Spoonfuls of Germany

May 4, 2013
by Spoonfuls of Germany 2 Comments

The “forbidden fruit” in my garden

Jostaberry in bloom

The berries did it – the gooseberries, black and red currants, and elderberries I knew and loved from Germany and could not find in the United States. The berries made me a gardener. In the process, I became a passionate gardener not only for food (see also my other blog, My Gardener’s Table).

Fortunately all of these berries do well in our local climate. And they are no strangers to the people of Pennsylvania Dutch country with their predominantly German ancestry. I have talked to many older folks who remember their grandmothers making jams and jellies from gooseberries and elderberries. Nowadays, however, you are more likely to find those fruits at Union Square Market in New York City than at local farm stands. The owner of a local farm and nursery told me that he ripped out all of his gooseberry and currant shrubs a few years ago because nobody wanted them any longer.

There is another reason why black currants and gooseberries disappeared in the United States. Since 1911 there had been a federal ban of black currants and their close relatives, gooseberries, because they were believed to spread a plant disease called “white pine blister rust”. The disease affected native white pines, which was an important source of lumber. Later scientific research revealed that black currants and gooseberries were not quite the culprits. Also, disease management had improved, disease-resistant varieties had been bred, and white pines were not such an important lumber any more so the federal ban was lifted in the mid-1960s. Today it is up to the federal states whether they allow gooseberries and black currants to be cultivated or not. Pennsylvania allows them, while neighboring New Jersey does not.

With a bit of luck, you can find gooseberries, red and and black currants, and, in late summer, elderberries, at farmers’ markets. Therefore I felt encouraged to include two of my cherished berry recipes in the upcoming new edition of Spoonfuls of Germany: my grandmother’s Elderberry Soup with Farina Dumplings, and her Red Currant Meringue Pie.

The currants and gooseberries are in bloom right now. And the jostaberries, a crossbreed between gooseberries and black currants (hence the name: Johannisbeeren and Stachelbeeren = Josta), which I planted several years ago, bloom for the first time this year. It looks like it’s going to be a good crop this year. I cannot wait to get my hands on those “forbidden fruit”!

April 12, 2013
by Spoonfuls of Germany Leave a comment

Not all borshch is pink

As the author of a German cookbook I encounter a great deal of stereotypes and misconceptions. But in all honesty I must admit that I was guilty of unsubstantiated prejudice about Ukrainian cuisine, which, like all other East European cuisines, I believed to be heavy, fatty, and starchy.

A few months ago I found out that Annette Ogrodnik Corona, author of The New Ukrainian Cookbook, lives nearby. I seized the opportunity to get to know a fellow cookbook author (we have the same publisher, Hippocrene Books), and learn more about Ukrainian cuisine, so I invited Annette for a cooking session together.

Her book became my nighttime reading for the two weeks prior, and I loved it. I realized that Ukrainian and German cuisine both suffer from overlooked diversity. I flagged dozens of recipes that I want to try: Beet Caviar, Country Paté, Crimean Yogurt Sauce… I also made Perekladanets, a yeasted egg bread with a stuffing of walnuts and dried fruit, and found it delicious. The New Ukrainian Cookbook won the 2012 Gourmand Cookbook Award for Best Eastern European Cuisine book in the United States, and I can absolutely see why.

For our cooking session, Annette made Green Borshch with Sorrel, and Mlyntsi (Griddlecakes) with two toppings: savory with bell peppers, and sweet with sour cream, jam and strawberries. Luckily she let me nibble on a couple of rejected oddly shaped ones because I would not have made it through the photo shoot while the wonderful smell of the soup was filling the kitchen. For dessert I made Lemon-Rice Cake, based on a recipe from an 18th-century cookbook classic by a pastor’s wife from the Bavarian city of Augsburg.

When we finally sat down for our German-Ukrainian lunch, we mainly talked food politics. Annette said she made a point of including recipes from all the different ethnic groups in Ukraine, well aware that this could rub some people the wrong way. This reminded me of the debates I had with myself whether to include recipes from areas like Silesia or East Prussia that formerly belonged to Germany. “Recipes, like birds, ignore political boundaries,” wrote James Meek in his excellent 2008 article in The Guardian about the story of borshch. Yet at the same time, the recipes one includes in an ethnic cookbook, and what one says about them, can trigger political reactions. Herein lies the best proof that a cookbook about a country’s cuisine is much more than food on a plate.

