Cheap Swiss Beer - Chapter 1

One of the interesting differences between Europe and America is that while buying cheap beer in America is a surefire way to get some spineless I-can't-believe-how-close-to-water-this-is soapy beer devoid of character, this isn't necessarily so in Europe. Don't get me wrong, sometimes it is indeed so, but other times you'll get cheap beer that has plenty of character. The issue of course is that all these beers have interesting traits, not all of which everyone will like, but there's plenty of different brands to choose from, so if you keep looking you're likely to find some you'll like. Being new to this region there's a lot of beer for me to try, so when I located a good store, I got my first 4 - all at about 1 CHF pr. 0.5 L can. Actually, as it so happens none of these beers are actually made in Switzerland: One was brewed in France, two in Germany and one in Austria.


I have to say the Denner Export (brewed in Germany) was the most disappointing of the bunch, while the strong beer (8.8%; brewed in France) was surprisingly good - certainly one I expect myself to buy more of.

Bacon Musubi

After graduating I wanted to do something special, so I set forth to finally execute an idea I'd had for quite some time. This also ended up being the last real meal I cooked in California before moving to Switzerland (more about this in later posts).

Last year I went on a vacation to the island of Hawai'i (see here). While there, I noticed of course the famous Spam Musubi phenomenon, along with a range of other less famous musubi varieties (chicken, egg, and hot dog comes to mind). For the uninitiated, musubi is a lot like sushi, only without the fish - and the individual packs are usually larger than your ordinary nigiri.

Soon after returning from the vacation, it occurred to me what the logical next step would be, and I present to you:

Bacon Musubi - what spam musubi was always (?) meant to be!

Now, I believe this is an invention of my own, for one thing, the book mentioned here does not contain such a dish.

One of the reasons I hesitated before trying this out was that I didn't have experience making sushi either, so I wanted to wait till I had a good chunk of time to experiment.

Ingredients:
- nori
- apple smoked bacon
- sesame seeds
(rice)
- 1 cup black sticky rice
- 1 cup white sticky rice
- 4 cups water
- salt
(teriyaki)
- fresh ginger
- ¹/₂ cup soy sauce
- ¹/₄ cup vinegar
- ¹/₄ cup sugar

First the rice were boiled separately - this is important for the visual outcome, as black sticky rice contain plenty of color to also color the white rice if boiled together - each in 2 cups of salted water, for as long as needed (my black rice needed longer time than my white rice). When done, they were left uncovered to cool sufficiently to be workable with bare hands.

In a pan sesame seeds were toasted golden, and transferred to a bowl. Then the bacon was fried to a desired crispness and transferred to a plate. In the same pan, finely diced ginger, sugar, soy sauce, and vinegar was heated with constant stirring till the sugar was dissolved. Heating and stirring was continued for some minutes till the mixture thickened a little and then transferred to a bowl.Nori was cut into strips approximately 10 x 20 cm (4 x 8 inches), and on each was placed a ball of rice (formed by hand by mixing the boiled and semi-cooled black and white sticky rice), then a piece of bacon, teriyaki sauce (as made above). Finally toasted sesame seeds were sprinkled on top, and the nori was rolled to a closed band (wetting one end of the nori and then joining the 2 ends is usually sufficient to glue them together).
I was quite happy with the final result - but a dinner of only bacon musubi might be a little over the top, so I also made a few chicken musubi (otherwise same procedure).

Meringue

I never really thought about making my own meringue - I just settled for the stuff you can buy in stores (well, it's not something I've been eating a lot either). But when my muse mentioned this would be an obvious way to use the three left over egg whites we had I learned that the result was quite interesting.

Ingredients:
- 3 egg whites
- 150 g (1/3 lb) sugar

The egg whites were whipped stiff (i.e. not going anywhere when turning the bowl upside down), then the sugar was added and the mixture was whipped for an additional 3 minutes. The mixture was placed as small circles on a baking sheet and put in the oven at 150 C (300 F). The recipe we read recommended baking them till dry and golden, approximately 20 minutes, but we thought they started looking golden somewhat faster (maybe just 10-12 minutes) and pulled them from the oven for fear of burning them. The result was very interesting - they were probably not baked as thoroughly as is normally intended, but I actually liked them better this way: crisp on the edge, but somewhat gooey-soft too.

Talisker

Well, finishing also meant moving - and since we had quite enough stuff to move, this was a welcome chance to finish my last bottle of whiskey.

Talisker is unique for being the only whiskey from the isle of Skye, but it's actually far more important to me that it was the one I had a glass of on one of the very first nights out with Mrs. Throat-Erator. It's not nearly as extreme as Laphroaig or Caol Ila, but it's quite complex nonetheless. This bottle was a gift from a good friend, so I thought of him too as I emptied it.

Bloglagged 2

Wow - long time, no blogging. The end was quite busy - especially the last 4-5 weeks when I was writing more or less nonstop.

But then the end DID come. So I guess it's Dr. Throat-Erator to you guys from now on.

A friend of mine gave me this nice graduation/going-away gift:



I have a suspicion that as I get back to posting here, I'll be referring to this Bacon Bible from time to time.