Potatoes Hasselback & Coquelet

This dinner arose mainly due to our limited knowledge of the French language and birds in general. When we saw 'coquelet' on sale at the supermarket, we thought it might be some bird we hadn't tasted before. As it turns out, a 'coquelet' is just a young chicken. Oh, well... not catastrophic by any means: Time for some roast chicken.

Since we were going to turn on the oven anyway, we decided we'd want some baked potatoes with the chicken .. not just ordinary baked potatoes, but potatoes hasselback.

potatoes hasselback
- 6 potatoes, peeled, sliced nearly through
- oil
- salt, pepper, paprika
coquelet roast
- 1 'coquelet'
- 1 parsnip, in chunks
- 1 large sunchoke, in chunks
- 0.5 dL white wine
- salt & pepper
- 3 medium onions, quartered
- fresh sage


The peeled, nearly-but-completely-sliced-through potatoes (see pictures for details) were placed in a baking pan, brushed with a little oil and sprinkled with salt, black pepper, and paprika. They were in the oven at 225 C (450 F) for an hour.

The coquelet was stuffed with some of the onion, sunchoke, parsnip, and sage. The skin was rubbed with salt and pepper, and the coquelet was placed in a baking pan on top of a bed of the rest of the vegetables and the wine. It was in the oven at 225 C (450 F) for 45 minutes.

The result was delicious: Crisp skin, cooked through, but nowhere near dried out (I guess this is easier with a smaller bird like this). As an added bonus, there was more meat on it than we expected - I guess it didn't have big bones or anything. Served with a quick salad of lettuce, cherry tomatoes, and roasted peanuts.

Karbonader (Danish Meatballs 3)

These breaded meatballs are another classic of Danish cooking .. although I don't seem to make them all that often. In fact I have no idea when I last made them (other than that it over 2 years ago).

Ingredients:
- 300 g (2/3 lb) minced pork
- 1 egg
- bread crumbs
- salt & pepper
- oil

The minced pork was pressed into firm balls using the hands, then flattened somewhat by applying light pressure with a knife (this part of the process identical to these other Danish meatballs). In a small bowl the egg was beaten lightly with a fork, and in a second bowl bread crumbs were mixed with salt and pepper (no, I did not have enough bread crumbs in the bowl in the picture - I needed about twice as much). The flattened meat balls were turned out first in egg, then in bread crumbs and fried in the pan until golden and cooked through.

Served with boiled potatoes and a simple salad.

Wädenswiler Single Malt Beer

Now, this is a very interesting Swiss beer. As you may guess, not from the end of the country where I'm living these days.

Anyway. Since whiskey is - in a very fundamental sense - distilled beer, it makes sense for a brewery to try their hands at both. So, in Wädenswil they did just that: brewed a beer with whiskey malt, bottled some of it for sale as is and distilled the rest to make whiskey.

For now, I've only tasted the beer, so I can't comment on the successfulness of their whiskey production.

The beer was very ale like to me - in taste as well as in colour. I think I expected a darker beer based on the appearance of the bottle, and I certainly expected a much smokier taste - although that might mainly betray which kinds of whiskey I personally prefer.

Roasted Sunchoke Salad

I first had (and tried) the idea of adding roasted sunchokes to a salad while on vacation this past summer, but I never really got back to it till recently. I'm sure this isn't exactly like the first time I made it, but the essentials are there.

Ingredients:
- bacon, thinly sliced
- onion, diced
- sunchoke, diced
- butterhead lettuce
- corn salad
- cucumber, half slices
- cherry tomatoes, halved
- pickled caper berries
mint raita
- yoghurt
- fresh mint, chopped
- garlic, mashed
- salt & pepper

The bacon was fried in a pan till nicely crisp, then added the onion and a few minutes later the sunchokes, and the heat was reduced to medium high - occasional stirring was continued while mixing the other parts of the salad. In the end the lovely taste of the roasted sunchokes was brought out while retaining most of the crunch of the fresh sunchokes. Mixed with the rest of the salad and served with a little mint raita.

Spanish Omelette

At some point during my childhood my brother introduced this dish into our family, and was probably the one who kept making it over and over until it became a classic for us. For some, to me anyway, unfathomable reason our parents actually had such a silly unitasker as a french fry cutter - unfathomable not least because I can't remember them ever making french fries. I admit that for cutting potatoes into little square-cross section beams of equal thickness there is no faster way than to use the french fry cutter ... but doing it with a good knife doesn't take that much longer as long as we're talking about reasonable amounts. Of course, making this dish later in the dormitory - using a knife - was what got me forever the reputation of being that-guy-who-makes-his-own-fries..


