Feeling Tarty: The First Dunkelweißbier Round

The German Beer Wars have also been a great excuse to play around in the kitchen. Luckily I have a willing guinea pig who will eat almost anything.

Tonight’s competitors: Dunkel Weißbier and 3 courses of tarts. 

 Tonight's Competitors, and the growing collection of bottlecaps

We kicked off the Dunkel Region with some Dunkelweißbiers from the Bavarian heavy hitters Paulaner, Erdinger, Franziskaner, and König Ludwig.  Erdinger and Franziskaner make only Weißbier - Erdinger is a private brewery outside Munich that brews 9 varieties, including seasonal, light, and non-alcoholic; Franziskaner brews 5 varieties and is part of the Spaten-Löwenbräu-Gruppe, now owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev.  Of the 5 Franziskaners, we have 3 in the tournament (the other two are Light and Alcohol-Free, thus not in the competition).

König Ludwig, the royal brewery, brews a wide variety of beers, covering the main types and seasonal and regional beers. Their weißbiers are pretty well-regarded around here, so we were curious to see how they stacked up with the wießbier specialists. 

 

In the first competition pitting Erdinger Dunkel vs König Ludwig, we found the König Ludwig to be extremely smooth and drinkable.  It was surprisingly light for a dunkelweißbier, which is why we had to pick the Erdinger Dunkel as the winner. It had a lovely dark color and wonderful classic dark beer flavoring combined with the sweetness and fullness of the weißbier. 

In the second, the Franziskaner beat out Paulaner's Hefe-Weissbier Dunkel due to it's slightly more complex flavorings. 

The next round was similar, with the Erdinger noticeably darker and more flavorful than the Franziskaner. We'd happily drink either, but the Erdinger just had a better, richer taste and therefore earns a spot in the Sweet Sixteen.

In terms of the food, all three were winners and the beef pie is always a crowd pleaser (and better yet, simple to make and freeze for later).

Tomato Tarts, Schwarzbier Beef Pie, and Pine Nut Tartelettes

Yes, yes, I know.... the beef pie isn’t exactly a tart, but it’s a great excuse to buy cute little ramekins…which just means I need to make chocolate lava cakes now!  Here are the recipes:

Tomato and Caramelized Onion Tartelettes – adapted from a BBC recipe here

This one works pretty much true to the recipe, other than I always need to add a little cold water when making the dough. It makes an impressive looking and tasty large tart. For tonight, I just made it in 4 tartelette pans rather than one large tart.

Schwarzbier Mini Beef Pies – adapted from an Australian recipe (I've also made with Guiness and it's equally tasty. Will try with Starkbier and some of the more flavorful Dunkelbiers soon) 

Ingredients: (Makes 6-8 pies, depending on your ramekin size)

• 2 kg (4.4 lbs) roast beef ("rinderbraten" in German supermarkets)
• 3 sliced onions
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 Tbsp oil
• 2/3 cup flour
• 400 mL (1 3/4 cups) Schwarzbier 
• 475 mL (2 cups) beef broth
• Puff pastry (Tante Fanny's here is perfect and flaky)
• 1 egg, beaten

 Instructions:

1. Cut roast beef into cubes and chop in batches in food processor. (Alternately you could use ground beef, but this has a better result)

2. In a large pot, brown the beef in 1 Tbsp oil, then set aside. In the same pot, cook the sliced onions and garlic in the remaining oil until golden. Sprinkle in 2/3 cup plain flour and cook for 1 min.

3. Return the meat to the pot with the onions.  Add the Schwarzbier and beef stock, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover the pot, and simmer for 1 1/2 hours until tender.  Uncover and continue to cook until sauce has reduced and thickened.

4. Preheat oven to 200°C (390°F).  Spoon beef mixture into ovenproof ramekins. Cut out circles of the puff pastry to cover - size should be slightly larger than the top of the ramekin. Press pastry firmly onto dishes and seal. Brush with the beaten egg, place on a tray and bake for 25 minutes until golden.

I often make larger batches to freeze. After step 3, wrap in plastic wrap, then in foil to freeze. Make sure to thaw fully before cooking.

Pine Nut Tartelettes – from Tartelette

This one works exactly as written...it will seem that the dough will never come together, but in the end it does work and is worth the effort!

(If you haven’t discovered her blog yet, head on over there….the recipes always work out perfectly and the pictures are beautiful!)

