A plaice on the bone and a lamb mixed grill.

I was up in Kiel for a long weekend and as I was dashing hither and thither, to and fro, backwards and forwards, I decided that I wouldn't go over board with the cooking this weekend, so I decided it would be a bit of light lunch and out for an evening meal on Saturday. I went to the market and got a nice plaice on the bone, some brown shrimps and some veg, chanterels, button mushrooms and some peas in their pods. Bought a cart load of fruit and a big bunch of flowers. I then went to hospital to visit Linda and on the way back I had to pass the Kiel Turkish shop that we use (well I didn't have to but I did in any case), I popped in and got some lamb chops, not those silly French dressed things, but real I am ones with a load of meat on them (more than likely mutton chops). I got 6 kidney's and they had some nice sausages 50% lamb-50% beef, they looked a bit like the Merguez of North Africa and France and a big bunch of mint.

So getting home I gutted the plaice, dusted it with seasoned flour, put it in a ridged skillet white side down and fried it in a butter/oil mixture.when 2/3 done popped it under the grill to brown the white skin and finish the cooking.  while this was happening I made the brown shrimp accompaniment heated a knob of butter in a pan added some finely diced shallots, garlic until translucent added some fine diced tomato (no seeds or inner watery bits) added a spoonful of capers and brown shrimps. Heated up and adjusted the taste with a dash of fish sauce removed the fish from under the grill and spooned the shrimp sauce along the top.

Your plaice or mine

That evening after a hospital visit, our friends, Marianne and Martin who had also been visiting asked if I fancied going out after for a bite to eat. I had spoken earlier and they had invited me around for dinner, but I had said that I fancied going to the "The Bauch Von Kiel" this is a smashing restaurant/bar and is probabily my favorite local when I am in Kiel, unfortunatly neither the owner or Gordon the Bar keeper, was working Saturday evening. Gordon has become a friend of ours and of the early hours, if you get the slant of my jib. As I had already had a full breakfast and a meal in the afternoon I settled for some gnocci in a sage butter sauce. PERFECT! marianne had  a nice salad with grilled lamb back strap and Martin the same but with duck breast. Both matin and I had Kristalweizen beer and Marianne had a medley of red wines from the large wine list. The "Bauch" has a very nice balanced menue that changes with the seasons, but also has a changing daily blackboard. The service was a bit slow on Saturday but this is most unusual, but it being very full and after 09:00 could have been the cause.

But if you are ever up Kiel way do drop in, don't worry about  not speaking German as Gordon speaks perfect English (all be it with a bit of a Kiwi accent).

The owner and all of the staff are friendly and helpful, I have yet to have a bad meal. The addres is:

Legienstraße 16
24103 Kiel, Germany
tel 0431 51215

It is not far from the Kleiner Kiel, a couple of  small lakes.
 
But it was getting late by the time we had finished our meals and had another Weizenbier or as Marianne had another glass of red. So it was push bike for them and a taxi for me and off home to catch up on the cricket and football results.
 
Sunday I had a lot of phoning to do, so that took up a great deal of the morning, but I did marinate the lamb chops in olive oil, redwine vinegar and herbs pounded in a pestle and mortar.

I also cut the kidney's in half and snipped the cores out with a pair of kitchen scissors.

These went into a bowl with a mixture of chilli, Garam marsala, rape seed oil, black pepper from the mill and a splosh of white vinegar.

 







Chops , kidney's and sausages onto a griddle pan and under a very hot grill.

when these are cooking sauté the cleaned and sliced mushrooms,chanterelles with some cured belly pork, diced shallots and crushed garlic and and some parsley to finish.

I hade boiled some potatoes and seved with a few minted peas. Quite a quick job if you do the prep in advance.

The finished article

I also made about 3kd of spiced damson and apple preserve. The damson tree in the hof has this year excelled itself, alas as Linda was not there to pick them a great many have already dropped and are starting to rot and attract wasps in their millions, I have informed all of our friends to go and pick them, it is such a waste.
 
It was now midday so I went a visiting, a couple of Linda's friend also popped in and we sat and drank coffee and chatted until 15:00, as I had to travel 400 km back to NRW that evening I didn't wish to set off too late and it had started to hiss down. So back to Lindas, potatoes on the "pfefferlingen and champions" all cleaned and sliced, peas shelled and into water with some chopped mint. Grill on, the chops, merguez and deviled kidney's under a hot grill, a diced shallot, clove of garlic and some diced pre-cooked spiced belly into a small frying pan, in with a table spoon of sunflower oil, when the shallot was traslucent in went the mushrooms and a hand full of  chopped fresh herbs.  Served up and ready to go a  tasty, quick and easy Sunday lunch. That finished a quick clear away and down to the car  and off onto the Autobahn, I need not have bothered because of the Autobahn was flooded between Kiel and Hamburg, everyone was traveling at a snails pace, head lights reflecting in the streaming rain, it was horrific, it took me about 5 hours in what I normally do in 3 1/2 hrs.

Photos to follow