ice Cream and did not take a picture.


I can highly recommend a tour like this, if you are interested in some local specialities outside the main stream.

Merguez, Lentils and Mash

Some days you need just something quick to eat.

North African Sausages, better known as Merguez are sold in all French supermarkets. Here in Germany they are not so common.
The sausage meat was 50:50 beef and mutton. A good amount of paprika and other spices seasoned it.

I used brown lentils from a can that contained some goose fat. The broth is a lot richer and creamier that way. Just a good amount of pepper and some fresh herbs and they are good to eat.

The only real cooking was the potato mash. I do not use the powdered stuff- I used that the last time about 15 years ago. Some kind of additive must be inside that prevents lumps, this is making me sneeze a lot. Some kind of weird allergic reaction to premade mash.

The combination of these 3 components made for a tasty and fast dinner. There is even a second portion to take to the office next week.

Spaghetti Squash à la Burrata

My newest French cooking magazine issue showed a recipe with butternut squash, burrata and nuts.
Not very fanciful, but it caught my eye.

The method was a little time consuming for dinner after a long day of work, but who cares. I exchanged the butternut for a spaghetti marrow or squash and use whole hazelnuts and some Thai basil to give the dish some body.

Most of the ingredients, including the Burrata, are on the bland side. It is necessary to give the dish a basic flavour. I seasoned it with my homemade pepper mix which contains a good amount of Szechuan pepper, some smoked paprika and a flavoured salt.

Preheat the oven to 180 C.

Wash the squash and roll it ín Aluminium foil and place it in a baking dish and put it in the oven for at least 60 to 75 min, depending on the size of the squash.
Pull it out and unwrap it and let it cool down a bit to handle it.
Cut it lengthwise with a big knife and take the seeds out.

Since it is a spaghetti squash, you can lift off some of the flesh in strands. Get the rest loose.
Season it with salt and pepper and spread the teaspoon  of butter around.
Cut the cheese in halves and with your fingers rip it into shreds and place it on the squash.
Put the whole hazelnuts in a freezer bag and bash them a bit. Put 25 g on top of each halve of squash.
Sprinkle smoked paprika on top.
Bake again for 10 min.
Place a good amount of Thai basil on each one.

ingredients:
1 squash
2 tsp butter
1 Burrata cheese
50 g hazelnuts
salt and pepper
smoked paprika
Thai basil

Kaki or Persimmon baked in the oven with Risotto

The kaki fruit is found around this time of year. When you get some that are not too ripe but a bit firm, use them for a savoury dish.
Last year when I was in Japan, persimmon trees were full of fruits everywhere and some were sold at farm stands on attraction sides.

I found a recipe from the Süddeutsche Zeitung from Hans Gerlach.
The dish is good on its own with just some fresh bread, or serve it with a risotto as I did.
But with fish or chicken it works too.

Cut the kakis up into slices and put them on baking paper. Preheat the oven at 220 C fan.

ingredients:
2 kakis
4 twigs thyme
1 clove of garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
4 tbsp green olives
1 bunch of salad leaves
1 tsp lemon juice

While you get your oven up to temperature, start with the risotto first. It needs some time to get ready.
While it is cooking, you slice the Kaki with the skin into 12 pieces.
Get fresh thyme, garlic, salt and pepper and olive oil in a bowl and put the kaki in. Get them coated in the garlic mix.
Pour them on baking paper and spread them out, toss the olives on top and stick it in the oven for 10 min.
Now your risotto should be ready to finish with a knob of butter and freshly grated Parmesan cheese.
Cut the salad leaves up and with lemon juice, olive oil and seasoning it is a light salad on the side.