French Fridays with Dorie - Shrimp and Cellophane Noodles

Today´s recipe for the French Fridays with Dorie group is Shrimp and Cellophane Noodles.

This Asian style recipe makes a quick and easy lunch or supper. Like all stir-fried dishes, have all the ingredients prepared before you start to cook. The list of ingredients is relatively short and somewhat surprising as it includes not only Chinese tree ear mushrooms, cellophane noodles, sesame oil, five-spice powder, onion, garlic, prawns (or shrimp), some sea salt, freshly ground black pepper but also quite a large quantity of tomato purée. After pondering this recipe for a while, I decided that I would take a few liberties with this recipe.

The first task at hand was choosing the noodles to use. Asian noodles can be made from wheat flour, mung bean flour, buckwheat flour, potato flour or rice flour. Chinese egg noodles, for example,  are made with wheat flour and can be used in soups, stir-fries or in sauces for dishes using shredded meats, prawns or vegetables. Mung bean flour is used to make thin bean cellophane noodles, also called bean thread noodles, they are thin translucent noodles, available dried and packaged in bundles.

To prepare my noodles, I poured some boiling water over the noodles in a large heat-proof bowl and let them sit until they had softened, about 6 minutes, then drained and set aside while I prepared the rest of the dish.

Onto the next step, namely the actual stir-fry. I decided to substitute the tree ear mushrooms with baby portabellas and the onion with scallions. I also added freshly grated ginger and julienned carrots for color and taste. The two cups of tomato purée were substituted with two tablespoons of Sriracha sauce. But before I started to prepare the actual stir-fry, I made two omelettes and julienned them to use as garnish. Delicious.

I also placed some lime wedges and some more spicy sauce on the table..

To serve, I divided the drained noodles between individual shallow bowls and ladled over the aromatic stir-fry with the prawns and served the final dish straightaway. I believe, chicken or scallops would a great alternative to the prawns. Overall, I changed this recipe quite substantially to suit our tastes but we loved the stir-fry with the delicious prawns…

…and really liked the addition of the julienned omelettes…

And for dessert, we had some delicious buttery Sesame Coconut Shortbread Cookies (a recipe that I have made numerous times before)…

…and some wonderful fresh lychees …

…and some delicate green tea.

To see how the other Doristas prepared the Shrimp and Cellophane Noodles please click here.

Tuesdays with Dorie - French Apple Tart & Élysée Treaty

Today´s recipe for the Tuesdays with Julia group is French Apple Tart.

This classic  recipe was contributed by Leslie Mackie. As with all tarts, there are a few steps involved in this recipe that require a bit of advance planning. The first step is the preparation, chilling, and blind baking of a Flaky Pie Dough. The recipe calls for all purpose (plain) flour, salt, butter, vegetable shortening and ice water. I used all butter and found the dough very easy to work with.

The second step is the preparation and cooling of a baked Apple Compote using delicious tart Granny Smith apples, white sugar, a bit of all purpose (plain) flour, some ground cinnamon, fluffy fresh bread crumbs and some lemon juice.

The third and last step is the preparation of the very pretty Apple Topping using more wonderful thinly sliced Granny Smith, freshly squeezed lemon juice, melted unsalted butter and some white sugar. The assembly and baking of the tart calls for spreading the cooled Apple Compote in the pre-baked and cooled tart shell. Then you arrange the apple slices in a circular pattern on top of the Compote, brush the apple slices with melted butter and sugar before baking. I took the liberty of adding a pinch of cinnamon and the scraped seeds from a vanilla bean – I always add those two ingredients to my apple tarts. The assembled tart bakes for a good half hour.

How nice to be baking a French Apple Tart today on January 22, 2013 – today is the 50th anniversary of  the signing of the Élysée Treaty on January 22, 1963. The signing marked a milestone in relations between Germany and France and established a close friendship and cooperation between these two countries that are very dear to my heart.

Today, the City of Berlin will become a meeting place for the parliaments and governments of the two neighboring countries. The MP´s from the French “Assemblée Nationale” (“National Assembly”) and the German “Bundestag” (“Federal Assembly”) will be coming together for a joint meeting in the Chamber. Both French President François Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel will give a speech.

