What is your favorite dish or snack?

[moshenaveh]

Hello Everyone,

Today I would like to raise for discussion and sharing one of my most favorite topics: Cooking! (food:)). Since I was 5-6 years old I started cooking. I was amazed by the ability to make the treats and the food I liked the most, on my own. Although my skills were quite limited at the time I really enjoyed cooking:). I didn't abandon this passion and over the last few years I took it one step further and started making  my favorite snacks (that you would usually buy in a bag) and finger food like:

Bissli- Spicy fried pasta

Falafel- Fried chickpea mixture 

Shakshuka- Tomato sauce with poached eggs 

Hummus- I think I don't need to explain this one:)

Sweet Potato Chips

Pita bread

I was even fortunate to conduct a virtual cooking workshop for approx. 200+ people and I was relived that the Pita bread came out just as expected :).

I'd be happy to share with you the recipes if you'd be interested :). But more importantly I would love to hear what is your favorite dish that you enjoy cooking or snack:).

[moshenaveh]

Hello!

As promised: 

Shakshuka (1-2 servings):

1. Slice into small pieces 2 small onions (105 grams) and put it on a frying pan with a nice layer of oil.

2. Turn on a small flame and let the onion fry slowly & mix in a flat small pot or a frying pan with a cover until they become brown but not burned (this should happen after 5-7 minutes, but if the onion is not brown and soft wait)

3. Add sliced half spicy green pepper (27 gram) & slice sweet red pepper (78 gram), letting it cook until the peppers are soft enough to cut with a spoon

4. Add 3 garlic cloves, chopped to small pieces

5. After 1 minutes when the garlic is also soft, add 4 (sliced to quarters) red soft tomatoes

6. Stir the ingredients & add two table spoons of olive oil

7. Add the following spices:

• 1/2 tsp. of salt
• 1 flat tsp. of sweet paprika
• 1 tbsp. of concentrated tomato paste

8. Continue to cook everything on low flame, stirring every 10 minutes or so and checking to see that everything is fine

9. After 1 hour approx. of stirring and making sure nothing is burnt, and reaching a texture similar to ketchup, turn off the flame.

10. Make 2 holes big enough to observe the egg with a spoon into which you will break two eggs, one in each.

11. Let everything cook until you start seeing the egg white become firm & then cover the pan to allow the cooking of the eggs to finalize

12. Remove it from the flame when the eggs are white and the yellow part is not too soft and not too hard

Best served hot and eaten with Pita and goes great with Hummus.

The most important things to keep a note of:

1. That the the onions are well cooked (be mindful of when you add each ingredient so you get to the right cooking level)

2. The sauce needs to have a texture of firm ketchup before you add the eggs. You brake each egg to its own hole in the sauce that you made with spoon. 

3. Feel free to add whatever (Greek cheese, Olives etc.) and remove the hot pepper if you don't like it spicy  

4. Make sure the tomatoes are soft

[manfredKlein]

Nice one, Sounds like a more elaborate version of my fridge with cheese recipe. With properly done onion and garlic (optional tomato, peppers and cheese) you can upgrade almost anything in the pan. I love the roasting flavors of those.  Leftovers are valuable ingredients.

[moshenaveh]

Indeed:) Making a proper dish from ingredients that you would normally dispose the next day is one of the things I enjoy.

[moshenaveh]

@manfredKlein What's your most favorite dish? What's the traditional specialty from your area?

[manfredKlein]

Favourite dish:

As a child: Spaghetti Bolognese.

As a young man: Steaks with vegetables.

As a loving husband: Everything my darling creates for me 💞.

Specialty of the area:

Depends on the point of view. Typical Bavarian/Frankonian is roast and dumplings. There are hundrets of variations of this. 'Sauerbraten(beef marinated in sour medium)' is the top runner in our restaurants. Typical of my home town is 'Coburger Bratwurst'. It's a quite long sausage with minced pork meat flame grilled on pine cones. Properly prepared it's cauterized all around yet still juicy inside. For this you need high temperature and proper timing. So if you fire up the (coal) grill, make the Brats first.

[moshenaveh]

The Sauerbraten looks delicious, especially on top of mashed potato.  I will try making it over the weekend and share how it turned out:). I saw one recipe with gingersnap cookies. Sounds interesting.

I love high quality sausages. I had a friend that had all the equipment you need to make those and they were delicious. 

[manfredKlein]

Making the perfect Sauerbraten is tricky. It's not like a, go to market buying stuff and b, prepare the meal at home. Noooo. You first have to ask your trusted butcher for the proper beef. For bringing natural tenderness the beef needs to be well hung(?)('**bleep** abgehangen'). Fresh meat tends to be too stringy. Marinating the meat is not just for a few hours. No, we are talking about several days. Never did this myself. That's just the theory. If anything goes wrong, the beef is lost. So don't rush this. Take your time reading what is needed for this.

