Pikeperch served to ways with beet root confit and saffron risotto

In this post I'll tell you how to prepare fish in two different ways. Actually this meal wasn't planned like this. The fishshop that I trust in just had one side pikeperch with skin. But we supposed to be five people for dinner. So we decided to take the other side without skin as well and make pikeperch served to ways. Pikeperch with skin is excellent for fry and without skin is best for poach. But it's often like this, I don't plan a meal really, I go shopping and let me inspire by the offers.

The idea with the beet roots comes from a german cookbook that is part of a large collection. It's name is bibliothek of chefs. Many german chefs that hold one or more stars in the guide michelin published a some of their recipes. This week I paged through the one from Dieter Müller, a very famous 3-Star cook from western Germany and found the beet root recipe. I made a note of the recipe, et voila, below you find the recipe that I cooked.

Crusty fried pikeperch
170 g pikeperch (one side pikeperch with the skin)
salt and pepper

Prepare the fish:
1. Remove the bones: Bone the filet by making a V-cut to remove the bones with a flexible fillet knife or remove the bones by using a pincette.

2. Bring the fish to shape: Remove the belly fat with a long continuous cut and bring the fish to a nice shape.

3. Divide into portions of 65-75 g. Cut carefully into the skin (please compare the photo). The fish is now ready to fry.

In oliveoil poached pikeperch
170 g pikeperch (the other side of a pikeperch without skin)
300 g olive oil
provencal herbes
salt

Remove the bones and divide into portions like described above. Fill the oil into a pot and add the herbes. Warm up the oil to 100°C and remove the pot from the hotplate. Put the fishfillets inside and poach them glassy at around 80°C for around 6-7 minutes.

Beet root compote (original recipe by Dieter Müller, I adapted it to my low level)
2 beet roots
for the cooking water:
1 leave laurel
10 peppercorns
1 anis
1 tablespoon white balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper
knife point cinnamon

Bring water to boil and add the condiments (laurel, peppercorns, anis and vinegar). Cook the beet roots firm to a bite for around 45-60 minutes. Don't prick them, because they would bleed out. After that skin them carefully by using a plastic glove. Cut into squares. Mash the leftovers. Season to taste with white balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper and a knife point cinnamon. Right before serving add the squares and boil it up.

Saffron risotto
1 onion
250 g risotto rice (short-grain rice)
vegetable stock
250 g white wine
70 g parmigiano reggiano
saffron threads (actually I use the most expensive saffron that comes from spain)
50 g glassage (mix of water and butter)
50 g whipped cream

Prepare the risotto as shown on the package insert. After this add the saffron threads. Right before serving add some glassage and whipped cream to get the one and only creamy texture of risotto.

Black and white christmas cookies

Schwarz-Weiß-Gebäck, Weihnachtsplätzchen

Black and white cookies
serves around 50 coockies
150 g butter
150 g sugar
1 pinch of salt
1 p. bourbon vanilla sugar
1/2 vanilla bean
1 egg
1 eggwhite
250 g flour and flour for roll out
1/2 baking powder
1 tablespoon cacoa
1 tablespoon cognac

Beat butter, vanilla, sugar, salt and vanilla sugar until fluffy. Add the egg and fold in flour and baking powder. Divide the dough in two parts. Blend cacoa, cognac and milk and blend it with one part of the prepared dough. Wrap up the both doughs in baking paper or plastic foil and rest them in the fridge for one hour.

Preheat the oven (175°C). Roll out 2/3 of each dough on a floured work space to rectangle, 1 cm high. Cut into strips and brush with whisked eggwhite. Put together checkered. Roll out the rest of the dough (1/2) and cover it. Press carefully on. Rest in the fridge for 2 hours.

Cut into 1/2 cm thick cookies, put them on a bakingtray covered with parchment paper and bake for 12 minutes. Cool down.

Gingerbread

In september you start to divine the first signs of the end of the summer. October begins, the leaves starts to fall and they whisper that the summer is over. You see that but deep inside you don't want to believe 'cause there are still some really warm and sunny days.

But then, in the middle of november, there comes a time when the leaves are already fallen, you walk though the forest and every step triggers a rustling under your shoes. You rather sit by the fireside than to leave the house. You start to think about which Christmas cookies you want to bake and which menu you want to serve on christmas eve.

And then you realize, summer, almost unnoticed has slowly fade away and another wonderful time of the year comes up... This week we started to prepare the first christmas cookies.

