Category: Food

Maultaschen

More German comfort food

 

Maultaschen (singular = maultasche) are a German type of ravioli known particularly in the Swabian region of southern Germany. They are large pasta parcels and traditionally have a meat filling. It’s now possible to buy them with a variety of fillings, including fish, mushroom and vegetable (gemuse). Each maultasche is quite large being at least 8cm long.  
My favourite maultaschen are those made by ‘Burger’. This is one of the cheaper brands and can be found in most supermarkets. However, it is also one of the tastiest brands.
 
The easiest way to prepare them is to boil them in vegetable stock and eat them with the resulting soup. They can also be fried. A popular way to serve them is to boil them first, and then slice them and fry them up with eggs. Keep stirring so the eggs scramble. Another way is to boil them and then place them in a lasagne dish. Cover them with a sauce made from single cream and tomato soup powder. Slice mozzarella over the top and bake them till the mozzarella has melted and the sauce is bubbling.
 
A popular story about the origin of maultaschen is that they were invented by monks from Maulbronn Monastery to hide the fact that they were eating meat during lent. This dish has the nickname of Herrgottsbscheißerle which roughly translates to “little ones who cheat the Lord”. Although maultaschen are readily available and enjoyed throughout the year, they are particularly seen as a traditional food during Easter week.


“Schwäbische Maultaschen” has been recognized as a regional specialty by the Gazette of the European Communities. This means that genuine Maultaschen have to be produced in Swabia, Baden-Württemberg, or the Swabian speaking areas of Bavaria.

Spaetzle

German comfort food

Spaetzle are a type of noodle commonly found in southern Germany. They can easily be bought ready made in supermarkets, in the same way we can buy ready made fresh pasta in the UK. I like them fried up with finely chopped onions and then lots of gruyere stirred into them. They’re great with some added chilli sauce.

I found the recipe below on Jamie Oliver’s website.

Swabian Spaetzle

Ingredients

500g white wheat flour
5 large eggs
1-2 tsp salt
1/4 l cold water

Spaetzle are a famous Swabian / South German (side) dish, served with all kinds of roasts and much gravy. Gratinated with cheese and served as a main dish with fried onions, they are called ‘Kässpätzle’ .

Method

Make the spaetzle dough by mixing all ingredients (flour, eggs, salt, and water) with a wooden spoon. Beat the dough until it shows blisters. Let it rest for 10 min.
Bring a big pot with water to boil and then add salt.
It’s very traditional to hand-scrape the spaetzle into the boiling water by using a cutting board and a knife or palette. But I use my Spätzlehobel, you could use a colander with rather big holes instead. Just let some tbsps of the dough drop into the boiling water.
The spaetzle are done, as soon as they begin to swim on the surface. Remove them from the boiling water and start again until all dough is used up. If you serve it as a plain side dish, you may want to fry the spaetzle gently in a bit of butter.

Bretzels

Delicious German food with not a sausage in sight.

bretzelGermany has some great food. Ok, so a lot of it is meat and of no interest to me, but the meat-free food can be delicious. Take bretzels for example. Big bread pretzels. Bought at the right bakers they are mouth-wateringly divine. The bread is so light and soft on the inside, yet the outside is really crisp and crunchy. They have a sprinkling of large salt crystals scattered across them. They usually cost about 50 cents, though I did find them in Lidl for 29 cents – the bakery ones are better though.

 

Bretzels get their brown colour from lye. This used to be used as a cleaning agent and disinfectant. Some time in the 18th century a baker accidently dropped a batch of bretzel dough into his bucket of lye. He decided to bake them anyway and the modern lye bretzel was born. Lye bretzels are particulaly popular in Southern Germany and the name ‘bretzel’ is just a variation of the more common ‘pretzel’.

 

They are bought everywhere here as a quick snack and the children love them. When I do see them in the UK they’re more of an expensive treat and not nearly as nice.