What I took away from all this was a newly discovered love for Ukrainian cuisine, and the lesson that you cannot say anything about a cuisine unless you’ve had a good taste of it.

Sorrel or Green Borshch

From The New Ukrainian Cookbook by Annette Ogrodnik Corona

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 large onion, peeled and grated

1 carrot, peeled and chopped

8 cups chicken broth

2 potatoes, peeled and chopped

6 cups finely shredded sorrel

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh dill

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley

½ cup light cream

½ cup sour cream

1 tablespoon unbleached all-purpose flour

Slices of hard-cooked eggs and sprigs of dill for garnishing

1. Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion, reduce the heat to medium-low, and gently sauté until soft and golden but not browned, about 10 minutes. Add the carrot and continue cooking another 5 minutes. Add the chicken broth and potatoes and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes.

2. Bring the soup back up to barely a boil and add the sorrel, dill, and parsley. Cook just until the sorrel has wilted, about 5 minutes. Turn the heat back down to low and remove 1 cup of soup and pour it into a medium bowl. Set aside.

3. Pour the light cream into a small bowl and add the sour cream and flour and whisk until smooth and creamy. Stir this mixture into the reserved cup of soup, and then add mixture to the pot, stirring all the while. Continue cooking the borshch another 2 minutes. Serve ladled into individual bowls garnished with slices of hard-cooked eggs and sprigs of fresh dill.

Makes 6 servings

March 30, 2013
by Spoonfuls of Germany Leave a comment

Where are the eggs, please?

On my yearly visits to Germany I realize how the once familiar becomes unfamiliar, which often leads to funny situations. A few years ago I wanted to bake an American cheesecake. At the grocery store I paced up and down the cooler section several times looking for eggs and eventually asked a sales clerk. He stared at me, then walked me to a different part of the store with a shelf fully stocked with eggs. I stood there perplexed and it dawned on me that in Germany, unlike in the United States, eggs are often not refrigerated.

German food hygiene regulations allow eggs to be stored at standard room temperature for 18 days after laying. This is possible because eggs are only brushed clean after leaving the chicken coop, not washed like in the US, so the protective cuticle, or bloom, that the hen deposits on the egg remains in place. This layer acts as a barrier against bacteria. When eggs are washed, on the other hand, all or at least some of the cuticle is removed.

Easter in Germany is peak season for Eierlikör, known as Advocaat in English, a liqueur made with eggs. It was introduced by Eugen Verpoorten, a Belgian from Antwerp who set up production in the German town of Heinsberg near the Dutch-German border in 1876. More than two centuries earlier, the Portuguese and Dutch colonists had developed a taste for Aguacate, an avocado-based booze made by the Tupo Guarani tribes at the banks of the Amazon. When the Dutch were kicked out of what is today Brazil in 1654, they took the recipe for Aguacate with them but avocados would not grow in the European climate. 200 years of Aguacate abstinence followed until Verpoorten had the ingenious idea of replacing the avocados with eggs, which made the liqueur just as creamy and yellow as the original. The company’s recipe, which is a well-kept secret, has not changed since.

Verpoorten with its black-and-gold oval logo dominates not only the German but the world Advocaat market. In Germany, however, the liqueur was for the longest time associated with elderly ladies sipping it at their Kaffeeklatsch. Yet the brand succeeded in modernizing its image. The liqueur is as popular as ever today, enjoyed on its own, drizzled on ice-cream, or used to spike up cakes and desserts.

You can make Advocaat yourself; in fact, even in Germany, where you can buy it in every supermarket, some people prefer the homemade stuff. There are two methods, using raw egg yolks, or processing them in a hot water bath. I find the water-bath method safer.

I never liked Advocaat when I was living in Germany – it was one of the things I only started craving after moving across the Atlantic. And good for me that avocados do not grow in Europe and forced Verpoorten to tweak the recipe because I am allergic to them!

Advocaat (Eierlikör)

1 cup heavy cream

½ vanilla bean, split lengthwise

4 very fresh large egg yolks

2 cups confectioners’ sugar

½ cup Everclear grain alcohol (75.5% alcohol/151 proof)

½ cup + 2 tablespoons golden rum

1. Heat the heavy cream and the vanilla bean in a small saucepan. Remove from the heat and let steep for 30 minutes. Strain.

2. In a metal bowl, or in a double boiler, mix the egg yolks with the confectioners’ sugar. Add the strained cream and whisk until smooth.

