Berlin Reified: Food, design and life in Berlin

Birthday cake! (Chocolate fudge cake a la Nigella)

Such a season of birthdays! Everyone seems to be having one at the moment, and for those seeking a special cake to take along for a celebration, may I heartily recommend Nigella Lawson's chocolate fudge cake (in either the cups or grams incarnation)? I was happy to have halved the sugar recommended for the icing; and can I share with you the delight of trickling freezer-chilled water into oil and melted butter? The fats seized up and became so white and fluffy, it was quite the pleasure of science in action.

Rhubarb Tarte Tatin

For those of you eyeing the rhubarb in the shops unsure of what to do with those rosy stalks, may I heartily recommend a rhubarb tarte tatin? It was Everyday's idea, not mine, I should hasten to add, but having made one once with her (and her lovely seasoned cast-iron skillet) I was eager to try it again.

We weren't entirely convinced by the flavor of the star anise called for in the Guardian's recipe, but I wanted a bit of spice, so I threw in a few black peppercorns when making the second tarte, fishing them out before the caramel hardened; also, if you like me lack an overproof skillet, know that you can simply pour the liquid caramel into a baking dish and let it cool there, enjoying the tinkling music it makes as it cracks.

Edible gifts 2: Coffee & peppermint truffles

After dinner the other night, Thorsten brought out his booty from a trip to Brussels, and I thought again about how much I appreciated truffles' creamy dense sweetness. Earlier that evening Dilek had spooned a generous amount of dried peppermint leaves -- booty from her mother's garden -- into an old jam jar for me to take home. On the S-Bahn back, the wheels began turning...

You'll remember how much I enjoy making edible gifts, and nothing during my browse through the market struck my fancy, so with two invitations on the horizon I thought truffles were the simplest solution. I had grand plans for a quartet of flavors -- a lavender-infused cream, a peppermint-studded finish, another cream steeped in masala chai, and cinnamon coffee -- but in the event all of a sudden it was almost nine on a Saturday night and I had to get my ganache on the go, so my plans were reduced to a duo.

I did it on the fly, flavoring half the batch with a few tablespoons of peppermint liqueur (booty from the l'herbier de Milly stand at Salon Saveurs), and the other with two tablespoons of instant (!) coffee dissolved in the cream. And on Sunday morning I spent a soothing hour forming my truffles, rolling the little globes into turbino sugar/peppermint leaves or cocoa powder/cinnamon, and then we were off!

I used 500 ml of cream (Schlagsahne), 500 grams of 60% dark chocolate (blitzed to rubble in the food processor), and a total of 100 grams of butter (50 grams per batch); for the technique, see Clothide and Green & Black's.

Note: Though the turbino sugar looked nice just after rolling, the truffles ended up sweating a bit, so I think I'll mix the peppermint leaves with cocoa powder for the next batch.

Beetroot and parsnip soup

Oh, the pleasures of root vegetables on a sunny day! Last January I cooked up a roasted beet root soup on what looks like the shortest day of the year; this February afternoon, the days having pivoted from brief to broad, David chopped up a radiant cutting-board full of beets and parsnips.

The soup is simplicity itself: In a soup pot, sautee a large onion in some olive oil till soft. While the onion is cooking, begin heating a liter (or 4 cups) of vegetable stock to a simmer in a separate pan.

To the onions, add four large beets and two medium-sized parsnips (both peeled and cubed), stir thoroughly, and let cook for ten minutes. By now your stock should be simmering; add it to the soup pot and let it all come to a second simmer. Taste a bit of beet and parsnip to make sure both are tender (if not, let the soup simmer until they are).

Now, turn off the heat. Remove two ladles of beet and parsnip chunks to a separate bowl. Use an immersion blender to puree the soup. Return the vegetable chunks to the pan. Stir in about a teaspoon of freshly-squeezed lemon juice to brighten the flavor; season with salt and pepper as desired. Serve topped with dollops of creme fraiche and a bit of dill if you have some to hand.

Scottish tablet (A taste of home)

Life came rushing in again, but here, just a bit over a week later, a shot of David's Scottish tablet solidified and looking dapper. (Doesn't that piece on the left seem to be sporting a quiff?)

David made the other Grubbers giggle when he confessed his oh-so-authentic Scottish tablet recipe came not from his Highland granny but from a Canadian website. We did tweak a thing or two, though, after reading up on tablet, so if you'd like to make it our way, add a rounded half-teaspoon of salt and substitute two tablespoons of golden syrup for two tablespoons of the kilogram (!) of sugar. And don't buy that Milchmädchen stuff if you can avoid it -- instead, pick up a tin of Longevity sweetened condensed milk from, say, your favourite friendly local Asian shop.

PS The next Grub is on March 8th -- see our fancy new website for more details!

A taste of home (Preparing for Grub)

Late afternoon in January isn't the best time for food photos in natural light, but I thought you might like a glimpse into our preparations for tonight's Grub.

The pictures might need a bit of explaining. Above is a before/after shot of David's tablet; on the right you see the pale puddle of sweet milk as it began, and on the spoon the rich tan mixture moments before it was poured into the pan. Below, the raw ingredients for my batata vadai, awaiting a whizz in the food processor, thence to be mixed into the potatoes that David is smashing as I type... Till tonight!

New Year's Day (Batata vadai, snow)

The tumult of the holidays almost over, and now to settle down to a quiet plate of batata vadai with some fiery green chutney while watching the snow flurry down. Fans of Maharashtrian snack food should ink January 19th into their calendars: I'll be bringing this dish along as my contribution to the next Grub (theme: cook something from where you're from). For those food lovers who missed the fun last time, do try to join us this month; just email me and/or grubberlin at gmail for details.

Happy New Year!

PS I'm still refining my recipe for these spicy potato dumplings -- so crisp outside, so innocently fluffy inside -- and should have the details by the time they make their official debut at Grub.