 

I’ve heard about an Australian guy who’d liked them so much he started importing the dough to Australia and baking them there. He’s now a millionaire. Now there’s a business idea I could follow up on …

Rococo White Chocolate with Cardamom

The best chocolate EVER!

I’ve been eating my favourite chocolate. I love white chocolate and cardamom is my favourite spice. In this bar from Rococo I get both combined and it is amazing! Rococo make really good quality chocolate from organic ingredients and have lots of unusual flavours: Geranium anyone? The company is based on the King’s Road in Chelsea but rather than trekking all the way down there I buy their chocolate at the Algerian Coffee Stores in Soho. I only get to buy when I’m in London and as it’s expensive at more than £4 a bar, I don’t buy much. So this really is a treat to be eked out and savoured.

Vertigo 42

Champagne with a view

This was another treat over half term. Paul had heard recommendations and wanted to go. I’d never heard of it but got quite excited about it after a bit of googling. Neither of us like champagne, so we were going for the experience and the view rather than the beverage. It needs to be booked in advance and a credit card number given so you can be charged if you don’t turn up. We’d booked a 2 hour slot from 6pm till 8pm on the Tuesday night.

Vertigo 42 is so called because it is on the 42nd floor of the second tallest building in the City of London (it’s the fifth tallest in London as a whole). At 183 metres (about 600ft) it’s definitely high. The bar is basically a circular corridor round the outer edge of the floor. The lifts, kitchen, toilets and so on are in the middle bit.

The windows are floor to ceiling and the wall behind has floor to ceiling mirrors so which ever way you look you are met with an absolutely stunning view. I could easily have stayed all night just gazing at it. Because of the time of year it was dark so we were looking out over a lit London. We were fairly close to St Paul’s and could see the Thames, the London Eye, Centrepoint, Big Ben and lots of other tall landmarks.

To be allowed up to the bar we had to give our names at reception and then go through airport type security, walking a though a metal detector and passing our bags through an x-ray machine. The private lift to the 42nd floor practically flew up and I felt my ears popping. Once at the top we had to give our names again and were led to our ‘area’.

Each window has a low ledge which is used as a table and a couple of egg style chairs. Further round was the area for groups which had a higher ledge and bar stools. Each ‘area’ is labelled with the name of the something in direct sight e.g. Barbican and the direction in degrees and minutes.

We ordered a bottle of the cheapest champagne which was £60. It arrived in a silver bucket and a waiter filled our glasses. The waiters continued to fill our glasses each time they got low. We were drinking quite slowly however as we needed to make our one bottle last the two hours! We ordered some salted almonds to go with it. I’m used to bags of crisps in pubs so was very impressed with the way the almonds arrived in a dish on a platter with a white cloth. They were nice and the saltiness took away some of the taste of champagne so we actually found we were enjoying it. By the time we finished the nuts our taste buds had adjusted and we were enjoying the champagne on its own. Now this is a habit I really can’t afford to develop!

Would I go again? Definitely, despite the cost. I felt chilled, relaxed, comfortable and in awe of the view. The waiters were attentive but not over-bearing. I had worried that the place would either be a tourist trap or stuffily posh, but it was neither. The clientele seemed to be mainly workers enjoying a special night out after a day at the office.

http://www.vertigo42.co.uk/

Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen

One of the best meals I’ve had. Shame the state of the toilets let the place down.

Over half term I had lunch in Jamie Oliver’s restaurant, Fifteen, in London. We made a booking a few weeks in advance and were able to get a table for mid-afternoon (the time we wanted). It is in a part of London I’m not familiar with and although not far from the centre, seemed a bit run-down and not really an area for people to go unless they live or work there. So I suppose Fifteen is, as well as working to help young unemployed people become trained as chefs, also helping to bring people to an area they wouldn’t usually visit.

We were slightly early, but were led downstairs to the main restaurant straight away. We were sat next to the kitchen which meant we were quite warm, but it was interesting to be able to see what was going on.

