On culture and cheese

I'm determined to stay with the blogging at the moment but let me explain why I haven't posted for two weeks. Last weekend we had a three day trip to Vienna which was amazing. A beautiful city filled with fabulous buildings and museums, a bustling Christmas market, comfy coffee houses with tasty cakes and a delicious food market filled with many cafe's. After our stay, the feet were very sore from all the walking, the bellies full of the delicious tarts and sausages and the senses overloaded with their plethora of museums.


Then this weekend has been filled with dinners and meeting friends with at the top of it all, a scrumptious cheese fondue in a friends vineyard this afternoon. It's a small plot of land that first her father and now her brother work as their hobby. We walked up there around 3.30 in a snowy winter wonderland. Once we got to the little house they have, we cooked the cheese on the wood stove and drank their white wine....the most perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon if you ask me! The way down was a bit more challenging as it had started snowing again and there was a fierce wind making it very exciting in the dark.


Finally, a little bit of crafting with this year's dinner table light decoration. Still sticking with a natural theme like last year but using a different plant. And the little leaves swing happily around if you have some candles lit on the table.

Cheese Fondue a la Bischof
(calculate between 150-200g cheese per person depending on the appetite)

600g of cheese (equal amounts of Gruyere, Vacherin Fribourgeois and Appenzeller - or what you have at hand)
3 cloves of garlic (making for a fairly garlicy taste so reduce if you don't like it too strong)
300 ml of white wine (and plenty more for drinking!)
grated nutmeg
2tsp cornflour
a small glass of Kirsch (again, have some extra on hand to sip as it aids the digestion)
black pepper
a pinch of bicarbonate soda
plenty of your favourite bread (we had potatobread with walnuts and also half white)

Chop the garlic roughly and put it in the pan, add the cheese, wine and cornflour and place on the heat. Stir until all is dissolved and then stir in the kirsch, nutmeg and pepper. Mix well and just before serving add the bicarbonate soda and mix well. Serve with the bread whist stirring in the shape of eights - this prevents the cheese from burning at the bottom and makes for a fantastic "Grossmutter". This is the crust that forms at the bottom and make sure you have some room left as it's the best bit of the whole fondue.

On Snow, Parsnips and SHF

How fitting that my 100th post is about one of the most perfect days I've had in a long time! Last Sunday I went to the mountains in my friends new camper van. After an early start we arrived in Lauterbrunnen, took the gondela up and walked to Mürren. This is why I moved to Switzerland!

The weather was perfect, sunshine, blue skies and the most amazing snow I've ever seen! About 70 cm deep and covered with a layer of crystals several cm big, they were like little Christmas trees. We made a beautiful walk, played in the snow, built mini snowmen and ate lunch in the sunshine.



When it comes to walking food, I'm just not one for sandwiches. I always find that by the time you get to eat it its squashed, cold and often tasteless. Therefore, I prefer home baked lunches, preferably with nuts and cheese for lots of flavour and energy. For this walk I used parsnips as they are back in season! I developed quite a liking for this root vegetable whilst living in Scotland. Before that I'd never even seen a parsnip as they are very hard to come by. However, this year the local supermarket has started selling them as an "ancient vegetable" so we'll hopefully be eating a lot more of them. I know parsnips mostly as a savoury vegetable but they also go well with sweet (think honey roasted) flavours and I'd heard that they can also be used in cakes, like carrots, but that this somehow fell out of fashion after the WWII.

I adapted this recipe (a firm favourite for summer walks) as I wanted to make a savoury and a sweet version to take along and use some of the walnuts from my parents garden. They were a great success. For the savoury I used gruyere, walnuts and fresh herbs (rosemary, sage and thyme), whereas the sweet ones had raisins, nuts, nutmeg and ginger. Both yummy and with lots of energy to keep me going on the walk, hopefully the season will be good, there will be many trips and I can make them loads. This post my entry for this months sugar high friday - The Beta Carotene Harvest - hosted by Definitely not Martha



Sweet or Savoury Parsnip Muffins (makes 6)

1 cup flour
1/3 cup buckwheat flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
3 eggs
2 parsnip - grated
1 tbsp creme fraiche
1/2 cup vegetable oil

Sweet
60g raisins
60g walnuts - chopped
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger

Savoury
60g gruyere - grated
60g walnuts - chopped
2 tbsp fresh herbs
salt and pepper to taste

Heat the over to 180°C, in a large bowl, mix the creme fraiche, oil and eggs. Then stir in the flour and grated parsnip. Finally, add the extra fillings and the spices. Or at this point you can divide the mix in two and make both (make sure to halve the amounts given above). Pour the mixture into buttered molds and top with either raisins or walnuts. Cook for 30 min or until a needle comes out clean. Leave to cool and enjoy!

