BRUNCH TIME - Frittata with roasted peppers and asparagus

I just love brunch. This is another recipe inspired by Bobby Flay's "Brunch at Bobby's". I added some potato and asparagus, feel free to substitute any vegetables you like. A frittata is an egg dish that starts on the oven, but then finishes off baking in the oven. Be careful to handle the skillet as it gets really hot...

I served the frittata with a roasted tomato sauce and fresh sour cream that I mixed with some chives. The tangy taste of the tomatoes and the coldness of the sour cream are a good addition.

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 bunch fresh asparagus - cut into 3 inch pieces
• 1/2 cup roasted red peppers - sliced
• 3 spring onions - sliced
• 1 cooked potato - sliced
• 1 cup cheese (pepper jack, smoked gruyere or parmesan) - grated
• 1/3 cup feta cheese - cubed
• 1 tablespoon fresh thyme - chopped
• 6-9 eggs
• 2 tablespoons sour cream
• 2 tablespoons cream cheese
• salt, pepper

• Optional: Sour cream mixed with fresh chives

Roasted Tomato Sauce:

• olive oil
• 1 pint cherry tomatoes - cut in halves
• 2 cloves garlic
• salt
• fresh basil

Preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degree Fahrenheit.
2. In a skillet, heat the oil and add green onion, roasted pepper and asparagus. Sauté until tender (3-5min). Add the cooked potato, season with salt and pepper, and let fry for a few more minutes, till it gets slightly crispy.
3. In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, cheese, feta cheese, sour cream, cream cheese and thyme. Add salt and pepper. 
4. Pour the egg-cheese mixture over the vegetables in the skillet. You can give the mixture a quick stir so that the vegetables are evenly spread out and do not only stick to the bottom of the frittata. Cook till the eggs begin to set slightly, about 5 minutes, you can notice it when the sides get solid.
5. Place the skillet in the oven and bake for 10-15 minutes till eggs are completely set and are lightly browned and fluffy.
6. Remove from oven and carefully slide frittata onto a cutting board and cut into wedges. Sprinkle with parsley. 
7. Serve with tomato sauce and sour cream (mix some chives into the sour cream). 

Tomato Sauce:

Heat oil in a small pan, add the tomatoes, minced garlic and salt. Cook for about 2-3 minutes until tomatoes are slightly burst and soft. Add basil and remove from heat.

My Mom's "Rinder-Rouladen" (stuffed beef rolls)

One of my favorite dishes... The sauce is just delicious, as I was little I didn't like the meat too much, so I just kept eating potatoes with the sauce :)

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon oil, 2 tablespoon butter
• 4 beef rouladen (very thin cut)
• 1 onion (very thin sliced in half rings)
• Harissa (Indonesian hot chili sauce)
• Mustard
• Biber Salcasi (Turkish hot red chili pepper paste)
• salt, pepper
• tooth pick or metal skewer (also possible: white yarn)
• 3 tablespoon "Sossenbinder" (or corn starch)

• Serve with a side of starch (dumplings, potatoes, or spaetzle) and a side of vegetables (beans, red cabbage or sauerkraut)

Preparation

As rouladen, I would suggest to buy beef that is already cut for "rouladen". This means, the beef will be very flat and thin and very wide. If you have problems finding these cuts, just try to get cuts that are as thin as possible and then pound them to additionally flatten them.

Prepare the rouladen:

Season each beef cut with salt and pepper, then add splotches of harissa, mustard and biber salcasi on them. Use a knife and spread it evenly, so that the entire beef cut is covered. Now, add the really thin onion slices and cover the cut. Roll them up and use a tooth pick, metal skewer or white yarn to hold them together.

Note: To give the rouladen a little bit more flavor, you can add thinly sliced German bacon. German bacon is white and slightly different than the American breakfast bacon (see picture).

Cook the rouladen:

Now, heat up the oil and butter in a frying pan. Add the rouladen and sear them quickly on all sides. Then, let them brown for about 5-8min. This is the most important step for the sauce, as it will add the flavor to the sauce base. Now, transfer the rouladen in a larger pot and add water till they are completely covered. Try to scrape out every little bit of sauce and bits from the frying pan (these are the flavorful parts) and transfer it to the pot. Add water to the seemingly empty frying pan, reheat and stir and add that water to the pot. There is always a little sauce left that you will otherwise not get out of it. This process is called diglacing the frying pan. Bring the pot with the roulades and sauce to a boil, put the lid on the pot so that it is half-way open and let the rouladen cook for 2 hours till they are soft (use a fork to test it out). While it is cooking, keep checking that enough water is in the pot, add water if necessary.

Finish the sauce:
In the end, take the rouladen out of the sauce and place on a plate. Add salt and pepper to the sauce and stir. Now,  add the "Sossenbinder" (substitute with corn starch if not available) to the water and bring back to a boil. Be careful and add first 1 tablespoon, bring to a boil and stir. It does take a few minutes before the sauce thickens, so be patient. If it does not thicken enough, add another one and so on. When the sauce reached the desired thickness, add the rouladen back into it.