Ingredients

1 orange juice and zest
50 g walnuts coarsley chopped
50 g raisins coarsley chopped
300 g honey
100 g brown sugar
70 g unsalted butter
2 eggs
2 tablespoons gingerbread spice (powdered cinnamon, clove, pimento, cardamom, nutmeg)
1/2 tablespoon ginger powder
500 g flour
1 sachet baking powder
1 pinch of salt

100 g powdered sugar
the juice of one lemon
some candied cherries
some half walnuts and almonds

1 Preheat the oven to 175°C. Cover a high margin bakingtray with parchment paper. Bring orange juice and zest to a boil. Add chopped walnuts and raisins and put aside. Warm up honey, sugar and butter till sugar has dissolved. Cool down and add eggs and spices. Mix with the orange-nuts and fold in flour and baking powder. Spread the bakingtray with the dough and bake for 16 minutes.

2 In the meantime bring the lemonjuice to boil, add the powdered sugar and reduce to a syrup.

3 Cut the warm cake into little squares (2 x 2 cm). Sprinkle the pieces with the sugar syrup and decorate with waltnuts, almonds or/and candied cherries.

Buttersquash gnoccies with green salad and pine nuts

Ok, I'm really in the pumpkin season. I cannot get enough of that fruity, delicious fruit. I had a leftover piece buttersquash from the soup that I made a couple of days before and there were still one jar of soup in the fridge. So here are the buttersquash gnoccies...

Buttersquash gnoccies
serves 4
1/2 butternut squash peeled and cubed
1 pack of gnoccies
60 g butter
400 g (1 preserving jar) buttersquash soup
salt, pepper and nutmeg
1 tablespoon whipped cream (try to whip it by hand...)

Bring water to boil, add salt and cook the gnoccies. Drain the water and put aside. Preheat a pan to medium heat and add butter. Sweat the butternut cubes (do not roast them!) until tender. Add the buttersquash soup to the cubes and boil up. If necessary reduce a bit the liquid from the soup. It should have the texture of a sauce. Add the gnoccies and sautée. The sauce should now coat the gnoccies. Season to taste with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Add a tablespoon whipped cream to get a really fluffy and creamy texture.

Green salad and pine nuts
1/2 green oak leaf lettuce, lollo bianco or iceberg lettuce
1 bunch parsley
balsamic vinegar
dark green pumpkin seed oil
salt and ground pepper
1 sachet pine nuts

Remove the external leafs from the salad, wash it with cold water and dry. Twitch into bite-sized pieces. Wash parsley as well and add it to the salad. Marinade with balsamic vinegar and pumpkin seed oil, salt and pepper. Roast the pine nuts in a very hot pan without oil.

Plating
Arrange gnoccies longish on the plate. Top it high with the salad. Spread the pine nuts on the plate and sprinkle the plate with some drops of pumpkin seed oil.

Halloween Dinner - Crusty roasted pork with red wine sauce, potato dumplings, cauliflower brain and sauce hollandaise

This week my dad listened to the radio and heard an audio clip about halloween cooking. He told me to cook a cauliflower on the whole, to sprinkle with tomato blood and to stab the cauliflower brain with a dangerous looking chef's knife. During telling me this story I was already all for it and started to think about the decoration and other creepy details. Shortly before, I read a post of Lorraine on her wonderful blog "Not quite nigella about" the one with the green witch fingers. In consideration of the short time that was left it was fast clear to add them as decoration.


The stabbed bloody cauliflower brain and daddy by shaping potato dumplings in a bowl. We served sauce hollandaise along with the cauliflower brain and a crusty roasted pork, with red wine sauce and potato dumplings.

For dress up the table we used candles and some mixed autumn leaves that I bought last year... and the green witch fingers ;-)

Corresponding wine was a 2001 Vacqueyras Cuvée de saint-roch Clos de Cazaux, that was ready to drink and waiting in the wine cellar. This wine had completed a very long trip, grown in Vacqueyras, stored close to Apt, Provence at Mr. Zwischengangs parents and later carried to Alsace. Since two years the bottle waited here close to Frankfurt to be opened...

