Melon-Berry Soup

Posted on 15/07/2011 by oneexpatslife

We returned home from vacation on Monday to find that our internet/phone connection had gone out at some point while we were away and it was not restored until late yesterday. Over the course of the week I discovered that four days is a very long time to be without internet access. It turns out that I really don’t know how to do anything without the internet anymore… including cook! You see, this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Cold Melon-Berry Soup, is one that I have never cooked before, and one which I had no idea how (or more to the point, with what) to serve.

The only time I have ever eaten melon soup before was as one of the courses of a multi-course tasting menu at a nice restaurant, and since my husband and I don’t tend to get that fancy at home, I was completely lost as to how I should serve this soup. Is it an appetizer? A dessert? A light lunch? The portion size looked way too small to hold its own as a main course, so in the end I decided to serve it for breakfast. And since one of my favorite summer lunches is sliced melon with cured ham, I decided to serve it alongside toast topped with prosciutto.

With my menu plan worked out I headed off to my local produce stand and promptly hit my next roadblock, which is that they did not have any cantaloupe. I guess this should not have been a complete surprise since cantaloupe is not always available around here, but I thought for sure that in the middle of summer it would not be a problem. C’est la vie I guess, or as the Germans would say, so ist nun mal das Leben! Instead I bought something which is simply called “melone” in German, and which looks similar to cantaloupe on the outside, but has a pale yellow flesh and a slightly milder flavor. If anyone knows what we call this english, please let me know.

And after all that, the recipe itself was a cinch. It took me probably 5 minutes to throw the soup together, and then the only thing left to do was to let it chill in the fridge overnight. The prosciutto toast proved to be a tasty combo, but I am very interested to see how everyone else served this soup. I find that to be one of the best parts of participating in this online cooking group, finding weekly inspiration in what all of the other cooks are whipping up!

Edit: After giving google.de a shot (which is probably where I should have started to begin with) it turns out that the melon I used is a Galia melon. According to the brilliant minds at Wikipedia, Galia melons come from Israel and are a cross between a cantaloupe and a honeydew, which would explain why it looks like a cantaloupe but tastes like a honeydew.

Posted in french fridays with dorie | Tagged , , | 21 Comments

salmon and tomatoes en papillote

Posted on 08/07/2011 by oneexpatslife

I am currently in Chicago and the whole family is buzzing with preparations as we get ready to celebrate my little brother’s upcoming wedding. In fact, I had previously thought that we would be too busy to participate in French Fridays with Dorie this week, but then we had one surprisingly quiet evening, and my husband and I volunteered to cook dinner for the family. So, with my father snapping pictures, we made Dorie’s Salmon & Tomatoes en Papillote.

En papillote means that the fish is cooked in a little individual aluminum foil purse, which has been sealed up with a little oil & seasonings. I admit that I have tried this method before without success. I don’t know what I am doing wrong, but my fish never seems to cook in the given time. In fact, last time I tried this in my apartment in Germany, my fish came out looking more like sushi. With Dorie’s recipe I also found the fish undercooked after the given time (and I am usually one who likes my fish barely cooked) but we popped it back in the oven for a few minutes more and that seemed to do the trick. My father was wondering if this had anything to do with which side of the foil was facing out, does anyone else have any experience with this?

But in the end, with just a little more cooking time we sat down to a delicious piece of fish. The salmon was beautiful to look at and, more importantly, very tasty! We will definitely be cooking this one again.

Posted in french fridays with dorie | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

beet and icy red onion salad

Posted on 01/07/2011 by oneexpatslife

I know that I may be in the minority here, but for some odd reason I have always liked beets. Even as a kid when I probably should have known better. But there it is, I guess we all have our odd tastes. What I have never liked, however, is preparing them. They seem to take ages to cook and then they dye my hands and everything else they touch so that the whole kitchen looks like a murder scene. Since moving to Germany I have occasionally eyed the readily available pre-cooked beets at my local market, but had not until now tried them. For some reason they always looked a bit suspicious to me, but heck, if Dorie and Julia endorse them, who the heck am I to quibble!

So, pre-cooked beets in hand, Dorie’s Chunky Beets & Icy Red Onions was one of the easiest French Fridays with Dorie recipes yet. It may have actually taken me longer to take the pictures than it did to actually put the salad together. This may be because I discovered that it is a bit tricky to photograph beets because they come out looking black instead of red, or at least mine did, but I digress. This is exactly the kind of food I love, substantial salads which can, as occasion demands, play either a supporting role or, with a little bit of sprucing up, the meal lead. All that and tasty too!

Posted in french fridays with dorie | Tagged , , | 16 Comments

mozzarella, tomato, and strawberry salad

Posted on 24/06/2011 by oneexpatslife

Today I am going to have to post and run, because in a few hours I will be boarding a plane for Chicago! Yes, I am homeward bound for a few weeks and I am really looking forward to it.  I look forward to checking in later this week and seeing everyone else’s take on this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Mozzarella, Tomato, and Strawberry Salad.

