Welcome to Bavaria

This weekend, I finally wanted to make a special Bavarian cake - the Prinzregententorte. So I looked for some other Bavarian dishes to go with it.

Potato soup with Frankfurters

Pork roast with potato dumplings

Prinzregententorte

I started with cooking potatoes for the dumplings. Then I cleaned more potatoes, onions, garlic and greens for the soup. I browned the onions and garlic, then added the other vegetables. Then add a liter of water, salt, pepper and vegetable broth. It should cook for 20 minutes.

In the meantime, I washed the meat and salted it. Then I put it with the rind on a frying pan in the heated oven (220°C) and showered it in a quarter liter of water. Let it cook for 15 minutes. Then turn it around and cut a grid in the rind. Put some cloves in the cuts and let it fry for another 45 minutes.

Back to the soup: I pureed the soup, but not too fine. Then I added creme fraiche and marjoram.

I peeled the boiled potatoes and put them twice through a potato press. I mixed the pressed potatoes with salt, muscat, potato starch and 2 eggs and made a soft dough. Roast some croutons in butter. I formed dumplings and put in the center of each some roasted croutons. I put them in boiling water and when they started swimming, I switched off the heat and let them rest for 20 minutes.

Put some water on the roast and add some chopped greens to it and let it cook another 20 minutes. Brush the rind with salt water from time to time to make it crispy. Then I took the meat out and poured the gravy in a pot. I pureed the greens and added a water/ starch mix to bind it and seasoned it with salt, pepper and Maggi. Serve with dumplings and vegetables.

After lunch, I got the full team (mom and Victor) to help me with the cake more or less. For the cake, we made a dough and bake six biscuit cake grounds. While they cooled down, we stirred butter, powdered sugar, egg yolks and melted chocolate into a cream. I spread the cream on 5 of the six biscuits and stack one on the other. The final one went without cream. Then I covered the whole cake in chocolate and added some chocolate decorations.

Vive la France

This Sunday, I went for French food.

Tarte flambée

Coq au vin with rice

Eclairs

At first, I put together the ingredients for the dough and let it work for an hour.

Then I took the chicken, washed it, cut into four pieces and salt and pepper it. Slice and dice some bacon and heat it in hot butter. Add the chicken and fry all pieces from both sides. Chop some spring onions and add them. Pour some flour over it, deglaze it with a quarter liter of red wine, add some thyme and let it simmer on medium heat for 30 minutes. Turn the chicken pieces from now and then.

In the meantime, roll out the bread dough on a baking tray. Chop an onion and glaze them in oil. Then mix it with creme fraiche, salt and pepper. Put the mixture on the dough and top it with bacon dices and some olive oil. Let it bake 10-12 minutes in the oven at 200°C.

Tarte flambee is a traditional Alsacienne dish which I love since I had lived in Strasbourg. Today I made the classical version, but there are also varieties with tomatoes, banana nutella and still more.

Clean mushrooms, chop them and add to the chicken. Let it cook shortly. Season the sauce with salt, pepper and chicken broth.

Serve with steamed rice mixed with the green of the spring onions.

After lunch, Mom and me prepared the dessert. Eclairs are made from a choux pastry dough. For this you mix an eighth liter of water and milk, salt, butter and sugar and let it cook. Add the flour and stir it with a wooden spoon to a soft dough. Put the pot back on the cooking area, stir further until the dough detaches from the ground. Add an egg, stir it again until soft and proceed so till the last egg. Fill the dough in a piping bag and put 10 cm lines on a baking tray. Bake at 200°C for about half an hour until golden yellow. Then let them cooldown.

Then prepare the cream. Heat milk with an open sliced vanilla bean. After it boiled, take out the vanilla bean. Mix egg yolks with sugar, add flour. While stirring, add the milk. Put it back in the pot and stir it at medium heat until it thickens. Add whipped egg whites and stir it. Sprinkle sugar on the cream and let it cool.

Cover half the pastries with melted chocolate. When the chocolate hardened, put cream on a pastry and top it with a chocolate pastry. Really delicious.

Little Russia, little Prussia

Temperatures have risen, but nonetheless I looked a little bit eastwards for this weekend's meals.

Meatballs à la Königsberg with rice and vegetables

Russian plucked cake

The first dish was one of my favorite in the school canteen. So I prepared them, but to tell the truth they were much better at school.

After lunch, Victor helped me to prepare the cake which smelled really good and tasted delicious.