The restaurant was dark (being in the basement), but lit well enough that we could easily see. Further down the room from where we were sat there seemed to be some kind of booths. On the ground floor is the bar and trattoria and this has a lighter, airier feel to it.

The waiter was attentive and explained the menu. It’s a fixed price menu at lunch time depending on how many courses you have. We went for the two courses plus dessert option for £30 a head.

We started off being served with bread. The restaurant is Italian and so it came with olive oil rather than butter. We then both had the same starter of a gooey warm Mozzarella – the nicest we’ve had – and roasted aubergine.  

For a main I ordered a vegetarian risotto and Paul ordered the lamb. Risottos can sometimes be served in small portions but this was fine and I was full by the end. It was made with fennel and olives and had quite a delicate flavour, despite these being quite strongly flavoured ingredients. Paul’s lamb looked delicious (and I’m a vegetarian saying that!) and he said it tasted as good as it looked. We ordered a side salad and some potatoes as side dishes and were absolutely stuffed by the time we had finished.

We wanted to try a dessert as this will probably be the only time we come here. We had to wait a while and let the rest of the food digest a bit before we felt up to it though. I had the pannacotta which was creamy but refreshing and served with a scoop of chocolate mousse and Paul had a slice of lemon tart. To finish off we had a coffee.

To drink with our meal we ordered a beer. At £6.50 a bottle it was quite pricey so as it was a 500ml bottle we just ordered one between us. It was Junction Ale, a brew made locally and was quite light. I’d expected something heavier. It was so nice and went so well with the food that despite the price we ordered another one.

We enjoyed our few hours here and loved the food. The only complaint I’d have would be the toilets. They obviously hadn’t been cleaned over the lunch time period and so by the time I got to them at the end of the afternoon they weren’t particularly enticing.

http://www.fifteen.net/

Eating lunch in Reykjavik

Three places in Reykjavik for a delcious vegetarian lunch.

Swarta Kaffi

Swarta Kaffi must have an owner who has spent time in South Africa. It’s a small place on the first floor of a building on Laugevegur. It’s very cosy inside and has a definite African theme – there are masks and other African artefacts all over the place. What makes me think it’s a South African connection rather than African in general? Well, it’s the food. Swarta Kaffi is famous for serving soup in a bowl made from bread. Each day they have a meat soup and a vegetarian soup – generally cauliflower. The ‘bowl’ is a loaf sized bread roll with the middle pulled out. It is then filled with soup and the extracted bread is served on the side. This is an Icelandic play on the bunny chows of Durban. Durban has a large Indian population and so curry is pretty much a staple. A bunny chow is a loaf of bread hollowed out and filled with curry; the extra bread is also served on the side. I haven’t seen this done anywhere else. I might have thought it coincidence except for the African theme in the cafe. Last time I was here I did ask the waitress about the origins of their main dish, but she didn’t know.

The soup and bread is delicious. The staff are friendly and the atmosphere is welcoming. It’s a bit more expensive than buying soup in some places so it’s somewhere I don’t make a habit of going to, but it’s definitely something to look forward to once on each trip.

Groen Kostur

This place is hidden at the back of a kind of small shopping centreoffice block, opposite a car park and a branch of Bonus (the cheap supermarket chain). It’s only a minute or two walk from Laugevegur. The place is small and modern with small, round, high tables and high chairs. So it’s not the most comfortable of places to sit. A lot of people seem to get takeaway from here so I suppose comfort isn’t the priority.

The food is all vegetarian and vegan and there’s a good choice. There are always several choices of ‘plate’ as well as snacks, cakes, soup and so on. The ‘plates’ are made up of a mix of salads, quiches, rice, potatoes, and so on. They are served with a small bread roll and each type of ‘plate’ has a fixed price. There are a selection of dressings on the counter and a selection of jugs of water. One jug has plain water and the others each have a different fruit such as lemon, orange or apple floating in them.
The food is delicious. Each time I’ve been here I’ve tried one of their plates of food, but the soup served with bread and houmous also looks really tempting.

