Mahlzeit - Food without Borders

The original recipe is coming from here: Amerikaner mit Hirschhornsalz . Sorry, this is all in German. Here is the translation and I note, where I changed things. For the dough we need: 75g butter at room temperature (2.65oz) 175g sugar (6.17 oz) 1 egg at room temperature 3g salt (0.1oz) 15g bakers amonia = salt of hartshorn (0.53oz) 250ml milk  (more then the orginal) (8.45 oz) (keep the milk on the countertop for about 1hour before starting to bake with it) 3 tsbp cold milk 500g sifted all purpose flower (17.64 oz) 1/4 tsp good vanilla extract (my addition) 1/2 tsp lemon extract (my addition) I recommend to get a good kitchen scale that knows metric and imperial. It should show at least 1 digit after the comma. I bought mine at Williams Sonoma for about 65$ a few years go. Note this is not a recommendation. There are other places where one can get decent scales. Baker's Ammonia can be bought off Amazon. Note, it has a very strong smell. Follow the storage recommendations of the s...

I found the original recipe on the internet. It calls for 2 cups of flower. That ends up being to many pancakes then I can eat in a week. I ended up experimenting and this recipe works. It makes 3 pancakes . 1/2 cup flower 1/2 tsp sugar 1/2 heaping tsp baking powder 1/4 tsp baking soda a bit fine sea salt 2/3 cup of buttermilk 1 egg 1/4 tsp vanilla extract 1/2 tsp lemon extract 1 tsp melted butter (room temperature) In a bowl mix the flower, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt. Mix up well. In a second bowl mix the buttermilk, egg, butter and vanilla and lemon extract. Mix up well.    Add the wet ingredients into the dry and mix up. Try to get rid of the lumps. Heat up a frying pan with some neutral taste oil over medium heat. Add 1 ladle of dough and spread it out. When the top looks like almost done, flip the pancake and finish on the other side. Add some oil and let it get hot before starting the next pancake.  -Mahlzeit-

Time to get my smoker to work again. This morning I took a Boston Butt de-boned that I bought 2 days ago out of the fridge. My spice mix: 1 tbsp + 1 tsp light brown sugar 1.5 tsp salt 1 tsp black pepper 1 tsp garlic powder 1 tsp onion powder 1 tsp sweet paprika 1 tsp smoked paprika 1 tsp all spice 1/2 tsp chipotle pepper   I mixed all of the spices. Note, brown sugar tends to get hard over time. The light sugar tends to take more time to turn into rocks. Dark brown sugar can turn into rocks a lot shorter time. The internet suggests to take the dark sugar rocks. add a wet paper towel and put it into the microwave between 20-30 seconds. I had mixed results with that. Anyways. I covered the meat with the entire spice mix.  I did let the meat sit for 2 hours on the counter to come up to temperature. Smoking temperature 225F, extra smoke for 2h, total of 6h, then I decided tp up the temperature to 350F. At 189F internal temperature I turned off the smoker 2 hours later.   Oh, ...

After a big and heavy lunch it is time to go easy on dinner. A salad sounds perfect. This needs: a big handfull of greens (from a store bought package is fine) chopped 2 tomatoes 1/2 cucumber peeled, quartered and cut into 5mm slices 1 orange paprika, chopped 1 sprig of fresh mint 2 leaves ofcatnip juice of a fresh lime 2 tsp of  pomegranate molasses salt and pepper In a small bowl mix the lime juice and the molasses. In a larger bowl mix all the rest, add the lime juice and molasses dressing and mix it up.  This can be a full dinner or a side salad. -Mahlzeit-    

I am still working my way through my freezter. I found thick cut pork chops. And there are leeks in my fridge. I love leeks. Baking a potato takes the longest. Mine was really large. I wrapped in aluminum foil  and baked it in my counter top oven with convection on 450F for about 2h.  90 minutes in it is getting time to clean the leeks. I cut them first in 1" large chunks and then half them so all falls apart. Leeks must be washed several times, as there is a lot of sand hiding inside. Leeks and onions go good together.  Roasted Leeks 2 leeks cleaned and cut  1 medium onion coarsely chopped 1 tbsp margarine 1tsp ground allspice 1/2 tsp dried thyme salt and pepper to taste In a cast iron skillet melt the margarine, add the onions and leek and all the spices. Over medium high heat roast them until they have the desired tenderness. 15 minutes before the potato is done, pad dry the pork chop. Spray a cast iron skillet with a nonstick spray and heat the skillet up. Season...

Time to have a rabbit again. I had 3 slices of really thick cut bacon in the fridge left over. So rabbit with bacon it is. Cut 3-4 slices of bacon into small pieces and render them in a pan. I have a small version of a turkey frying pan. This is the size of a pan I need. Cut the rabbit into 5 pieces. On the back part there are some very thin pieces of meat. Cut them off. We will make rouladen from them. Salt and pepper them slightly, add some mustard. From the rendered bacon, take a few pieces and then roll them up and secure the roll with toothpicks. Salt and pepper the remaining rabbit pieces and code them with mustard. Over medium high heat sear the rabbit pieces.   While doing this preheat the oven to 350F. When the meat is seared, put it into the oven, add 2 cups of water. After 25 min, take some of the cooking liquid and drip it over the meat. Add water as needed. Repeat every 25 min. After about 2.5h my rabbit was done. I thicken the liquid with Mondamin and add about 1/2 cu...

Noodles and red sauce is something that was and most likely is on a lot of students menu's. I can't replicate the same recipe as I did many moons ago, other then the noodles all of the ingredients either vanished or are tasting very different now. So here goes my variation 1: Salami (I buy salami in one piece, yeah is expensive, but I can cut it the way I want it.) 2.5" thick piece, cut into 0.5" thick slices and cube it. OK, you can use slices as well and cut them into bite size pieces 2 slices of ham (optional, they were left overs in my fridge and were looking for a purpose) 1 medium onion chopped 1 can of fire roasted tomato's  1/2 cup of ketchup (use your favorite ketchup) 1/2 cup of tomato juice 1/2 tsp sweet paprika 1/2 tsp of curry leaves from 1 sprig of fresh oregano 1/2 tsp of ground Allspice 1/2 tsp of ground cumin 2 tbsp of Worcestershire sauce 1 tbsp of margarine 1 cup of water 1 tsp of chopped Chipotle peppers with a little bit of sauce from a can In...