Car Crazy

Germany is definitely a car culture.  It is one of the few countries in the world where you still bring your car(s) into the shop twice a year to switch from summer to winter tires.  Most all-seasons are good enough for normal driving even in snow.  Here, however, they want to squeeze every last bit of performance from their vehicle, despite the fact that the extra set of tires costs $750 or more, plus $100 in service each time they get them switched.  (Note:  In some places, they have laws that if you get into an accident in winter without winter tires on, you might automatically be at fault!)

But this post is really about my favorite car reviewer, Dan Neil.  He used to write car reviews for the LA Times, but now is with the Wall Street Journal.  He's won a Pulitzer, and it's easy to see why -- he combines humor, social commentary, and actual auto knowledge into reviews that are just plain fun to read.

His all-time funniest review is about the Corvette ZR1 ("Burning the world's oil for a good cause").  Really worth the read.
Don't believe me?  Here are some of my favorite exerpts as a taste of his writing:

Acura RDX:
...I suppose Acura's new crossover SUV could be better. It could, for instance, run on recycled Victoria Secret catalogs or the renderings from Star Jones Reynolds' recent weight-loss program. It could fairly reapportion congressional districts every time you turn the key or make sure Steven Seagal never-never-never makes another blues album... Is it well made? Are Oprah's diamond earrings real?

 

Audi Q5:
The most astonishing thing about my time in the 2009 Audi Q5 was that I actually took it off road, with dirt and everything. Granted, I was in the Brentwood neighborhood of West Los Angeles, where the creeks burble with Bollinger and raccoons wear rhinestone collars. Nonetheless, for most buyers in the compact luxury sport-utility segment, my little excursion on a home construction site might as well have been crossing the Gobi.

 

BMW 135i:
Let's begin with a verity, an undeniable truth that is evident from 3 feet away or from the cold distance of outer space: The new 1-series BMW is ugly. Seriously ugly. Ugly with X-wings locked in attack formation. Spare me your E.H. Gombrich or Helen Gardner. I know an ugly car when one blows past me at 100 mph.

 

Chrylser Town & Country:
...the 2008 Chrysler Town & Country Limited just might be the sexiest vehicle a man could ever drive.  This 2 1/2 -ton pachyderm, with window shades and the Cartoon Network on satellite TV, is sexier than a Ferrari. If [females] are heeding their instincts at all, they are looking for a man with patriarchal bearing... So the next time you have a blind date, roll up in the Town & Country minivan and just listen to the biological bells go off... And, not insignificantly, the thing goes like stink. Our tester had Chrysler's 4.0-liter, 253-hp V6 buttoned to a new six-speed transmission. Hang on to your juice boxes, kids.

 

Mini Cooper JCW:
The BMW-built 2004 Mini Cooper is not a perfect automobile...The back seat is the automotive equivalent of a spider hole in Tikrit. The ride is rough enough to disqualify you from future organ donations... But the Mini turns the most galling stop-and-go errand into an occasion for joyous gear-jamming and games of Diss the SUV...With its turning radius of a mere 34.2 feet, the Mini is brought to you by the letter U, as in U-turn. See a parking place on the other side of the street? You are on it like Snoop on a fatty.

 

Lexus IS-F:
This car started life as a Lexus IS350...then it got rabies...The IS-F is equipped with an EIGHT-speed automatic transmission, in which the gear ratio intervals are very evenly spaced. Eight speeds happen to correlate to eight notes of the diatonic scale -- do, re, mi, etc. If you hold the throttle and speed steady, and you shift up and down with the shifter paddles, you can actually coax simple melodies out of the stacked-pipe quad exhaust, for instance, "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." And, yes, I get paid for this.

 

Honda Accord:
I was sitting at a red light when they rolled up beside me, the guy riding his Suzuki Do-Me 8000 with his hot female companion on the back, her thongage pouring out of her low-rise jeans. Her skintight ballistic-armor motorcycle jacket was unzipped down to her navel.  As I sat there in the Amana-white 2008 Honda Accord EX-L sedan, she looked over at me. I knew what she was thinking. She wanted me...And why wouldn't she? The Honda Accord ska-reams confirmed heterosexual. This car ought to be issued with a complimentary pair of relaxed-fit dad jeans... To own this car is to be possessed with an inexplicable urge to trim hedges.

 

Mercedes CL63:
Let's assume there's a bright side to the universe, a place where mercy and justice prevail, where the good are rewarded and the bad punished with equal alacrity. On this sunny shore, public school teachers make six figures, all stray kittens find good homes, and yard gnomes never get their little ceramic heads caved in.  Do not look for the Mercedes-Benz CL63 AMG there.  A veritable neutron star of gas-burning evil, [it] has the power to corrupt, oh yeah, absolutely. I honestly believe if you loaned this car to Ralph Nader and Ed Begley Jr. for the weekend, by Sunday night they'd be doing doughnuts in a Ralphs parking lot.