Gardurin

Gardurin is located about five minutes walk from Laugevegur and is another tiny lunch place. It closes in August each year for holidays so I wasn’t able to come here last time. Each week they produce a new menu with a different dish for each day of the week. This means there isn’t much choice but the food for each day sounded good and so I suppose it saved making a hard decision. The main dishes are served in full or half portions and there are soups and cakes as well. Everything is vegetarian.

The place is very hippie-ish with incense burning and Indian pictures and artefacts. The tables are small but as they are regular height this is a nicer place to sit than Groen Kostur.  It was quite friendly and the food was good, but if I had to choose I think I would go for Groen Kostur (even though it means sitting on a high chair) because although the food here is good, the food at Groen Kostur is even better!

Coffee shops of Reykjavik

One of the things I love about Reykjavik is its coffee shops.

One thing I love doing is sitting in a nice coffee shop drinking really good coffee, maybe indulging in a slice of cake, imbibing the ambience and generally just relaxing; chatting if I’m with a friend, reading or writing if I’m on my own. Reykjavik is a wonderful city for this. There are so many little coffee shops and cafes and although they all seem busy, it’s usually possible to get a seat. The decor and atmosphere is very different depending upon where you go, but one thing they all have in common is great coffee.

I don’t like milky buckets of coffee so I tend to avoid Starbucks type chains and rarely drink lattes or cappuccinos. In the UK I’ll usually ask for an Americano so that I know it’s freshly made. Coffee which has been standing around and kept warm for half hour or more (hours in some places) does not taste good. In Reykjavik I drank ‘regular’ coffee. This is usually in a big flask that you help yourself too. Because the cafes tend to be busy and Icelanders seem to drink a lot of coffee, the coffee in the these flasks in replenished frequently and so never has time to get stale. The coffee is dark and very strong which is just the way I like it.

A regular coffee is usually refillable as well, meaning I could sit for ages and have a couple of cups. The price was usually between 300 and 400 kronur(about £1.60 to just over £2). Drinks from the espresso machine are usually more expensive and not refillable. Here are my thoughts on the coffee shops I went to:

Cafe Paris

This is a popular cafe situated on a corner overlooking the square in front of the cathedral. In summer there are tables outside. In winter everyone huddles inside, but as it’s quite large it doesn’t feel cramped. There are pictures of volcanoes on the walls and a bookcase in the middle. It serves full meals and has a bar, as well as selling coffee and cake.

The first time I went in I had an Americano as it was free with my Reykjavik Welcome Card. It was strong and dark and had a little bar of Milka chocolate alongside. I had a piece of apple cake with it which arrived beautifully served with cream and fruit and a sliver of chocolate.

Next time I ordered regular coffee. Instead of being given a cup to fill myself at the counter, the coffee arrived in a silver insulated pot. Very posh. I got two and a bit cups of coffee out of it and still got a Milka chocolate even though it was regular coffee. I thought it would be expensive, but it was only 400kr.

Cafe Paris can be found at Austurstræti 14 and their website is here.


Tiu Dropar

Tiu Dropar is in the basement of Laugavegur 27. It’s a cosy, quirky looking place. To get to the cafe you have to go down steps at the side of the building. The door leads in to a long thin room with a counter at the far end. There is another room at the back. The decor is old-fashioned enough to be retro; there are old teapots and jugs and things used to ornament the place.

I was here fairly early in the morning and so there were only a few other customers. Later in the day it does get very busy in here. The other customers seemed to be having breakfast, whereas I just had a regular coffee and a pancake. The coffee was refillable and good. The pancakes were piled up on the counter and I couldn’t resist. They were thin and sugary and rolled up into tight cigars. It was served cold, but tasted delicious.

The website is here but doesn’t seem to be working very well.