Green shortpastry witch fingers
250 g flour
110 g butter at room temperature
1 tablespoon sugar
a pinch of salt
1 egg
green food color
flour to work

Work up flour, butter, sugar, salt and egg as the basic recipe for shortpastry: Fill flour into a bowl, add little butter pieces, sugar, salt and egg. Kneat the dough with the fingertips. Little by little work flour into the dough. Take care to don't let the dough become to warm and work out fast. Divide the dough (1:3). Add the green food color to the bigger part and purple to the smaller part. Work out both parts to even doughs. Relax both doughs in the fridge for at least 1 hour. Cover a baking tray with baking paper. Preheat the oven at 180°C. Form rolls and shape ugly witch fingers from the green dough. Cut wrinkles into the dough. Form nails with the purple dough and stick them together. Bake them in the oven at 180°C for around 15 minutes.

Crusty roasted pork and red wine sauce
1,2 kg pork shoulder with rind
plantoil
1 clove garlic
2 sliced onions
1 bunch greens, walnutsized cellery, carrots and onions (mirepoix)
1 big tablespoon tomato paste
condiments (1 leave laurel,
0,75 lt red wine*
corn starch, salt

Preheat the oven at 120°C and a big pan. Cut in the rind of the shoulder with a sharp knife crosswise and lard it with garlic. Sear the pork in plantoil from all sides (Do not throw away the pan with the oil, it contains the roasted aroma that we need for the sauce). Put the pork shoulder in a stewing pan add the sliced onions and a glas of red wine and give it into the oven for roast. It will need around 4 1/2 hours.

In the kept pan roast the mirepoix very well. Add the tomato puree and roast it with the mirepoix. Deglace with the redwine and reduce. Repeat deglace and reduce 4-5 times. Than fill up with veal stock or vegetable stock and add the condiments. Boil thoroughly for around 45 minutes with lid. If too much liquid reduces add some stock again. Pass it through a sieve, bind with corn starch and season to taste with salt.

*Just one remark to the use of cooking wine. In my opinion a cooking wine mustn't be too expensive, but I would never use a wine for cook that I wouldn't drink as well.

Spanish birthday sunday

Since I remember at the birthday of every familymember we (my family) went out for eat. The restaurant is always choosen by the birthday child. Last week it was my turn to choose a restaurant. And as you all know in my family everybody is a big fan of fish and seafood, so I decided for a little spanish restaurant in the city were I live.

We had a great evening with all this origin spanish food and wine. For start we had some fried anchovys. I love those little salty, crisp and complete eatable small herrings. We kept on with some calamaris with aioli and with grilled prawns. All things were seasond really well balanced. I cannot get enough of this...

Later we had some mussles with tomato sauce, crabs and sepias. The flavorsome food was arranged on very cute porcelain plates with seafood decor. For dessert we had a crema catalana that is similar to the french creme brûlée. I want to try that soon at home. I really enjoyed my birthday together with my wonderful family.

Butternut squash soup

Have a wonderful eerie and creepy Halloween, everybody...

It's funny that my 100th post is just in the same week than Halloween in the middle of the autumn. Ever since I liked those foggy harvest nights when it's already cold, the wind howles outdoors and a cozy fire glows in the chimmney...

And just the same as I like to stay at home, a couple of years ago it started to be traditional to visit Burg Frankenstein for the Halloween festival once a year. The castle is around twenty minutes away from Frankfurt close to Darmstadt.

The actors are dressed up as monsters, such as Frankenstein, Michael Myers or old witches and undeads. They look absolutley horrific in their fancy chlothes and the make up is made by theater make up artists. They arrange a couple of theaters and scenes to get you frightened. We always had a lot of fun visiting the old Burg Frankenstein on Halloween. Burg Frankenstein, Mainstraße, 64319 Pfungstadt

The pictures are made at Burg Frankenstein except of Leo, my nonhazardous tomcat.

Pumpkin Soup
1100 g butternut squash, peeled and diced, seeds removed
200 g carrots, peedeld and diced
150 g white onions, peeled and diced
5 g ginger
1 glove of garlic
80 g butter
700 g water or vegetable stock
some drops citron juice
cayenne pepper and salt
100 g liquid cream

Sweat pumpkin, carrots, onions, ginger and garlic with the butter in a big pot on medium heat. As soon as you see a white film on the bottom of the pot, deglace the with vegetable stock. Boil until soft. Give the soup in the food processor and mix it or mix the soup with a hand blender very fine. Usually I don't press though a sieve 'cause it's too bad about the vegetable puree that is pure flavor. Give the soup back into the pot and add the cream. Boil up. Season to taste with ground pepper, cayenne pepper, salt and citron juice.