Sake! (part 4)

So we had guests on Sunday. It was really a nice evening, even if I spent almost the whole day cooking :) And I was so busy that I didn't really have time to take pictures for posting about the food.

They brought a bottle of sake. This:

I liked it :)

I had also bought sake for that occasion. As there was no opportunity to visit the specialty shops, I went to our local Coop supermarket and bought this:

 

 There is next to no Japanese on the bottle. I wonder if that means that it is produced for export purposes only.

This sake also has a rather intense taste.

"Wasabi" Pickled Carrots

We are expecting guests on Sunday, and I decided to make pickled carrots in advance, using this recipe as a rough guideline.

I had 500 g of multicolored carrots:

I peeled and trimmed them.

 On the right in the photo above, you can see my favorite vegetable peeler. You might guess from its shape that it is intended for peeling asparagus. I like it because it is sharp and because it peels rather thickly.

So I used it to peel the carrots into strips.

Meanwhile, Ben had peeled the ginger and chopped it with the draw-knife.

This resulted in a lot more than one and a half teaspoons of finely chopped ginger. More like one and a half tablespoons. But when I used the amount stated in the recipe, the carrots didn't taste of ginger at all.

I added that to the carrots and this much chili flakes:

The container on the left is in fact a mill, to grind the flakes more finely.

I also added a scant tablespoon of regular household salt (not kosher salt). I used plain salt, not the salt with iodine and fluorides added. On top of that came four generous teaspoons of sugar and four scant teaspoons of this prepared horseradish:

I really wonder if the author of the original recipe was thinking of something like this when she advertised "prepared horseradish". She speaks of a "bottle" of the stuff - the concoction from Bavaria in the picture above is much too thick to put it into a bottle. It also contains sulfates, and I don't think that makes it better than the "wasabi" preparations readily available in Swiss supermarkets. One day, I think I'll use "the green gunk in the tube" and see what happens.

I used a pair of salad servers to work the seasonings into the carrots.

Then I stuffed everything into my pickle press.

While I was typing this report, it has sat in the fridge for - well, maybe a bit more than half an hour. I just took it out and transferred the carrots to a different container, setting some aside to try them.

They turned out really well!

Vegetable lasagna with shiitake

Yesterday, Ben and I made vegetable lasagna with shiitake for dinner. Last year in Austria, I had bought "Das kleine Pilzkochbuch" ("The little mushroom cookbook"), where the recipe is originally from.

First, Ben cut 500 g of fresh shiitake into quarters or sixths, depending on the size.

 As you can see, the fresh shiitake mushrooms available here are really large (and rather spongy).

500 g really is a mountain of shiitake!

 Ben also first trimmed and quartered one fennel bulb of 300 g, then cut the quarters into thin slices.

He peeled roughly 200 g carrots and sliced them thinly (1 mm) using a mandoline slicer.

And he diced two onions.

 I heated up a generous tablespoon of clarified butter...

...and sautéed the vegetables for about 5 minutes in that.

I removed them from the heat, dusted them with two and a half tablespoons of white flour and let them cool for a few minutes.

Then I added 400 ml cream, stirred to combine and simmered over low heat until the mixture had thickened a bit.

 

 I added black pepper and herb salt. I use this sort:

 Because there is so much cream in the mixture, I have to add quite a lot of that salt to create a savory taste.

Frying the shiitake briefly (for about 3 or 4 minutes) was the next step. Again, I used about a tablespoon of clarified butter.

 "Help, our frying pan is too small for all those mushrooms!" Luckily, Ben came to help me. He is more skilled at stirring the contents of overflowing pots and pans than me ;) But after the shiitake had shrunk a bit, I was able to continue. I seasoned them with herb salt and black pepper as well.

Meanwhile, Ben got out the lasagna form. I asked him to use clarified butter to grease it, but he said: "Mmmm... can't I use something else?" I answered: "Of course you can, use margarine if you like." He went on: "Have I never told you that I don't care much for the taste of clarified butter?" - He hadn't. But now I know ;)

So after he had greased the form, Ben laid out the bottom of it with 4 dry lasagna sheets (the "no pre-cooking" kind), spread half of the vegetables and cream on that, added half of the mushrooms and then another layer of lasagna sheets.

On top of that came another layer of veggies and cream, another layer of shiitake - and then Ben sliced two balls of mozzarella cheese (300 g in total)...

...and spread them on top of the lasagna.

 After about 30 minutes in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius, it looked like this:

 And this was my first portion:

 (I can tell you that it tasted much, much better than it looks in this photo!)

Could it be that you are reading my blog?

