Carp is what’s on the Menu

Posted on by October 5, 2019

After introducing the last two restaurants I realized that I should write about a specialty in Franken,

the Carp

We all heard about the invasion of the Asian Carp in our waterways and what is done to prevent them from entering our beautiful Great Lakes. According to some Chinese accounts that I read (no, I can not read Chinese, they were in English) there would actually be a market to commercially fish them here and sell them to China.

This brings me to the carp I grew up with. These fish are raised in ponds which are often man made. They were originally introduced by the Romans who brought them from Asia. I remember that the variety raised in Bavaria had very few scales and in our house it was “the” dish for the second Christmas Holiday, which meant that a couple of them were swimming in our bathtub until the day they were prepared for dinner. I was always told that, as they are bottom feeders keeping them in fresh water for a couple of days eliminated the musky, earthy taste from the fish.

In the Franken region you will find many restaurants specializing in this fish and they are very often prepared either as “Karpfen blau” or “Karpfen Müllerinnen Art”.

Karpfen blau Zum Hirschen Bad Windsheim

“Karpfen blau”or carp blue is best explained if you click at the recipe here for Steamed Trout, same thing different fish, served with creamed horseradish. We really suggest if you are visiting in Franken and it is the season be adventurous and try it, but please note that the fish is usually served with the head on and if you are squeamish about this have somebody remove it for you. That happened to my wife the first time she ordered it, but nowadays she got used to it.

“Karpfen Müllerinnen Art” (carp like the miller’s wife makes it). Supposedly started by a miller’s wife as she had the flour to dip the fish in and pan-fry it. Again in the region there you often find the same procedure done with rainbow trout.

It is considered Carp season in Franken from September to April, as a rule it is said that the season includes every month that contains the letter “R”

 

Landgasthof Rittmayer, Willersdorf

Posted on by March 4, 2012

This restaurant was recommended by H.-G., one of our German contributors.

Landgasthof · Hotel · Brauerei Rittmayer
Willersdorf 108
91352 Hallerndorf

Landgasthof Rittmayer

Located not far away from Forchheim, this is another one of the many excellent local restaurants with their own brewery. Situated in a small village, their operation includes their own carp hatchery and farm.

 

 

For more pictures you can go to their website Landgasthof Rittmayer.

Checking their online menu I would consider the prices reasonable.

Find out about H.-G. in our “Meet our Contributors” page under “About us” in the menu above.

 

Gasthof/Restaurant “Am Strand”

Posted on by March 4, 2012

 Gasthof/Restaurant “Am Strand” in Marktredwitz

This article was written by H.-G. and translated by Rudy

Marktredwitz, a small town in northeast Bavaria is home to the rustic, Franconian restaurant Brauerei Gaststätte** am Strand with traditional local food. This is a brewery restaurant of the “Brewery Nothaft” **and is operated by Helmut Gläßl and his two kids.

(** see below)

Karpfen blau

They specialize in “Karpfen blau”** steamed in an excellent Vegetable-Wine marinade, Filet Mignon from Angus beef with fried potatoes, mixed salads with a sweet-sour house dressing and we also have to mention “Kronfleisch”** another local specialty.

This restaurant is on the small side and very well visited. The prices are considered very reasonable for this region.


Brauerei Gaststätte am Strand
Ottostraße 30
95615 Marktredwitz

Phone: 09231-2985

Business hours:

Wed – Fri 10 am – 2 pm and from 5 pm  Closed Mon and Tue

Sat, Sun and Holidays open from 10 am on.

**

Brauerei Gaststätte, is a restaurant, which is owned or closely associated with a brewery.

“Brauerei Nothaft“, one of the many excellent breweries in the region, the history of brewing beer at their location dates back to the year 1540. Otto Nothaft founded the brewery in 1882 and it is still in this families ownership (4th generation). According to their website, they conduct brewery tours but they might be only in the German language.

