Mahlzeit - Food without Borders

The original intent was to make Beef Wellington Ravioli. While cooking I changed my mind. The noodles turned out decent. It was only my 5th time to make noodles myself. I think I will do that more often. The meat Wellington style was good as well. I don't think the recipe for red wine reduction was great. I think it may even be incorrect with some of the measurements. So I am not going to post it. Here is what worked. Noodles: 1 cup and 2tbps of all purpose flower 2 eggs 1tbsp of olive oil. In a bowl mix all of it. Because it was really hard to get a nice dough, I added 1 more tbsp of olive oil and about 4 tbsp of water to it. I could still feel flour pockets, so I did run it a few times through the paster maker. Then I folded them all over, pressed them down, put it into plastic wrap and did set it aside for 30 minutes.. In the mean time fill a big pot with water, season it with salt and bring it to a boil. Meat: beef tenderloin, chop it in small pieces 4 medium mushrooms chopped

I am going through my freezer. Time to cook some of it. This weekend a leg of lamb. Parts of it was deboned already. The question was: to smoke or not to smoke. I decided the oven will do it. I had an appointment in the afternoon. I can turn off the oven and continue when I am back. The spice list: 6 cloves of garlic smoked paprika salt pepper oregano 1 lemmon EVOO The cloves go into the meat. One clove got away. So be it. All the other spices get applied generously. I used a turkey pan with a wire structure. That prevents the meat sitting in the bottom of the pan. Add water and 1/2 cup of EVOO into the pan. Roast it at 300F for about 2h. Check with a thermometer what the inner temperature is.  Half way through the roasting process I notices, I forgot the lemon, OK, slices and on top they go When it is ready, remove from the oven and let it rest for 15 minutes. Then cut it. Serve with sides of your choice. For me  this time just a toasted piece of baguette. -Mahlzeit-  

This recipe was posted by Anastasia Thompson in Facebook.  All the unit are for standard European measurements. Many things are sold in 250g per container. Here in the US it is a different story, so I have to adjust things a little bit. My numbers in round brackets. It really pays if one has a scale that speaks oz and grams, The crust 250g of cold butter cut into little chunks. (I was short about 10g) 375g of flower (369 g, it just happened to be this number with the last scoop) 1 egg beaten 1 pinch of salt 150g sugar (140g). I decided to mix the flower with the salt and the sugar. I did cut the butter into small pieces. Slowly but surely I added the flower sugar mixture using a pastry cutter. Eventually I added the egg. At then end all of this ended up on a silicon matt to knead. The dough was 780g, The original recipe recommends to cut it in half. Which I managed to do by eye almost exact.  Line a the bottom of a 24cm spring form with parchment paper. I have some pre-cut for the form

A traditional German Gulasch is mainly pork and beef cubes and spices. While stores here general offer  beef stew meat, for pork this is a different story. I decided to got 1 piece of beef and 3 extra thick pork loin pieces. 2 of them were cut into cubes as well as the beef.  Ingredients 1 lbs pork and 1 lbs beef meat, cubed 1 red bell pepper chopped into pieces 1 medium onion coarsly chopped 1 tsp ground allspice salt and pepper to taste 2 tbsp tomato paste 1 can of chopped tomatos 2 slices of bacon chopped into small pieces 2 tsp of margarine or oil 3 bay leaves 3/4 tsp thyme 3-4 cups of water In a pot melt the margarine together with the bacon, add the onions and the red bell pepper. Let the onions get translucent.  Remove all from the pot, but let rendered fat in the pot. Then add the meat and sear it. Depending on the quality of the meat, water may come out. Most of this needs to evaporate during the cooking process. Then add the tomato paste, and stir. Now make sure that nothing

On Friday they had single packed Cornish Hen. Most of the time one has to buy 2. I picked one up.   I took it from the freezer this morning and by 5pm it was defrosted. I did cut the at the breast side, so I can flip the hen open. Seasoning: salt  lime pepper paprika ground chipotle pepper Line a sheet tray with aluminum foil, place the hen on it and into the oven for 45 min at 400F convection. Now I dial on my counter top oven 400F, the thermometer I have place inside, said 350F. Who knows what is right. I think the thermometer is correct, because I only baked bread in there and it didn't turn out that great. In a little bowl, mix 2 tsp of maple sirup and 1 tsp of balsamic vinegar. After 45 min, baste the hen, turn the heat to 350F. After another 10 minutes, baste again. After another 10 min turn off the heat and serve. As you can see, I already started to eat ...lol... and then I remembered to take the picture.  -Mahlzeit-

I have not had Kassler in ages. Searching the internet I came across this video:  Home Made Kassler  . The recipe can be found  here . I didn't feel like making to much. At the end of the day, I really don't want to have Kassler for a week. I opted for slices of pork chops. The package had about 1.5lbs. I still decided to use the recipe as is. It could turn out a little bit salty (which it did). Anyways. I marinated the meat for 3 days in the fridge. I think 2 days would be enough as well. Then it was time to prepare my smoker. Now my wood pellet smoker smokes also with low temperatures. Oh well, lot's of smoke it is. The smoker has not seen a lot of action in the past 4 or 5 months. Like a windows computer, it wants to update first....ok.... Now the pork chops go onto the smoker. Eventually I added a thermometer into the meat. Smoke after 2.5h the inner temperature was still 125 F. Time to speed this up a bit. I increased the temperature to 210 and about 40 min later the i