Mahlzeit - Food without Borders

When I grew up I loved going to the bakery and get myself a chocolate Americaner. Here in America they are known as half and half cookies. They taste different then what I grew up with. I couldn't find the recipe I used a few years ago, that is asking for Ammonium carbonate . I didn't have much time to look around either, so I opted to use: Mini Americaner . The translation: 100g soft butter at room temperature 100g sugar 1 pack vanilla sugar 1 knife tip of salt 2 eggs 250g all purpose flower 45g corn starch 1 pack of baking powder ( or 1 tsp ) 1-2 tbsp milk. 1 tsp of baking powder Mix the vanilla sugar with the white sugar and salt in a bowl. In a different bowl mix the corn starch with the flower. In a stand mixer add the butter 1 egg and half of the sugar and mix on medium. After 3 minutes start to add 4 tbsp of flower (1 at the time) and mix for another 3-4 minutes. Clean the beater every now and then, so what gets stuck on the beater falls back into the dough. Stop the mix...

This weekend's theme was: All from scratch. Marinating the meat takes time. I started this on Tue, so I can cook on Saturday Potato Dumplings:  6 large starchier potatoes 1 large egg beaten 1/2 cup of potato starch a hint of nutmeg (optional)   Peal and cut the potatoes and cook in salt water until done and drain. Put it back on the stove and let any remaining water steam off,  watch it, and shake the pot so the potatoes do not burn on the bottom. Turn of the heat. Press the potatoes through a potato ricer into a bowl, while they are still hot. Then set aside and let them cool down. When they are cooled down, mix in the nutmeg, potato starch and the beaten egg. Use your hands to get it all mixed up. Form ball out of the potato dough and set aside. I ended up with 7 dumplings. I like mine about tennis ball size most of the time. Some times I make them larger or smaller. Feel free to use an ice cream scooper to get an even size.... In a really large pot bring salted water t...

I have not had fish in a long time. Here we go. I got myself a cod filet in the grocery store. I also came across some fresh Tumeric roots. Fried Potatoes: Best the potatoes are cooked a day before and went into the fridge over night. Cut into 5mm slices. Finely shop a small onion. Peel a bit of the Tumeric root enough for 6 thin slices.  In a skillet melt 2 tbsp of margarine. Add 3 slices of the Tumeric, chopped onions. Season with salt and pepper. When the onions get translucent add the potatoes.  Stir occasionally. When it has the desired color, turn off the heat. Cod In a skillet melt 1 tsp of butter and 1 tsp of margarine. Pad dry the cod filet and season from both sides. I used a BBQ Chipotle spice mix.  When the butter/margarine is melted add the filet and the other 3 slices of Tumeric. Cover. after 3 minutes spoon some of the butter over the filet, cover again. After 2 more minutes flip the filet and repeat the process. My filet was fairly thick over 1". I flipped...

This is what I set out to make : Burned Cheese Cake When shopping for the ingredients I ended up getting half'n half and not heavy cream. And I didn't even notice. After having everything mixed together, this still looked like water. In a spring form, this if going to run away. Ok, I need to fix it. 1.5 cups of flower and 1.5 tsp of backing power mixed up and into the mixture it went. After tasting the dough I added 1.5 tsp of lemon extract to it. Now taste wise it works for me. Now that thing just needs to bake correctly. For the baking form I decided to switch horses as well and went with a bunt cake form. My biggest mistake was, I did not grease it. Big mistake, very big mistake. Into the preheated oven of 400F it went and the timer is on 50 min. Earlier this morning I removed a bag of frosted raspberries from the freezer, added 2 tbsp of white sugar to it and let it sit on the counter to defrost. This does not need any lemon, it is tarty enough. After 50 minutes, the cake r...

I am trying chicken again. I like chicken thighs, because they are usually by itself juicy. Reading through several recipes on the internet. I came up with this. First I got to brine it.   Brine: 12 cups of water 1 medium onion, cut in half and then sliced 1/2 cup of kosher salt 1 cup of dark brown sugar 1 tsp of smoked paprika 1/2 tsp of thyme 1 tsp chipotle rib rack spice mix 2 tsp sweet and smokey salt fee seasoning 1 tsp allspice 2 cloves of garlic sliced 1/2 cup of orange juice with pulp 1 tbsp Worcestershire   All of this goes into a pot. Bring it to a boil, let it boil for 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and let it cool down to room temperature. Wash and pad dry the chicken thighs and submerge them in the cold brine. In the fridge they go 8-24 hours. Based on current planing it will be about 14h in my case.   Saturday: The smoking starts. Temp is set at 200F. Remove the chicken from the brine and put on the smoker. After the first hour of smoking I did drip some BBQ s...