Ingredients:
- oil
- 8 medium potatoes, peeled, cut like french fries
- 2 medium onions, chopped coarsely
- 4 eggs
- 1 dL (1/2 cup) milk
- salt, pepper, and paprika

The onion were sautéed in a little oil in a large (preferably non-stick) pan till translucent, then the potatoes were added and sautéed with occasionally stirring^[1] until they looked nicely browned.
The eggs were beaten together with milk, salt, pepper and paprika in a bowl, then poured over the potatoes. The heat was reduced and the omelette was allowed to stand until the eggs had solidified - which of course goes much faster if the pan is covered.

Was served with a salad and some ketchup - although not the case this time we sometimes also have it with some fried bacon on the side..

^[1] Without a non-stick pan this should be almost constant stirring.

Tomato Soup

I don't know about you, but for me a tomato soup must contain noodles in order to be fully satisfying - I realise this may simply be a force of habit, an opinion based on the way I remember tomato soups from my childhood more than anything else. However, knowing that doesn't change my attitude about it one bit...

Ingredients:
- olive oil
- paprika
- cayenne pepper
- 3 cloves garlic, crushed
- 2 medium onions, coarsely chopped
- 2.5 L (ca. 2.5 quarts) vegetable broth
- 3 leeks, cut in rings
- 800 g (28 oz) canned crushed tomatoes
- 140 g (5 oz) canned tomato paste
- salt
- 150 g (ca. 5 oz) noodles^[1]
- fresh basil, chopped - for serving
- sour cream - for serving

Olive oil was heated in a large pot, then added paprika and generous amounts of cayenne pepper. The onion and garlic was sautéed in this until the onions were translucent. After adding the vegetable broth, leeks, crushed tomatoes, and tomato paste the pot was covered and brought to a boil. The heat was reduced and the soup was allowed to simmer for 10 minutes. After seasoning to taste with salt, the noodles were added and the soup was allowed to simmer until the noodles were cooked.

Served immediately with a tsp of sour cream and some fresh basil on top.

^[1] Preferably small noodles like little elbows or small shells.

Grolsch Herfst Bok

When it comes to beer the Netherlands doesn't quite have the reputation of its two giant (beer-wise) neighbours: Germany and Belgium.

That doesn't mean to say Dutch beer is unknown around the world: although I haven't checked, I'd guess Heineken is available pretty much worldwide - and neither Amstel nor Grolsch can be that far behind. I remember all three as drinkable, if not quite memorable, lagers.

On a recent trip to Amsterdam, I had the opportunity to try Grolsch's Herfst Bok ('autumn bock'). Alone by virtue of being a bock beer it was already much more to my liking .. it's not like I'm getting a lot of bock beer here in Geneva, so it was all the more welcome for that reason too. In fact I was sad it wasn't served at more of the places I went to on that trip.

Bacon wrapped green beans

Due to bad weather I was stuck in an airport most of New Year's Eve and by the time I made it home it was rather too late for preparing dinner - so we had our New Year's dinner on New Year's Day instead.

I know I have been served bacon wrapped green beans somewhere before, but I can't remember where or when. It is of course similar to bacon wrapped asparagus, although perhaps more winter-like.

Ingredients:
- 6 thin slices of bacon
- 24 green beans

After rinsing the beans, they were collected in bunches of four each, wrapped in bacon, and baked at 225 C (450 F) for about 15 minutes.

I guess they could be used as a starter, but here they went on the dish for the main course: steak, mashed potatoes de luxe, and a leek-mushroom-cream-Gorgonzola sauce..

Happy New Year! Cheers!

Falafel in Geneva

Sad as I was to leave all the lovely little hole-in-the-wall type Mexican eateries and their enticing selection of burritos, tacos, nachos, beans and other goodies behind (somewhat alleviated by the fact that I've been trying my own hand at the craft), I must profess my joy of what I have gotten in stead: loads and loads of lovely little hole-in-the-wall middle eastern eateries (click on the picture above to enlarge .. it's somewhat big) where I can my occasional fix of falafel, something there were depressingly few options for along the stretch of the southern Californian coast where I lived. The typical falafel fix here comes in the shape of a sandwich or a rolled large pancake.

The only downside is that now I have even less incentive to make my own falafel - something I dabbled a little bit into earlier, but never really became comfortable about. Oh, well .. maybe I'll return to it some day after all.

