Feldschösschen Beer

OK .. now it's get a little complicated. If I've understood it correctly, both Anker and Cardinal are produced by Cardinal Brewery in Fribourg, Switzerland - but Cardinal is owned by Feldschösschen in Rheinfelden, Switzerland (and let's just forget for the moment that Feldschösschen is now owned by Danish Carlsberg Group...).

Feldschösschen and Cardinal are - as far as I can judge so far - the two most widely available Swiss beers. Both are decent lagers, nothing special, but OK. They typically sell for around 1.5 CHF pr. 0.5 L can, but on sale the price comes down around 1 CHF pr. can in which case neither is a bad deal if you're looking for a standard lager. Feldschösschen was the beer previously used to roll flour tortillas.
Anker, however normally sells for exactly 1 CHF pr. 0.5 L can, but IMHO that isn't money invested nearly as well: I found Anker to be too pale, and too weak in the taste (although it holds the same alcohol percentage as the others: 4.8%) so can only be recommended if you like to drink beer without being without your taste buds reminding too much you of this fact.

On the other end we have Feldschösschen's Hopfenperle, which is a bit stronger (5.2%) and arguably a more interesting beer - although perhaps not so much better than ordinary Feldschösschen to justify the price difference (Hopfenperle at 1.40 CHF for a 0.33 L can).

Green Eggplant Stirfry

Near to my new home I've found a lovely little store called Asian Spices - all kinds of exotic goods from all over Asia are crammed into this small store and I quite like perusing their shelves. On a recent visit I noticed these little green eggplants in the fresh food section, and I decided to try them out.

Ingredients:
- oil
- 1 chicken fillet (sliced)
- salt
- 1 clove garlic (mashed)
- 1 scotch bonnet chilli
- 1 onion (boats)
- 1 mild green pepper (diced coarsely)
- 5 green eggplants (quartered)
- fish sauce
- soy sauce

Served with brown rice.

Oil was heated in a wok, and the chicken was stir-fried with salt [1] and finely chopped scotch bonnet chilli [2]. When the chicken was cooked through, the onion and the mild pepper was added and a few minutes later the green eggplants. Finally was added fish sauce and soy sauce before reducing the heat and covering to let it simmer.

The green eggplants look nice, taste a lot like eggplant, but seemed to me to hold their texture better than ordinary (large) eggplants, although this might be a function more of their size than anything else.

[1] Given the amount of soy sauce I used, I should have left out the salt.

[2] Without a hood over the cooker this is downright inadvisable - it's a bit too much like pepper spray while cooking (which correlates nicely with the fact that the end result wasn't as spicy as I expected).

Nutty Spread

Years ago in a store I saw a jar of peanut butter mixed with chocolate hazelnut spread [1] .. a kind of spreadable Snickers bar, if you like to see it that way. Since, I have been forever hooked on the rich, salty, and sweet mixture. I've never really re-encountered said product, but it's too easy to just spread peanut butter and then a layer of chocolate hazelnut spread on top, if you have both.

I try not to indulge in this guilty pleasure/heart-attack-in-the-making too often.

Please enjoy responsibly.

[1] Amongst chocolate hazelnut spreads Nutella is probably the most famous, but by no means the only one.

A Different Avocado (Guacamole Update)

One day while shopping at a small local store I noticed these avocados, which were somewhat bigger than those I normally get (shown next to a standard sized lime in the picture)... of course I had to get some. At first I assumed I needed to put them in a paper bag together with a banana while waiting for the skin to darken and the flesh to soften, but then I noticed that they were already quite soft with the skin green. Apparently it is a variety where the skin doesn't darken upon ripening.


Once I cut one open I noticed that the pit was also quite big, and the flesh was more yellowish than what I'm used to - it still made for a very nice bowl of guacamole..


The only significant adjustment from the previous recipe is the inclusion of fresh, hot chilli.

Cragganmore

This is the first bottle of whiskey I've bought since I'm back in Europe, and it served a couple of purposes: For one thing it's sort of a graduation gift (at least bought for money I was given on that occasion), but I think of it also as the bottle I bought to celebrate that I found a good apartment to live in here.