Some recipes rely heavily on technique while others rely almost exclusively on ingredients. This week’s recipe fell squarely into the later category. And after my miss last week with the roasted rhubarb I wasn’t taking any chances, and that meant a trip to Kleinmarkthalle. Literally translated, the name means “small market hall” but this place is anything but small. It is actually a very large indoor market in downtown Frankfurt, hidden behind a very uninviting facade, with stands selling everything from Persian sweets, to fish so fresh that it is still swimming when you pick it out. One of my favorite stalls is run by a matronly Italian woman who rolls her own pasta fresh daily and sells it alongside a clutter of imported hams & cheese. And I knew that if anyone would have good fresh burrata, it would be her.

When I first tried burrata years ago, it was love at first taste. In fact, I probably sounded a bit like Sally in her famous scene at Katz’s Deli, except that I wasn’t faking it!

Much to my chagrin I soon learned that burrata is not so easy to come by, and is darn expensive once found. The trouble with this tasty cheese is that it is highly perishable, lasting only about one week after it has been made, a process which entails wrapping a piece of fresh mozzarella around a mixture of mozzarella curds and fresh cream. The result is a very delicate and delicious cheese which practically melts in your mouth.

Dorie’s simple salad was the perfect compliment to this delectable cheese and I must admit that I have been looking forward to this one all month. Her recipe is closely related to a basic caprese salad but with the addition of fresh strawberries, an ingenious little idea which not only tastes delicious, but also looks beautiful on the plate. We will absolutely be making this one again.

Posted in french fridays with dorie | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

bacon, egg, and asparagus salad

Posted on 22/06/2011 by oneexpatslife

The Germans take their asparagus VERY seriously. It basically has its own season, which starts in early spring and lasts until the end of June. When local asparagus is at its peak, farm stands pop up all over the country for the sole purpose of selling asparagus, and every self respecting restaurant, from Michelin stars to corner pubs, produces an “asparagus menu” with various dishes featuring this most beloved veggie. But once the season is over, it’s really over, and no more will be seen until the following spring. Which is why I decided to tackle Dorie’s Bacon, Egg, and Asparagus Salad one last time before the season ends.

German asparagus is white, or occasionally purplish, but rarely green. On my latest trip to the market I found a nice pile of fresh plump locally grown white asparagus, and one or two lonely bundles of tired looking green asparagus which had been imported from Mexico. My choice was an easy one.

As for Dorie’s recipe, we have made this twice now and really enjoyed it both times. But both times I have also been amazed by how many pots & pans are required for a seemingly simple salad. Here is a shot of my stove in mid preparation; I’ve got asparagus cooking, walnuts toasting, and eggs poaching, and this doesn’t even include the pan for the bacon which I had already prepared earlier…

But if you ignore the washing up factor, this salad is fairly simple to put together, and it is oh so tasty! It was the perfect farewell to this year’s asparagus season. Until next year, auf Wiedersehen!

Posted in french fridays with dorie, life in germany | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

great expectations

Posted on 20/06/2011 by oneexpatslife

This week I am catching up with two of the previously completed French Fridays with Dorie recipes, Paris Mushroom Soup and Quinoa Fruit & Nut Salad. Going in, I was ready to love the mushroom soup, and was not really sure what to think about the quinoa salad. Boy did I learn a lesson about expectations this week!

The second I saw the Paris Mushroom Soup recipe I was prepared to love it. I like soup, I love mushrooms, all the other French Fridays with Dorie bloggers raved about it, what could go wrong? Granted, if there were a contest for least photogenic FFwD recipe, this one would take the prize, but as any oyster lover can tell you, looks aren’t everything!

The Quinoa, Fruit, and Nut Salad on the other hand was not speaking to me, and were I not part of this project to cook through the entire book, I can safely say that I would have skipped this one. Not because of the quinoa, which I actually quite like, but the combination with dried fruits & nuts somehow sounded a bit odd to me.

So imagine my surprise when the soup failed to impress and the quinoa salad was a big hit! In fact, I’m so surprised that I didn’t like the soup that I’m just going to assume that I did something wrong with the recipe. But the quinoa salad on the other hand, was great; an absolute cinch to put together, made almost entirely out of pantry staples, nutritious and oh so tasty! Dorie’s recipe is actually more of a guideline and invites you to throw whatever sounds good into the mix. We will definitely be making this one again!

Posted in french fridays with dorie | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

roasted rhubarb

Posted on 17/06/2011 by oneexpatslife

There are many foods which I disliked as a child, but have learned to love as an adult. Brussel sprouts come first and foremost to mind. However, there is also a short list of foods which I have never outgrown my distaste for, and apparently rhubarb is one of them.

Until tackling this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe, I had not eaten rhubarb in a very long time. My mother, a formidable pie maker, used to make strawberry rhubarb pies when I was a kid, and it was pretty much the only of her pie creations which I was not a fan of.

I considered skipping this week altogether, but I think it’s important to revisit our food dislikes every once in a while because, as with brussel sprouts, tastes change! And besides, this recipe looked so ridiculously easy, I had some homemade strawberry ice cream in the freezer which I thought would make a nice pairing, so why not give it a go?