Serve with potato dumplings and beans (or other vegetables). If you want to go real "German" you will serve it with spaetzle and sauerkraut or red cabbage.

Harissa, Mustard and Biber Salcasi 

German bacon

thin onion slices

Sear the beef

boiling the rouladen

sauce has been thickened

potato dumplings

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BRUNCH TIME - Spinach Gruyere Strata with sautéed tomatoes

This is another great recipe from Bobby Flay's "Brunch at Bobby's". Perfect for a Saturday Brunch with friends. Don't forget to serve it with the tomato sauce as that gave it some very fresh flavors. We served the strata with some mini german pancakes as dessert and citronata (orange soda with Aperol and French aperitif wine) as a drink.

Ingredients:

• 6 cups French bread (day old) - cubed
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 1 large Spanish onion
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• salt, pepper
• 1 box (10oz) frozen spinach (thawed and seasoned with salt, pepper)
• 10 eggs
• 2 cups aged gruyere cheese - grated
• 3 cups milk
• 1 cup cream
• 2 tablespoon mustard
• 1 tablespoon fresh thyme - chopped
• 1/8 tablespoon nutmeg

Sautéed cherry tomato sauce

• 3 tablespoon oil
• 2 pints cherry tomatoes - quartered
• salt, pepper
• 3 tablespoons fresh chives - sliced

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degree F. Put the bread cubes on a baking pan and toast in the oven for about 10 min until lightly golden brown on both side. Check after 5 minutes and flip the cubes around. You can also put the cubes under the broiler for a few minutes if available, but keep an eye on them. Take out, set aside and let cool.
2. Preheat the oven to 350 degree F. In the meantime, heat oil and butter in a pan, add onion and toss in the oil, add sugar, salt and pepper. Sauté the onions on low heat until golden brown and caramelized, for about 30min. Stir occasionally.
3. In a large bowl, combine the cubes, onions, thawed spinach. Add salt, pepper, cayenne pepper as the spinach is a little flavor less. In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, add 1 1/2cups of the cheese, milk, cream, mustard, salt, pepper, thyme and nutmeg. 
4. Butter a baking dish (9-13 inches), add the brad cubes, pour the egg mixture over the bread and press cubes down till they are completely submerged.
5. Let the strata bake for about 1h at 350 degree F. until the top is golden brown and the liquid has set completely. Then add the remaining 1/2 cup of cheese on top of it and let bake for another 10 minutes. Take out and let cool for a few minutes.
6. While the strata is cooling, prepare the tomato sauce. Heat the oil, add the tomatoes, salt and pepper and let cook for a few minutes till they are soft and slightly burst. Remove from heat and add the chives. Sever with the strata.

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Mandelhörnchen (Almond-Marzipan cookies)

My family and I just love these cookies. If there are no complications (such as a broken decorating pipe or the cookies sticking to the wax paper), they are actually pretty simple and fast done. This is another recipe from my friend Thomas. I am not aware that he cooks much, but my family and I are very grateful for the tiramisu and these cookies. These are now definitely favorites for us :) 

Ingredients:

• 200g (7oz) marzipan
• 100mg (6.5 tablespoons) sugar
• 2 egg whites
• 50mg (3.3 tablespoons) flour
• 50mg almond shavings
• 100g chocolate for glazing (dark or semi-sweet)

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 380 degree Fahrenheit.

1. Break the marzipan in little pieces into a tall thin bowl. Add the sugar. Mix everything with an electrical mixer (using the whisks and not the dough hooks as they would not work).
2. Add the egg whites and continue mixing. Bit by bit, add the flour and keep mixing. The dough should not be too liquid. 
3. Use a decorating pipe (or use a ziploc bag and cut one corner of) to squeeze little cookies in a half circular shape (see picture) onto the baking pan. The recipe suggests to use baking paper, but I have had bad experience with that. I only grease the baking pan and that seems to work fine. Add the almond shavings on top of the cookies.
4. Bake them for about 10 min, but keep an eye on them. They only need to dry and they also darken a little bit more after you take them out. 
5. Remove them from the baking pan. Melt the chocolate, either in the microwave or in a warm water bath. Therefore you can just heat up a pot with water, take it from the oven and put the chocolate cup in there and let it melt. Make sure that the water is not boiling, it only needs to be warm, and make sure that no water gets into the chocolate. Dip each end of the cookie into the chocolate and set aside on a plate to cool down.

Almond and Marzipan - The stars of this cookie

Cookie Dough

Ready to bake

Out of the oven

Chocolate Glazing

Let the chocolate dry

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Fish Curry with Coconut and Lime

Finally, after literally years, it was time for a reunion with my great friends Lisa and Simon. And how better to celebrate this, then over a pot of steaming curry, and with an obligatory glass of red wine and a German Reality TV Show (e.g. Germany's Next Top Model, The Bachelor, etc.).

Cooking a pot of curry has already some kind of tradition status for us, having mastered some very delicious curries in Germany, the US, and now in Switzerland (for the obligatory picture of the brewing witches over their cauldron see below).