Applied Mathematics (Burritos)

My favourite kind of mathematics is applied mathematics. Especially when applied to food.

So this is how it went: I knew this recipe gave me some flour tortillas that were perhaps a little on the large size for tacos - but no where near what I'd want for a burrito.

The pan I used for making those has a diameter of 17 cm (~6.5 inches) and my largest pan has a diameter of 23 cm (9 inches). The area of a circle is proportional to the square of the radius, so in this case the area of the larger pan is (11.5 cm)²/(8.5 cm)² ~ 1.8 times larger than the area of the smaller pan. So if I want tortillas of the same thickness I should use about 1.8 times as much dough for each. Last time I divided the dough in 7 portions - dividing it instead in 4 portions is close enough to the ratio I was aiming for.


Ahhh .. it was great to enjoy a beans-cheese-salsa-avocado burrito again ... although, as happens too often, I tried to put too much inside the first one so it was hard to fold it right. The second attempt, as usual, was much better.

Tamarillos

I notice that the supermarkets, in what appears a strategy to make up for the somewhat limited range of local fruits available this time of year, have started importing more exotic fruits.

Recently, I have been able to shop for dragonfruits, prickly pears, and tamarillos amongst other exotic fruits at the local supermarket.

Wait ... tamarillos ... what is that? The tamarillo is also known as the 'tree tomato' and is some sort of sweet tomato - I ate the flesh out of them using a small spoon (having read that the skin is quite bitter): the texture was very nice (so I assume they were ripe) and the taste was .. sort of a general sweet fruity taste but somehow tangy like a tomato.

Danish Christmas Lunch 2008

On Christmas day we had a couple of guests over for a Danish style Christmas lunch. The concept of a such a lunch is to sit at a table for several hours, eating a selection of cold and warm dishes served in succession while talking and drinking strong and/or dark beer (such as these) and aquavit ('snaps').


For this particular lunch we served...

To drink: Erdmandli Zuger Amber and Hopfemandli Lager Dunkel from Brauerei Baar in Baar, Switzerland. Both of these are nicely dark beers that go well with the food here.

To eat: First fish
1a. pickled herring with rings of red onion, curry sauce,^[1] and hard boiled eggs (on whole-grain dark rye bread).
1b. leek herring (on whole-grain dark rye bread).
1c. smoked salmon with mayonnaise and lemon wedges (on white bread).
1d. marinated salmon ('gravad laks') with honey-mustard sauce (on white bread).

Bonus drink (particularly to go with herrings): In small glasses, shots of our own import of Danish aquavit, Myrica flavoured aquavit ('porsesnaps') from Aalborg/Danish Distillers - a personal favourite of mine (and one of the few drink issues where I seem to agree with my mother).

After the fish followed a warm dish:
2. oven-warmed liver pâté with freshly sautéed bacon and mushrooms, and optional pickled beetroots (on dark or white bread as preferred).

Followed by a selection of sliced meats:
3a. horse salami.
3b. cold pork roast (on whole-grain dark rye bread with red-cabbage sauerkraut).
3c. cold duck roast (on whole-grain dark rye bread with red-cabbage sauerkraut).

At this point we were ready to entertain with with cheeses and fruits, but our guests looked about ready to burst already, so we decided to skip directly to the sweets:
4a. flourless chocolate-brazil nut cake
4b. cookie selection: Finnish breads, Swedish chocolate breads, Palestinian cookies, and pistachio shortbreads.

And so went the entire afternoon. One doesn't really need much of a dinner after such a lunch...

^[1] To get a more strongly yellow curry sauce I added pure ground turmeric.

My First Duck Roast

Traditionally the big Christmas dinner in Denmark is on Christmas Eve - and I guess most Danes would have duck roast.^[1] This year I decided to try my hand at a whole duck for the first time. Well, let me be frank: a few mistakes were made, so there's room for improvement ...

Since I was going to be cooking only for two I took the smallest duck I could find at the store, at 1.5 kg (~ 3 lbs). Traditionally the duck is stuffed with apples and prunes, but I decided to go for a different flavour: I stuffed it instead with onion, leek, and fresh sage. I closed it using a couple of wooden toothpicks. The skin was rubbed with generous amounts of salt.