3. Over gently boiling water, whisk until the mixture thickens, which will take 10 minutes or more. Make sure the mixture does not boil, or the eggs will curd. If that happens, you may still be able to save the batch by straining it through a fine sieve after adding the alcohol.

4. Remove from the heat and stir in the Everclear and rum. Whisk until cool and pour into a sterilized bottle. Refrigerate immediately and use within one week.

Makes about 3 cups

March 21, 2013
by Spoonfuls of Germany 5 Comments

Comfort in a clay pot

When I met my husband, he had been living alone with his two children, 8 and 10 at the time, for several years. I was a 30-something having little experience with children, let alone ever any responsibility for anyone except myself, and an only child at that. As I slowly began to settle in the vast and unknown terrain of parenting, the kitchen was the place where I felt the most comfortable. That’s where I sort of knew what I was doing, and where I could literally bring something new to the table. I remember the times when both kids climbed on the kitchen island to watch me cook.

After a while, to make room for my stuff, I started sorting through the kitchen cabinets, giving away what I knew I would never use, and moving other things into the basement for storage. I could not believe it when my eyes fell on a clay pot from Germany, known under the brand name Römertopf. “Where did you get this?,” I asked my husband. He shrugged his shoulders. “At the kitchen store in D.C. I was told that anybody could cook with this, and that it was foolproof.”

Although I had never cooked in a Römertopf and did not own one myself, it was a very familiar item. Clay pots have of course been around for thousands of years yet the Römertopf, just like the fondue pot, is for Germans clearly associated with the 1970′s. The only thing Roman about it is the name. The pot was introduced in 1967 and it is still being produced in Germany today. The company now makes different models, sizes and shapes, though I still like the classic model the best.

Initially I only used the pot to store bread. The first chicken I braised in it made me change my mind. The meat comes out wonderfully moist and succulent. And the pot is indeed foolproof; the only thing you must do is soak it in cold water, and place it in the cold oven.

Our son has been home for spring break, and before he goes back to college this weekend I wanted to make a pot roast. There is no more climbing on the countertop these days but as always he showed up in the kitchen while I was cooking, telling me how good it smells, and that he cannot wait for dinner.

For me, this is the epitome of comfort food.

Pot Roast from the Römertopf

Recipe adapted from The Way to Cook by Julia Child

1 5-pound bottom round of beef, fat removed

6 parsley sprigs including stems

3 thyme twigs

6 black peppercorns

3 whole cloves

4 allspice berries

1 large bay leaf

3 large garlic cloves, smashed

2 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil

1 cup chopped onion

1 cup chopped carrot

1½ cups chopped peeled tomatoes

1½ cups dry red wine

Salt

2 tablespoons cornstarch

Pepper

1. Place the Römertopf, bottom and lid, in a sink or a large container filled with cold water and soak for 20 to 30 minutes. The pot should be completely immersed in water. Drain and dry.

2. Tie the roast with butcher twine every 1.5 inches. Gather the herbs, spices and garlic in a triple-folded piece of cheesecloth and tie it at the top with a piece of butcher twine.

3. Heat the oil in a large skillet and brown the roast from all sides. Transfer the roast to the Römertopf.

4. Sauté the vegetables until the onion is translucent. Place them around the roast, together with the tomatoes. Add the bouquet garni and enough wine to come about half way up the meat.

5. Cover the Römertopf with the lid and place it on the medium rack of the cold oven. Set the oven temperature to 400 degrees F. Cook for 2 to 2.5 hours, or until tender. Salt lightly after 1 hour.

6. Remove the roast from the pot and cover to keep warm. Strain the liquid through a fine sieve into a saucepan, pressing down the vegetables to extract maximum flavor. Bring the liquid to a boil. Dissolve the cornstarch with 2 to 3 tablespoons cold water and whisk it into the liquid. Cook, whisking constantly, until the gravy thickens. Season with salt and pepper.

7. Remove the twine from the roast. Carve it and serve the slices and the gravy separately.

Makes 10 servings

March 7, 2013
by Spoonfuls of Germany 2 Comments

New farina app

French do it, Arabs do it, Indians, Dutch and Germans do it… grandmothers and guys do it… non-cooks and cooks do it: bring back typical foods from their home country that are impossible or difficult to find in the United States, or very expensive, or not the real thing.

Bringing meat products or fresh fruit into the United States is not allowed. Each time I return from Germany and wait at the airport baggage claim, I watch the dogs of the U.S. Customs sniffing their way through the crowd. Then I run through my mind the foods I brought and properly listed on the customs form, and just hope my father did not sneak a salami from the local butcher into my suitcase to surprise me when I get home.