Organic lemon curd revisited (Edible gifts)

For those of you who have taken a handmade pledge or just feel unequal to the tumult of the shops, I pass on my rediscovery of last January's lemon curd, just in time for holiday gifting. I gave the first jar to the hosts of a delightful Nikolaus party last Thursday; the second was biding its time in the fridge, just waiting for a sudden social occasion, until I was overcome and snapped open the lid to the heady scent of eggy lemon, then slathered a huge spoonful onto my BioCompany wheat/rye buttermilk bread. But with more lemons and eggs hanging around, I don't regret it one whit.

Quince jelly (syrup?) / Pay it forward

You'll have seen that I recommended saving the juices from your quince compote. Boiled down, this turns into a syrup that verges on jelly with no added ingredients, thanks to the high pectin content of the fruit itself. With my small batch of compote and my greedy licking of the spoon I ended up with a scant inch of sunny preserves, but you might get more. Just heat so the liquid simmers but doesn't bubble too furiously, stirring fairly often and watching closely to avoid scorching.

And on the topic of handmade homemade treats: How thrilled I was to be the second (not the third) to respond to Deborah's offer to pay it forward! Here's the pledge: “I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog." Any takers?

Quince tart (Quince compote)

With friends coming over for dinner last Saturday, I was racking my brains for something to do with my quince; after all, hard experience had taught me  people less obsessed with food than I will react with limited enthusiasm when handed a bowl of poached fruit. The solution of quince compote as topping for the Verlet tart pleased all, I think, with the honeyed almond sweetness of the filling setting off the spicy compote nicely.

To make, simply peel, core and dice three quince, then cook with 1/2 a cup (or 100 grams) of sugar plus 1/4 cup of water over low heat until the fruit is softened but not mushy. (I added a few cardamon pods, two star anise and half a vanilla bean to this mix, and was pleased I had.) Remove to a waiting bowl using a slotted spoon and let cool. Prepare the crust and filling as usual, and strain the quince again (saving the juices) before topping your tart with the compote. It's lovely at room temperature.

Quince paste, Quittenbrot, Membrillo

Alchemy indeed: Who would believe the golden quince would transform itself into such coral gems when cooked with a bit of sugar? I was skeptical as I pureed the fruit into pulp and gingerly stirred the bubbling, burping mass with a very long-necked wooden spoon. After an overnight cool, though, the deep orange round emerged smooth and sweet from its pan.

David, with his steady hand, was in charge of carving the slab into squares, which he did quite charmingly, I think, dusting them in sugar and arraying them in jolly lines on their sheet of brown paper. I haven't been able to stop nibbling away, intrigued by their texture, though the sweetness verges on too sweet and I think I ought to have experimented with one or two unconventional spices in the mix before the grand cooking down began.

I'll leave that for next time. For now, the little irregular cubes make a perfect informal gift, swaddled in said brown paper, and tied up with a bow. To try it yourself, do what I did, and cobble together a recipe from Nicky's, Melissa's and Michelle's. A few comments: I took note of the need for acidity and solved it by splashing in a tablespoon or so of apple cider vinegar; I'm sure lemon juice would work just as well. Also, I boiled the quince whole as per Melissa's recipe, but found them impossible to peel, so didn't, and didn't notice any roughness at all. And finally, my quince seemed especially moist and needed a full day of drying out (in the switched-off oven) before the texture was ripe for slicing. Happy quincing!

Mangold, Red chard, or Fresh from the market

I still smile in embarrassment when I recall asking a German waiter what Mangold was. Es ist halt Mangold he replied, flummoxed, and I decided the vegetable strudel sounded better anyway and ordered that instead. Eventually I spotted Mangold at the BioCompany and concluded it was akin to bok choy, and only recently did I bother to look up the word on Leo, where I learned it translates to chard.

Never mind: All this nattering is just to say that if you find a few of these bunches in the gorgeous ruby red variant, with leaves mostly intact and the stems radiant, then snap them up: the earthy beet-like sweetness is not to be beat.

With each bunch, chop off the knotted root end to free the stalks, then draw your knife roughly between where the stalks end and the leaves begin. Lay the leaves aside, then chop the stalks into 1/2 inch chunks and transfer to a bowl. Wash thoroughly. Cut the leaves into 1/2 inch strips, and wash as well. Mince two fat garlic cloves.

In a wide frying pan, heat a tablespoon of olive oil on medium heat 'til fragrant. Add the chopped stalks and cook for five minutes or so, stirring once. Salt sparingly. Add the minced garlic, and continue cooking with an occasional stir until the stalks are still crisp but the fibrousness has been softened by the heat (about 15 minutes total). Add the leaves and stir thoroughly from the bottom, then cook for 3-5 minutes, until the leaves are wilted and soft. Add another dash of salt, anoint with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, then transfer to bowls or plates. Top, if desired, with a dusting of parmesan.

Hard boiled eggs & observations

I've learned a lot about myself through keeping this blog – for instance, that I fall for white rooms with dark wood furniture and a few vases of lilies – and, most significantly, perhaps, that, more than turning out elaborate meals, what I love is food. Here, I suppose, I mean paying attention: to the yielding moistness of the yolk fresh off the 6-minute mark, pulled from the bubbling pan and placed in a waiting bowl of cool water, to the beauty of the shells, to the elementary pleasure of yolk and white on buttered toast with a quick grind of salt. But watch, perhaps I'll turn my mind to the devilishly complicated caramel tart come winter...

Herb salt, or What to do with summer's bounty

It's incomprehensible to me why I never posted on my balcony herb garden, though poking the seeds into the earth and watching them sprout, then flourish was such a profound joy to one who'd never planted anything before. Now my vision takes on a preserving cast, seeing the cold coming, and on a whim, really, I whirled rich handfuls of parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme and lemon thyme with coarse sea salt in the food processor, and this was the fragrant result. So far  I've sprinkled it onto tomatoes and potatoes, with infinite applications to follow in the fall.

Beets (thinly sliced)

Dinner at Aine's made me reconsider root vegetables. At BioCompany the other day, I hesitated over the beets and kohlrabi, then bought both. Really, who knew thin slicing rendered these orbs delectable without even the briefest steam? The other morning I had just the beets in slices this side of translucent; carpaccio it ain't, but perhaps next time they will find themselves daubed with crème fraîche and dill, and then we'll talk.