The label boasts of "the most complex aroma of any malt" and talks of "sweetish notes with a smoky maltiness on the finish". The latter two are true, and it does make for a nicely complicated taste, which I find very pleasant. Don't get me wrong, this is good and I do like it, but on the other hand I do seem to prefer my whiskeys more raw, so I don't think I'll ever be quite as fond of this as I am of stuff like Caol Ila..

Herbs - Update

Some weeks after posting this we had to admit that the balcony herb garden wasn't doing perfectly. True: the basil, mint, oregano, and parsley were standing strong and producing prolifically .. but the chives were a sad sight to behold and the coriander appeared to be using all its energy producing flowers rather than leaves.

We decided to cut the coriander down, move the chives to a different "field" .. and sow more coriander. The chives regained a bit after being replanted but never came came to their former vigour. Not all of the new coriander adapted, but we're back at a reasonably production rate (although they can't keep up with the other 4).

Fish, New Potatoes & Parsley Gravy

New potatoes are a special treat - especially for boiled potatoes are just more delicious this way (the boiling process is usually also shorter). Traditional dishes in Denmark in the early summer include new potatoes with white gravy and either bacon or fillets of fish.

Ingredients:
- new potatoes
- water
- salt
- fillets of white fish
- margarine
- flour
- fresh parsley

The potatoes were boiled in lightly salted water, and when done the water was separated, but not discarded.

The fillets of fish were seasoned with salt and pepper and fried in a pan.

In a small pot, margarine was melted (not browned). Then enough flour was stirred in to make a thick paste. On medium heat with constant stirring the water from the potatoes was added in small portions (waiting for the gravy to thicken after each addition) until there was a suitable amount of gravy - once the correct thickness was obtained, the pot was removed form the heat. Then seasoned with salt and pepper and added fresh finely cut parsley.

Setting up a kitchen

As I've mentioned in a few posts over the past couple of months, the apartment I got was with an empty kitchen (as is the norm around here). Well... I guess I should not say empty: there was a tall cupboard, a sink, and a few dirty shelves above the sink - but apart from that it was empty. With a little planning ahead we made sure to buy a fridge that was ready to be installed and turned on from day 1.

Then the planning started. I've never before had the option of designing my kitchen, so I tried to think about what I would have like to change about the past kitchens I've had (if anything). Apart from such issues, the planning was strongly influenced by the shape of the room: A longish, rather narrow room. Putting both an ordinary dining table (even a small one) AND a stove and a table for working would transform the room into some sort of weird obstacle course. Instead, we decided to put in a bar along one of the long walls: this would go well with a couple of stools (which can handily stand under the bar when not in use) and leave room for manoeuvring while working at the sink, the stove, and the counter top.

This meant putting the fridge near the entrance to the kitchen, but that works quite well - the kitchen is not that long after all - and even seem logical right across from the tall cupboard where we store the rest of our stuff.

The rest was details: we put up a small shelve for spices above the stove and a magnet for knives next to it.

Stirfried Duck

OK, I don't actually have a wok here, but I have a large non-stick pan which is sort of wok-shaped and I figured this would be a nice way to make duck and cabbage, so I thought I try to use it for this kind of a meal. The use of cow's milk is perhaps not super authentic to the Asian kitchen, but hey..

Ingredients:
- duck fillet (ca. 300 g, 2/3 lb)
- 1 medium large red onion
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 mild, large green pepper
- 1 scotch bonnet [1]
- 1/2 head savoy cabbage (ca. 250 g, 1/2 lb)
- olive oil
- salt
- milk

The fillet of duck was cut in thin slices and fried in the wok/pan in oil, with salt, mashed garlic, and finely cut chilli. When the meat was fully cooked the onion (in boats) and the large pepper (coarsely diced) were added and stir-fried. After a few minutes long strips of cabbage and some milk was added before covering and turning down the heat. When the cabbage was steamed to a nice texture, the whole thing was served with brown rice.

[1] These are sold as piment cloche here and as far as I can figure out they are what is also known as scotch bonnet i.e. a variety of the habanero chilli. They are quite potent and as far as my taste goes 1 of them is quite sufficient for 1 meal, which makes it all the more interesting that the store sells them in packs of 25 or so.