The “Bayrische Küche” – “Bavarian Cuisine”

This is the last article in a series of 4, starting with “What is German Cooking”

 

Sauerkraut, Bratwurst and Schnitzel come to mind when you think of Bavarian Cuisine. Picturing a regular Bavarian restaurant and Biergarten automatically generates visions of wooden tables and benches, of a large platter with sausages and sauerkraut before you and the waitress coming at you carrying 10 large steins of beer.
Yes, this is a small part of what we call Gemütlichkeit and very important when we consider the social atmosphere of Southern Germany.

Considering that the original Bavarian diet was mainly meatless, I would like to go here into a more modern day version of “Bavarian Cuisine” as it became established during my lifetime.

It includes multiple soups, meat dishes and desserts, a whole slew of baked goods, cheeses, sausages, fish recipes and breads.

Some of the recipes can actually be traced back to Bavarian roots, others were “imported” and adapted to the local taste and ingredients available and others again are special recipes only consumed in one or two of Bavaria’s seven administrative regions.

You can find many of the recipes considered as

“Bavarian Specialties” in our Inge’s Kitchen website

Let us just name a few of what you can encounter.

Soup category:

Liver Dumpling soup, Griessnockerlsuppe, Potato soup, Sauerkraut soup, Lentil soup, Cabbage soup and even the poor man’s Rumford soup, “invented” by the American born Benjamin Thompson.

Snacks and Appetizers:

The Bavarian cheese dishes “Obatzda” or the homemade “Quärkla” fits right in here, also asparagus wrapped in ham, “Fleischwurst mit Musik” (Bologna with vinegar) and let us not forget the Pretzels made famous by the Oktoberfest.

Main Dishes:

Bratwurst, Schnitzel and all kinds of Pork Roasts are just a start, with Sauerbraten (beef roast with a sweet sour gravy), Rouladen, Rahmbraten (beef or venison roast with a rich heavy cream gravy), Forelle Blau (rainbow trout cooked in a water/vinegar based solution), Weisswurst, add Chicken, Goose and Duck dishes, also Hasenpfeffer and many others, even if they might not all be from there, are favorites in the area. Again visit ingeskitchen.com for many of these recipes.

As Sides we have to list the most famous: “The Sauerkraut” and also all kinds of potato, noodle and vegetable dishes. We will devote a specific article on the influence of the greatest import to Bavarian coking: “THE POTATO” in the near future.

Desserts the most famous among many is the “Bavarian Crème”.

And here we end up with Baking:

Besides all kinds of Lebkuchen (Ginger bread) varieties, yeast dough or any of the other type of doughs, Bavaria will not short change your sweet tooth.

Like I said before, we devoted a whole website to our favorite Bavarian dishes and we are frequently adding new recipes there.

So to explore the over 150 recipes already posted go to our site at

ingeskitchen.com

Please note that not all recipes of dishes mentioned here are posted at our website yet, as we are cooking or baking all recipes before we post them. This means that in order to not gain too much weight ourselves, our friends and neighbors contribute in our effort of taste testing each individual dish before publishing the recipe, this takes time.

Many of the recipes in the old hand written cookbooks we work with include only the ingredients with some vague measures and no other directions at all.

Some of the recipes come from old sources, from a time when you burned off the fat and calories without a health club membership, so cook, serve and eat at your own risk. They are only considered diet food if you just look at them and don’t eat them, but we and most of our friends think they are not just delicious, but a symphony to the taste buds.

Some of the recipe are sinfully good – definitely not DIET FOOD!!!

So welcome and enjoy!!!

ingeskitchen.com