Brownies, alla Melissa (alla Nona)

What can I say? I made 'em, and they're marvellous...

French plum tart, or Zwetschgen conquered

Half my plums went into a lovely batch of Nicky's Zwetschgenknödel. Her photographs are so gorgeous I would be embarrassed to post mine, but do check out her foolproof recipe. (For the record, a bamboo steamer works a treat.)

The other fourteen sat about looking forlorn for a few days before I decided to press them into service for Winson and Karolina's leaving party. My recipe base was simple -- the Verlet Apricot Tart I waxed eloquent about before -- but this time with a few more frills, such as doubling the creamy filling, mixing acacia with the baobob honey, and, of course, substituting plums.

Knowing their tartness I was extra-generous with the final sprinkling of confectioner's sugar, and this time I had David's keen eye to place the Zwetschgen just so. (The baking, sadly, wreaked havoc on his lovely pattern.) Still, the other guests were pleased enough, and I found myself getting up for seconds between a lively conversation with a visiting Egyptologist. Karolina & Winson, we'll miss you!

Apricot Riesling Ginger Compote (with yogurt)

What a relief to have yogurt and apricot ginger compote in the fridge when David's James unexpectedly came for supper. Apricots tend to come in 500-gram punnets but my apricot tart takes about 750 grams, so the remaining 250 g hang about until transfigured into compote. Water, lemon juice and sugar are enough to make something delicious, but Riesling and a few ginger chunks lift the recipe into one worth sharing.

Apricot ginger compote (adapted from the Joy of Cooking)

Pit your apricots and slice each half into four pieces. (I didn't bother with peeling the fruit, and didn't regret it.) Peel an inch or so of ginger root and chop it into a few chunks.

Check how many cups of fruit you have. For each cup of fruit, stir together 2/3 C sugar and 2 T Riesling in a pan and add the ginger chunks but not the apricots. Cook this fragrant mixture for 10 minutes, then add the apricots. Simmer gently until the fruit is tender and glassy. Use a slotted spoon to remove the fruit into jars*, then continue to boil the sugar/wine/ginger syrup until it's thick enough for your taste. (Mine was still quite liquid when I stopped but that was fine with me.)

Fish out the ginger chunks, then pour the syrup over the fruit. You'll probably end up with more syrup than can be fit into the compote jars; I bottled this and have used it as ginger apricot cordial to be added to lemonade in place of sugar syrup or to sparkling water, to be poured over pancakes, etc.

And to make my nonce dessert, just spoon a bit of syrup into small bowls, top generously with plain whole-milk yogurt, then add fruit on top and garnish with a sprig of mint (whose taste and colour is the perfect foil).

*My jars were fresh from the dishwasher and I knew I would store the compote in the refrigerator, so didn't bother with extensive sterilization, but check out these BBC tips if needed.

Fresh mint tea

I can't tell you how deeply, profoundly happy my balcony herb garden makes me; fresh mint tea of an afternoon is one especial pleasure.

Almond plum buckle cake, or Zwetschgen in season

Thursdays often represent a lull, and a time to catch up with recipes and produce before setting into weekend activity. I had noted the debut of Zwetschgen in the shops, and thought my almond plum buckle cake, which I first made last August to great acclaim from Alison and James, was due for another whirl. If you happen to have two half-opened packets in the cupboard, one of finely ground almonds and one of coarsely ground, then I would certainly recommend shaking some of each into the bowl: the slight bite of the rougher nuts adds a substance to the cake layer that I quite liked. Meanwhile, the wild tartness of Zwetschgen (Damson plums) is just the foil to all that buttery richness; I needed about fifteen.

Rhubarb compote

My rhubarb compote jag shows no signs of stopping To make it, roughly chop some rhubarb and toss it with a third of its weight in sugar (eg 1 kg of rhubarb to 300 g sugar). Put in a baking dish, ideally with half a dessicated vanilla bean from the vanilla sugar jar, now just barely exuding its perfume. Put in a shallow baking dish, cover tightly with aluminum foil, and bake at 350 F/150 C for 40 minutes or so. Let cool for fifteen minutes or so before gingerly removing the foil, then transfer to jars, spooning out the pooled juices equitably, and store in the refrigerator.

E Dehillerin/Paris apricot tart

Of course the best part of coming home from holiday is tearing into all the packets you shored up against the anticlimax of being back. My tart pans from E. Dehillerin were quickly put into service to make Patricia Well's (or Verlet's) extraordinarily easy apricot tart, and that, with a cup of Chandernagor, was as soothing as I had hoped.

Note that my 23-cm/9-in tart pan took only about 90% of the pastry; dab hands at imperial to metric conversions will quickly note 4 oz of butter can't possibly be 12 g (I used 112 g, and 157 g for the flour); unsure of what Wondra is, I took a tablespoon of the potato flour brought back from Paris; and the Affenbrotbaum or baobob honey I bought from the ever-eloquent salesman at the Miriam Eva Kebe stand at Kollwitzplatz was perfect for the filling.

Strawberry pancakes with clotted cream, or Before the holiday

Taking the keys over to Kathrin's turned into leisurely coffee and a shared brownie at Bar Centrale, so on returning home I had to hustle, continuing with readying the apartment for our subletter while piling items to be packed for Paris. Preparing for holiday is a bit like Lent: You want to use up all the perishables if possible, and with eggs and milk hanging around, pancakes with strawberries seemed a reasonable late lunch.

Lifting the lid from the tub of cream, I was pleased to discover a thick layer atop the liquid beneath. For those Brits who've got clotted cream on tap, its spontaneous production won't be so exciting, but for me, this rare treat - which seems to form most often in organic whipping cream - is a great delight. I put the whisk away, took out a teaspoon, and annointed my strawberries with the luscious creamy blobs.