At the political ceremony in Berlin, Germany and France will commemorate the landmark signing of the Élysée Treaty and recall how their partnership began. The Treaty was signed by then French President Charles de Gaulle and then Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and placed relations between the two countries on a new footing following several wars. The Treaty became a foundation for intensive bilateral cooperation in politics, the economy, culture and society. Franco-German reconciliation and friendship also made an important contribution to European Integration which was honored when the European Union was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012.

So what a better way to celebrate this special day by baking a French Apple Tart, enjoy a delicious Café au lait and read today`s newspapers that cooperated for the first time and published joined French/German and German/French editions.

To see the other French Apple Tarts as prepared by all the other enthusiastic members of the Tuesday with Dorie group, please do click here.

The recipe can be found at Gaye´s delightful blog – Laws of the Kitchen. "Thank you for being such a gracious host, Gaye"!

French Fridays with Dorie - Gâteaux de foie de volaille à la lyonnaise (Chicken Liver Gâteaux Lyon Style)

Todays recipe for the French Fridays with Dorie group is Chicken Liver Gâteaux  - Gâteaux de foie de volaille à la lyonnaise. I opted for the Lyonnaise version of this dish, hence the name. It is traditionally served warm with a tomato sauce - coulis de tomates, green olives and mushrooms.

Dorie mentions that the Gâteaux can be served with pickled onions or Lyon style (see her Bonnee Idée). And since there were quite some onions on our menu lately (caramelized, fried, onion chutney, etc.), I chose to prepare a wonderful tomato sauce instead of the pickled onions.

Inexpensive and packed with flavor, chicken livers are widely available in groceries stores and butcher shops around here. As with all innards, livers need to be as fresh as possible so follow the use-by date, or use within two days. Traditionally, they are used in terrines or minced up with other ingredients as a stuffing or they are pan fried. Simply pan fry them in butter for a few minutes until golden-brown on the outside and pink and juicy inside. Deglaze the pan with a splash of wine, brandy or sherry and stir in a little mustard or chopped parsley, then serve on toast, in a salad, or, as in Dorie´s recipe, using a food processor, blend the livers with some eggs, yolks, cream, milk, brandy, and some fresh herbs (thyme, rosemary and sage) and salt and pepper to make these easy Gâteaux de foie de volaille. After a good half hour in a bain marie they turn out to be soft and airy and delicious.

Pig´s, calves’ and chicken livers are the most commonly used in Germany. Lamb's livers are slightly stronger than those from calves but equally good - classically served with crisp bacon, fried onions, and possibly sage. The luxury end of the liver market is goose or duck liver and, perhaps most controversially, foie gras , the fattened liver from force-fed geese.

Obviously not everyone enjoys eating liver, especially young taste testers might object. So when I served the Chicken Liver Gâteaux Lyon Style - Gâteaux de foie de volaille à la lyonnaise to my family, I prepared a nice bowl of that wonderful winter salad lamb´s lettuce with some slices of portabella mushrooms. For the salad dressing I used delicious chestnut-honey-vinegar from our local oil and vinegar manufacturer (I knew that they could all agree on that part) and I prepared a small plate for every person around the table.

Well, I can honestly say that they all took a least one bite and lots of tomato sauce and two of the kids finished their plates. Adults loved this, the younger ones gave mixed reviews but they all tried it and no one thought it odd that I would serve them something with chicken liver as the main ingredient. I might try my hand at this recipe again if we have dinner guests that like French food, the presentation certainly is pretty and it is an uncomplicated recipe that can be prepared ahead of time.

To see how the other Doristas prepared the Gâteaux de foie de volaille, please click here.

Hazelnut Streusel Cake - Haselnuss-Streuselkuchen

Ever since our visit to the "Zollverein Coal Mine" in Essen (Germany), I have been wanting to bake an uncomplicated cake that could be considered “regional” for the “Ruhr District”. Residents of the area are known to really enjoy eating hand-held pastries and so-called "dry" cakes with sweet toppings such as streusel that withstand a good dunking into a cup of coffee, tea or a cold glass of milk. After some research, I settled on a simple recipe for Hazelnut Streusel Cake, a cake with a yeast based dough and lots of chunky, delicious, crunchy streusel.