This time's curry was even more special. It wasn't just any kind of curry, cooked and celebrated by long missed friends, it was also inspired by our addiction to Gordon Ramsay. Who doesn't love Hell's Kitchen or Masterchef with Scottish chef Ramsay? We made some minor changes to Gordon Ramsay's recipe that seemed quite reasonable at the time (e.g. added the lime and coconut milk to the curry instead of the rice, doubled the amount of coconut milk, and used store bought red curry taste) :)

Ingredients:

And a very special appearance made
sweet little Matilda who didn't want
to be left out :)

• 600g fish (mix of Salmon and Cod or other white fish, cut in 1 inch cubes)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 onion (diced, big pieces)
• 2 leeks (sliced in 0.5 inch rings)
• 2 garlic gloves (minced)
• 3 tablespoons red curry paste
• 1/4 of a pumpkin (cut in 1inch cubes)
• 1-2 carrots (cut into 1 inch)
• 1/2 head broccoli (cut into little 1 inch heads)
• 1 bag fresh green beans
• 2 1/2 tablespoon fish sauce
• 1000 ml coconut milk
• 800 ml water
• 2 Thai Basil leaves
• 3-4 tablespoons fresh cilantro leaves (chopped)
• 3-4 spring onions (sliced)
• juice of 1 lime
• salt, pepper
• Rice

• Highly encouraged: 1 or 2 glasses of Red Wine

Preparation

Note: The original recipe suggests to put the fish in a bowl, add salt, pepper and a spoon of coconut milk, cover and let chill till ready to cook. 

Heat the oil in a big pot, add the diced onions and sauté for about 3 minutes. Add the leeks and cook for another 2 minutes. Now, add the minced garlic and the curry paste. Stir and fry for a couple of minutes. Make sure that the garlic does not burn as it gets bitter then. 

Now, add the hardest vegetables first (pumpkin, carrot, broccoli), add salt and pepper, stir and let fry for about 5 minutes. Add the fish sauce, the coconut milk and the water so that everything is covered. Add the Thai basil leave. Bring to a boil and cook for another 5 minutes. Add the green beans and cook another 5 minutes till almost soft. Shortly before all the vegetables are cooked through, add the fish, the cilantro and spring onions. Season to taste with the lime juice, salt and pepper.

Serve with rice and a glass of red wine.

Note: While we added lime and additional coconut milk to the curry, the original recipe suggests to make a lime-coconut rice. Bring 300g Thai rice, 200ml coconut milk, 200ml water, juice of 1 lime, salt, pepper and 2 kaffir lime leaves to a boil, then reduce heat, cover and simmer for 10min. Remove from heat and let steam another 5 minutes covered.

Black-Forest Tiramisu

This is my Dad's favorite dessert and it is no ordinary Tiramisu. It is a pretty simple recipe, without using raw eggs but rather some juicy cherries. I got this recipe from my friend Thomas from highschool times. He ones made it for our group of friends and we just fell in love with it. The use of cherries seems a little strange in a Tiramisu, but considering that we are from the Black Forest area, it seems suitable :)

Most of the following ingredients are very Germany specific, but you can use American substitutes.

Ingredients

• 1 package (200mg) Löffelbisuits (lady fingers)
• 1-2 cups of coffee
• 3 oz (shot glasses) of liquor, lemon or rum
• 75 mg (3 tablespoons) sugar
• 1 package (8g/ 0.28oz) vanillin sugar
• 2 tablespoons cinnamon
• 500 ml heavy cream
• 2 packages (each 8g/ 0.28oz) "Sahnesteif"(whipping cream stabilizer)
• 250 mg mascarpone cheese
• 1 glass (720ml/ 25oz - including heavy syrup) dark pitted sour cherries
• chocolate flakes for decoration

Preparation

1. Prepare the coffee. Place the lady fingers on a plate. Drizzle the lady fingers with coffee and with either some liquoer, lemon juice or rum, whatever is available. Let the lady fingers soak for a few minutes, then turn them around and drizzle the other side. The lady fingers need to be soft and bendable in the end.
2. Mix the sugar, vanilla sugar and cinammon. If you don't have the German "vanillin sugar" (which is a mix of sugar and vanille), use one more tablespoon sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.
3. In another container, I recommend a thin tall one so that the cream doesn't splatter too much, whip the cream for 1 minute, add the "Sahnesteif" (stabilizer that keeps the whipped cream stiff), and finnish whipping until the cream stays in the container when you turn it upside down. Be careful not to overwhip it. In the end, add the sugar mix and give it one last quick stir to mix it up.
4. Whip the mascarpone in a separate bowl. Then, fold in the cream mix.
5. Now start layering the tiramisu. Start with half of the lady fingers, cover the entire bottom of a suitable bowl. Then add half of the cream mix. Drain the cherries and add a layer on top of the cream. Keep a few cherries for garnishment. Add the rest of the lady fingers on top of the cherries and finish with the rest of the cream. Decorate the top with a few cherries, chocolate flakes and/or cinnamon powder.