Pancakes

1/2 C (60 g) all-purpose flour (type 550 organic for those in Germany)
a bit less than 1/2 teaspoon salt
a bit more than 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar

Put the dry ingredients in a bowl and stir them together with a fork. Then add:

1/3 C whole milk
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 egg

and beat everything together. Heat a nonstick skillet on medium heat. When the pan's warm, blob in four small pancakes. Makes 8 in total.

White winter vegetable gratin

My vegetable ennui of a few weeks ago has not lifted entirely, but one Greens' recipe that succeeded in stirring my fancy was their 'White Winter Vegetables Baked in Cream.' Soup has been the way I've solved the question of the many unfamiliar vegetables that crop up in the cold months, but this dish suggested itself as a more sophisticated vehicle for fennel, leeks and potatoes. I replaced the celery root with parsley root and added shallots as well; as the authors say, the recipe lends itself to variation.

The soothing activity of preparing the vegetables took about half an hour at a leisurely pace, and we are looking forward to the leftovers we've packed to take to work, nicely macerated now in the thyme-fragrant cream.

White winter vegetable gratin

• 3 leeks
• 1 fennel bulb
• 3 parsley roots (approximately 8.5 oz), peeled
• 6 new potatoes, peeled
• 5 shallots, peeled and halved
• 1 crushed clove of garlic
• Leaves of 8 branches of thyme or 3/4 tsp dried thyme
• 2 C cream
• 5 T butter
• 1 cup bread crumbs (I used a day-old baguette torn roughly)

Thinly chop the white parts of the leeks, putting aside the greens for stock. Core the fennel bulb if needed and cut into thin slices. Thinly slice the parsley roots and potatoes too. Butter a gratin dish and rub it with the garlic clove.

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Put down half the vegetables, sprinkle with salt, pepper and thyme, then top with the rest of the vegetables. Pour over the cream and dot the surface with two tablespoons of butter. Cover loosely with a piece of aluminum foil, then bake for 30 minutes. While the vegetables are baking, melt 3 T butter and toss with the bread crumbs. After 30 minutes, remove the foil and top with bread crumbs, then bake for another 30-40 minutes or until the vegetables are tender.

Serve with bread to mop up the sauce and some lemony greens for contrast.

Breakfast yogurt berry cake

I told David I'd made breakfast berry bread because I liked the ring of it, but the internet holds me to other standards and I will confess here that in fact it is cake, if a mildly sweet one quite suited to breakfast. Its base - the yogurt cake - is the first recipe I ever made from a food blog, shortly after discovering Chocolate & Zucchini via Vinography. This morning, the two tubs of yogurt languishing in the fridge plus forest berries in the freezer made this recipe a shoo-in. (The Waldbeeren you can buy here - red currants, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries - provided the perfect bracing tartness.)

I followed the original to the t, really, though to draw out the bustling domesticity I did first beat the eggs, then add the sugar, then the yogurt, then the oil, vanilla extract and the lemon zest (which I substituted for the rum). This turned out well, but mixing up everything at once is quite certainly just as effective. Fold in a generous cupful of frozen berries at the end and you're done.

Leek and olive tart

I can't say it's something I'd whip up every night of the week - it is a touch too much work for most evenings - but after a few spartan meals over the past few days I wanted something that felt like dinner, and this leek and olive tart, paired with glasses of cold wheat beer, seemed just the thing.

Fields of Greens is the successor to the Greens cookbook and represents a view of cooking a few years on, with an early-nineties attention to healthy cooking. Accordingly, the leeks are sauteed in olive oil, and the butter in the yeasted crust is restrained. Of course, if you substitute the half and half almost completely with cream, you're back to the luxurious decadent vegetarian cooking I so laud Deborah Madison for (meatless does not have to equal abstemious, is one of my refrains).

Half and half or cream, I was delighted with this tart, both hot last night, and at room temperature this morning. This was my first attempt at crust and filling in this manner, and it marked my debut with the 9-inch tart pan I received for Christmas too. I did feel like a conjuror, whipping something so whole from the oven.

Raisin scones II

The Cheeseboard's take on raisin scones was a buttery blowout perfect for the holidays, but when I found myself craving something sweet and simple the other night I went back to my standard recipe for raisin scones. It's the whipped cream, I imagine, that gives them their perfect flaky crumb, and I find they keep better than the Cheeseboard's scones.

I used this Epicurious recipe with a very few variations: Rather than measuring the zest, I just used the zest of two organic lemons, I used only golden raisins (because that's all I had at home), and instead of rolling out the dough I just used a spoon to roughly shape rounds on the baking sheet. I might actually try rolling out the dough next time, for neater-looking scones.

Midwinter fondue

Strawberries in chocolate is not what I expected to be eating for dessert tonight, but arriving home from a working Saturday I found that David had not only whipped up a delicious red Thai vegetable curry, but had also managed to work a trip to the Galleries Lafayette into his day, and had as his bounty a jar of chocolate cinnamon fondue in a nifty heat-retaining stoneware jar, waiting to be gently heated to deliquescence. For less perfect nights when such treasures are not to be had, the following will also do.

Chocolate cinnamon fondue

• 1/2 cup (120 ml) whipping cream
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, broken into small pieces
• Splash of vanilla extract

Heat the cream in a small heavy saucepan until just boiling, then add the other ingredients and stir until the chocolate has melted. Serve, ideally, with strawberries.

Homely chocolate loaf cake

I tried to sex it up with a bit of confectioner's sugar, as you can see, but this cake is unremittingly, unapologetically homely, but that should not make you pause for a moment before you decide to make it for company. It's delicious, it's dense, it has the solidity of a fine ripe cheese; if you bring it to a buffet, say a leaving party that your husband's old friend has invited you to, you will not be able to restrain yourself, unseemly as such greed may be, from having seconds and thirds, forsaking the stuffed fish skin, the chocolate and vanilla puddings, the spreads another friend brought from the Greek delicatessan down the street. It slices into satisfying wodges of chocolate redolent of molasses, and accompaniments, though they suggest themselves (crème fraîche, whipped cream), are superfluous. You will be unsurprised to learn that this is another recipe courtesy of Nigella Lawson. The impetus to make was David Lebovitz - I may have missed the party, but I had a hell of a time trying on recipes for size.

