Ruffini in Kiel Review

I had never been to Ruffini before this evening but Linda had a few years ago, so she had decided that as she hadn’t been out with our cookery club for a while that it would be great if we all got together for a nice evening together. Alas, our singing troubadour Kalle had a previous engagement so it was only the 5 of us.

Linda had booked the table and so we arrived a bit early: the restaurant was about 90% full. I would say that the only tables free and remained so all evening  where 2 small tables that had 2 place settings each, but in all reality would be better suited to single diners.
On arrival we were shown to our window table, located below 2 large, impressive paintings (being interested in art, I always find it nice when a restaurant decorates their walls with something other than cheap prints,

The décor is simple, light oak, straight-line tables (Amerikanische Elche), very plainly adorned with white table runners, white cotton napkins, a small glass vase with a few tulips and 2 tea light candle holders. This is to my taste,(unless in a formal army mess that has the regimental silver on the tables) as I find that less is better and I do not like a lot of clutter on dining tables: let the food speak for itself.

The lighting was subtle and indirect with wall up/down lighters, giving off a downward orange hue, and subdued white light upwards. This gave the whole of the dining room a nice warm glow. Having done quite a bit of theatrical lighting, I lay a lot of worth on lighting that is pleasing to the eye and this did. Obviously someone had given the whole atmosphere a lot of thought: plain, pleasing and not trying to upstage the food. There was also no back ground music (I do find that this can be a bit of a pain and can spoil the table conversation).

Linda and I were shown to our seats and immediately 2 menus arrived and a loose leaf with the ‘days specials’. The menu is not large, but does cover something for everyone; they have a vegetarian option on the starter and main and also on the special menu an abundance of fish dishes for the pescetarians and we carnivores aren’t sold short either.

Slowly the rest of KiKoKlu arrived and the wine was ordered. They have a small, but well sorted wine list. I find it a bit strange that they offer the open wine by the 0.15ml glass. I ordered the house red, an Italian merlot, Marianne the house white, Linda water, Carolyn an Italian Chianti "Polonero" and Martin a Bavarian Weizen bier (a cloudy wheat beer).

With the our wines came a basket of bread, a white soft wheat bread and a dark sweetish malty bread, accompanied by butter, cauliflower cream and a couscous, all very interesting.

I had ordered a Sicilian fish soup, this contained cockles and prawns in a thick, picant tomato  fish broth, very tasty and you could actually taste the fish in the soup. I found this a very well rounded soup.

The empty soup bowl, given truth to the fact that I had eaten it all with the exception of the shells

Linda had the vegetarian option of beetroot carpaccio with warm goat’s cheese, a few leaves of peppery rocket dotted with horseradish sauce. Linda said this was excellent.

Martin had the veal loin with tuna and caperberry sauce (Vitello Tonnato)

This was slices of veal, served with a small rocket and caperberry (those large juicy ones) salad and a tuna dressing. Martin enjoyed it: as you can see the veal is nice and pink.

Marianne & Carolyn had the house starter variation (RUFFINI Vorspeisen-Variation)

This consisted of a medley of warm and cold starters served in large shot glasses, and they both said they had enjoyed them very much.

Next came the mains,

Both Linda and I chose the ox cheeks,but the waitress said that she was sorry as they only had one portion left, so I, being the gentleman, allowed Linda to have them. I then ordered the roast beef. Marianne ordered the calf loin (Kalbsrucken) as did Martin. The waitress again said unfortunately they only had one portion left. Martin, not being a gentleman, said he would have it, LOL, so Marianne also ordered the roast beef.

Carolyn ordered the sea food pasta. This consisted of various seafoods including scallops and scampi, also olives and caperberries on a bed of Tagliatelli in a rich tomato sauce. Carolyn really enjoyed it.

Here I must say I was just a little disappointed. It was not late in the evening (around about 20:00). I think that as it was a Saturday they should have been able to cater for all the wishes on the menu (I can understand if it was something like catch of the day, where you have only a limited amount of fresh fish). Especially something like Kalbsrücken, which isn’t exactly a rarity here in Germany. I could understand It happening in England where they have a misguided idea that all veal on the Continent of Europe is milk-fed, cage-reared. Here in Germany that has never been the case and it is to be had in every butchers. The ox-cheeks is another matter, as these have to be braised long and slow, so when they run out, they run out, that’s it there is no way you can cook ox-cheeks in ½ an hour.