Busy, busy

So much for my plan to try and blog more regularly! We had a fantastic time in Paris, despite the tragic Ireland loss. It was compensated by so much nice food, shopping and sightseeing. We came back Monday morning and work has been manic since with presentations and deadlines. Now my brother is visiting so we're off to the Alps this afternoon. Hopefully, I'll manage to squeeze a post in next week.

First camping trip of the year

Last weekend we finally went on our first camping trip :-) I'd been dying to get away for ages but work has been mayhem recently, however last weekend we finally got the chance. After some advise from a friend, we headed to Luzern which is only 1 hour and 10 min on the train and situated at the Vierwaldstattersee. It was beautiful, the campsite (though very very busy) was right by the lake. We took a boat to Weggis where we got a gondola and train up to the top of the Rigi Klum from where we had beautiful views. We then walked down which was stunning. Sunday we swam in the lake and explored the beautiful city. So what did we eat?? When it comes to camping/walking I like things simple but tasty and the food needs to be durable (i.e. travel well).

For breakfast we got Gipfili (croissant) from the campsite shop and ate them with some cherry jam. For lunch I had made these muffins and this bananabread (both traveled great and were very tasty) and we supplemented with some aged Alpkäse to we bought from a local farmershop.

In the evening, after some local beers and a few nibbles, we had a one pot dinner of fresh pasta with mozzarella, tomato and baerlauch pesto which came together within 10 min. Just bring water to the boil, add pasta and cook 2-3 min. In the mean time chop the rest of the ingredients. Drain pasta, add the rest and leave in the warm pan for a few minutes. Best shared from the pan with a fork!

Waiter, there's something in my...Dumpling!

I was so excited when Johanna announced the theme for Waiter there's something in my....dumpling!! I've always loved them but never made them much. So I was contemplating which way to go and on our trip to Prague at the start of the month, I found my inspiration. Just off the Old town square we saw a string with some funny looking rolls around it and as we were in desperate need of a drink and snack after seeing all the beautiful architecture we sat down. They were called Staroceske Trdlo and are made of sweet yeasty dough, rolled around a metal ring and into a mix of ground almonds and sugar. This is then roasted over gas and eaten warm. They were so yummy, and we had quite a few over the weekend to keep the energy up with all the sight seeing.

So I decided to make a dumpling covered in this mixture, but to make it a little bit more special I filled it with half an apricot, a bit of sugar, almonds and ginger (inspired by these tarts that I've made lots). They were a breeze to put together although I was a bit surprised how big they became and we ended up eating way too much but tasted great. I liked the little hint of ginger, the freshness of the apricot and the caramely sugar on the outside. I think I'll be embarking on a dumpling filled summer after this!

Apricot, ginger and almond dumpling (makes 8 fairly big ones)

For the dough
400 g flour
50 gr fresh yeast or 1 sachet dried
1 tsp sugar
about 200 ml milk
pinch of salt

For the filling:
4 apricots
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp roughly ground almonds
1 tsp ground ginger

For the outside:
a mix of 2 part sugar, 1 part ground almonds

Put the flour into a bowl, mix the sugar and salt in and crumble the yeast into it. Add the fluid and work till you have a nice soft, springy dough. Cover and leave to rise for about 1 hour (if in a rush, fill the sink with lukewarm water and leave the dough in that for 30 min) then divide into 8 pieces and roll them out into a circle. Cut the apricots in half and mix the sugar, ground almonds and ginger together. Put half an apricot onto each piece of dough and fill the place of the stone with the ginger mixture. Roll into the dough and leave to rest for 5-10 min. In this time, bring a big pan of water to the bowl. Add the dumplings and boil for about 8-10 min, lift out and roll in the sugar-almond mix. Enjoy whilst still warm.