Chocolate by brand: Sugar High Friday #27

When I came to Berlin, I spoke no German, and my first weeks of learning were laborious. In the grocery shop with Alison in 2000, I had just enough words to guess at the label on the chocolate bar: 'Black men's chocolate?' I pieced out, a bit disbelieving. Fluent Alison explained that Schwarze Herren Schokolade better translated to 'gentlemen's dark chocolate', which I found no less amusing.

Gender designations notwithstanding, Schwarze Herren Schokolade became my sweet of choice for some months. I was amazed at how cheap it was and how good, with one Euro buying 100 grams of chocolate made from 60% cocoa with arriba cocoa beans; having lived in America and - briefly - in England up till then, I had come to expect less from the grocery store.

Thanks to in't veldt, Kakao, and, for that matter, St Nikolaus, my tastes have grown more rarefied, and I now look askance at some of the ingredients on the label (vanillin is not particularly stylish), but when David Lebovitz announced this month's Sugar High Friday theme, I had to dismiss the Zotters and the Summerbirds of the chocolate world to go for a hometown favourite. After all, Schwarze Herren Schokolade is made in Berlin.

Since making cheesecake for our Christmas dinner, I had been dreaming about a variation with a dark chocolate glaze replacing the sour cream topping. A bit of googling, a bit of idle flipping through cookbooks, and this is what I came up with.

Chocolate-glazed cheesecake

200 g (7 oz) Schwarze Herren Schokolade or other dark chocolate
200 ml (7 oz) whipping cream
14 g (1 tsp) butter
1 tsp vanilla

Make the cheesecake as directed in my cheesecake recipe (note that you won't need the final three ingredients as you're skipping the sour cream topping). Begin making the chocolate topping when you've taken the cheesecake out of the oven. While you're making the topping, leave the cheesecake on a counter and don't remove it from the springform pan.

Break the chocolate into small pieces and place in a small heatproof bowl; add the vanilla. Heat the cream and butter until the mixture begins to bubble at the edges, then pour over the chocolate and stir with a fork until the chocolate and cream are smoothly amalgamated. The mixture should be liquid but thick. Let cool briefly until comfortable to touch, then pour over the cheesecake. I did this in two separate steps, pouring the chocolate from the center of the cake until it had oozed out to the edges, letting it cool briefly (a few minutes in the fridge), then pouring the rest on, as I wanted the contrast between crust and chocolate (see a photo here). Alternatively you could, of course, cover the top completely, or remove the cheesecake from the springform pan and glaze the sides with chocolate as well.

Whatever you do, once the chocolate's on put the cheesecake in the refrigerator and let cool for a few hours (or, if you'd prefer a softer chocolate) for a half-hour or so, then serve.

I was very pleased with how things turned out, but for next time I think I'd try it with half the recipe of chocolate ganache, as I felt I'd like that layer to be a bit more incidental to the cheesecake it covers. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Lemon curd for a January afternoon

'A man cannot live on cookies alone,' said James a few days ago, not quite approving of the turn away from the savory that my recent recipes had taken, and I would love to have discovered a brilliant new way to do leeks, but on this Sunday afternoon, with the sky a luminous gray and the temperature slanting towards the wintery, I settled again for sweetness and sunshine in the form of lemon curd, put away in jars to be spread onto toast and scones in the weeks to come.

My passion for winter's vegetables, the celeriac and the beet, the pumpkin and the carrot, has dwindled in the last month, and replacing that enthusiasm has been an impatience to be on to early spring and its tender peas, its rhubarb and asparagus. What I find in the shops seems increasingly tough-skinned, and looking at the bulbs I imagine an impossible tower of celeriac in cool storage, being carted out crate by crate, and somehow cannot bear it - though I know it is nonsense and I would be better off with another fragrant bowl of celeriac soup. In this limbo between warm and cold no produce seems right. (You've heard about this odd winter?)

Nevertheless. Sunday afternoon, an after-lunch lull, a bag of Italian lemons in the fridge, some organic eggs on the counter (yes, I've adopted that scandalous German habit), and a hankering for brightness combined to make lemon curd my small project for the day.

Lemon curd

• 2 organic eggs
• 2 organic egg yolks
• 3/4 C (150 g) sugar
• Juice and zest of 2 large organic lemons
• 7 T (98 g) unsalted butter, cut into smallish cubes

In a small saucepan, beat the eggs, egg yolks, and sugar until well-incorporated. I felt extraordinarily lazy this afternoon and used a handheld mixer. Add the lemon juice, lemon zest and butter and heat on medium-low, stirring constantly. Use the mixer at its very lowest setting if you too are feeling languorous, but if you do this then pause every now and then, rest the mixer someplace where the yellow gunk won't drip onto the counter, lift the pan from the heat, and stir the bottom and sides firmly with a spoon, to avoid sticking and burning.

I have read enough cookbooks to know there is the threat, when making curd, of curdling (!) and other such catastrophes, but mine obediently thickened at about the five-minute mark, and I poured it into three old jam jars and felt pleased, contemplating my hoard, which seemed to signify Bounty. It is mysterious that curdling is to be avoided when making curd, and I wonder if one of those words once had another meaning; perhaps lexicographers could enlighten me. I did not strain mine this time, because the strainer was a size inconvenient to the jar's mouth, but might the next, and you might too, if you don't like smoothness interrupted by zest.

Eating a bit just now, on crisp toast which I could not bring myself to butter, knowing as I do now how much butter the curd itself contains, it did impart a certain sunniness to the late afternoon, though it did not have that bracing, waking quality of sunshine itself, and its unctuousness had something of a langour about it. They say it might dip below freezing sometime this week.

Buckwheat blini with mushrooms

There is something springy to the word blini, and saying it feels festive. Loyal readers will recall they featured in David's and my Christmas Eve feast. With the buckwheat flour lying around the cupboard bearing my handwritten note of "Expires Sept 07" I thought they'd try them out for Sunday lunch; it's only my second ground-to-order flour and it seemed a shame to risk wasting it. (For those living in Berlin, the BioCompany in Schönhauser Allee grinds grains in their tabletop mill at the back -- note that freshly ground rice flour is something special as well.)