I was also a little disappointed that I was served cold roast beef and horseradish sauce with a salad in a vinaigrette dressing and sautéed potatoes (my fault for not reading the special menu properly). I was expecting a warm roast beef. Nevertheless, both Marianne (she also had been expecting it warm) agreed it was very tasty, though knowing what I do now, I think I would have chosen one of the fish dishes or the roastbraten with beans and roast potatoes, but as I said, no fault of the staff or chef.

Martin had the calf loin withn crispy bacon and sugar snap pea pods and carrots all served on a bed of potato rosti, with balsamico reduction.

Martin said his Kalbsrucken was delicious. He may have said this to annoy Marianne, but I think not, and it did look very nice indeed.

The ox-cheeks that Linda had where succulent, melting and full of flavour. I am only sorry that I didn’t get a full portion, but just a taste. The sauce was wonderful, thick and very tasty. This was served with market spring vegetables and spätzle

Ruffini- is a nicely situated restaurant, which serves well-cooked unpretentious food. It is not, and doesn’t claim to be, “fine dining” of the Michelin star class. It has civil prices (€192 for 5 including drinks), we all enjoyed our meals and I will most certainly return. We (Linda and I often visit another restaurant in Kiel called Der Bauch von Kiel, I think that this is not far behind this, though one plus that the Bauch has is that it has a bar with a super Barman and they don’t run out of food.

Linda sent an e-mail to Ruffini early Sunday morning not exactly complaining, but pointing out that we were a little disappointed that they had not had 2 things on the menu, we had then gone out for breakfast to a smashing student-retro café from the 70s (but today’s prices) for breakfast, on returning Linda was working on her PC and she received a return e-mail from the chef and owner apologising for the restaurants inability to serve either the ox-cheeks or the Kalbsrucken, the reason for the running out of the ox-cheeks had been that this had been on the special menu and that a lot of the guests that day had ordered it. The Kalbsrücken had been an oversight on his part as he hadn’t ordered enough. He said he was very sorry and offered us free aperitifs on our next visit. I find this a very fine gesture and will most certainly visit again.

e-mail from Ruffini

Hallo Frau Richmond,

vielen Dank erst einmal für die Kritik.

Der gestrige Abend war leider kein normaler Samstag-Abend. Wie Sie sicher bemerkt haben, waren bei Ihrem Eintreffen schon viele Tische belegt oder wurden gerade für die "Zweite Sitzung" wieder hergerichtet- dazu gehörte auch Ihr Tisch, an dem eine Familie von 17.30h bis 18.45h gesessen hatte-. Wir hatten um 17.30 bereits

4 x 4er Tische und 3 x 2 er Tische. Was haben all diese Gäste gegessen?? Ochsenbäckhen und Kalbsrücken...Dies ist jetz keine Ausrede, es war wirklich so. Das Ochsenbäckchen stand auf unserer zusätzlichen Abendkarte. Für diese Karte kaufe ich immer spezielle Menge am Tag ein, so daß über den Abend reichen sollte, das tat es leider aus geschilderten Gründen gestern nicht.

Für den nicht mehr bestellbaren Kalbsrücken kann ich mich nur entschuldigen. Ich habe schlichtweg vergessen, einen für den gestrigen Abend zu kaufen, so das der Vorhandene bei Ihrem Eintreffen auch schon ausverkauft war.

Bitte betrachten sie dieses Schreiben als einen Gutschein für Ihr nächstes Treffen bei uns...die Aperitive gehen selbstverständlich auf unsere Rechnung.

Ich kann mich nur nochmals auch im Namen meiner Frau bei Ihnen entschuldigen und wünsche Ihnen trotz der kleinen Entäuschung einen schönen Sonntag.

