mamas zwiebelkuchen (mama's onion tart)

i have rarely seen my mama cook anything according to a recipe and when i asked her about helping me with the zwiebel (onion) task for todays foodblog event she again improvised herself away.


man, i almost had to write in shorthand! mama was so quick throwing this thing together although she has not made anything like this before, can you believe that?! she suggested to make a "zwiebelkuchen" with some sort of a pizza crust and a quiche filling. gosh, that lady can improvise! apparently mama knows what the final dish will taste like just by combining the ingredients in her mind!

i was incredibly busy with taking pictures and keeping up with "a pinch of this and a pinch of that" - the only thing i could offer to help with was doing the dishes afterwards ... and eating the onion tart (pie?), of course! so with this post you'll get the german version of the recipe and a photo(love)story as well.

für den teig:
250 g weizenmehl in eine schüssel sieben, mit 1 päckchen hefe, salz, 50 ml öl und 125 ml lauwarme milch hinzufügen, alles miteinander vermengen und etwa 5 minuten zu einem teig verarbeiten. den teig an einem warmen ort so lange stehen lassen, bis er etwa doppelt so hoch ist, ihn dann nochmal durchkneten und auf dem mit butter oder margarine gefetteten boden einer springform (kasserolle) ausrollen und die form bis zum rand mit dem teig auslegen.

für den belag:
500 g zwiebeln abziehen, würfeln. 1-2 eßlöffel butter oder margarine zerlassen, die zwiebelwürfel darin glasig dünsten lassen. 1 eßlöffel weizenmehl mit 3 eiern, 2 bechern saurer sahne (etwa 300 g), kümmel und salz verrühren, mit den zwiebeln vermengen, die masse gleichmässig auf dem teig verteilen. 50 g durchwachsenen speck in würfeln schneiden, über die zwiebelmasse streuen, den teig nochmals an einem warmen ort für 15-20 minuten aufgehen lassen, die form erst dann auf den rost des vorgeheizten backofens schieben und auf 200 °C für ca 30 minuten backen.

and now the english version

for the pastry:
sift 250 g flour flour in a bowl and add a small pack of instant yeast, a pinch of salt, 50 ml oil and 125 ml lukewarm milk. make a firm dough and knead for about 5 minutes. let the dough rest in a warm place until it has doubled in size. knead again and roll out to fit either a casserole or a pie plate. make sure to trim pastry even with the edge of the casserole or pie plate.

for the filling:
clean and dic 500 g onions. melt 1-2 tablespoons of butter or margarine and fry the diced onions. in a bowl mix 1 tablespoon of flour with 3 eggs and 300 g sour creme, caraway seeds and salt and finally add the mixture to the fried onions. again stir well and spread the mixture evenly on the pastry in the casserole or pie plate. dice 50 g streaky bacon and sprinkle on top of the mixture. let the pastry with the filling on top rise again for another 15 to 20 minutes in a warm place then put in the oven and bake für about 30 minutes on 200-250 °C.

i really hope i got everything right. this woman is a very fast cook! and the onion tart was gone in the blink of an eye too! my grandpa, my aunt and my cousin and his wife (as well as their children) all wanted to have a taste. do i have to mention that i am really honored to be the daughter of the best cook in the family? she truly took over the wheel from my late grandmother. you can send fanmail to herta@haunschmid.biz ;)

technorati tags: zwiebeltag, onion day

the kitchen thing

okay, this will be a post not really related to food.

the other day, vasilisa from where is my dinner mentioned the ikea restaurant ... i am a huge fan of the food there, actually! since i sold my car i don't have the opportunity to go to my local ikea as often as i wish i could, but my mama, my sister and me have scheduled an ikea-date for next monday. i am so looking forward to this!

and who would have thought! i even have quite some money to spend this time! i am currently finishing my bachelor's degree in art and apparently i am a pretty good - i was granted a merit university scholarship (something like a merit bonus). now i can finally buy an essential piece of furniture: a BED! ever since i moved out of my shared flat two years ago i have slept on a mattress on my bedroom floor. and i did not even mind. i am more the student-type (despite i am 31 now) and i live a pretty low key life. i don't need a posh space to live, chrome faucets or mahogany sideboards - just any cosy old building will do.

