Mahlzeit - Food without Borders

I just came back from a week in Portugal. Needless to say, I had a lot of seafood. I love octopus. Coming home, I found in my freezer a packages of octopus. Yeah 4 years old, but no freezer burn or anything. I took it out and put it in the fridge to completely defrost. It ended up being 4 baby octopuses. Surfing the net and asking a friend I came up with something. The consistent message on the internet is, octopus need to be cooked before it goes on a grill. And cook time can be 1-2 hours depending on the size. My recipe: water (make sure the octous is covered by about 1" of water) was 6 cups for me 1 medium onion coursely chopped 3/4 tsp of salt 3/4 tsp of ground Allspice, I wanted to use kernels, but I only had ground Allspice.  8 juniper berries 3 Bay leafes 1 black cardamon kernel Rinse the octopus and dry it a bit with a paper towel. Add all the items into a pot, add the octopus, bring to a boil, turn down the heat and simmer for about 1.5h.  Life throws sometimes a curv...

I still had puff pastry in the fridge, that needed to get a purpose. The original plan was to do  Beef Wellington. Then I didn't have the patience to work through all the steps. Back-up recipe: Pigs Ears. This time without the chocolate covering. The ingredients are very simple: 1 sheet puff pastry (store bought), sugar and cinnamon.  I mix the sugar with the cinnamon and then put it in a sugar shaker. It makes it for an easy distribution. Unroll the sheet of puff pasty. I do that on a silicon matt, that has measurements on the side. This comes up really handy when folding. The bottom left corner lines up with the 0 marker on the matt. The sheet is 15" high. The first fold of  both ends needs to meet roughly at 7.5". Add some of the sugar and cinnamon mixture on the entire sheet and then fold. Add more sugar and cinnamon on the folded puff pastry. Then fold both sides again, so they meet at the existing 7.5" line again. I did run out of the sugar cinnamon mixture.  I...

This is really easy to make and there is actually not a lot of room for screwing things up. The recipe consists of puff pastry sheets, sugar and cinnamon. And that is it. The trick is the folding. This is very nicely explained here .  Also it helps to put the folded pastry into the freezer for 30 minutes. It makes cutting a lot more easy. So far so good.  This looks promising: What I ended up with: The cookies did not expand as much as I have hoped. They were supposed to be at least double in size. Looking at the package: ok expiration date was about 6 months go. That explains that they didn't no expand as much. However taste wise, they were great.  I also got to have a few more tries on the chocolate covering. Well one lives and learns. -Mahlzeit-

My grandma made great pierogies. I loved her blueberry version. I will make them some time, when the blueberries in my backyard are ripe. For now I am going for the potato/cheese/sour cream version. The idea for the recipe comes from  Nagi . Now I don't need to feed many people. So I am cutting things down and changing the process. There are several components that come together at the end. Potato cheese mixture (part 1): Peel about 6 potatoes, cut them, and cook until done. When they are still fairly hot, put them through a potato ricer. (I got myself one a few years back, as I also like to make German potato dumplings, and for those I would need that.) Spread the potatoes on a flat board or plate and let it cool down. When they are room temperature, cover tight with cling wrap and into the fridge they go. I did that yesterday. The next day (part 2): Put the potatoes in a bowl, add some salt and pepper, 2 tbsp of melted butter, and some cheese. I used a mix of smoked gouda and par...

In a small household one does not need a bread with 3lbs of flower or a big cake.  I am starting to get experience with the process of changing recipes, so it is enough for 2-3 people. The original version can still be found  here  . I used 1 lbs of cream cheese (original Philadelphia) 2/4 cup of heavy whipping cream 2/3 cup of white granulated sugar 2 tbsp of all purpose flower 3 large eggs 1 tsp of vanilla extract 1 pinch of kosher salt (oops, I forgot that one) Grease a 8" spring form generously with butter.  Preheat the oven to 400F. In a kitchen machine bowl I added the cream cheese, the eggs and the sugar. I wanted to get that mixed up first. The cheese came out of the fridge, so it needed some time to get smooth. Then add all the remaining things. Bake for 30 minutes. Then the skin was already colored pretty good. I turned down the temperature to 375F and baked it for another 10 minutes. Use a think stick to test if the cake is done. It is done if it comes out...

This year I asked around and work for things they would have over the holidays or something that is popular in their country. One of the suggestions was Chicken Biryani. I did read myself through plenty of recipes. I failed to figure out how the cooking process really needs to be. So I gave up on that part and made it my way.  So here we go:   2/3 of an eye balled plain yoghurt 1/2 cup of water 3-8 cloves of minced garlic fresh grated ginger , about 1.5 tsp a few dashes of ground dried turmeric 1/4 tsp cinnamon 5 pieces of green cardamon. I didn't have ground cardamon. 2 tsp garam masala 1 tsp cumin 2 tbsp paprika(not smoked) 3/4 tsp of salt.  All of that goes into a bowl and gets mixed. Add the chicken and make sure it is all covered and over night into the fridge. The next morning I added some oil into a non-stick pot. Add the chicken and cook it. I added a bit of water, to make sure, it is not sticking. I added the remaining marinade, and cooked until all the chic...