Viele Grüsse und hoffentlich bis zu nächsten Mal

Marc Sauerbaum

Restaurant Ruffini

P.S. Bitte bringen Sie dieses Schreiben zu Ihrem nächsten Treffen bei uns mit, falls meine Frau und ich nicht anwesend sind...damit unsere Damen Bescheid wissen.

Avocado, shrimp and gorgonzola salad

I have decided to cut back on my evening food intake not for any particular reason (NO IT IS NOT BECAUSE I AM OVER WEIGHT) and am cutting out warm meat filled evening meals, to this end I have started by having things like salads and the like. So here we go with the first one.


Avocado, shrimp and gorgonzola salad



1 small head of Romana salad

1 clove of garlic

150g of lambs’ salad (Feldsalat)

1 ripe avocado

Small handful of walnuts

4-5 cherry tomatoes halved

50g of cream gorgonzola

50g of brown shrimps (Nordseekrabben)

2 mushroom heads sliced



For the dressing

Juice of ½ a lemon

2 table spoons of sherry vinegar

1 tsp middle mustard

1 tsp of runny honey

40ml of olive oil

Pinch of celery salt

80ml made up marigold stock

1 tsp of chopped coriander

A few drops of pumpkin seed oil (that was all I had left)



Slice the head of salad and put it together with the lamb leaf salad in a colander and wash it under running water, drain and put into a serving bowl rubbed round with a garlic clove. Make the dressing; put all of the ingredients into a jar (mine was a spreewald gurkin jar but you may have a bit of difficulty finding such a rare piece of kitchen equipment so just use any old jar) and shake (WARNING make sure you put the lid on first). Put the halved tomatoes in the salad bowl along with the walnuts and sliced mushrooms. Pour over the dressing (leave a bit for later) and give it all a good mixing, posh people have proper salad spoon and fork, I used my fingers.

Peel and slice the avocado.

Put a heap full of salad in a deep plate, top with the avocado sort of fan it out, sprinkle the shrimps around the top and dot the gorgonzola in pieces on the top. Drizzle the a bit of the dressing over the avocado and give it a few turns of chilli (I have a one of those glass jars that you buy with it ready to grind)

Cut yourself a few slices of baguette and away you go

Pigeon breasts on a bed of roses (pardina) lentils

Pigeon breasts on lentils

I was lying in bed early Saturday morning, when the phone rang, 06:00 just getting light, who the hell is ringing at this time in the morning? It was one of my shooting mates, we are out pigeon shooting get your gear together and will meet you at kleineraschhoff in an hour. Zoom, out of bed, under the shower, green stuff on and out. It was a 4rather nice day, the weather was a little damp but no rain, and in fact it was a very nice morning. We positioned at the edge of the woods and waited for the pigeons to come out of their roosts to feed and come they did, we shot near on 50 within 2 hours. I only wanted a couple for the weekend, it turned out to be 10 (I hadn't planned to, but as they had been talking about lentils on the wild food board, I decided to do lentils with pigeon breasts).

On the way home I went to the market, it was still before most people where out and about and bought a kilo of chicken carcasses and some soup veg to make the stock for the lentils and also for the risotto that I was making for Sunday lunch, more of that later.

First pluck your pigeons

you will have a sack of feathers, how you get rid of them thats your problem

Give them a bath (shower actually, but don't tell Linda she gets a bit funny about sharing the shower)

pick out two with nice plump breasts, vacuum pack the rest for a rainy day

The stock ingredients

1 kilo of chicken carcasses

The 2 pigeon carcasses

Piece of leek, white only roughly chopped

1 large carrot roughly chopped

Piece of celeriac chopped

Stalk of parsley

1 onion halved skin left on and browned in a skillet

1 bay leaf pinned to the onion with 2 cloves

5 juniper berries

5 all spice berries

A piece of mace

10 pepper corns

3 green cardamom pods

2 cm piece of cinnamon bark

1 dried chilli ( one of the last from my balcony harvest)

I had removed the pigeon breasts and made a marinade of shallot, garlic, sherry vinegar, raspberry balsamico, ground game spices, ground pepper, lemon oil and olive oil, plunked them in this and allowed to soak in their bath while the stock was cooking.