I expected that the list of the foods I need to bring back from Germany would grow longer with the number of years away. To my surprise, it did not, on the contrary. Of course there are lots of “nice to have’s”, and when friends or family ask before their visit what I would like, I can always come up with a list. But nowadays many ingredients I used to load up on are available, or viable substitutes. So I have narrowed the “must have’s” down to two items: pectin for jams and jellies, and green spelt (Grünkern).

It took me a good while to realize that soft wheat farina is the same as Grieß (Weichweizengrieß, to be precise) in German. In America it is almost exclusively prepared as a hot breakfast cereal, and that’s where it is located at the grocery store – a place where it had never occurred to me to look. In Germany, soft wheat farina is used in desserts and baking, and I love it.

That’s one less item on the list. Yet knowing myself, I can always find ways to fill my suitcase with other goodies on my next trip to Germany. Just not sausage.

Farina Pudding

The pudding is especially pretty when made in a mini fluted tube pan, pudding mold, or Bundt pan. It is served sliced with fresh or poached fruit, fruit sauce, or compote. This time I made it with odds and ends I had handy: a mix of frozen rhubarb and fresh cranberries, cooked in orange juice until soft, and sweetened to taste. Anything goes.

Almond Crunch:

2 tablespoons butter

2/3 cup slivered almonds

2 tablespoons sugar

Pudding:

2 cups milk

3 tablespoons sugar

Pinch of salt

1/2 vanilla bean, split lengthwise

1/3 cup wheat farina

1 very fresh egg

1. For the almond crunch melt the butter in a skillet. Add the almonds and toast until golden. Sprinkle with the sugar and let caramelize. Remove from the head and distribute immediately in the bottom of a well-greased small tube pan or or pudding mold.

2. Put the milk in a saucepan with the sugar, salt and vanilla bean, and bring to a boil. Remove the vanilla bean. Add the farina while beating with a wire whisk. Cook for 2 minutes over medium heat until the pudding thickens and detaches from the bottom of the pan.

3. Remove from the heat. Separate the egg and add the yolk to the pudding. Beat well to combine.

4. Beat the egg white until it stands in stiff peaks. Fold it into the slightly cooled pudding. Pour into the mold and even out the top with a spatula. Let cool, then refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or until set and thoroughly chilled. Unmold onto a serving place and serve sliced, with fruit of your choice.

Makes 4 servings

February 25, 2013
by Spoonfuls of Germany 5 Comments

Field of coins

Although I never lived in the house, the place in Germany that I associate the most with “home” is my grandfather’s ancestral farm and mill in east Westphalia. It is filled with many happy childhood memories. That’s where I learned to ride a bike, snuck into the pig stall, got muddy playing in the stream, and lingered around my grandfather’s two older brothers (my grandfather died in the Second World War) as they were working the fields with Ella the draft horse.

It was on one of those farm fields that in 1958, a farm worker made a stunning discovery when the plough hit something solid in the ground. He dug out a three-legged bronze vessel and placed it in front of the barn door. My mother’s cousin remembers how she and her mother took it to the kitchen sink and slowly washed away the heavily compacted soil. Out came 60 large silver coins, three silver garment ornaments, and three silver knife shafts from the early 17^th century.

The treasure had been buried during the Thirty Years War. It was a war as complex as it was long, fought over religion and territorial hegemony in Europe and involving, at different stages, the Holy Roman Empire under the rule of the Habsburgs, Denmark, Spain, France, and Sweden. The war started on May 23, 1618 in Prague when a group of Protestant Bohemian noblemen threw three Catholic officials of the Holy Roman Emperor, Matthias of Austria, out of a window, an event known as the Second Defenestration of Prague. And it ended with the Peace of Westphalia, a series of peace treaties signed between May and October 1648 in the Westphalian cities of Münster and Osnabrück.

Being located in center of Europe, the Thirty Years War took an especially high toll on the land that is now Germany. Historians associated the treasure found on my family’s estate to the passing through of the Danish army in 1625. The famous poem Tears of the Fatherland, by Andreas Gryphius, written in 1636, draws a harrowing picture of what the population lived through, and under what circumstances the treasure must have been hidden:

(…) The towers are on fire, the churches turned upside down.

The town hall is in ruins, the strong ones are destroyed.

Young girls are raped. Wherever we turn our gaze,

Fire, plague, and death pierce through heart and spirit.