A generous slice of this cake would be a tasty addition not only to a lunch box but also to a picnic basket. It also goes perfectly with that afternoon or morning cup of tea or coffee or glass of milk.The coal miners used to have the most wonderful tin lunch boxes - I am still looking for a vintage one.

My eager taste testers agreed that this cake can withstand some serious dunking. Just what I was looking for in a recipe for a simple cake.

Traditionally, in European baking and pastry making, “streusel” is a topping of only unsalted butter, flour, and white sugar that is often added on top of pastries (“Streuselteilchen”) and cakes (“Streuselkuchen”). Contemporary recipes call for adding spices such as nutmeg or cinnamon and/or chopped or grounds nuts. Although the topping is of German origin, the pastries are mostly referred to as Danish or Swedish.

American recipes calling for “streusel” most often give a recipe for what could be defined as a “crumb topping”, not a real “streusel topping”. As a general rule, the ratio of the ingredients for the “streusel topping” will be that of 1 part sugar/1 part butter/ two parts 2 flour. In comparison, North American “crumb toppings” often feature a 3:1:2 or even 3:3:1 ratio for the sugar/butter/flour,  leaving you with a sandy-like topping that shakes off easily while the real “streusel topping”  will meld with the sugar for a crispy,  more chunky effect.


Recipe for Hazelnut Streusel Cake
(Haselnuss-Steuselkuchen)

Ingredients for the Cake

• 10 grams fresh yeast
• 50 ml lukewarm milk
• 275 grams AP (plain) flour, divided into 150 grams and 125 grams
• 130 grams superfine (caster) white sugar
• 20 grams unsalted butter, soft
• 1 egg (L)
• one pinch of fine salt
• 100 grams unsalted butter, cold
• 75 grams ground hazelnuts
• some confectioners´  sugar for serving (optional)

Preparation of the Cake

1. Dissolve the fresh yeast in the warm milk.
2. Add the yeast mixture to the bowl of your electric mixer together with 150 grams flour, 30 grams sugar, soft butter, egg and the pinch of salt.
3. Using the dough hook, knead the starter for a good five minutes or until it turns into a homogenous, soft dough.
4. Transfer the dough to a bowl and cover. Let it rest in a warm place for a good hour.
5. To make the streusel topping, add the cold butter, 100 grams sugar, 125 grams flour, the ground hazelnuts and ½ tablespoon water to a bowl and either with the mixer or by hand combine all ingredients until they form nice somewhat chunky streusel.
6. Transfer the streusel topping to the fridge while the yeast dough is resting.
7. After the yeast dough has rested, transfer it to a 26 centimeter spring form pan and spread it with well-floured hands. Top with the streusel, cover and let rest an additional fifteen to twenty minutes.
8. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
9. Bake the cake for about twenty to twenty-five minutes or until it has a golden brown color.
10. Transfer to a wire rack to cool and dust with some confectioners´ sugar before serving.
11. Slice and serve either after it has completely cooled or while it is still warm (which is what I did). NOTE: This cake is best served the day that it is made but you can easily freeze it whole or just a few slices. Or use it for dunking the day after it was made.

I decided to present my cake on a so-called “Grubentuch”, a kind of tea towel that has a long history in the Ruhr District. Coal Miners in the Ruhr District used these towels a lot for various purposes – the sturdy cloth served not only as a tea towel but also as a wash cloth, apron, pot holder or simply as a hand towel.

Its sturdy fabric (50 % cotton and 50 % linen fibers) and bold patterns made it an ideal choice for the coal miners to wipe off the coal dust from their hands and faces. Today, these towels are still being produced in the Ruhr District and have become a sought after souvenir – I really enjoy their “vintage look” and bought a whole stack of them to use as tablecloths.

"Zollverein" Coal Mine - The Ruhr Museum in Essen (Germany)

The "Ruhrgebiet" -  "Ruhr District"  developed as of the nineteenth century into the largest complex of heavy industry in Europe. Hard coal was extracted at several hundred mines, and steel was produced at more than 20 plants. Today there are five coal mines, and steel production is concentrated largely in Duisburg on the Rhine. The population is declining, and the area is undergoing full-scale structural transformation.