The unique taste of this is not that hard to achive. What makes a masterpiece is when the meat melts like butter on your tongue.

Good luck. The sensation is worth the effort.

[manfredKlein]

Okay? The german word for good: Gee-You-Tea is bleeped out? Interesting.

[jerryjanda]

Well that's not good. We're still working out the kinks in the filters. I'll see about having that one removed.

--Jerry

[moshenaveh]

Now I'm even more motivated:) Thank you 

[MortenWittrock]

Thanks, Moshe - I'll give it a go 🙂

[moshenaveh]

Good luck:) Take into consideration a couple of hours of cooking

[norman]

My family loves this delicious recipe that we know as Eggs in Purgatory!

[moshenaveh]

Oh lovely!:) You can get creative and add different things:) Sweet Potato, Greek Cheese etc.

[DellSC]

My first thought when I saw this topic was around sweets - chocolate in particular:

• Homemade chocolate chip cookies
• Chocolate steam pudding (an old-fashioned "pudding" made in a double boiler.)
• Hot chocolate - which I always make from scratch, no powdered mix that only means adding water.

But after reading all of the awesome ideas above, some of my other favorite things to make:

• Bolognese sauce - except I make it with a mix of any two or three of the following:
  • Ground beef
  • Ground pork
  • Ground lamb
  • Ground turkey
• Dutch-baby pancake - it's like a large popover baked in a cast iron frying pan.

-Dell

[moshenaveh]

Thanks a lot for sharing and sparking my imagination:)

Sweets qualify for this thread for sure:) The Chocolate steam pudding looks soooo good! Do you have any recommended recipe? The Dutch-baby pancake also looks very special.

[DellSC]

I haven't had time to look for the recipe for Chocolate Steam Pudding, but I have the one for Dutch Babies memorized. 😋

Dutch Baby Pancake

Ingredients
1 Tbs butter
3 eggs
3 tsp sugar
3/4 Cup flour
1 tsp Vanilla
I sometimes also add some Almond Extract

Instructions

Heat oven to 400 degrees F.  While it's heating, put the butter in a 12-inch cast iron or other oven-safe pan and put it in the oven to melt.

Put the eggs in a bowl and beat well.  Add the sugar and vanilla and mix in well.

Add the flour and beat until smooth and bubbles start to form.

When the oven is hot, pull out the prepared pan and pour in the batter.  Bake for 20 minutes until puffy and golden brown.

If I put almond in, I'll usually eat it as is.  If I just use the vanilla, I'll spread it with lemon curd.  

-Dell

[moshenaveh]

Thanks a lot. I'll try to give a try soon.

[craigcmehil]

I went a bit overboard with some homemade cookies, chocolate chips, crushed Daim and cinnamon and sugar 🙂

[moshenaveh]

Yummy! Looks great 

[audreystevenson]

I have to say, this thread does nothing but make me hungry! Regardless of whether I just ate breakfast or lunch or whatever, the food you all are sharing just looks so yummy! I already printed out the shakshuka recipe and am eyeing the scones. I've been meaning to make my mom's Sauerbraten recipe, and this discussion may just have given me the push that I needed to actually do it. 😋

[moshenaveh]

Good luck! There's nothing like making your childhood favourite food. Looking forward to see the result:)

[manfredKlein]

Didn't know, that Sauerbraten is known outside of Germany. Wish you best of luck that it will get right. Bon appetit.

[audreystevenson]

Mom's German. 🙂

[former_member374]

Strammer Max 

One of my favorite little dishes and it takes only 30 minutes to prep. 

I grew up in Schramberg a small town in the Black Forest. My friends in school came from different villages surrounding our Gymnasium aka High School. I was about 15 years old, had no motorized transportation, and the Black Forrest Valleys were steep, really tough with our bicycles. So we hitchhiked everywhere. No big deal. 

One day I was visiting my Friend Juergen Biehlmeyer in Lauterbach. We hung out and he was getting hungry. “How about we cook a Strammer Max?”.

At home, we occasionally had Hawaii Toast, but never a fried egg on a baked ham and cheese sandwich. Juergen showed me how to cook a Strammer Max and I was sold 🙂 

I usually make two of these for a very satisfying meal. 

You need: 

• Ideally crusty bread 2 slices per person. 
• Triditonally Ham, Prosciutt works too. 
• Slices of cheese that melts. Traditionally Swiss, Gauda, .. I like to use a sharper one: Gruyere, Appenzeller if you can get it 🙂 
• One egg for every bread 

What you do: 

• Heat up the oven to 425F. 
• Toast the slices of bread. Bonus points if you toast the bread using butter in a pan.
  (That f a t is bad for you had been debunked, same with salt!) 
• Butter the toast and add your ham and the cheese on top. 
• Put it in the oven. 
• Panfry your eggs. 