Karpfen blau (carp blue), is a famous dish in Northern Bavaria, the fish is cooked in a vinegar based brine, which gives the skin of the fish a bluish color, hence the name “blue”. A recipe for this with a rainbow trout can be found at Inge’s Kitchen.

Kronfleisch, another local specialty made from the skirt steak.

Sauerkraut causes Chaos in Germany!

Posted on by March 4, 2012

I have to share this one:

It happened on the Autobahn by Friedberg, north of Frankfurt and was all over the news. Click here for the original report as published by Reuters.

Frozen Sauerkraut causes chaos on Autobahn

Tuesday morning on February 7, 2012 a truck involved in an accident spilled hundreds of Sauerkraut packages all over the A5 Autobahn north of Frankfurt.

The deep freeze, Germany is in for over a week, caused the sauerkraut to freeze to the roadway in minutes, causing miles of traffic back ups and completely shut down this autobahn section for hours until they could scrape all of it away.

What a way to start your day, being stopped by sauerkraut on the way to work during the rush hour! Let’s hope your boss was stuck in it too, as he/she never would believe this excuse. Or imagine the clean up guy:”Honey, I have to hang up and start scraping sauerkraut, should I bring some home for dinner?”

The Evolution of the Potato

Posted on by October 5, 2019

The Potato in Bavarian cooking

Potato Flower

Wikipedia states that the original domesticated potato comes from Peru and was introduced by the Spaniards to Europe. I remember hearing that at first the potato plant was regarded in European courts as a flowering ornamental plant and it took some time before they realized that you actually could eat those things growing in the ground.

Just to mention,  it seems that the potato came from South America to Europe and than the European settlers supposedly introduced them here in the United States. Heck of a detour, isn’t it?

Back to Europe, local history states that the potato did not reach Bavaria until the year 1647 and what I think is kind of amazing is that the first time they were planted there was in a small village about three miles away from where I was born,but let me tell you, I never knew this bit of trivia while I grew up there.

Potatoes

So now they arrived in Bavaria and “we” planted, grew and harvested them. As they were easy to store for the winter, they became a huge success and were quickly included as part of the local food.

First they were cooked in their skins “Pellkartoffel” (potatoes to peel) then pre-peeled and boiled in water and served as “Salzkartoffel” (Salt potatoes, as you add salt to the water) and once they were left over they were sliced and fried out as “Bratkartoffel” (fried potatoes). As the potato experience continued it seems the French were the one’s to “French Fry” them, this must me true as the German name for these is still the French name “Pommes Frittes”.

Next we mashed them up and served them as “Kartoffelstampf” (mashed potatoes) or added some other ingredients like flour, shaped them and called them “Schupfnudel” or “Schopperle”, in the Italian cooking the Gnocchi would be comparable to these.

Pork roast with sauerkraut and potato dumplings

The next step was to combine raw and boiled potatoes together to make a dough and form balls out of them calling them “Knödel” (dumplings). Hey, you did not know, that you are getting a free German lesson here, did you? As the consistency of the dumplings had to be a little looser, diced day old white bread was browned in butter and they became the center of the modern Bavarian Potato Dumpling.

Now the evolution did not end here, somebody had too many plums from their trees and decided to “embed” them in the dumplings as, you probably guessed this one, “Pflaumenknödel” (plum dumplings) and sprinkled them with sugar and cinnamon before eating .

Again we had some dumplings left over from our Sunday dinner, so let’s slice them and fry them out with some diced bacon and onions as an excellent side dish for Wieners or Knockwurst the next day.

Schnitzel and potato salad

Now back to the plain old potato, we can bake them, we can mash them, add cheese to scallop them, fry them or wait a minute, we can also make a salad out of them. This way we can even serve them warm or cold.

Melt cheese over them as in the Swiss raclette, grate them for “Röstis” or potato pancakes.

Potato pancakes

This is only a small sample of what can be done with the “Kartoffel”(potato) or also called “Erdapfel” (earth-apple) in Bavaria, no wonder they became so popular.

As a matter of fact, as they were so cheap to grow they also became a part of the local feed for animals, mainly pigs.