Built from 1928 to 1932, the coal mine called "Zollverein" in Essen, Germany was the world‘s most modern and high yielding hard-coal mine in the world for decades. On being closed in 1986, it was classified as a historical monument. Rebuilt as a center for art, culture, history and creative industry, it was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2001. For years now this world heritage site has been a symbol of structural transformation in the Ruhr District.

The Ruhr, by German-speaking geographers and historians more accurately called the “Ruhr Area” or “Ruhr District” is an urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population of some five million, it is the largest urban agglomeration in Germany. It consists of several large, industrial cities.

The Zollverein Coal Mine´s largest above-ground structure was used to process, store and sort coal. These functions gave rise to very different spaces: enormous halls with monstrous machinery, massive windowless concrete bunkers and long suites of rooms. Today these facilities house the Ruhr Visitor Center, a souvenir and bookshop, a delightful Café/Coffee Shop called “Kohlenwäsche” - “Coal Washing” and, of course, the Ruhr Museum.  I must say that it is an amazing feeling to be enjoying a steaming cup of coffee and a delicious slice of freshly baked cake while sitting in the midst of a the entrance hall to what used to be the world´s largest coal mine.

The Ruhr Museum at the Zollverein Coal Mine is not an industrial museum but a new type of regional museum. It presents the natural and cultural history of the Ruhr District, and thus serves as the region‘s historical memory. The museum displays the entire history of the Ruhr District from the formation of coal more than 300 million years ago to the region‘s structural transformation into the Ruhr metropolis today.

The three levels of the permanent exhibition are desingnated as "Present", "Memory" and "History".

The entrance to the museum lies at the 24 meter level in the north. Visitors find a new stairway there in what used to be the rough coal bunker, which serves as an evocative entrée to the exhibition. The orange-coloured staircase connects the foyer with the three levels of the museum: the 17 meter, the 12 meter and the 6 meter levels, named for their height above ground.

Unusually for a historical museum, the Ruhr Museum starts its route in the "Present".  The exhibition on the 17 meter level of what used to be the Coal Washing Plant, presents myths, phenomena and structures on a large industrial stage. In the area entitled „Signs of the Times“, there is a focus on experiences and memories of the people in the Ruhr District, but also on the traces left on the territory by millions of years of geological history.

The 12 meter level is dedicated to the pre-industrial history of the Ruhr district, the "Memory". Its windowless concrete bunkers used to store debris, coal and water. Today they are a repository of cultural memory. In addition to the preindustrial traditions of the Ruhr District, this level of the museum also displays selections of the collections that have no relation to the Ruhr District: the archaeological, the natural science and the ethnological.

The 6 meter level entitled "History" awaits visitors with displays on the dramatic historical process of industrialization, presented in five acts along a spatial axis extending nearly one hundred meters. The history begins with the start of industrialization in the 18th century. This process transforms an agricultural landscape into the largest coal and steel region in Europe, and then into the modern commercial and service center of the Ruhr metropolis.

This visit was our first visit to the Ruhr Museum at the Zollverein Coal Mine and we were delighted with the way this regional museum that is now a World Heritage Site was designed. It is truly astonishing how the archtects of the Museum managed to integrate the contents and features of the Permanent Exhibit into the existing structures of this unique building! Truly worth more than one visit!

This is a picture of some of the original piping of the coal mine...

...and a glass model of the entire building.

One terrific coffee shop called "Butterzeit" meaning "Sandwich break"...

...some more piping...

...and an original scale with some metal measuring tape.

This is part of the original coal conveyor belt.

A plate on the floor of the Museum - when you step on it, you can listen to the sound of a smelting furnace (kids loved all the different "sound plates").

A large piece of  petrified wood...

...and a large block of salt...

...and a large tree grate from a copper beech.

And (of course) one of my favorite exhibits, a wood-burning stove from one of the former residents of the Ruhr District. The phrase "Wenn der Ofen nicht sauber ist, ist die ganze Küche nicht sauber" - "If the stove is not clean, the kitchen is not clean either" hails from the former owner.

These are beautifully dried plants that grow in the vicinity of the former coal mine...

...and impressive fossils that were found in the area...

Bars of soap to wash your hands with after a hard day of work at the coal mine.

Time to go home and start planning the next visit!