I have vague tribal memories of eating fluffy blini at some point in my past - and while typing those words I had a flash, recalling a visit to a friend in Southampton in the summer of 1997, a friend of his parents' was also visiting and had just been to Russia - the image in my mind is blini laid out with caviar she's brought back from Russia, along with miniscule minced onions, sour cream, and chopped hard-boiled eggs. I may be hallucinating that last, even the blini themselves, as it's not impossible we had golden buttered toast with the crusts cut off instead - but no, I think it was blini.

Perhaps that's why they were ingrained as festive. In any case, Nigella's blini recipe jumped out at me while flipping through the cookbooks, brainstorming a menu, and a dense rich flavourful mushroom sauce would, I wagered, be the perfect complement, and was.

(When I first made the blini I diverted from the recipe to use fresh yeast, not dry, and loved the flavour it imparted. This Sunday I tried dried as instructed, and found the flavour fainter, a little lacking. So I counsel fresh, but know that dried is also possible.)

Buckwheat blini (after Nigella Lawson's recipe in How to Eat)

• 2/3 C / 80 g buckwheat flour
• 1/2 C / 60 g all-purpose flour (I used German 550 organic flour)
• 1/2 a fresh yeast cube (approx 21 g or .75 ounces) OR 2 tsp instant yeast
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 C (120 g) milk
• 2 T crème fraîche or sour cream
• 1 T butter
• 1 egg, separated
• Very small amounts of butter and oil for frying

Mix the flours, salt, sugar and dried yeast (if using) in a large mixing bowl. If using fresh yeast, crumble in the cake and stir gently into the flour mixture. To a measuring jar with at least a cup's capacity add the milk and the crème fraîche, then add water until the liquid reaches 1 cup. Mix everything up with a fork, add the tablespoon butter, and heat in a small pan until the mixture is hot and the butter is melted (let cool slightly if necessary). Beat in the egg yolk.

Stir the liquid mixture into the flour one, cover loosely with a towel or plastic wrap, and leave to bubble away near a radiator or somewhere else warm for a couple of hours or in the fridge for 8 or so.

When the surface has become speckled with bubbles, whip an egg white until stiff and fold into the batter. Take a large dinner plate and prepare a covering flap with several layers of aluminum foil - you want something you can open quickly to slip in another blini, then close up tightly to keep them warm. Heat a small frying pan (or blini pan, if you've got one) with a little butter and oil, swirling it around with a silicon brush or the back of a spoon. Then add a ladleful of batter (about 1/3 C), adjusting if you want smaller blini. Cook until bubbles appear on the surface. Peek to check if the bottom is nicely browned before flipping, letting the second side cook for about a minute or, again, until nice and brown. Transfer to the plate and continue.

Tapenade

For a long time, I was gripped by terrible appliance envy when I leafed through my cookbooks or clicked through Epicurious. I didn't have a food processor, a double boiler, or a Kitchen Aid, a Microplane zester or a candy thermometer, and I have to admit I resented those who did.

My kitchen remains remarkably low-tech, but a year and a half ago we had a windfall when good friends of ours left Berlin. We did and do miss Tabitha and Hannes, of course, but their moving sale brought us bounty in the form of a fancy WMF pan, a wok, a Zauberstab and, most important of all, a fancy Braun food processor. It gathered dust for a while; though I'd coveted one, food processors hadn't really been part of my childhood kitchen experience, and I wasn't really sure what to do with it exactly, how to learn - but then I started to.

Tapenade was one of the first things I tried, one of those foodstuffs that require an onerous amount of chopping if you do it by hand - all very authentic of course, very true, but tedious too. When I did it the food processor way, I found myself astonished at the speed with which everything came together: chucked in the food processor bowl and whizzed for a mere ten or twenty seconds, there I had it, that rich dark flavourful paste I'd so often bought and savoured.

Mind, I still chop my vegetables by hand.

Tapenade

1 C black olives (pitted)
1 tsp capers
1 small red chili pepper, crushed, or 1/4 tsp crushed red chili pepper
3 small cloves garlic, peeled, quartered, green sprout removed if present
1/2 tsp dried thyme
2 T olive oil
A few squeezes lemon juice (about 1 T)

Put the olives, capers, chili pepper, garlic and thyme into the food processor and process until smooth (about 10 seconds in mine). Add the olive oil and lemon juice and process again (again, about 10 seconds).

Remove to an airtight container and leave at least overnight to let the flavors meld. It keeps for a few weeks, and is delicious on pizza or just on bread.

Roasted onion tapenade pizza

There are days when there's a ball of pizza dough defrosting in the fridge but not much else, and the shops have closed, and you can't really be bothered going out anyway. This was one recent hastily conjured solution; making it, I reasoned that onions really are a vegetable after all, and rich in Vitamin C.

They're also famously delicious when roasted just right, tossed with olive oil and generous shakes of dried rosemary and thyme (or indeed fresh, if you have it), sitting in the preheating oven quietly sizzling away. Tapenade, if you happen to have a Tupperware lurking in the back of the fridge, is a plus, and a nice change from the usual pesto topping.

Putting it all together, as you can imagine, is the easiest thing in the world.

Roasted onion tapenade pizza

For the pizza itself, follow this link to my old post. For the onions, cover a small baking dish with foil. Chop a large onion and place it in the baking dish, pour on a bit of olive oil (about 1 T), sprinkle with a bit of salt (about a 1/3 tsp) and sprinkle on either some rosemary and thyme or some Herbes de Provence (about 3/4 tsp total). Place the dish in the oven while it's preheating for the pizza and let cook 'til soft, stirring every five minutes or so (total baking time is around 15-20 minutes, depending on your preference for crisp or tender). Make sure to stir from the bottom to avoid onions sticking or burning.