Our Bavarian potato recipes, which include dumplings, potato salad and also potato pancakes are found at

ingeskitchen.com.

The “Bayrische Küche” – “Bavarian Cuisine”

Posted on by March 4, 2012

The “Bayrische Küche” – “Bavarian Cuisine”

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

Ham Hock with Sauerkraut and Potato Dumpling

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:

Obadzter, a Bavarian beer garden snack

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

 

The History of Bavarian Food

Posted on by March 4, 2012

My Take on the History of Bavarian Food.

 Article 3 of 4, starting with “What is German Cooking” and followed by article 4 “The Bayrische Küche – Bavarian Cuisine”
 

In this article I will give my explanation of how, what we call “Bayrische Küche” (Bavarian cuisine) came together.

Going back a long, long time people all over lived off the land and their diet reflected 100% what was locally available. Through wars and foreign occupation the peoples from the different regions were introduced to the foods of their conquerors, like the Roman’s influence in southern Bavaria , the Franken King Karl der Grosse, (Carl the Great) also known as Charlemagne. Much later even Napoleons armies, during their occupation of large parts of Europe, influenced everything from the way of life, the food and even the language.

We could ponder here if the Romans actually introduced Spaghetti and Meatballs to the areas they occupied, but then there is still the rumor that Marco Polo brought the noodle recipe back from China long after the Romans were gone. Although being close to retirement, I was not there during that time and can not knowingly comment on it. I don’t even know when the Swabian counterpart “the Spaetzle” was invented.

One thing for sure is that the influences of all these foreigners, called “Zug’reiste” by the locals (*see below), had a very influential part in Bavarian cuisine. Alone the “Böfflamot” (Boeuf a la mode) points to the French influence under Napoleon. Other influences came from the marriage of, let’s say, a Bavarian Duke to a Spanish Countess and her instructions to the head cook to prepare some dishes she was familiar with and the trickle down effects of these recipes to the local population and their inclusion into the repertoire of local dishes.

Others specialties came together from the need of the hostess/cook of a local guest house to use up some Brie cheese which was already overripe, because of a stupid remark from a costumer (**, see below) or just out of necessity of the common folks to keep their treasured food from spoiling.

Early on the spices used, like Caraway, Mustard, Mugwort and even Woodruff  (used to spice “Maiwein”), were from local sources. During the Roman times the southern spice selections were brought over the Alps and the Trading Merchant Caravans in the Middle Ages introduced many new tastes and also other things during the “Jahrmarkt”, the annual market day which is still a popular and well attended local festival in towns all over Germany today.

This brings us to “The Bayrische Küche – Bavarian Cuisine” in the next article

 

* “Zug’reiste” – German from “zu-reisen” could be loosely translated with “traveled there and stayed “or “not born in the area”.

** = refers to the story of a customer’s remark at a local pub: “I could eat this sausage by the meter”, the host went to make a sausage a meter long and served it to the customer, with this the “Meterbratwurst” in the River Main area was born.

City foods – Country foods

Posted on by March 9, 2012

City foods – Country foods

Article 2 of 4, starting with “What is German Cooking” and followed by “History of Bavarian Food”
 

Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Again going back in history we can determine that country living came first and with this the only way to survive was to live off the land. In many cases the people or peasants were either paying tribute or were even owned by the local nobility. They tended their fields, had some chickens, a pig or two, one or two work oxen and if they were lucky a cow for milk.

Next villages were formed and some of the chores, like weapons manufacturing, hunting and others, were given to the people who established themselves as superior to the rest in these particular areas.

Life was tough and meat hard to come by, the land owners considered the animals in the forest their property and even the fish in the creek might have been claimed by the nobility.

If lucky the peasants or even “free” locals had a town nearby, where they could sell some of their harvest and also their crafts for money and in turn buy other necessities.

