Kiel week (end) walk along the Hindenburgufer

We had decided that as I had been lucky and got a parking spot right outside the front door (no mean feat at any time, but during Kielerwocher  a bit like getting 6 right on the lottery we would walk to the market and then stroll down to the Windjammer parade and take in a bit of the atmosphere. We had arranged to go to the Deep Purple cover band that evening (Saturday)

We bought our bits and bobs from the market, ( I decided I needed some pancetta, don't know why but there it is)

 stowed them in my rucksack and cut through the International market at the Rathaus, passing the salmon grilling stand.

And then next was the Oz effort, if you didn't fancy a Fosters you could try a didgeridoo or throw a boomerang

Then came the French as always center stage with their hard cheeses

Their soft cheeses

And of course their oysters from Bouzique

 Then it was down to the ferry terminal (couple of rather large cruise liners in, one was just disembarking its passengers)

We strolled along through the stands many just opening for the day some bars (mainly for the hardy or is that foolhardy) already doing a brisk trade in cocktails of every hue.

We passed one of the largest BBQ pig roasting stands I have ever seen.

A pig in the mist????

Some more salmon grills

And many other food and drink out lets

The famous fried fish light house

 Bread with various cheese fillings

Not for the healthy-lard cakes

The Alsatian Flammkuchen the French take on the pizza

Passing the Gosch  ship with its pendant. a yatching running in front of a stiff breeze

We stopped to watch the small racing boats doing a few turns, you could actually have a trial, Linda said she fancied it, but she saw my quizical sideways glance and said "may be not"

We reached the end of the stalls and Linda said well as we walked this far we may as well walk the rest to the Seebar and watch theWindjammer parade coming back in.

The Baltic fleet tied up, the crew watching over the comings and goings, the cadets sent to get rid of any excess energy.

We got 2 of the best seats, right at the front,we saw the Bundes Marine cadets racing in whalers, now if you have ever rowed one of these then you will know it is not easy and bleeding hard work.

The whalers attacking the Colour of Magic, I do not think Sir Terry would be amused!!!

We then decided that we had done our exercise for the day (6.5km) and strolled back passing the marina with its forest of masts

But I still think this is my type of boat

Kiel week (end Sunday)

We  hadn't planned to do a lot on Sunday as I was heading off home earlier than normal as I wanted to hear the T20 on Radio 4 on the way home and be home in time to watch the England/Italy game (that was a waste of time).

So it was a light breakfast (I am now on a bit of a health trip and Linda has been ever since her Kur) poached eggs on toast.

I had suggested that we had risotto for lunch with some lightly fried salmon.

Linda had a packet of already mixed truffel risotto so that is what we used:

Ingredients:

Tail piece of salmon, skin removed, cut into tranchés

1/2 lemon

1 handful of baby calamaries

1 pkt truffel risotto mix

1 glass of dry white wine

8 stalks of green asparagus (chop the heads off)

4-5 spring onions

1 ltr vegetable stock

1 tbl spoon of olive oil

Pepper

1 small handful of fresh grated Parmasan cheese

Method:

Cut the bottoms off the asparagus and peal the bottom  4 cm add these along with some of the greens from the spring onions to the stock and simmer for a while.

Heat the oil along with some of the diced spring onions in a deep pan, add the rice and when it turns translucent (I like it just as it is starting to take on a bit of colour as this gives it a nutty flavour)

 add the wine, allow it to reduce and then pour some stock in so that it covers the rice.

Reduce the heat and give it a stir.
Oil your salmon, rub it with some sea salt and fresh ground pepper, heat a heavy bottomed pan and sear the salmon, turning once, squeeze 1/2 lemon over it, turn off the heat and allow to finish in the pan.
In another pan heat some more olive oil, sauté the sliced spring onions then add the asparagus stems.

Keep adding stock and stiring as it reduces, the rice will start to soften and the sauce start to thicken, keep on adding until all the stock is absorbed and the sauce is creamy,

now add the asparagus tips and calamaries and any juices from the salmon pan, along with the spring onions, heat through, add the Parmasan cheese and stir in, taste, adjust the pepper (you should not need any salt).

ladle onto a plate, place the salmon on top and decorate with the asparagus stems.

Now how easy was that?

It did taste rather nice, we had a nice warm roast tomato and black olive salad, drizzled with EVOO, torn up basil leaves and sprinkled with Parmasan cheese.