(If you are using a cast-iron pan, heat up the pan hot before you even put in some Oil, I use coconut. Make sure that it is hot too, but not smoking. Add some real butter for taste. Crack the eggs into the pan and turn down the heat to medium/medium-low. 

• Salt && Pepper on top. Some paprika powder if you like and cut chives or green onions if you have. 
• Check the oven to see how baked the bread is. The cheese should blow bubbles and the ham start to brown on the edges. 
• Take the bread out and put them on plates. 
• Put the fried eggs on top and serve. 

Have a Hefeweizen, a cold Riesling, or a Trollinger with it, all good choices 🙂 

Make sure to use good knives that can cut through the crusty bread. One of the great culinary delights is to cut into the egg yok and it running over the crusty bread. The combination/juxtaposition of the crusty bread, the melted cheese, the running egg yok, the hot ham, … Mmmmh. So Lecker aka Yummy 🙂 

Variations: 

• California just add a sliced of Avocado between the ham and the cheese 🙂 
• Bavarian instead of the ham they use Fleischkäse (similar, but better than Spam). 
• Explore on your own: Tomato slices, fried onions, Blood Sausage, … 

If you make a Strammer Max, please share your experiences with it, especially later that night 😉

[moshenaveh]

Hello!

What a great read to start the day. It looks so good that I went to the fridge to check if I have the ingredients and unfortunately I don't :). Next time I'm in the supermarket I'll make sure this changes. I'll probably go for a unique version of Avocado, Cheese and fried onions or Pastrami (beef), Avocado and fried onion. I will share how it turned out:)

[jerryjanda]

For anyone who may have noticed another bleep: 
(That **bleep** is bad for you had been debunked, same with salt!) 

Please don't think there was an actual bad word here. The word in question was f-a-t. Seems our filters are working overtime trying to keep out the weight-loss spammers...which is why g-u-t also got bleeped out the other day.

We're working to loosen up the filter a little to make sure we're catching the offensive words while ensuring that an ongoing conversation about yummy foods doesn't continue to run afoul with our filters. 

--Jerry

[former_member374]

Wow, over-eager moderation algorithm. 
Is it the world of algorithms and we only live in them? 

Thanks for letting us know! 

[MariettaLopez]

I just love Japanese - Sushi. 

[moshenaveh]

I also love Sushi but more as finger food than a main course for dinner/lunch.

You can see below my attempts to make Sushi.

My main challenges were:

A. Perfect shape

B. Soft rice but not soggy

C. Cutting the roll without messing everything-up 

I watched a couple of good videos on YouTube and I learned the following tips:

1. Moist the knife before cutting the roll 

2. Don't put too much rice and ingredients as it will be hard to fold the roll and have tight and perfectly shaped Sushi

3. Rolling technique (you squeeze the roll multiple times when folding it) 

 I still need to improve my Sushi:)

[norman]

Moshenavah, do you use a bamboo rolling mat with a piece of cling wrap on top when rolling your Sushi?

[moshenaveh]

Yes, I believe I did (it was a couple of months ago)

[MortenWittrock]

I cooked this gluten and dairy free lasagna tonight, and it turned out really well, if I do say so myself 😄 That's vegan cheese sprinkled on top.

[moshenaveh]

Very cool. What meat did you use?

[MortenWittrock]

Organic ground beef. I make the meat sauce with a bit more fluid than I would usually (adding some soy milk), to compensate for the missing white sauce, so the whole thing doesn't get too dry in the oven.

[moshenaveh]

Interesting idea to use Soy milk. I often use Coconut cream when I make Asian chicken dish with Peanut butter. It's a great alternative for those that don't consume Milk or Milk and meat together.

[MortenWittrock]

We use a lot of coconot cream as well. It's delicious and a great ingredient.

[norman]

During the pandemic I started to cook a lot of what I thought of as international dishes. The first one I cooked was a Middle-Eastern dish called Chicken Shawarma, served on a pita bread with lettuce and tomatoes and this incredible yogurt sauce. It came out so good that my kids started call on Saturday to see what I was making that week for the Sunday family dinner. It took me a while to collect all the spices for many of the recipes, but now I have a well stocked spice rack. 

Here is a link to the recipe: Chicken Shawarma (Middle Eastern) | RecipeTin Eats

Chicken Shawarma

[moshenaveh]

Looks delicious. In Israel Shawarma (more in the past) is a popular street food. You can even buy in the supermarkets a mini turning stick ovens that you would see in the Shawarma shops.

Was it hard to find the Cardamon? In the middle east it is commonly used for Coffee but also cooking. My mother in law makes this amazing Lamb dish with it.

[norman]

Here in Tucson, Arizona we have Lee Lee's, a large International Market, so exotic vegetables and spices are easy to find. Your right, it's great with Lamb too. I use Lamb when I make Lamb Koftas, serve on pita in a similar way: Lamb Koftas with Yoghurt Dressing | RecipeTin Eats