Chicken Marsala
One of my husbands favorites. Not necessarily german, but hey...... I can cook everything.
This is what you need:
- Chicken thighs or Chicken breast (we like the dark meat)
- 1 big box pre-sliced mushrooms
- 1 cup Chicken Broth
- 1 cup Marsala cooking wine (by the Vinegar in the grocery store)
- 1 diced Onion
- 1 clove Garlic, minced
- 1 Tbsp - 1 1/2 Tbsp flour
- Butter or Ghee (clearified Butter) for frying
- Salt and Pepper
This is how you do it:
Salt and Pepper the chicken parts and fry them on each side in the buttered and hot pan until golden on each side. Remove from pan.
Add the diced onions to the pan. You might want to add a bit more butter if necessary. Don't get them to dark. You might just turn down the heat to medium for that. Now add the garlic and the mushrooms and let it darken a bit, 1-2 min.. Now dust the mushrooms with the flour and stir well. Let it sit another min or 2. Now add the chicken broth and the Marsala. Pepper. Be careful with salt at that point.
Add the chicken back to the pan and cover it. Let it cook for around 10 min.. In the meantime you can prepare your pasta or whatever you want to serve with it. The flour will thicken the sauce.
At the very end, before you serve, try it and add salt if needed. But it will reduce some that's why I said, be careful ;-)
That was it. Easy isn't it? Now have fun and.....
Guten Appetit
Granatsplitter - cake bombs
Granatsplitter in Germany was usually a way for bakeries to use pieces of cake or Torte from the day before they couldn't sell. Usually, they just threw all left over cakes together, mixed them up, put them on a piece of waffle or they baked small pie crusts and set them on top of it. Covered in some chocolate and e voila, you had another cake to sell. Now here in the states, you can do that too. Or, you can do it like me and follow this easy steps. I even froze the "cake mix" and reused it later.
Quick way on preparing something for a spontanous Guest.
This is what you need:
- really, there is no right or wrong. I usually bake a box chocolate cake
- I usually use either a box Marzipan cake or the Marzipan cake from Aldi. But you can use also
a nut cake or whatever you just like
- If you don't have Marzipan (what is Almond), but you want to achive that flavor, make a vanilla cake and just add Almond Extract to it.
- Instant Vanilla pudding
- 2 Sticks butter
- Rum Extract
- your favorite chocolate. I like the bitter chocolate on this (more cocoa then sugar)
- Waffles or you make a quick dough and bake some small round pie crusts
This is what you need for the Pie crust:
You can freeze the rest of the dough before baking or just make half amount.
- 100 gr Sugar
- 200 gr. Butter (softened)
- 300 gr. Flour
- 1 egg
This is how you do it:
If you don't have Waffles like in this picture, make the pie crust dough. Roll it out to around 1 inch
and use a cookie cutter to cut out circles. Place them in the preheated 350 Fahrenheit oven and bake them till their golden around 10 min.. Let them cool before further use.
Bake the box cakes like instruction says. Make the Instant Vanilla pudding like Instruction says.
Use half of the box cakes and crumble them up when cooled. Add the 2 sticks of butter to the Vanilla pudding and some Rum extract. Stir in the Vanilla cream with the crumbled cake.
Place little oval balls on the waffles or pie crusts in the size you desire.
Melt the Chocolate of your choice over a hot water bath. You simple add some hot water in a pan and place another bowl with the chocolate on top of the water. Don't do it in the microwave. Don't use hot cream for it. You don't want a Ganache. It would be to liquid. Now carefully spoon the chocolate over your cake bombs. You best place some wax paper underneath a cookie cooling sheet. So you avoid a huge mess.
I usually put them on a baking trey and place it in the deep freezer for a couple of min until the chocolate hardens. Then I remove them and store them in the Fridge.
Guten Appetit
Vegetable season
So, this here is a recipe I found at the ladies page Fix without Fix I like to go back and check on
because she is trying to redo all Instant fix products in germany with fresh ingredients.
This season here is perfect to add to soups, sauces or wherever you need a little extra kick of flavor.
This is what you need:
- 1 head of Celery Root
- 2 big Carrots
- 3 stalks of Leek
- 4 Onions
- around 6 cloves or Garlic (around 1/2 half Garlic)
- 1 big bundle of fresh Parsley
- 1 bundle of chive
- 1 package of water cress
- around 150-200 gr Salt
- Food processor
This is how you do it:
Wash and peel all vegetables. Cut them in pieces big enough to put in the Food processor and
cut it really small. As small as possible. If you don't have a food processor, you will have to hand cut every single vegetable as small as possible. That might also tells you its time to get a food processor lol. Do one vegetable at a time and empty it in a biiiig bowl.