One of the tricky parts is getting a crisp skin, while not drying out the meat. I read beforehand that a nice result should be obtained by roasting it first for 20-30 minutes at 225 C (450 F) with the breast up and then turning it over on the grid, filling a little water in the bottom of the pan and roasting at 160 C (320 F) for about 30 minutes per lb. This is exactly where I made my mistakes: for one thing, I don't think the early roasting at the higher temperature was sufficient. Worse, when I turned it over and poured water in the pan, the water reached the skin (because the grid was too low over the bottom of the pan). Consequently, the skin wasn't anywhere near crisp when the duck was roasted. I tried turning on the broiler for a some minutes, but I never got the skin quite right.

The meat, however, was delicious - I really liked the hint of sage. It was served with peeled, boiled potatoes, broiled green beans, red cabbage sauerkraut, gravy made from the drippings, salad (made from corn salad, cucumber, tomato, caper berries, and roasted pine nuts), and a pinot noir Burgundy wine with a very Christmas like label (click picture to enlarge).

For dessert this heavy flourless chocolate-brazil nut cake.

^[1] It's not uncommon in larger families to find both duck roast and pork roast.

Real Pork Roast (Flæskesteg)

You know, the irony isn't lost on me: For over 5 years I lived in the US, where I believe myself to speak the language more or less fluently. Not once did I try to enter a butcher's shop to ask for one of the right cuts of pork to make Danish pork roast - I just got by using the pork bellies that I did find at stores. Despite this, after having been in Switzerland for less than a year, I decided to actually go and ask for a more appropriate cut of pork .. in my broken beginners French, no less.


So here it is - Danish pork roast, the way it's supposed to be. The actual recipe is like that for the pork belly, so this is mainly just for the pictures.

The cooking time is approximately 1 hour per kg (30 minutes per pound). The procedure of having the skin down in the water for the first half hour or so not only softens the skin so it is easier to score, but it also cooks out some of the fat which makes it easier to crisp the skin the right way at the end of the procedure.

I have a different oven now, one that has the broiler in the actual oven room, so for the final crisping of the skin I could use that - in less than 4 minutes the skin bubbled up very nicely and became perfect... and only a little burned. OK, so I should have kept a better eye on it, but I didn't realize trouble arose that quickly. And yes, the gravy isn't brown - I don't have gravy colouring here and didn't have the time to experiment with alternatives for this.
 

'Palestinian' Cookies ver.1

One of the cookies traditionally served in Denmark around the Yuletide is Jødekager ('Jew cookies'),[1] and I remember a few years ago overhearing that these had fallen a bit from grace due to their name. I recently learned that in a effort to make the Christmas cookie-jar more politically acceptable these Palæstinenserkager ('Palestinian cookies') had been invented. Like other cookies presented here the actual Palestinian character of the cookies is somewhat doubtful.

Actually this didn't pan out quite as expected, but more on that below.

Ingredients:
- 140 g (5 oz) sugar
- zest of 1 lemon, grated
- 7 tbsp water
- 225 g (8 oz) unsalted butter, cut in chunks
- 400 g (14 oz) flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
toppings:
- 2 tbsp aniseed
- 100 g (3.5 oz) cane sugar
- 2 tbsp caraway seeds
- 1 tbsp ground cardamom
- 2 tbsp ground coriander
- 2 tbsp sesame seeds


Sugar, lemon zest, water and butter was mixed till homogeneous using a hand-held mixer (this took a little while). In a separate bowl flour, salt, and baking powder was mixed and then stirred into the butter mixture. The somewhat sticky dough was shaped into a log, about 30 cm (12 inches) long, 5 cm (2 inches) thick, wrapped in film and stored in the fridge for 4 h to make it firm.

Half of the log was cut in 0.5 cm (1/5 inch) slices, the other half was cut in 0.2 cm (1/12 inch) slices. All were placed on baking sheets and sprinkled with the pre-mixed toppings. The thicker kind was baked at 180 C (360 F) for 15 minutes while the thinner kind was baked at the same temperature for 12 minutes.


The result wasn't bad - cookies with a rather different taste from the typical arsenal of Danish cookies. And there isn't really an interesting difference between the thicker and thinner kinds. However, in order to get a dough of a texture I could actually roll into a log I had to use a lot more flour than the recipe called for (like 33% extra) - and I think the less sticky dough obtained this way is then less than ideal for making the topping stick. I think I should try again, either making the dough as the original recipe and shaping them in different way than done here or simply brush the cookies with a little beaten egg before sprinkling with the topping.

[1] And I will not be making Jew cookies this year, as some are being kindly donated by Mrs. Throat-Erator's mother.