 

Subaru Forrester:
It is in the land of the ice and snow that Subaru has made its name. With the rather embarrassing exception of the Subaru Baja, this is a Snowbelt brand, a brand for literature professors at the University of New Hampshire; for women's studies majors at Cornell, and their girlfriends; for log cabin-dwelling, geothermal-energy start-up entrepreneurs in eastern Oregon who think that plaid Woolrich jackets are evening wear and that Trader Joe's Two-Buck Chuck is grand cru.  Smart people. Interesting people. And Canadians.

 

Porsche GT2:
You may recall from your psychology classes the name Harry Harlow, a controversial researcher known for his wire monkey-surrogate mother experiments. One group of baby rhesus monkeys was taken away from its mothers and given a maternal figure made of terry cloth; another group was given a figure made of just bare wire. These experiments demonstrated the famous Harry-Harlow-was-a-toolbag principle.  In Porsche's laboratory, the new GT2 -- stripped utterly to its essentials -- is the wire monkey. To love the GT2 is to embrace its malign indifference to your well-being... The GT2's lightweighting program concludes with ditching the rear seats, tossing out all the sound-deadening material, stripping some interior panels to bare carbon fiber and supplanting the front seats with leather-lined carbon shells padded with . . . well, nothing. The resulting car is 225 pounds lighter than the 911 turbo and is about as cozy as an MRI machine.  And yet I find it hilarious that Porsche, having thus perverted the car's power-to-weight ratio, chose to retain the two swing-arm cup holders. This begs the question: What the hell is in the cups?

Time for an iPad?

I’ve never been a first adopter and I’m content for now with my lightweight Kindle.  

But the kitchen makes me want an iPad. Specifically, this guy’s kitchen  

I wish I’d had one when I bought artichokes for the first time and said “what the %”#@ do I do with these?” Much more convenient than running to the computer to Google “how to cut artichokes” or writing down recipes on paper…and possibly watch a movie or TV while cooking.  When they invent the perfect create your own cookbook app, that might make me take the plunge.

And the low-tech version…

Late Night Shopping Festival

At the end of September, we did something highly unusual in Germany…we shopped at night.  Yes, once a year in central Munich, it's shopping till midnight.

Because the food generally is fresher and has fewer preservatives here (I’m a big fan of that!) and the refrigerators are the size of an average college student’s dorm fridge (not a fan!), you’re at the grocery store/baker/butcher pretty often.  All of which close by 8pm and on Sundays. So, there’s usually a mad rush at 7:45pm to hunt and gather dinner.  That leaves Saturday as shopping day for all your other wants and needs. (I won't even try to describe the chaos of a Friday night when Saturday is a holiday!)

But one night a year, Munich residents can go out for dinner, drinks, and THEN go shopping.  Even better, it’s basically a giant block party so we can do all three at once! With bands, beer gardens, fashion shows, circus acts, and of course portable ATMs since many places do not accept credit cards.

Acrobats above the cosmetics department at Ludwig Beck

I’m not sure why the merchants don’t ask for this more often…nothing helps stimulate consumption like mixing beer gardens and shopping.  Obama wants the Germans to buy more? Talk to Angie about having more “Culture – Shopping Nights” in Germany! 

But this night is more than just later closing hours...it's an event, a real festival to celebrate this ordained breaking of the rules! There are bands, entertainment at many major stores, and outdoor beer gardens. Really, it's a big block party, but with a set schedule of events.  The crowds were quite impressive and in late September you never know if this will be the last warm day of the year or not.

The highlights:

“Authentic American Music” (acoustic country and bluegrass) at Ludwig Beck department store

Cuban and “Fiery Salsa” at the bedding store

“Modern Nostalgia” with lounge music and a vintage VW bus at the Eyewear store

And at the womenswear store, a capella cover versions from Elvis to Michael Jackson.

And “Cowboy and Cowgirl Feeling” with a Bull-riding competition at the denim store

Truly something for everyone…

I've learned to find most of the things I need here, but whenever someone asks me what I miss from home, the answer after "friends and family" is "Wow, I miss going to Target at 10pm and loading up the car with a month's worth of supplies and groceries."  Alas, today you find me walking to the store almost daily and carrying it home in environmentally friendly reusable fold-up shopping totes. But at least I have some cool shopping bags - and, for the record, I never make Herr J carry the pink Hello Kitty one. 