Once these towns and cities were established the population had to be fed and that brought us the Butcher, the Baker and even the Candlestick Maker. So life in the towns was centered around trading, bartering and eventually money and with that the more affluent commoners could occasionally afford meat. Again this treat was usually for the masters and their families only, which did not include their help. They were fed, but usually, with a mostly meatless diet.

This brings us to the older, basic Bavarian dishes, which very seldom contained meat. The protein content was mainly derived from legumes and eggs. (Eiweiss- egg white is the German name for protein)

Bavarian Potato Dumpling, recipe at ingeskitchen,com

Another little fact is that most of the food must have been grain based, as potatoes did not exist in Germany until they were planted for the first time in Pilgramsreuth, Upper Franken in the year 1647. After that all these dishes, like potato based noodles and dumplings snuck into local menus, took over a large percentage of side dishes and stayed there for good.

Even growing up over there after World War II, we usually had meat in our house daily, but it was portioned out and the bigger better cuts were only served at the Sunday dinner, the larger percentage of your daily food intake came from the side dishes.

Here’s a little story, at our house here in the USA we always go by the same advise we gave our customers in our meat store to figure on an average ½ pound of boneless or 1 pound of bone-in meat per person. So on a Saturday morning during our stay at my mother’s house in Germany, I went to the local butcher to buy a pork roast for a nice Sunday dinner for 8 of us. A “beautiful” piece of pork shoulder in the counter caught my eye and when I was waited on I decided to get the whole 5 pound piece. I actually was asked by one of the other customers, if I was, with that size piece, inviting the whole town for dinner, as by their customary portion size this roast should have fed at least 20 people.

What is German Cooking?

Posted on by March 9, 2012

What is German Cooking?

the first of 4 articles, see “City foods – Country foods” next.
 

Tomato salad with Bologna, see ingeskitchen.com for recipe

Before we go into Bavarian food let us first establish if there is such a thing as German Cooking.

The answer in short is “yes” and also “no“!

As we already take the word “cuisine” from the French, we think of the French as the top echelon of gourmet foods. We talk about Italian, Chinese, Mexican and even Thai cuisine, but when we talk about German food, it’s simply cooking.

As we look at the history of France we see that the French cuisine actually is a mixture of different nationalities. Let’s start at about 600 BC when the Gallic Celts settled there from the north and also Phoenician and Greek traders had already established trading posts along the Mediterranean coast. Give the Romans a few more years and the area of France was conquered and divided into Roman provinces. Along came the Germanic tribes who chased out the Romans. Here it is said that the French language kind of established itself as a mix of Latin and old German. Also the Vikings with their wide trading network settling in Normandy had influences in the area. All these elements had an influence in what we call “French Cuisine”.

Now  let us compare a few dishes, “Liver Pâté” could be called “feine Leberwurst” (fine liver sausage) in German, who invented it? I don’t know. “Roux” (browned flour in butter used to thicken gravies) is called an “Einbrenn” in German, again it is anybodies guess where it came from. Using heavy cream in sauces, like in “Steak au Poivre” (peppered steak or steak with pepper), can also be found in the German “Rahmschnitzel” (cutlet in heavy cream sauce).

There are many dished found in local cooking which are known under different names all over Europe. Here the world famous “Sauerkraut” comes to mind which found it’s way into the Polish and Slavic cooking as “Kapusta”. The Polish luncheon meat Krakowskaw is the same as the Krakauer in German and refers to it’s origin in the city of Krakow, Poland.

So you see, that any “European Cuisine” is actually a mixture of all the different European entities together. I believe, when going through a list of French recipes, you can find an equivalent of them somewhere in Europe and we can argue all day long about who originated them.

One thing the French did well was refine the way to dine, with small portion, multiple-course meals which take hours to enjoy.

Rouladen and Spaetzle, see ingeskitchen.com for recipe

So here it is; the German cooking is actually a mixture of dishes. Some started locally, others are from all over Europe and nowadays even the whole world and are often adapted to regional ingredients and tastes.

 

 

And herewith we say “Guten Appetit”, or “Good Appetite”

(by the way “appetite” comes from the Latin meaning “the desire for food”)