Pistachio Shortbreads

Mrs. Throat-Erator has made these cookies for me a few times, but this is the first time I have a go at them myself.

Ingredients:
- 250 g (0.55 lb) flour
- 100 g (3.5 oz) powdered sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla sugar
- 175 g (6 oz) unsalted butter, cut in chunks
- 1 egg yolk
- 3 dL (1 1/4 cup) roasted, salted pistachios [1], shelled and chopped coarsely to give 80 g (2.8 oz) pistachio pieces

The flour, sugar, and vanilla sugar was mixed, then the butter was worked into the dough using hands. Then egg yolk and the pistachio pieces were worked into the dough. The slightly moist ball of dough was parted in two, each rolled into a log about 20 cm (8 inches) long, 2.5 cm (1 inch) thick. The logs were wrapped in film and stored in the fridge 4 hours to make it firm.

The logs were cut in 0.6 cm (1/4 inch) slices and placed on a baking sheet. Baked in the oven at 160 C (325 F) for 20 minutes (until light golden).


[1] The original recipe called for unsalted pistachios but added salt to the dough - I figured the end result would be similar...

Apple Bacon

Since this is a dish in clear violation of Mrs. Throat-Erator's don't-mix-fruit-with-food rule I only make it when she's not around.

Ingredients:
- smoked bacon, thinly sliced
- 1 onion, chopped coarsely
- 2 apples, cored and cut in boats
- water
- salt, pepper
- brown sugar

The bacon was fried in a large pan, then added the onion and a few minutes later added apples, a little water, salt, pepper and brown sugar - the pan was covered and the mix was allowed to simmer for about half an hour with occasional stirring. The simmering has to continue until the apples are turning mushy (and thus the time required is somewhat dependent on what kind of apples you use). Towards the end, the simmering was uncovered to reduce the amount of liquid a little.

Served still warm, either on whole grain rye or white bread - some people also like it on top of liver pâté...

Danish Beer - Part III (Tuborg Julebryg)

As I mentioned previously there is a strong tradition of seasonal beers in Denmark. Amongst the most institutionalised is 'Tuborg Julebryg' (Tuborg Yule-brew) - this to the point that the day it is released is known in Denmark as J-day. J-day used to be a Thursday, but after increasing pressure from high schools the brewery agreed a few years ago to move J-day to Friday instead.

Although I had seen it before, I had kind of forgotten that Tuborg Julebryg is also available on the German market. I was recently reminded of this when I went to the very well stocked beer store Drinks of the World in Zürich: I instantly recognized the blue label with the snow falling ... and the German label confirmed what I knew must be true.

Naturally, I bought one.

Honestly, I'm too nostalgic about this product to be able to really tell you about the beer itself...

Guacamole Herring

In my quest for new ways to serve pickled herring I came up with this combination of Danish and Mexican foods. Two pickled herring filets were cut in smaller pieces and mixed with guacamole (half portion of recipe given here - with fresh green chillies added) and the mixture was covered and left in the fridge overnight.


As always, herring was eaten on dark whole grain rye bread. To drink: dark beer, and - since I don't have any Danish snaps in the house right now - a shot of tequila. The guacamole goes quite nicely with the pickled herring: it has an appropriate freshness. If anything, I would maybe use more herring for the same amount of guacamole some other time as the guacamole was almost too dominating in the overall taste.

Super Bock

There is actually a significant number of Portuguese people living in Geneva. I don't know if this is part of the reason why one can get both of the two major Portuguese beers here: Super Bock and Sagres. While both brands are sold here, it's a rather limited selection compared to the home market in Portugal were each brand put out a selection of different beers. On a trip to Lisbon last month I had occasion to try two of these.


The 'Stout Super Bock' was the better of the two, IMHO. The 'Green Super Bock' is notable for being only the 3rd lemon flavoured beer I've come across so far - the other two being the truly weird Tuborg Porter Citron, which was a mixture of Tuborg Porter and Tuborg lemon soda mixed and bottled as such (it was only on the market for about a year in the late 1990's) AND the much more successful Lemon Ale sold annually at the Goleta Valley Lemon Festival (made by the Hollister Brewing Company).

But I still haven't tasted a lemon beer that comes across as very convincing to me ... I'm thinking it could be done, but someone might have to think boldly to do it. I remember years ago, out of sheer curiosity, buying a six-pack of Buffalo Bill's Orange Blossom Cream Ale which I thought was really good - and then I was never able to find it again at a single store.