Per 100 gr of vegetable you use 12 gr of Salt. Mix the salt into the vegetables. Best tool for that are your hands ;-) . Let it sit for around 15 min.. It's going to pull water.
After the 15 min it should be nice watery. Use an Immersion Blender (StabMixer) to mash the Vegetables now as fine as you can. If you don't have this Blender, use the Food processor again.
I can tell you though, an Immersion Blender is worth gold. You can blend sauces and everything with this thing. If you haven't noticed yet, but I use that thing quiet often.
Now jar the broth season in glasses. They store pretty long. They're also nice little gifts. I got like 3 Sauerkraut jar sizes full with it and gave one to my mom.
This Vegetable season is not meant to be used as Broth but more like the extra kick of season to a sauce or soup. It really doesn't dissolve in Water good.
Guten Appetit
Kraeuterrahmsosse -- herb cream sauce
There is a Instant fix product in germany, called Kraeuterrahm Schnitzel, and the sauce is just
divine. I have tried several recipes. I found this page where they fix the recipes without the fix
product. I got her recipe for this sauce, but it wasn't quiet the same. Today, I finally found it.
After starting after the ladies recipe, I finished it up with a couple more herbs and flavors. It's
my daughters second favorite sauce and now, finally, I can make it without the Instant fix product.
Happy happy joy joy.
By the way, that sauce is going good with almost any meat. Pork, chicken..... but you want to
catch the meat drippings and the sear flavors.
This is what you need:
- 1 small onion, diced (or 1 TSP onion powder, if you dont want chunks)
- 200 ml Vegetable broth (Vegeta)
- 200 ml Heavy cream or Media Crema (mexican cream, less fat)
- 1/4 TSP dry Parsley
- 1/4 TSP dry Tarragon
- 1 TSP dry Chives
- 1/4 TSP Garlic Powder
- 1/4 TSP ground mustard
- 1/4 TSPMajoram
- 1/4 TSP Aromat (strengthen the flavor. If you don't have it, it's ok)
- Salt and Pepper
This is how you do it:
Get the herbs measured in a small bowl and grind them smaller with whatever kitchen gadget you have. I used a coffee bean grinder. It will make the sauce more creamy and less chunky.
Salt and Pepper whatever meat you are using. If you have Ghee, use this to fry the meat in a pan. If you don't have Ghee, use Butter. Ghee is just clarified butter without the protein.
Put the pan seared meat in an aluminium foil and keep it warm in the oven. DO NOT CLEAN OUT THE PAN!!!! You want those tiny little flavor bits in your sauce. When you just prepare everything but don't eat yet, just keep the meat on a plate and collect the juice from there.
Add a bit more Ghee or Butter if necessary and on medium heat, fry the diced onion. Skip that step when you use Onion Powder. When it starts to get a bit brownish, add the 1 TSP sugar. Cook it for another minute or so. Now add the cream and the vegetable broth you made out of the Vegeta Bullion. Let it simmer once and then add all the herbs and spices. Be careful with the salt. Let it simmer for a couple of min..
If the sauce is to liquidy, use 1 TSP corn starch and some water to make a slurry and thicken the sauce a bit. If it gets to thick, just add some more vegetable broth.
Now add the meat AND the meat drippings back in the pan and let the meat reheat. Now you can put the finishing touch on with the salt.
Today, we had filled chicken breast with cream cheese and bacon to this dish. You can eat with mashed potatoes, Croquettes, Rice.... whatever your heart desire.
Guten Appetit
Hungarian Langosch
Langosch is actually a hungarian dish. It's more like a fast food. We have them on every
fair or Oktoberfest in Bavaria. I am not so sure about the authenticity to the actual hungarian
version, but I just looooove this version lol. So, if you ever make it to the Oktoberfest in
Munich in September, you will know what those Langosch booths sell ;-) .
This is what you need:
- 500 gr Flour (regular all purpose)
- 250 ml (1 Cup) warm water
- 100 ml warm Milk
- 2 TSP salt
- 7 gr of Active Dry Yeast
- 2 TSP sugar
- Oil for frying
This is how you do it:
Measure the warm water and warm milk and add the sugar and yeast and let it sit until the yeast
foams.