Cafe Haiti

I discovered Cafe Haiti when I was here last time. It was a tiny one-roomed place with a couple of tiny tables. The owner is from Haiti and from what I can make out came to Iceland because she married an Icelandic guy. Her English isn’t great so it’s a bit difficult to talk to her. She imports coffee beans from Haiti and roasts them herself.

In the two and a half years since I was last there, she has moved into much bigger premises in the touristic harbour area. Although nice, her new place doesn’t have the cosy ambience of the old one. It was very quiet when I was there this time, though this could have been due to the blizzard that had whipped up over night and was still going on. In the old place there was a steady stream of Icelanders coming in to buy takeaway coffee. It might be a bit out of the way for them now and maybe she’s relying on the tourist trade instead. But because of the weather it was hard for me to really know.

I had a regular coffee here. It was just as good as last time, but I don’t think I’d bother walking down to the harbour especially for this. Not when there are also so many other good places located more centrally.

Here’s the facebook page for Cafe Haiti.


Te og Kaffi

This means tea and coffee in Icelandic. It’s part of a chain and the one I went in was in the square opposite the Prime Minister’s offices. This was beside my bus stop and so was quite handy. It has a modern look and red cups. I just had coffee here which was refillable and tasted good.

Their website is here.

Kaffitar

Kaffitar is also a chain and seems quite Starbucksy. I resisted going in at first as I didn’t expect to like it. But one afternoon I really felt like a sit down and a coffee and I could see a free table here. So in I went and was pleasantly surprised. I had an Americano and a slice of Snickers cake. The cake was amazing (I really must try to find a recipe) and the Americano tasted like real coffee. This was the branch on Laugavegur.

A few days later I went to the National Museum and the cafe in the museum is a branch of Kaffitar. The cafe here is on the ground floor and has plate glass windows looking onto a water feature. I sat by the window with a regular coffee (refillable) and watched the birds bathing in the water and the moon rising over the houses opposite.

It does feel like a chain and I prefer the ambience of the quirky little one-off places, but I certainly can’t fault them on their coffee.

Here’s their website.


Munnharpan

This is the ground floor coffee shop and restaurant in Harpa, Iceland’s new concert hall. The concert hall is all glass and reflections, with lots of black. It’s a big open space and the cafe feels like it’s in a cavernous hall. It’s very modern with tables and chairs in rows almost resembling a school canteen. There are also some high tables with bar stools. Behind the coffee area is a formal eating area. The cafe serves meals and has a bar as well as serving coffee and cake.

I had coffee and although it was refillable it was made on the machine. It was good coffee, but I wasn’t tempted by anything else. This place is fine for coffee if you’re already in Harpa, but isn’t worth making a special trip for.

The website is here.

Reykjavik City Hall Cafe

City Hall coffee shopI’m not sure if this cafe has a name, but it’s usually just referred to as the cafe or the coffee shop in City Hall. City Hall has been built at the northern end of Tjornin (the pond) and seems to be half on land and half in the water. The cafe juts out into the water which was frozen solid when I was there. I sat in on a comfy sofa by the window watching the geese slipping and sliding around as they strutted past.

The place is very cosy with sofas, colourful cushions and big candles. The wall onto the pond is all glass so summer or winter this would be a great place to sit and feel part of the view.

I just had a coffee here and as with everywhere in Reykjavik, it was good.

Here’s some information on City Hall.

Babalu

Babalu is a tiny place upstairs at Skólavörðustígur 22a. Sitting in Babalu is like a cross between sitting in someone’s living and sitting in an Aladdin’s cave. The walls are brightly coloured, there’s a sofa under the eaves, and every bit of available space is taken up with kitsch and what is basically junk. I loved it.

The coffee is refillable and they have nice cakes. This time, instead of cake, I had a bowl of really warming potato soup. There’s a tiny roof terrace which I was able to sit out on the last time I was here and watch everybody on the street below. (It was Culture Night/Day and so there was a lot to watch). This time it was far too cold to sit outside and wasn’t too warm inside either. There was quite a draught coming up the stairs from the open front door. But I love this place so much I stayed for a quite a while anyway.