UPDATE:

Apparently Dresden has us beat, by taking it one step further and having an annual Sunday Shopping Day...oh, the heresy....and I so want to go!

 

The Company Doctor

At times, the cultural divide between the U.S. and Germany can be amusing, frustrating, or just plain interesting.  Recently, however, I felt like it could almost kill me.

There is a distinct cultural difference about how to deal with an illness – specifically, going to work and going to the doctor.  At least in my experience, workers in the U.S. show up for work when they are moderately ill.  You don’t want to spread the illness around, but you do duty and try not to burn sick/flex days.  Plus, you figure that you’ll probably shake the bug in a few days and tough it out.  If you don’t get better (or possibly get worse) over a few days, then you might take a day off and probably go to the doctor for some medicine.

In Germany, the orientation is completely the opposite.  If you are feeling the slightest bit unwell, by all means stay home from work (or go home early).  Call the doctor immediately and get an appointment… because he/she will give you a written order stating you must stay home (legally binding, and probably adds an extra day or two) and you can make sure the Black Plague has not returned.  I would love to see statistics on sick days taken between the U.S. and Germany… but Spiegel.de does have a funny take on the matter.

“Unable to Work Certificate” that German doctors sign for workers

Backtrack:  Frau A and I cooked dinner for German friends last weekend:  my colleague, his wife (expecting twins in November), and their 3-year old daughter now in “kindergarten”.  The little one, of course, is bringing home all sorts of new and exciting colds from the other kids, and I caught something.  No problem… just hang in there a few days and get through it.  I chugged water, downed lots of vitamins, and got to bed early every evening.  Nonetheless, after three days my chest was still really tight and I had one of those coughs that completely prevent you from sleeping.  I got 2 hours sleep for three straight nights (and was tortured by German late night television, so started a new book).  Not getting better, I went to the doctor on the Siemens campus.  Enter the cultural divide.

The doctors assumed that I just started experiencing the symptoms.  So their recommendation?  Sit ten minutes with an infrared lamp (looked like a radar gun) heating my chest and neck.   See my Blackberry photo below.  You can see the infrared lamp, the timer bar to the left, and the red glow on the wall and chair!

Infrared light treatment 

After the “infrarot-therapie” I spent another ten minutes inhaling steam from a mask connected to something looking and sounding like an aquarium pump.  It emitted Darth Vader sounds, which were pretty cool.

Inhallation treatment 

Then they gave me a couple of throat lozenges, smiled, and said “see you tomorrow for more infrared and inhalation”.  Huh?  Going on a week of an illness that was NOT getting better, I wanted some real medicine.  I realize these are legitimate treatment options, but not in this situation IMHO.

So I tried one more night – the “treatment” had no effect, of course.  No sleep at all.  So I went back again and they offered more French-fry lighting and the vapor-inhaler-thingy.  I complained, but they were adamant that you apply homeopathic remedies first.  I complained louder (Germans always say no at first – keep trying) so they relented a bit and gave some prescription medicine to help the coughing, but would not go to antibiotics.

Let me say more directly – this is the difference between what I got, and what I wanted:

Hint for readers under age 30: "Aloha, Mr. Hand"

So I will head home again tonight and hope this works.  If not, then tomorrow they will (hopefully) prescribe antibiotics.  If I had gone to the doctor on day 1, things would have worked much better.  There are, of course, some German doctors that will take more aggressive treatment, and I’m not saying that the U.S. way is better.  You just need to understand a system to be successful in it.  Hope I survive another evening to try again.

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It is now two days later, and things are somewhat better.  The stronger medicine to loosen up the chest and stop coughing was pretty good, so they think I’ll get through without antibiotics – but they admit that it would be totally gone by now if they had prescribed them right away.  Good enough to actually look forward to the weekend. 

Also, I did a little research and the steam inhaler and infrared light are legitimate therapies… I guess I need to learn to start these right away to try and prevent whatever bug from getting worse.  But guys are never that logical.

