Adventures in Cooking: Part 1 German food

I’m really looking forward to exploring food this year. I didn’t know where to start so I figured, “Hey, I’m German, I’ll make German stuff.” If I only knew what that would lead to!
It turns out I know NOTHING about German food. Heck, I barely know anything about Germany. So my journey began with the internet and a learning experience. Don’t get me wrong, I love the internet, but try typing something generic like “German Food” into a Google search; nearly pointless. The biggest lesson I learned about food and cooking is that I don’t know much. After a couple of hours surfing around the world wide time killer I had collected a few recipes; enough to say that I’m making German food. In the future, I’ll be buying cookbooks or getting suggestions from friends. Some of the information I learned was helpful. My mother had suggested the German version of Potato Salad, so I had a term I search for directly. Of course I went to my old stand by for recipes, the food network and found a couple versions. I picked my favorite looking one and hunted around for other “German” dishes. I liked the sound of Schnitzel, so I printed that recipe too.
Okay, I had a main course and a starch. I needed bread, a veggie and a dessert. I guess by stating that I was making some very American assumptions, but again, not much research. Eventually I settled on a beer rye bread that I found in a bread cookbook that I have and I found an apple strudel recipe that looked tasty. For the veggie dish I really struggled; continuing research reveled very little, but it would appear the Germans like asparagus and Brussels sprouts. I’m not a huge fan of either, but I went with the Brussels sprouts. I didn’t find a particular preparation for them, but hey, everything tastes better in bacon grease.
I had made chili and some cookies earlier in the day to stock the fridge and freezer and I learned another valuable lesson: don’t wear yourself out BEFORE you start into something new. The bread takes the longest to make so I started that first. I’ve never made a rye bread before and was pretty excited. Instead of regular sugar for the yeast fuel, the recipe I found used brown sugar and molasses. I had to use three different flours which meant buying two more flours! I did use AP flour instead of bread flour, but did buy the whole wheat flour and the rye flour. I got to add another spice to my collection as well, since I hadn’t had need for caraway seeds in the past. Now my goal is figure what I’ll use them for again in the future besides rye bread. I use a bread machine to make the dough but then use an oven to bake it. I tried to make a free loaf (not in a pan) but probably should have let it rise longer than I did the last time; it was a bit thick, but not too bad. Jen tried it, I’m not sure if she liked it or not, she didn’t say much during dinner, but was pleasantly surprised that she was willing to try German food. I think the caraway seeds freak her out.
While the dough was forming in the bread maker I started working on the apple strudel. The recipe I found used Phyllo dough for the outside. Since I’ve never made one before, I don’t know if there are other things you can use. The filling included crushed shortbread cookies, apples, golden raisins (soaked in bourbon!), pecans, cinnamon, brown sugar and butter. I might have forgotten something, but you get the idea. If anyone wants the recipe I have it printed out and would be happy to attach it to the end of this blog (that goes for all the recipes). I didn’t do a very good job of wrapping the filling into the dough and my strudel sprung a leak during baking, but it was saved. It took some effort to get the caramelized filling off of the cookie sheet, but it turned out to be worth it. I think the strudel is definitely making my recipe box. For those of you who don’t know, a recipe makes the box only after I’ve made it and liked it. I currently don’t have many recipes in there, but I hope to start filling it.
Next up was the potato salad. This was fairly straight forward and any recipe with a half pound of bacon in it can’t be too bad. I boiled the potatoes according to the recipe but in the end they were not as soft as I would have liked. I think you need to pick out the little tiny potatoes to make sure that they cook enough. The potatoes cut easily, but felt firm when eating. This dish was something very different for me; I’m used to potato dishes with cheese in them. I’m pretty sure Jen didn’t like this dish but was polite enough to push them around to get me to think she was trying them. I didn’t figure she’d try them since they had onions, so pushing them around was already above expectations.
The Schnitzel was really easy to make. I don’t bread meat very often but it doesn’t take much skill. It turns out that Schnitzel is very similar to the Italian dish Chicken Parmesan only without the sauce and melted cheese on top. Both Jen and I enjoyed the Schnitzel and I really think I’ll make it again. I was pleased to find a main dish that wasn’t too heavy. Most of the food I found during this hunt seemed not only heavy and rich to eat, but really heart unhealthy. Now don’t get me wrong, don’t eat Schnitzel on regular basis, it was sautéed in butter and had cheese in the breading, but it didn’t weigh me down with a creamy sauce or anything that seemed too heavy. It was served with a lemon wedge and I think in the future I might squeeze it on for a little zing.
Now if you remember the beginning of this article you’d recall more food on the agenda. Well, there is uncooked food in my fridge, but I simply ran out of energy. I suspect the Brussels sprouts may never get made, I don’t know. I was also going to attempt some sort of mini dumpling thing whose name currently escapes me but it turns out I didn’t have enough eggs. In the end, I was pretty happy with my first adventure and it has left me wanting more.
Here is where I would put my clever sign off phrase if I had one. I do not. :-)