For three years, we lived about as far east as you can go on the Turkish Mediterranean. Beautiful, soulful place. We grew to love the people, the culture, the carpets, the history, and the food. (Oh, that food. . .) We were aware that Germany has the largest Turkish population outside of the country of Turkey, so we’ve never been surprised as travellers (and now residents) in Germany to find lots of carpet shops and kebab stands.
So why were we surprised to find that many kebab restaurants here have married Turkish kebabs with German tastes? And who knew that kebab and tzatziki sauce could be so fabulous with red cabbage!!! We first had this in Trier, but have repeated the discovery numerous times in towns all over the German map. And why shouldn’t the idea spread–it is so very, very good! Especially if the cabbage has been marinated (in what, I don’t know–just pure, unadulterated deliciousness!).
On the SeriousEats website, Steen Bjorn Hanssen offers the following insights into the popularity of Turkish food in Germany:
Döner Kebab, or just döner, is undoubtedly the most popular street food in Germany and has become part of the German culinary culture and vocabulary, much like Indian chicken tikka masala has in the UK. The döner was first introduced to the Berliner neighborhoods of Kreuzberg (known as Little Istanbul) and Neukölln in the early 1970s by Turkish immigrants invited to contribute to west Germany’s Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle). It quickly spread to other (west) German urban centers and following German reunification became so popular, you’ll find a döner stand in every single German town today, even in Bavaria.
I love the comparison of Turkish food in Germany to Indian food in England–and it rings true to my ears. Not only was Indian food outrageously popular in England, but the quality of Indian food we ate there was unmatchable. And, if popular myth is true, Chicken Tikka Masala (England’s most popular Indian dish) is not so much Indian as an Indian hybrid–created by chefs in the UK. Much like our German Berliner/Turkish Kebab.
Everybody likes to put their own spin on a story–even when that story is a culinary dish. And I’m all for it! Let the worlds collide–and our tummies and tongues will be the happier for it.
God rest you merry, gentlemen, let nothing you dismay.
I love this Christmas song. . . partly because of the comma in the first line. Weird, I know. But “God rest you, merry gentleman,” would mean something very different than “God rest you merry, gentlemen.”
It’s a distinction worth considering in this final week before Christmas day. You don’t have to come to the party merry. But here’s hoping that the holiday, and its lovely markets, its light, its lifting of family, food, and beauty, will help you to find that balance point of energy and rest, of calm and excitement, and to feel rested merry.
I know that a day in Trier left me feeling that I had rested merry. And it is a good feeling.
I’ve been visiting Christmas Markets the past few weeks and am enjoying the lebkuchen, plank-roasted salmon, candied fruits, and mulled wine that’s been on offer. But it’s clear that the mulled wine is the beating heart at the center of these markets. The promise of a warm tipple is what brings many people out to German Christkindlmarkts after the sun has dipped low and cold blankets the town. Gluhwein stands abound, and the people stand around!
It’s always nice to warm your hands and your spirits with gluhwein–and to come home from the markets with a gluhwein cup in hand. I’m a fan of the homemade stuff too–a simmering pot on the stovetop makes the house smell great and keeps you warm as you cook or sit around your Christmas tree. There’s no recipe, per se, that I use, but what I toss in looks something like this:
GLUHWEIN
a bottle of red wine (I prefer dry)
2-3 cinnamon sticks
about 4 whole cloves
a sliced orange
sugar (maybe 1/2 cup–but this is very subjective, do this according to your taste and the sweetness of the wine you use)
late additions: (if wanted) 1 star anise, a dash of rum, water (up to one cup) if you want to dilute or smooth out the taste
Put your ingredients on the stovetop and simmer for 10-20 minutes. You may add the rum and star anise in the last 5 minutes. (Personally, I like just a hint of star anise, that’s why I add it late–otherwise I find it overpowering.)
And, if you want “gluhwein light,” you can cut the wine with some ratio of cranapple juice and sip all holiday long without getting drowsy.
Gingerbread is another favorite at holiday markets. The Germans have their lebkuchen, and the French have their pain d’epices. Today, however, I’m bringing you a wickedly good gingerbread recipe from the Brits.
Nigella Lawson’s Guiness Gingerbread recipe is hard to beat. (Of course, you knew this before I told you, because Guinness + gingerbread has to = yummy!) (That’s the extent of my mathematical proficiency, by the way.)
This gingerbread is at its best when it’s warm–maybe 10 or 15 minutes out of the oven. The top is moist, the sides are gooey, the full ginger aroma is in play. Just thinking about it makes me hungry.
1 rectangular aluminium foil pan or cake pan, approximately 13 by 9 by 2-inches
Directions
Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F. Line your cake pan with aluminium foil and grease it, or grease your foil tray.
Put the butter, syrup, dark brown sugar, stout, ginger, cinnamon and ground cloves into a pan and melt gently over a low heat.
Take off the heat and whisk in the flour and baking soda. You will need to be patient and whisk thoroughly to get rid of any lumps.