Today, when I went shopping at Migros, I noticed an Asian-looking man waiting in line at the fish counter. When I passed by, he followed me with his eyes, beaming at me all smiles.

Could it be that he had been reading my blog and recognized me by my footwear? ;)

Sbrinz-Curry-Muffins

This morning, I woke up thinking of Sbrinz-Curry-Muffins. I had made them once before and liked them. Sbrinz is a very hard Swiss cheese.

 (This is a picture of what's left in the bag after making the dough.)

After making sure I had enough of the ingredients, I set about making the muffins.

I chopped 100 g of dried tomatoes conserved in oil (weighed drained).

 

I cut the leaves from about 4 sprigs of basil into strips.

I mixed 200 g white flour with 2 teaspoons baking powder and 2 teaspoons of the Japanese curry powder from S&B. (Of course, other curry powder will work as well.)

 

I mixed 200 ml milk with 2 eggs, 2 egg yolks and 2 tablespoons of canola oil.

 

I added 100 g finely grated Sbrinz to that. After weighing the Sbrinz, I thought: "This won't fit into my measuring cup. I'll transfer it to a bigger bowl."

 

I added the resulting mixture to the flour-mixture and stirred until it became a smooth dough.

 

I folded the tomatoes and the basil into it.

 

I still had these disposable mini-muffin forms:

 

I thought: "Hmmm, should I grease them or not?" I couldn't remember if I had done it the last time. In the package directions stood nothing about greasing them, so I chose not to (which was a mistake). So using two teaspoons, I distributed the dough as evenly as I could among the molds.

 

I sprinkled the tops with the remaining Sbrinz cheese.

After about 10 minutes in the oven at 180°C, they looked like this:

I could barely wait until they had cooled. As soon as they had cooled enough so I could eat them, I tried them. Yum!

 

  Like I said, it had been a mistake not to grease the forms with a little margarine. I had to scrape much of each muffin from the paper cup with my teeth ;)

Using the Japanese curry powder proved especially yummy!

 

Sake! (part 3)

At my last visit to Yumi Hana, I decided to buy a bottle of table sake, so I could post about it.

 

Voilà: Shochikubai Table Sake.

I wonder if in this case, "table sake" has the same connotations as "table wine" (or Tafelwein in German).

If this was sake of lower quality, would it really be in such a nice package?

At least it is certain that it boasts a rather intense taste :) 

 

Kare raisu

Tonight, Ben made vegetarian kare raisu, using this recipe (sorry, German only) as a rough guideline. He has graciously consented that I take photos and post about it.

A while ago, I had bought Japanese curry powder.

The recipe features curry powder and not curry roux blocks, as in contrast to Japanese households, you will find curry powder in most German (and Swiss?) kitchens. Curry powder like this:

 

Which is what Ben used to use for this kare raisu before.

Before I approved of Ben using the curry powder from S&B, though, I wanted to taste it. I was surprised to find how bitter it seemed to taste. It also had a rather hot aftertaste. But I told Ben: "Go ahead and use it." Nothing ventured, nothing gained :)

So Ben cut 200 g of firm tofu into pieces, like this:

 

He diced an onion:

 

This is Ben 's idea of 1 potato:

 

And this is how he counts 1 carrot:

 

He peeled (a bit more than 1 cm of) ginger and cut it into pieces, like this:

 

Then he used a draw-knife to chop it more finely.

 

Ben fried the tofu in some canola oil.

 

He took the tofu out of the skillet and fried the carrots and potatoes briefly. As you can see in the next picture, the tofu almost looks as though it had been deep-fried (in the blue bowl).

 

He added 200 ml water to the carrots and potatoes and turned the heat to very low.

 

He covered the skillet. In a pot, he fried the onions in a bit of canola oil until they turned translucent, then added a clove of garlic, squeezed through a garlic press. and the chopped ginger. He fried everything together briefly.

He added one and a half tablespoons white flour and the same amount of curry powder, making a roux.

 

He deglazed the pot with 400 ml vegetable stock.

 

Ben likes to make the vegetable stock rather strong (using more stock paste than written in the package directions), as he doesn't like to add salt to the dishes he cooks.

He let the sauce simmer for about 5 minutes. In the meantime, he took the lid off the skillet with the potatoes and carrots and raised the heat a little bit, so some water could evaporate.

He then added the carrots and potatoes and the tofu to the curry sauce.

 

  After heating all the ingredients together briefly, it was ready to serve. I had cooked the rice in our rice cooker.

It was really yummy and not bitter at all! It was rather hot, though. At some point (I can't remember when exactly) Ben had added quite a lot of black pepper. I told him that with this curry powder, it wouldn't have been necessary. He said: "Okay, next time I know better."