It appears that I am not the only one with interesting experiences with Germans and illness:

-   Germans can “schedule” their sick time

-   UK averages 7 sick days per year compared with Germans averaging 8.4 (20% more)

-   Germany are getting more clever and having doctors keep them away from work due to stress

One more cultural learning:  when I’m ill and really need to sleep, I turn to Nyquil (and take more than the recommended amount).  This is not available in Germany (the equivalent is prescription) so I always return from the U.S. with at least 2 bottles, hoping they will last.  This time, of course, I ran out.  Frau A recommended the “southern Nyquil” elixir, that comes in various forms:

           

I must admit this concoction did help.  I see it on the Web with Jack Daniels or Makers Mark, and I would guess SoCo would work too.  Unfortunately, I had left my scotch at Frau A’s place – we had a scotch tasting with some friends and I never brought it back.  So I turned to cognac as the base, and it went down quite smoothly.  It’s not a pure cognac:  the Remy Martin website describes Coeur de Cognac as an “elixir” with essence of apricot and pear.  Works for me.  I’m not a huge cognac drinker, but this is a good middle ground and I like it even when not coughing up my lungs.  Give it a try.  I did try it with traditional German/Austrian schnapps, and recommend against this alternative unless you have a titanium esophagus.  Schnapps in Germany & Austria is NOT like that in the U.S. – no sugar added at all – this is on the back burner for another post… until then, “gute Besserung”.

                                                           

The Company Cafeteria, Part II

Frau A and I recently met up with a friend of mine from high school.  Her sister lives in Germany, and she & her husband were visiting the sister's family and traveling around southern Germany, Switzerland, and France.  We had dinner at one of the nicer Bavarian restaurants in Munich, Wirtshaus in der Au.  Thanks for stopping by, Heidi and Chris!  (Great German names, BTW)

Our dinner together was a reminder that the first German corporate cafeteria post deserves a follow-up.  Here are some more offerings from the office food service.

One common item in colder weather is the "eintopf mit wurst".  This is a bowl of lentil soup with two frankfurters thrown in.  A German food site has over 50 recipes for this!  It can look a little mushy, and tends to be a bit bland, but with a little salt, pepper, and maybe paprika added it's pretty good.  Perfect for you low-carb dieters too.  You just get a strange feeling cutting up a hot dog with knife and fork... in soup.

Unfortunately, the "wurst" in the soups is not the highest quality in a corporate cafeteria.  And it is not bratwurst, but just a standard hot dog style weiner.  No grill here either.  Boiled.  See them floating on the left here:

The above photo is also a warning about a typical mistake in Germany.  If you order "Pizza Pepperoni"  over here you will not get the pizza you expect.  Pepperoni means the vegetable, not the meat.  You will get what you see above, a cheese pizza with a long green pepper on it (or a bunch of smaller ones).  You need to order "Pizza Salami" instead (although they do put salami on it, not the pepperoni style used in the U.S.).

Then there is leberkäse, or shortened to leberkäs.  It's the German meatloaf, made with pork instead of beef, so it looks and tastes completely different.  It is typically Bavarian comfort food, found at every train station (a slice of it is eaten in a roll with mustard), and often even served for breakfast!  In my experience, quality varies greatly (like meatloaf, I guess) but I think there is a reason that the Germans eat it with a lot of mustard, if you know what I mean...

Need something with your leberkäs?  Looking for big and starchy?  Go right for the knödel.  It's a mammoth dumpling -- usually potato but can also be bread-based.  You will need some kind of sauce to add moisture and get it down, that's why it often accompanies roasted pork dishes that come with sauce, like schweinebraten.

Finally, I need to end with something positive: another photo of bienenstich.  Love it.  In the first post it was a stock photo from Wikipedia.  This time, they were serving it in the cafeteria and I grabbed one.  Didn't last long...

Haute Cuisine du Drive Thru

Check out this fun site where Erik Trinidad at Fancy Fast Food recreates fine dining entirely from items found at various fast food chains.

No idea how they taste, but they look quite impressive!

His repertoire is extensive (and strangely makes me use French words that made it into the English language)....a few favorites:

A beef carpaccio from Arby's (the Beef C’Arbysscio)

an Ossobucco creation from Burger King, the Osso BuKko

 

His descriptions often match his creations in their humor and creativity. In describing how to make the Soniccian Borscht, he writes:

Soniccian culture still hasn’t evolve from some of its former Soviet routines; one can not simply buy these fast food goods off the shelf or by ordering them from a person behind a counter. Instead you must order the items the old-fashioned way, by pushing a button on an antiquated intercom system while inside your vehicle. (At certain times during the day, there are often long waits in a long queue of other vehicles.) This ordering process is prevalent in Soniccia; even if you wish to go on foot and walk to the food establishment to buy goods, you must still push a button and order from the old intercom system. Only when your order is confirmed over the speaker does a person bring you your items — sometimes (but not always) using vintage roller skates from the early 20th century. Present day Soniccia is truly a unique nation with its cultural idiosyncracies.

I'm craving a little Chicken Chipotlioli....Enjoy!