Whisk the sour cream and eggs together in a measuring jug and then beat into the gingerbread mixture, whisking again to get a smooth batter.
Pour this into your cake/foil pan, and bake for about 45 minutes; when it’s ready it will be gleamingly risen at the centre, and coming away from the pan at the sides.
Let the gingerbread cool before cutting into slices or squares.
We lived in North Yorkshire for 4 years, and, despite what people like to say about British food, some of it is VERY good. Granted, top of that list is the Indian food you get there. But if you haven’t tried a really good sticky toffee pudding or a gourmet steak and ale pie, you’re missing out. And even “tired old” mincemeat pies and Sunday roast can be a revelation with the right ingredients and in the right person’s artful hands!
Marks & Spencer Mince Pies
I’m about to bring you a recipe that is divine–but first, a rudimentary primer on food in England.
The Markets: Here I speak for my old home town of Ripon, N. Yorkshire, especially. I love the vibrant market squares and market days in British cities, towns, and villages. I love walking home with baskets of fresh produce, hearing the fishmonger call out his wares, seeing what the pottery merchant has found to carry in on any given week (and hoping he’s stocking my favorite Blue Willow), and scanning the candy stall for my children’s favorite bits and bobs.
Nigella: If you’ve never been a fan, open up one of her cookbooks and go for a leisurely read. I’d start with Nigella Christmas–because it’s almost the season, it’s a good read, and it’s where I started. If you’re not smitten with her prose, then whip up her Guinness Gingerbread. If you’re still not besotted. . .I just can’t help you.
Tea: If someone invites you over for tea, don’t imagine (as most Americans do) that you’ll be drinking Twinings at a table with Paddington Bear. The invitation is likely for dinner, not a tea party. “Cream Tea” often indicates tea and scones or sweet pastries in the afternoon, but “Tea” is dinner.
Pudding: When we first moved to England (in 2005), we were amused at how often we were offered “pudding” in restaurants. I mean, we like pudding, but couldn’t figure out what the national obsession with it was all about. Turns out, “pudding” means dessert. We quickly learned to say “Yes, please,” to any offer of pudding!
Meat Pies: Today, I’m focused on a fabulous, piping hot Steak and Ale pie (recipe below). But Brits also love cold meat pies. A cold steak pie from a deli counter is doable for a quick lunch, but not great. And pork pies? Don’t get me started. Okay, I don’t do pork, so this may be a little unfair, but cold, gelatinous meat in a cold, blah pastry case– I don’t get it. Except in a Dickensian way–I mean, I suppose it has a certain bit of atmosphere: a cold, tired chimney sweep might ‘ha a ‘litl bit o’ da pie fur lunch. (Yes, I overindulged in Mary Poppins as a kid.) But, truth is, I have plenty of friends, and one husband, who seem to like a bit o’ the cold pie, so to each his own.
Let’s launch into the reason you are here: the world’s greatest Steak and Ale Pie recipe. It comes from Williams-Sonoma. (I know it should come from a British source, but this really is the best I’ve found. . .even if it is from California.) And one more disclaimer–please listen, because this is important–this will take you most of the day. Only start this on a rainy weekend day when you want to hang out at home for hours. And, yes, you will begin cursing halfway through this and saying, “Never again!” But then the pie will smell soooo delicious as it cooks that you’ll start to drool as it comes out of the oven. You’ll dig into the flaky pastry and lift a fork to your mouth.
Angels will sing, devils will dance, and you’ll be in love.
Oh, you’ll make it again. And again. (Hint: if you cook a very large recipe, you can freeze half of the filling and turn it into a pie at a later date with minimum effort.)
This hearty beef stew is slowly simmered on the stovetop, then topped with Stilton pastry and finished in a hot oven.
*My note: I usually skip the Stilton pastry and use a puff pastry. The Stilton is good, but very rich, and this is already a rich pie.
Ingredients:
7 Tbs. olive oil
1 lb. white button mushrooms, quartered
2 cups frozen pearl onions, thawed
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
3 1/2 lb. beef chuck roast, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 cup all-purpose flour
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 Tbs. tomato paste
2 1/2 cups Irish stout
1 cup beef broth
1 lb. carrots, cut into chunks
1 lb. red potatoes, cut into chunks
1 Tbs. finely chopped fresh thyme
One 16-inch round Stilton pastry (see recipe link below)
1 egg, beaten with 1 tsp. water
Directions:
In a 5 1/2-quart Dutch oven over medium-high heat, warm 1 Tbs. of the olive oil. Add the mushrooms, onions, salt and pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, about 12 minutes. Transfer to a bowl.
Season the beef with salt and pepper. Dredge the beef in the flour, shaking off the excess. In the Dutch oven over medium-high heat, warm 2 Tbs. of the olive oil. Add one-third of the beef and brown on all sides, about 7 minutes total. Transfer to a separate bowl.
Add 1/2 cup water to the pot, stirring to scrape up the browned bits. Pour the liquid into a separate bowl. Repeat the process 2 more times, using 2 Tbs. oil to brown each batch of beef and deglazing the pot with 1/2 cup water after each batch.