 

I browned the onion halves in an oiled skillet

Put the lot into a pressure cooker, pour on 2 ltrs of cold water and 1 ltr of stock (I used low salt Marigold).

Bring to a rolling boil

and skim the grunge that rises to the surface lid on at full pressure for 40 minutes, switch off and allow to cool then there you have your stock , you can adjust the seasoning at this point if needed, but no salt!

Lentils

Sauté a finely diced shallot in a little oil and add some very small diced carrot, leek, celeriac and speck. Pour in about 600ml of boiling stock (you can add more later if required) now add 250g of lentils (I used Pardina) and cook until soft. When soft add a few splashes of raspberry balsamico and stir in

Marinating the breasts



adding the sherry vinegar



Adding the home made sherry vinegar



The breasts in the marinade, cover and leave while the stock is finished and the lentils are cooked

Fry the legs and some shallots to the right you can see the lentils cooking

Heat a little oil in a skillet , remove the breasts from marinade, pat dry and flash fry until they are just how you like them,

remove from the pan and wrap in aluminium foil strain the marinade into the skillet and reduce, adjust seasoning

Remove from the foil, slice pour any juices  into the jus, arrange the sliced breast on top of the lentils and pour the reduction over.

The plate with food

Hey Hoh Thanks for getting me out of bed!!!!!



The plate without food





Truffle risotto, steamed salmon and egg frit

We had been having a discussion on the Wildfood food board about a poached egg frit, this was a poached egg and then deep fried. Some of us decided to try and replicate it (well the culprit was our dear Brussels pâté, Belgium Endive (Elisa). She had done a one on Friday or was it Thursday; in any case it had turned out very well.


It had set my old grey cells in motion to see what place it could have in a meal, I had received a real authentic packet of Truffle Risotto as part of my cookery club Christmas present from Linda (max €10,-), I had been into the market earlyish (after a pigeon shoot, but that is the next blog)and got a piece of Pacific fresh salmon, the fish monger didn’t find it funny when I pointed out that we didn’t have a sea board with the Pacific here in Europe, so it had, had a might long swim! (German lack of humour here).

So it was to be :

Truffle Risotto with steamed lemon salmon (Fresh Pacific LoL) topped with a deep fried poached egg.

So first off poach your self an egg, make sure that it is fresh, that way the albumen holds together in a mound around the yolk.

Poach until the white is just set and immediately transfer to ice cold water to stop the cooking process. Set aside until required.

an egg in the mist

Marinated salmon

Place the salmon on a plate and grate a little lemon zest over the salmon, grate a couple of turns of pepper and drizzle some lemon olive oil and a few drops of Pumpkin seed oil on top and add some herbal sea salt. Cover and allow to marinate)

I had the day before made a few liters of chicken stock, this went onto boil, I diced a shallot and sautéed this in olive oil, I then added the packet of truffle risotto, it also contained cêpes. Coating the grains in oil and cooking until they started to turn translucent. Now added a wine glass? of white wine (an Italian of course Pinot Grigio), let the alcohol boil off and started to add the hot stock, a ladle at a time allowing it to be absorbed before adding more, stirring, stirring all the time (some say you don’t have to, but this is the way I was taught and that is the way I shall continue)

In the mean time I put the salmon on to steam (Chinese bamboo steamer over boiling water)

While the risotto was finishing and the salmon steaming I cut the egg yolk and some of the white out of the poached egg with a cutter,

I next coated it in season flour, then in egg,

then in panko crumbs,

repeating the last 2 stages to get a real thick crust.

I had heated some vegetable oil in a small pan (I could have used the friteuse but what a waste of oil for just one egg), I may have left it in a tick long as the egg yolk was not as runny as I like, though I think it would have been to Linda’s liking

So it was Risotto into a deep plate, steamed salmon on top and the egg on top of that, a few strategically placed marjoram leaves and a few Sel de Fleur flakes on top of the egg.

It was truly fantastic and of course washed down with a glass or two of Pinot Grigio.

I shall be doing it again, thanks, Aero and Belgium Endive for the fantastic idea.