Kaffi Mokka

I’ll include Mokka here even though I didn’t get to it this time. I did go last time and the only reason I didn’t go back was that I was too busy trying out other places.

Mokka is one of the oldest coffee shops in Reykjavik and was the first to get an espresso machine back in the 1950s. Its decor doesn’t seem to have changed since then. It’s always been a bit of an arty place and now has photo exhibitions on its walls. This cafe serves what are said to be the best waffles in Reykjavik. I had one with my coffee the last time I was here and it was fresh and fluffy. All the locals seemed to be eating them too, which is always a good sign.

Kaffi Mokka can be found at Skólavörðustígur 3a and its website is here.


Follow up to a previous post: As I’ve just been looking up websites for coffee shops I thought I’d check Trip Advisor to see if my review was still the only one on there. It’s not. There are loads. So I’m not famous after all.

The one I’ve aleady done

A day spent gathering wild food and learning new recipes.

When I started this blog I had one task on my list that I’ve already ticked off. I did wonder whether to keep it on or if I should free up the space for a different task. But as I’d actually put together my list about a year before I started to blog I didn’t really want to change it. So it stayed.

I’ve been a vegetarian since I was eighteen. It was actually at my 18th birthday meal that I last ate meat  (it was turkey, one of the few meats I actually liked). I tried to be a vegetarian before that, but it was always difficult when my mum was in charge of cooking and she wanted me to eat meat. I never really liked it and used to feed it to the dog under the table when she wasn’t looking. When I was 14 the dog died. I tried to feed my meat to the cat instead, but she ate too slow and couldn’t eat that much. So I became a part-time veggie, forcing meat down at home so that I would be allowed to leave the table, but rarely eating it outside of home.

About a week after my birthday meal I realised that I’d not eaten meat at all since that meal. If I could do it for a week, I could do it forever. I wasn’t eating so much at home any more and not long afterwards I moved out. I didn’t tell my mum, I just let her figure it out over time.

I always enjoyed cooking and my new life as an official veggie gave me lots of reasons to research and try out new recipes. Veggies weren’t much catered for in restaurants then, and there certainly wasn’t the choice of veggie products in the supermarkets that there are now, so it was much more challenging. Through my reading and research I came across the Vegetarian Society and found out that it’s based in Altrincham (not very far away) and has a cookery school. Although the courses aren’t particularly expensive, they were always well out of my affordability range. So it became one of those things that I kept saying I’d do one day but never getting round to. Last summer I’d been a vegetarian for 25 years and as I’m living back in Manchester and just down the road from the Vegetarian Society I thought that this would be a good year to finally do a course with them.

I chose the ‘Food for Free’ course because it also involved walking and learning about plants. The course took place on a Sunday and started off in the Vegetarian Society lounge where the dozen participants were served coffee before being introduced to Patrick Harding, wild food expert and our tutor for the day. After a talk and a slide show we were on to the practical side of the course where we headed out into the countryside looking for food. We didn’t walk very far, though it took a couple of hours because we kept stopping to pick wild flowers and leaves and listen to Patrick talk about them. Once back at base we were served a big, late afternoon, buffet lunch using all the ingredients we’d picked. So that we wouldn’t have to wait around too long for lunch we were actually served with food made from ingredients that had been collected earlier than our walk, but they were the same things.

Although we didn’t get to cook the food ourselves, which is something that I would have liked to have done, we did get to eat plenty of it and were given the recipes to take home. If we’d cooked ourselves it would have been an evening meal by the time it was ready, so I can understand why we didn’t get to participate in the actual cooking.

I really enjoyed the course and it was definitely worth waiting 25 years for. Now I’m tempted to do another one.

The Cordon Verte cookery school can be found here.