Return the pot to medium-high heat. Add the garlic and tomato paste and cook, stirring constantly, for 30 seconds. Add the beef, stout, broth and reserved liquid, stirring to scrape up the browned bits. Add the mushrooms, onions, carrots, potatoes and thyme and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the beef and vegetables are tender, about 3 hours.
I’ve picked up Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, after stumbling upon Frankenstein village last week. I believe in the seemingly random “suggestions” that life whispers in your ear. So why not play the card that life pitched my way? We’re having a bout of cold, gloomy Gothic weather anyway—so the stage is set.
A storm blowing in outside my window.
The book was sitting on my own bookshelf, but where, exactly, I wasn’t sure. Three months in a new house and only my daily- and weekly-use possessions are in obvious places. The rarely used objects in my life still take a full-on three day manhunt to find.
And I was going to the library anyway. (There’s an American library close by—you know my German falls far short of Dr. Seuss at the moment, much less Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.)
So I went looking for Frankenstein, but found myself, instead, in the cookbook aisle. This will surprise no one who knows me—I’m easily distractible. But this was different, I thought—another whispering in my ear. Some days we are more ripe for some experiences than others, and this was one of those days when something solid and sensual was needed to catch my attentions. The seasons are beginning to turn in Germany: the light is swinging away from us, there’s a damp chill creeping into the air, and my body is registering this on many levels. It’s dark before 7 pm, and I’m growing sleepy far too early. Birds are migrating, and my own psyche is being tugged at by that hibernation reaction—I want to cozy in already. And my stomach is whispering its own suggestions: time for soup, time for autumn foods, and nearly time for holiday cakes and ale.
When my stomach speaks, I listen.
It began whispering a week or two ago, and I pulled a Julia Child book off my bookshelf. I’m totally lacking in the sort of culinary ambition that led to “The Julie and Julia Project,” but I told myself that I’d cook whatever I happened to open the page to. It would be a delicious adventure.
I closed my eyes and opened the book.
To the chapter entitled “Mayonnaise.”
I closed the book quickly and resolved to serve leftovers for dinner.
But yesterday my stomach was speaking again, and this time with a back up chorus: all the senses were alive and singing. “It’s autumn– we want the tastes, the outrageous spiced aromas, the feeling of being held close and warm.” There’s no denying the call. I was on a mission.
And I found my helpmate in Nigella Lawson. I already have many of her cookbooks on my own bookshelf, but I picked up the library’s copy of Nigella Bites and tucked it under my arm for the trip home.
Once my kids were home from school and had enveloped themselves in that quiet hour they often take—to nibble on snacks, to relish their private “cone of silence” after a day of overstimulation—I picked up my book and fell into a comfy chair for my own moment of communion with Nigella.
The moment didn’t disappoint.
In describing the cream she uses in a Ginger-Jam Bread and Butter Pudding, the author says, “nothing creates so well that tender-bellied swell of softly set custard.” And toward the end of her chapter entitled “Trashy,” she asserts that “Trashy is a state of mind, a game of mood: the food itself deserves, demands, to be served and eaten—unsmirkingly, unapologetically and with voluptuous and exquisite pleasure.”
THIS is a feast of the senses. And, if Nigella has built her fame on being a bit of a strumpet, the truth is that she’s dead-on right about the comforts and sensuality of food. And she’s as good a reading companion as she is a cook. (Nigella’s Christmas cookbook was my first foray into her vast library, and, although I have cooked some recipes from it with great success, I love it even more for the witty, intelligent read that it provides.)
Anyhoo, back to the senses.
Picking apples in Helmut’s orchard
We were apple picking in our landlord’s orchard last weekend and brought home wine crates full of apples, so cakes and cobblers have been flying out of our oven. It’s time now for a shift to something savory. I’ve scanned Nigella Bites, and, aside from some lovely desserts, I’ve dog-eared a recipe called “Granny Lawson’s Lunch Dish.” An inauspicious name, but the recipe was speaking to me nonetheless. Yum–spicy beef, savory smells, flaky pastry–oh, oh, wait a minute, I know! What I really want is a steak and ale pie–a really, really good one. And I have just the recipe. . .somewhere in my house. I haven’t found some of my recipe files yet. That will take a three day man hunt, of course. (Grrr.) But I have started looking for those recipes.
They haven’t turned up yet, but the good news is that Frankenstein finally jumped off my bookshelf at me. I think that must be the universe whispering to me (again) that I’m supposed to be reading Shelley’s book. So I’ll just relax, read the complicated Gothic tale now and worry about savory pies later.
Unless, of course, I get distracted again.
I really do need to go out and rake the back yard. . .
And I found my helpmate in Nigella Lawson. I already have many of her cookbooks on my own bookshelf, but I picked up the library’s copy of Nigella Bites and tucked it under my arm for the trip home.
Travels and Tomes: One Expat's Amblings and Ramblings 