Ever-fresh streams of blood run through town and ramparts.

It’s been three times six years now, since our mighty rivers’ flow

Was blocked almost by corpses, just barely trickling through. (…)

A few years ago, my mother’s cousin, who has lived on the family estate all her life and devoted herself to the never-ending task of preserving it as a historic landmark, gave me one of the coins as a necklace. It is one of my most treasured possessions though I admit it gives me a bit of a shiver each time I wear it.

February 13, 2013
by Spoonfuls of Germany 4 Comments

Finding “Valentine’s hearts” in an unexpected place

My late grandmother had the peculiar habit of never unpacking gifts we gave her. She would set them aside “for another time”, leaving them at my parents’ home forever wrapped and unopened. One of those Christmas castaways was a baking book with color photos. I spent many hours leafing through it, salivating over recipes like chestnut ice cream cake. This was in the mid-1970s, long before the Internet propelled lavish food photos into every corner of the world.

A few years ago my mother gave that book to me. Because many of the recipe images were etched in my mind it felt like bringing home an album with photos of old friends. One of those memorable recipes were heart-shaped cookies with a pink and white icing and an almond half, called Herrnhuter Herzen. They look like the prototype of Valentine’s Day cookies, and it intrigued me that they seemed to have no obvious connection with that tradition. The book says they originated in Herrnhut, a town in Saxony, about 70 miles east of Dresden.

Although the tourist office in Herrnhut could not find any record about the cookies in the archives of the town’s museum, the director referred me to a local bakery and pastry shop that has been in the same family since 1841. The baker told me his bakery has not sold Herrnhuter Herzen since the end of the Second World War but he was able to furnish some guesses about the icing. The gathering of kindred hearts, I had already found out myself, plays a crucial role in the beliefs of the Moravian Church, of which Herrnhut is the historic center. The pink icing, the baker told me, stands for the blood of Jesus that purifies the human heart, i.e. makes it white. He thought the almond could simply be for garnish, or a symbol of the core of the heart. Interestingly, the paper-thin wafers known as Moravian cookies in the United States have no similarity with Herrnhuter Herzen; they are spice cookies that originated in the Moravian communities of colonial America.

I made Herrnhuter Herzen for Valentine’s Day, slightly diverging from the recipe in the book: as sandwich cookies with a jelly filling. When it was almost midnight and I was still sitting at the kitchen table spreading the bicolored icing onto the hearts, it dawned on me why the pastry shops in Herrnhut do not make these cookies any more. They are a real labor of love. But hey, that’s what Valentine’s Day is all about!

Herrnhuter Herzen

Since the icing should be spread onto the hearts very thickly, I reduced the sugar in the dough to a minimum. These cookies are delicate and need careful handling; they break easily, especially when still warm. But the payoff is that they melt in your mouth.

Cookies:

2 2/3 cups (13½ ounces) all-purpose flour

2 sticks unsalted butter, chilled

2 eggs

¼ cup sugar

Filling and icing:

½ cup red currant or raspberry jelly

2½ cups confectioners’ sugar, divided

Red food coloring

50 peeled almond halves

1. Put the flour in a bowl and cut the butter into it with a pastry cutter, or use a food processor, until it becomes a coarse meal. Add the eggs and sugar and blend well. Shape the dough into a ball and place it in an airtight container or in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

2. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line several sheets with parchment paper or with baking mats. Cut the dough into several large chunks and leave all of them except one in the fridge. Dust the work surface with flour and thinly roll out the dough about 1/8 inch thick. Cut out hearts with a cookie cutter and place them on the baking sheet 1 inch apart. Gather the dough scraps and place them in the fridge.

3. Bake in the preheated oven for 7 to 8 minutes. Let cool on the baking sheet, then transfer to a cake rack.

4. While the first batch is baking, process the remaining batches of dough the same way as the first. At the end, gather all the dough scraps and roll them out the same way.

5. After the hearts are completely cooled, place a small dab of jelly on half of them and place a second one on top.

6. Mix half of the confectioners’ sugar with just enough water to make a thick smooth icing; it should not drip. In another bowl, mix the rest of the icing with the same consistency. Add a drop of red food coloring.

7. First put the white icing on all the hearts (I used a small brush and a toothpick for spreading). Place an almond half pointing down on each heart. Then put the pink icing on all the hearts. Let dry in a cool place until the icing has completely hardened, which may take up to 12 hours.

Makes about 50 cookies

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