Once Yeast foams, add it to the flour and salt and knead until it forms a ball. You might add a bit more flour if to sticky or more warm water if to dry.
Let it rest for 30 min
Oil your hands and form baseball sice balls. Heat the oil in a deep dish so you just have enough that the flat Langosch can fry. I use a higher frying pan and fill the oil just a bit under a half of the height.
With your oily hands, pull the dough ball into a flat piece. If holes appear, don't worry. That will
just look cute. Now fry the dough in the hot oil from both sides until golden brown. Watch out, its pretty quick. Remove from oil and sit it on a some Paper towels for excess oil dripping.
You can eat the Langosch sweet with some marmelade or savory. At the fair, they serve it with some garlic water (just plain grated Garlic in a bit water and oil and salt), sour cream and grated cheese.
Guten Appetit
Schaschlik --- Kebab
Schaschlik is like a Kebab here in the states. You can basically put on that stick what you want.
The cooking part is a bit different though then to the Kebab here in the states.
This is what you need:
- Pork loin
- same thickness beef meat (stew meat works pretty good)
- chicken (optional)
- Liver (optional)
- Thick cut Bacon
- Onions
- Bell Pepper
- Salt, Pepper, Curry, Paprika, Garlic powder, Onion powder
- Beef Broth
- 1/2 cup oil
- Ketchup
This is how you do it:
Cut all ingredients in same size cubes. Use Sticks what would fit in an oven safe pan or regular pan. I still have little issues with this lol. (I found the medium size wooden sticks to be perfect now)
Place the vegetables and the meat on the sticks how you want. I usually place vegetables after every other piece of meat.
Sear them in a pan first before placing them in the sauce. Once their seared, place the Schaschlik sticks in a deep oven pan or a big sauce pan. Season it with salt, pepper, Paprika and Curry. Mix Beef Broth and Ketchup to a 1:1 ratio, enough to slightly cover the meat. Add the oil and cover it with aluminium foil or with the lid.
Cook it in preheated oven 350 Degrees for 60 min or until the meat is soft. In the pan it took me around 90 min..
Remove the sticks but keep the liquid. Adjust the flavor of the sauce with more salt and curry if needed. You want a nice kind of sour taste, not to spicy.
Serve the Schaschlik with the sauce on top and some french fries or just plain bread.
Guten Appetit
Croquettes -- Kroketten
Croquettes are a nice side dish. You might want to compare them with thick Tater Tots, but
with a softer inside. More like Mashed Potatoes with a crust.
They are very delicious and a perfect side dish to sunday roasts or to just Mushrooms with
sauce.
I usually make them ahead of time. when I am bored and I have nothing else to do. I finish
them up, freeze them on the baking sheet and once they are frozen I transfer them into
a freezer bowl or bag. When you need them, just take out the amount you need, spray them
with some cooking oil and place them in the oven. I give them a couple of min at the end with
the Broiler so they get a nice color
This is what you need:
- 500 gr Potatoes (for mashing) pre-cooked in salt water
- 2 Egg yolk
- 20 gr Potato Starch or Corn Starch
- 20 gr. melted unsalted Butter
- salt, Pepper, Nutmeg to taste
This is how you do it:
Best thing is to pre-cook the peeled Potatoes in salt water the night before. Or if you have left over from another dish. They should be cooled.
Mash the Potatoes really fine (through a Potato masher). You can even mash them a second time to get them really nice and smooth.
Seperate the Egg yolk and the Egg white in different bowls. Add the Egg yolks to the Potatoes and the rest of the ingredients. Stir thoroughly to get a smooth dough.
Add a bit of water to the Egg whites and stir good. In a seperate bowl add some plain Breadcrumbs.
Now take some of the dough and form it to a ball. Then roll them between your hands to get little sausages. Lay them on a non stick paper on a baking tray. Finish the dough with forming the Croquettes.
When you are done forming, take one by one and put them in the egg wash first and then roll them in the Breadcrumbs. Use one hand for the wet and one hand for the dry so you don't get messy fingers.
Once you are done, put the baking tray with the Croquettes into the freezer. Once their frozen, you can pack them up or use them right away.
If you use them, just spray a bit cooking oil on them on the baking sheet and bake them in 350 degree oven for around 10-15 min.. If the color is still a bit pale, just turn on the broiler until you get a nice golden color.
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