Final verdict? This recipe is ridiculously easy and I suspect that it is probably a very good one for those who do enjoy rhubarb. But, for now at least, rhubarb remains firmly on my short list of foods which I do not care for.

Edited to add: Well, after some discussion with the other FFwD cooks, it looks like my recipe simply may not have been done correctly. It could be that I needed to leave my rhubarb longer in the oven or it could be that my rhubarb was simply too old and dry to produce the juicy result which everyone else seems to have gotten. According to my local market and the eat the seasons website, prime rhubarb season around these parts is February to May. Maybe I need to give it a try again next year because the photos from the other FFwDers are looking mighty good!

Posted in french fridays with dorie | Tagged , , | 17 Comments

caramel-topped semolina cake

Posted on 15/06/2011 by oneexpatslife

I can’t tell you how tempted I am to do a little creative editing with my photos, and let you think that my latest French Fridays with Dorie recipe came out picture perfect. But, I feel like it would be a lie… right?

This week I tackled a recipe which the rest of the crew completed back in November of last year, Caramel-Topped Semolina Cake. The picture in Dorie’s book looked very tasty, the reviews from the other bloggers were positive, I already had all of the ingredients in my fridge & cupboards, seems like it should be a no-brainer right?

And it really is a very easy recipe. A quick caramel sauce is swirled into the bottom of a cake pan, topped with semolina pudding, and baked in the oven for half an hour or so. Easy right? Turn the finished cake onto a serving plate and… doh, might have forgotten to run a knife around the cake before this last step… let’s just say I’m glad that we were not serving this cake to company.

So my cake did not come out picture perfect, but I did manage to salvage a couple nice slices and the aesthetic mishap certainly did not take away from the taste. Dorie recommends that the cake be served with creme anglaise, which sounds delicious, but I didn’t plan ahead and was missing a few key ingredients. Instead I topped the cake with a little cognac spiked whipped cream and, YUM!

We will definitely be making this one again.

Posted in french fridays with dorie | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

fava beans – worth the effort!

Posted on 14/06/2011 by oneexpatslife

There is no getting around it, fava beans are high maintenance! These jumbo beans, which appear in local markets every spring and look a bit like green beans on steroids, are a ton of effort to prepare, because, unlike green beans, only a tiny portion of the bean is actually edible. For example, my favorite fava bean recipe calls for 1 kilogram of beans and makes 2 side servings!

But despite the work, these beans are so tasty I find myself looking forward to them every spring.

Okay, maybe a ton of effort is an exaggeration, but there is no denying that they do take time. Here’s a quick look at the step by step prep work:

Step one: Shell the beans & discard the pods

Step two: Parboil the beans in salted boiling water for 2 minutes, then drain and plunge the beans into iced water

Step three: Remove & discard the pale green outer skin of each bean, reserving only the bright green inner bean.

Step four: Season and serve. My favorite preparation is a quick saute in marjoram and lemon juice, which I believe originally came from one of my (many) Williams Sonoma cook books. ________________________________________________________________

Easy but delicious fava bean recipe:

  • Prepare 1 kilogram of fava beans as above.
  • Heat 1 or 2 teaspoons of olive oil in a non-stick frying pan over medium heat and saute 1 minced shallot with a pinch of salt for 3 to 4 minutes
  • Add the fava beans and another pinch of salt and saute for 2 more minutes
  • Add a tablespoon or so of chopped marjoram and saute for 1 additional minute
  • Remove the pan from the heat & add a generous squeeze of fresh lemon juice & some cubed feta
  • Enjoy!
Posted in favorite recipes | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

cola and jam spareribs

Posted on 10/06/2011 by oneexpatslife

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In this case, however, the picture does not tell the full story. What these pictures do not show is my husband, hanging over my shoulder the entire time, wondering when I was going to put the darn camera down and let him at the ribs! Needless to say, he was very excited about this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Cola & Jam Spareribs.

This week was a first for me; first time ever cooking ribs and first time ever cooking with Coke. And I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical on both points. First, my father is justifiably famous in our family for making amazingly good ribs, which he smokes for hours on end in his outdoor smoker. Therefore, I had this idea in my head that one simply could not make decent ribs without a smoker. And second, I am not a big soda drinker and cooking with Coke just sounded plain weird.

Dorie’s recipe calls for the ribs to be marinated in a dry spice rub, then slathered in cola & jam and roasted in the oven for a few hours. The one slight deviation we made from Dorie’s recipe was to use mirabelle jam instead of apricot, simply because we happened to already have a jar of it in the fridge. Otherwise we followed her instructions to the letter.

The end result was, well, delicious! The ribs were juicy and tender. I can’t say that the specific flavors of the spices and cola comes through, but they mixed together to give the ribs a tasty but subtle seasoning. I still think that my dad’s smoked ribs are superior, but for those of us who do not own smokers, this recipe is a keeper!

And what did my husband think? I’ll let the picture of his polished plate speak for itself.

Posted in french fridays with dorie | Tagged , , | 18 Comments