Buttery almond cookies

I got to a point in December where I couldn't even look at another Christmas cookie, much less write about one, but I don't want to neglect these buttery almond numbers completely, and unlike, say, the ginger cookies, I don't think these are particularly season-specific.

What they are is meltingly tender, with contrast in the form of the small almond chunks. They have a delicacy to them that suggests Earl Gray tea and the afternoon, and at our Boxing Day brunch we found they were just the thing to serve warm from the oven along with endless pots of tea, to nibble away at while playing our new Hot Chip album and hearing about what Max has been up to in Cambridge.

Buttery almond cookies
1 C butter
1 C powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1.75 C flour
1/2 cup chopped almonds (without skins)
1 egg yolk

Cream the butter with the sugar, and when light and fluffy, beat in the egg yolk and the vanilla. By hand, work in the flour and almonds and nuts. Chill the dough for at least one hour in the fridge (we had ours in there for more than a day). Use a spoon to form round bowls (about .75 inches in diameter) and place on an ungreased cookie sheet, ideally on a silicon mat. Bake at 350 F for about 25 minutes or until golden brown at the edges.

Dal & rice

Ah, the delicious, the healthy, the quick, the makeable-with-cupboard stables: We do place demands on our food. Routinely, David and I will sit down with a sheet of paper and brainstorm a list of weeknight staples. Fads come and go - right now, halloumi sandwiches with garlic chutney are on the menu at least once a fortnight - but the most timeless item is surely dal.

Or so we call it. Obviously dal refers at once to lentils themselves and to every dish that can be conjured from them, but every couple has their shorthand, and when we say dal, we both know we mean the delicious dish made from split red lentils with a complex taste all out of measure to its brief list of ingredients.

David teases me because once when he suggested making it for friends I balked, saying it would be like serving guests toast. This dal is one of the first things I learned to make on moving to Berlin, and still seems like the generic of food - not bland, but automatic, what I make when I don't want to hesitate one second over any of the steps.

I love it because it's at once pungent and mild, filling and nutritious, and the perfect blend of spicy, sour and meaty (I can't think of another word to describe the lentils' hearty taste). It's not the quickest thing in the world, but once you've got the ingredients in the cupboard it's ready to go whenever you are. 

Red lentil dal

• 1.5 T butter + 1.5 T olive oil (it's great with 3 T ghee instead, but I rarely have any on hand, and the oil/butter mix is tasty too)
• 2 tsp black mustard seeds
• 2 small dried chilis (or one fresh green chili, split in half)
• 1 tsp turmeric powder
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 6 large cloves garlic, minced
• 1 C split red lentils
• 2 C water
• Salt
• Juice of 1/2 lemon
• Butter to garnish
• Corriander leaves (nice, but not a cupboard standard for me, so optional)

Heat the butter with the oil in a medium pan over medium heat. After a minute or two, depending how hot your stove is, drop in a couple of mustard seeds to check whether the butter/oil mixture is hot enough: If the seeds sputter and pop, it's the right temperature. If they don't, wait another minute or so, then try again.

Once your test seeds are sputtering away, add the rest of the mustard seeds, the chili(s) and the turmeric powder, then pick up the pan by its handle and swirl very gently. Put back on the heat for about five seconds, then add the onion. Stir thoroughly so the onion is slick and yellow, and let cook for about 10 minutes, stirring every few minutes, until soft and translucent.

Add the garlic, stir thoroughly, and let cook for about five minutes. Then add the lentils, stir thorougly again, leave for about a minute, then add the water and a 1/2 teaspoon salt. Let cook for about 30 minutes, stirring - yes - thoroughly every ten minutes or so and making sure to scrape the bottom to avoid sticking and burning. You'll know it's done when the lentils have disintegrated into a deep yellow mush and the water is absorbed. If you'd like, when just a bit of water is left stir in a handful of chopped corriander leaves/stems.

Before serving, taste a bit to see if you need more salt. Fish out the chilis if you can find them easily, or just watch out for them while eating. The dish is delicious by itself or with some piping hot basmatic rice. To garnish, sprinkle on some freshly-squeezed lemon juice, some chopped corriander leaves, and top with a small pat of butter (or, naturally, a spoonful of ghee). We find it makes about two portions with some leftover for a small lunch.

Roasted beet soup

At this time of year very few of the vegetables look at all appealing, and if you’re forced to forsake fresh and leafy and tender, then it seems logical to go quite firmly in the other direction, and fill your paper bag with beets. These rough brown numbers had a solidity I found appealing, spotting them in their plastic crate at the BioCompany, and the texture of their skin suggested that, their tough exterior notwithstanding, they had not been hanging around the cold store for too long.

My soup craze shows no signs of abating, and a bit of light roasting and chopping was what I was in the mood for this evening. The beets did take a full hour longer to cook than the recipe had advised, perhaps because they were significantly larger than the vegetables that writer had in mind. Still, the soup itself was velvety and aromatic, with the rich depth of a root vegetable and an extra layer, sensed more than tasted, of the dark red.

Recipe: I followed this Epicurious recipe with so few variations that it's not really worth posting my own. (I substituted another small onion for the leek and used a small pinch of dried thyme as I had no fresh; this didn't harm the taste at all.)

 

Ginger lemon ice cream

For a few nights now I’ve been turning over what to do with my excess Christmas shopping. At the supermarket on December 23rd I went into cornucopia mode, loading the cart with boxes of confectioner’s sugar, whipping cream, dark chocolate and other special-occasion treats. Since then, a bottle of cream has been languishing in the fridge, and the lemons on the kitchen counter have begun to take on the puckered look that marks tired fruit.

Writing a letter to Katherine at the kitchen table, I sketched the problem and rhetorically suggested ginger lemon ice cream, then was so taken by the idea I stood to suit the action to the word. (Sorry to scoop my letter, Katherine!) I’d discovered Shona Crawford Poole’s recipe for lemon ice cream via Nigella Lawson a few winters ago, where a bright burst of citrus seemed just the thing to counteract gray skies, and on this dull January afternoon it was just as appealing.