Kiel Week (end)

Friday was the normal run up from NRW to Schleswig-Holstein, it was Kielerwocher and a lot of the Länder had started their school summer holidays, so I was pleasantly surprised when everything went exceedingly smoothly (they have been carrying out refurbishment to the Elbe tunnels under Hamburg for 2 years).

Linda had been out with her ex-colleagues on the Thursday a so had  taken the Friday off ostensibly to do some shopping, but wink, wink, nudge, nudge, we know otherwise don’t we??

So it had been decided that we would get the Teppan Yaki grill out and have a nice leisurely evening, I first done this type of eating in Kobe on the Motomatchi (the main shopping street) many years ago ,I remember then being mesmerised and it is a healthy, individual but social eating experience. I later carried this on when in Berlin in the then only Japanese restaurant in the city in the Europa Centre, a group of us  would visit here on New Years eve prior to going out on the town, it wasn’t cheap but was one of those eating experiences that left an lasting imprint on your mind. This grilling at the table lends itself to a lot of different foods not just Japanese  and as this summer isn’t all that good it doesn’t need sunny warm weather, in fact it is better cooked indoors.

griled chops, veg and the potato salad

So back to our evening:

Linda had made some nice bits and bobs to grill and also a very nice potato salad, these had come out of the Essen und Trinken,  a German food magazine, here is her take on it:

800g small new potatoes
Sea salt
2 bay leaves
1 red chilli (mildish) seeds removed
1 clove of garlic
5 stalks of parsley
5 stalks of mint
2 limes
Pinch of sugar
8 dessert spoons of EVOO

Scrub the potatoes, cut in half and cook in water with the sea salt and bay leaves. Cook them until just cooked then steam them over a low heat in the dry pan.

Slice the chilli in fine rings, chop the garlic and grind together with a pinch of sea salt to a find paste in a pestle and mortar. Remove the leaves from the herbs and roughly chop together with the stalks. Squeeze the juice from the lime.
Add the chilli and herbs to the garlic with a pinch of sugar and salt, add the olive oil and stir in the lime juice and pour over the still warm potatoes and allow to infuse for 10 minutes.

This is a take on the famous small salt encrusted potatoes from the Canaries with the green sauce.  Papas arrugadas e molto verde.

Linda had marinated some wonderful  little lamb chops, simply  marinated in olive oil, lemon juice, rosemary, salt and pepper.

She had also made a couple of nice other recipes from “Essen und Trinken”

Chicken Saltimbocca.

2 chicken breasts
25g sundried tomatoes
1 dsp . freshly grated Parmesan cheese 
1 tsp.  grated lemon zest
6 dsp. EVOO
4 slices of Parma ham
8 large sage leaves
2 lemons
4 dsp. Sugar
pepper

12 wooden skewers soaked in water for at least ½ hr.

Place the sundried tomatoes in boiling water and allow to soften for 5 minutes, pour off the water and allow to drain on kitchen paper. Roughly chop them add them to a kitchen chopper (or use a blender stick)with the Parmesan, lemon zest, pepper, 3 dsp. Olive oil and blend to a fine paste.

Remove the contre filets from the chicken breasts . Slice the breast into 1cm slices and flatten  with a heavy object (bottom of a small frying pan) either between 2 sheets of cling film or place in a freezer bag.  Also flatten the contre filets (it is better to do these separately from the main breasts as they are more delicate).

Lay the filets out on a board and spread ½ with some of the tomato paste and cover with ½ a slice of the Parma ham and fold over to make a sandwich, lay a sage leaf on each parcel and pin all together with wood skewers.

Sprinkle each with olive oil, marinating until ready to grill.

Grill on each side for 5-7 minutes, when you turn the saltimbocca for the first time place the lemon quarters dipped in sugar and caramelise.

Prawn herb parcels

12 medium sized prawns, shelled (you can use frozen but make sure they are completely thawed, drained and the digestive tracts removed
 1 unwaxed lemon cut in half length ways and then very thinly sliced.
 1 red chilli sliced into fine rings
 Course sea salt
 4 pieces of aluminium foil about 30x40cm

Herb crème fraiche made from
1 clove of garlic (or more)
Rough sea salt
100g of softened butter
100g of full cream crème fraiche
Small bunch of flat leaf parsley (finely chopped)
Bunch of chives (chopped into 5mm rolls)
1 box of cress (cut the top off with a pair of scissors)
Pepper to taste.

Chop the garlic roughly and pound together with the salt in a pestle and mortar, add to a mixing bowl with the butter and mix with a hand mixer until creamy, mix in the crème fraiche a little at a tome untol all is  well mixed. Add the parsley, chives and cress and mix well and taste with salt and pepper.