London eats and summer noodles

Ok, it's been a while ago but at the end of May I went to London to meet up with two close friends, we had traveled together through Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and India two years ago but hadn't seen each other for ages. It only took about 2 min and we were back to our normal chatting, tea and cake routine! We had a great weekend full of shopping food and musea starting on Friday with Portobello road, books for cooks and the spice shop (a true treasure trove). Books for cooks was amazing, first we had lunch in their cafe part, then I spent about 2 hours browsing (whist the girls were chatting) and they had to stop me from buying too much as I had to carry it all back in the handluggage. On the way back, we stopped for afternoon tea (we were in britain after all) at the Tea Palace. It was amazing, I had lovely kuchicha tea with an almond and blood syrup cake with Chai Masala ice cream. It was lovely, moist from the syrup and crumbly from the almonds. The ice cream was rich, creamy but not too sweet. After this, we went back to Sharon's flat where she cooked us our favourtite dinner, potstickers and buddah's delight.

On Saterday we went to Borough market, again the buying had to be stopped due to weight restrictions but we did sample lots of nice things. Then we walked along the Thames to the Tate modern, spent a few hours in there and visited the Japan centre where I stocked up on lots of foodstuffs that I just can't get here. In the evening we reminised about our travels over a great Vietnamese meal at Cay Tre (301 Old Street, London). We had many old favourites, fresh spring rolls, Bun Cha and Fish in Caramel sauce that came complete with flaming plate!

Sunday morning, we said hello to the dinosaur at thenatural history museum, visited the V&A where we saw the Kylie exhibition. This was great fun, lots of dancy happy music, nice costumes and more, which was just what we needed as we were getting a bit tired with all the trips. Had lunch in their beautiful cafe, walked past Harrods, Harvey Nicks and met up with other friends at a great wine bar. Finally we had a quiet night in and went to bed early as we had to get up at 5 to catch our planes. All in all a great weeked and I came back with lots of nice foodies to eat. One of them were these beautiful pink somen noodles. The first time I had these was when I was living in Japan taking a cooking class with Elisabeth Andoh in Tokyo. It was a focus on cold noodles for the hot summer and these were one of them. As the weather picked up drasticaly this weekend it was the perfect opportunity to make them. The dipping sauce is very easy to make, keeps well and can be used for all sorts of things. We enjoyed them on the balcony with their dipping accompaniments (the shiso were the first harvest from the balcony)...but as i was telling Barry, now that they're finished I just might have to go back to London to get some more :-)



Thin noodles on Ice serves 4

For the sauce
3 tbsp seasoned soy concentrate (see below) thinned with 1/2 cup dashi (also see below)
200g thin noodles
Ice cubes
For the condiments:
1 tsp peeled and grated ginger
4-5 shiso leaves, finely shredded
2 tbsp freshly toasted white sesame seeds, coarsly ground

Bring a large pan of water to the boil but leave room for more. When boiling, add a cup of water and repeat this step. Test if the noodles are cooked. Drain and rinse them under cold water. Place ice cubes in a bowl. Put the noodles on top and add water till they are barely floating. Divide the sauce over 4 small, deep bowls and add condiments to your liking. Lift noodles out of the ice water, then dunk them briefly in the condiments and sauce mix before slurping them.

Seasoned soy concentrate makes about 2/3 cup

5-6 large iriko (dried small sardines)
8-10 square inches kombu (preferably a high glutamate variety)
1 dried shiitake mushroom or stems from 3-4 mushrooms
1/4 cup dried thick bonito flakes or 1/2 cup tightly packed katsuo-bushi (fine bonito flakes)
2/3 cup soy
1/3 cup sake
3 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp water
2 tbsp mirin

Remove the black internal organs of the fish. Place iriko, kombu shiitake, kombu, bonito (only think ones, if using fine ones add later) and sake in a small deep saucepan and leave to infuse for 1-24 hours. Add the sugar, water, mirin to the pan and place over low heat. When the liquid begins to boil, reduce the heat to keep it from boiling too vigorously. As the sauce simmers, it becomes quite foamy, rising in the saucepan. Keep from overflowing and reduce by about 1/4 till it becomes syrupy. Remove from the heat and if using the fine bonito flakes scatter them into the pan now. Wait 2-3 min for them to sink, thin strain the liquid through a paper lined strainer. Reserve the solids and leave the concentrate to cool naturally, cover and refrigerate for up to 1 month. Put the soy-drenched bits of kombu, fish and mushroom into a pan with 2-3 cups of cold water, bring rapidly to the boil, strain immediately and discard the solids. This will make the dashi.