This time I wanted to try a few variations that had occurred to me the first time around. What if I were to add ginger, for instance? And let everything sit around for much longer than the suggested 30 minutes, to help the flavours intensify? And strained the sugar mixture so the ice cream itself was immaculate and pale, unspeckled by zest? Here’s what I did.

Ginger ice cream (after Nigella Lawson & Shona Crawford Poole)

Makes six medium scoops.

• 1 C (240 g) lemon juice (I needed four lemons) plus lemon zest
• .35 oz (10 g) fresh ginger (about a one-inch piece)
• 1 C (130 g) confectioner's sugar
• 1 C + 2 T (280 g) whipping cream

Mix the lemon juice and zest in a smallish bowl. Grate the ginger directly into the bowl to avoid squandering precious ginger juice. Add the sugar and stir with a fork. Leave the fragrant mixture to sit at room temperature for about six hours. Strain into another bowl, preferably one with a spout, pressing on the zest and ginger gunge with the back of a spoon to extract as much liquid as possible.

Whip the cream with 2 tablespoons cold water until stiff (I used the magic wand, or immersion blender, that David bought off a friend who was moving to Sacramento, and it took only seconds). Still blending, slowly pour in the juice mixture and mix until completely amalgamated. Transfer to a shallow container (I used a Tupperware with a snap-on lid) and freeze for at least four hours (though Nigella counsels two - perhaps my small German fridge isn't as heavy-duty as hers?). Nigella says no inter-beating is necessary, but I gave the mixture a whirl after about an hour, just because the Zauberstab was still out and I felt like it. I didn't bother the last time I made it though and I don't remember it being particularly ice-crystal-y.

About twenty minutes before serving, dish out the ice cream into, say, fetching ramekins and leave in the fridge to soften a tad. Again, I think my fridge must not be as cold as Nigella's because she recommends letting the ice cream soften for forty minutes, but mine would have been too liquidy by then. (Alternatively, just check on the ice cream while it's freezing, catch it when it's creamy and not rock-hard, and serve it then - after about 3 hours, for me, but perhaps sooner for you if your freezer is very cold.)

Obviously this is a dish that lends itself to further variation. Next on my list to try are a blend of lime and lemon juice, and I want to see what happens too if I add mint to the initial maceration. Do let me know if you hit upon a good formula!

PS:Note that the ice cream itself is a pale lemon-yellow - the bluish cast above is due to the morning light in which I photographed it; even after winter solstice, it's still hardly light at eight o'clock...

Insomnia, or Chocolate things

I have my various tricks for insomnia, such as parking myself in bed and trying to absorb myself in a dream I half-remember, in hope that it will send me drifting into sleep, or reading, or discovering new and welcome additions to the blogosphere, or even attempting a recipe that seemed too fiddly for four pm, but just right as a storm whips up outside the windows and I am snug indoors, kneading at the floured kitchen table and watching the trees dimly sway in the courtyard.

I'd intended to make the Cheese Board's Chocolate Things for Christmas breakfast, but then was put off by the two-hour rising time needed on the day even if one opted for a first overnight rising. With the cream and buttermilk still waiting patiently in the refrigerator last night, I thought it was time to put them to use. I was a bit unsure of the wettish dough, though I enjoyed manipulating it in the rhythm of kneading, and though an overnight rising was given as an option in the recipe, my dough moved not a whit between 5.30 am when I put the bowl in the fridge and 1 pm, when I brought it out. The results were palatable enough, but it only seems fair to wait til I have a recipe I'm entirely happy with before posting it.

Cheesecake

After the many-layered efforts of our main course, it seemed sensible to keep things simple for our Christmas dessert. My cheesecake recipe comes from my mother, who got it from a friend in Berkeley about 35 years ago; the yellowed sheet of paper lives in our Joy of Cooking now. I love its texture, at once airy and dense, and its subtle sweetness and mild citrus note. The sour cream topping provides just the right contrast, and I enjoy the almost-imperceptible grit of the vanilla bean seeds (my own touch).

Cheesecake

• 30 graham crackers, crushed (I used Lebnitz's Vollkornkekse, available in eg Kaiser's)
• 1/4 C. (56.5 g) melted butter
• 1 tsp vanilla

 

• 24 oz. (700 g) cream cheese (at room temperature - I leave mine out at least overnight)
• 5 large eggs (ditto)
• 1 C. sugar
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• Juice of one lemon

• 16 oz (450 g) sour cream (at room temperature)
• seeds from one vanilla bean (use the pod to make vanilla sugar)
• 1/4 C (50 g) sugar
  

Add butter and vanilla to crushed crackers. Line 10-inch/25-cm springform pan. Chill in fridge.

Beat cheese till soft and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add sugar and salt and beat thoroughly, again about 3 minutes. Add lemon juice and the eggs, one at a time, beating for about 45 seconds after each egg. Pour the cheese mixture into pan and bake at 325 F/160 C/gas mark 3 (Germany) for 45 minutes (rotate once after fifteen minutes). Cool in fridge.

Mix the sour cream, sugar, and vanilla seeds. Pour on top of cake. Bake at 325 F/160 C/gas mark 3 (Germany)for 10 minutes.

Christmas filo

The first question that strikes two vegetarians (of greater - David - or lesser - me - strictness) when preparing for their first Christmas meal together is what the main course will be. The German goose, the British turkey or the American ham all have a ceremonial heft one doesn't want to forsake, yet substantial dishes such as a lasagne are far too everyday.

As for many cooks making vegetarian meals, Deborah Madison is something of a guru for me: She doesn't conflate vegetarian with ascetic and has a range of dishes that belong to a realm I associate with classic French cooking (thyme, bechamel, shallots), love, and normally miss in meatless cooking, with its usual drawing on Mediterranean or Asian cuisines for inspiration.

After a few minutes of leafing through The Greens Cookbook, I had what I was after: A goat's cheese, spinach and walnut filo pastry, suitably festive and time-consuming enough that making it felt like Christmas, but not actually complicated in any way that would risk failure. (The only crisis I did have was finding filo dough, which in its transparent-sheeted form is very uncommon