Place 3 prawns, 1 dsp. of the herb crème fraiche/butter mixture, 2 or 3 slices of lemon and a few chilli rings in the middle of the foil rectangle and grind some salt over, fold into a parcel making sure it is sealed.

Place on top of the grill for about 10 minutes (depending  on the size of the prawns larger could take up to 12 minutes).

(On Saturday when we got home from the windjammer parade we also added some tiny baby calamari, these are caught at this time of the year as a part of the brown North Sea shrimps catch on which they feed).

Mixed game puds and pies

Well it is Euro footy time and I have so far not missed a match, though with them having two together now it makes for a bit of juggling with the remote, but with a netbook, I am able to keep tabs on the secondary match.

But that has nothing to do with cooking game puds and pies. I was clearing out my game freezer and had quite a bit that needed using up, what better way than making individual puds for the freezer. So you will require:

Mixed game:
2 hare legs
3 rabbit legs
Breasts of 2 pigeons
500 g diced leg of wild boar
500 g diced red deer haunch

Remove meat and dice adding:

1 desert spoon of my ground game spices
slug each of gin, port and cassis, teaspoon of herb spices.

Mix all together, cover and allow to marinate overnight

This made more than enough filling for the six individual pud and a small pie. The rest is frozen so I have a quick pie or pud filling all ready for the off.

I also had about 1.5 ltr of beef stock that I had frozen about a month ago, perfect to make the game stock.

After stripping the meat from the bones and carcasses (also a good time to look for any shot), I added a roughly diced onion , leek, carrot and a chunk of celeriac, a teaspoon of  pepper corns, a piece of ginger, 2 crushed garlic cloves, a bouquette garni, add to the pressure cooker, some oil and sautéed with the bones and carcasses, pour in the beef stock (this was jellified), top up with water so all is covered, lid on up to heat and cook for 1 hour. Strain through funnel sieve,  Boy do you have a game stock!

For the filling:

Remove the meats with a slotted spoon from the marinade and allow to drain.
Small dice of leek, onion, carrot, cerleriac, a large garlic clove pressed (pulped). I added some frozen cepes and chanterelles that I had in the freezer (Lidel or Aldi can't remember which, but cheap)
Heat a little olive oil in the base of the Pressure Cooker add all of the vegetables and soften, add the meats and colour (I don't bother about browning as it has enough of it's own flavour), now add a litre of the stock and marinade mixed, lid on and cook for an hour. Remove the filling and take a good 1/2 ltre of stock, reduce and taste (oh boy does that taste fantastic)

Now make the herb suet pastry:

200g suet (1 pkt atora)
450 g SR flour
good pinch of salt
2 tsp of mixed dried herbs
enough  cold water to bring it all together to a firm dough

I cut it all together with a metal spoon (some say with a round knife, but "Wor Mam" always used a spoon so there you go) and then when it starts to come together give it a knead with your hands, form into a ball, cover and allow to rest.

Measure the dariol moulds to gauge the diameter of pastry needed, this turned out to be the exact size of one of my saucers (alas no more, it is now broken, never mind I broke a cup a while back so now have a 5 matching set again).

I just gauge the size of the ball of pastry, that I shall need and roll it out to about 2-3mm thick,put the saucer on top and cut round it. Cut out 1/4 of the circle this will be your lid.

The dariol moulds should have been buttered and then put into the fridge. Remove one at a time and ease the pastry into each in turn, sealing the cuts with thumb and fingers, it will have a good bit of overhang, make sure there is no air trapped between mould and pastry. Spoon in the filling (allow it to be proud of the top, spoon in 2 desert spoons of sauce.
Now place the disc on top to form a lid and folding the over hang together with your forefinger and thumb form a rope crimp. (it looks very pretty).

Place a piece of foil with a pleat in the middle and secure with string or if you can get it, that elasticated string that butchers use to tie their joints into shape. Tie this into rings and it will hold it into place and you don't have to fiddle with knots (I just don't have enough fingers)

Place them into a Slow Cooker (if you don't have a one don't get upset and feel left out, just use a pan with steamer insert, it just means you will have to keep an eye on the water I won't) and pour boiling water half way up the moulds, top on and switch on high for 5 hours. You can now watch the footy in peace!

Oh! yes almost forgot! The pie, well I made that in between, that was just some filling in a pie dish with a short crust pastry top. I shall be eating that at half time with some asparagus and rosemary potatoes.