one big disadvantage of my building are the crooked walls with no single right angle in my entire appartement. that will definitely drive you crazy if you want to hang shelves or if you want to mount wall storage in the kitchen. thank good i am totally into crafts, i sometimes have to be very creative if i have to come up with some emergency "this does not stick to the wall" - plan.

i really love my flat. you can't even tell that i have to live on a budget and that most of the furniture is rather cheap. it is really charming.

i'd love to be able to afford a new kitchen though. i have very little storage space and virtually no work space, this can be a bit of a hassle sometimes. the room layout itself is also a bit weird, since this large room contains kitchen, dining space, workspace and living room. i always gaze at the lovely displays at ikea (especially the "one room solutions") where they seem to be able to combine all the living space you need in a fassionable and affordable way. this is like furniture porn (or even more kitchen porn, since i loooooove to check out the kitchen departement at ikea)!

right now they have a contest at my ikea where you can win your dream kitchen.
of course i did enter the contest!
the only thing i had to do was design my dream kitchen with their kitchen planner:


i can soooooo see myself cook in my dream kitchen! now i either win or i somehow need to earn
€ 2.899,28 to actually buy the kitchen i'd really like to own ... okay, that won't happen. so i just have to win it.

cooking with the queen bee

since i will spend the next few days at my parent's house i am planning to bring in the woman who taught me how to cook and let me dearrange her kitchen like a thousand times: my mama! but she has no clue yet. so please don't tell on me! i plan on having her as a guest-chef or even a guest blogger! her english is really okay but she is a little shy to actually use it. well, we can work on the post together, don't you think?

she agreed to join me in some organic food-shopping on our local market next saturday (finally i got her interested in a more healthy way of living!) and she is always very keen on hearing what i cooked and posted on my blog. she'd love to have one herself but the only thing she can do on a computer is play solitaire.

she'll be so surprised when we kids give the parents a laptop and "the internet" for christmas!!

then she can finally read the food blogs i slobber over all the time!
she's already a little jealous about all my access to wonderful recipes and websites!

i tell you, she'll never play solitaire again!

i have to see (make, taste) for myself!

there is a hype going on in the foodblog world right now about this super-easy no-knead bread.

i think many other foodbloggers where shaking their heads in disbelief like i did, but by now i saw so many posts regarding the gorgeous results of this no-effort-recipe and i am convinced: i have to try this now. i have to pass the torch!

according to jim lahey of the sullivan street bakery in new york you only need water, flour, instant yeast, salt - and no tricks!

3 cups of all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon of instant yeast
1 1/4 teaspoons of salt
1 1/2 cups of water

... are the exact measurements. i always have that in my kitchen cupboard, so lets get to work. actually, i will let the yeast do the work over night. it should take me only a few seconds to throw the ingredients together.

check out the video of mark bittman (nyt) right here. and stay tuned. i will post the results in about 20 hours. maybe i will be one of the many people fascinated by the simplicity of the recipe and the lovely result.


all i have to do now is figure out how many °Celsius 515 °Fahrenheit are ... i can hardly wait until i come home from work tomorrow and finally bake this baby ... and join the hype of the blogosphere.

technorati tags: no-knead bread, bread

update:

this recipe seems to be really foolproof. when i came home from work today the dough had rested for about 20 hours and doubled its size. i was pretty impressed! yes i know, yeast does that to flour and water :) the smell of the dough when i lifted the cloth was a bit weird. it reminded me a lot of beer, actually. i was afraid that the bread might end up tasting like this too ... but it didn't.

one challenge i had to face was the baking itself. since my oven is not working propperly i had to stick the bread into my mini grill/oven-type of thing (which actually is half broken too ...). and since the capacity of this thing is very very limited i could not use a pot and a lid.


i placed the dough in my casserole and tinkered an aluminium foil "hat / lid / cover". that is very lame, i know. but look how perfect the bread came out after one hour on 235 °C (again, this damn mini grill /oven is not able to produce more heat)


perfect, don't you think?

it certainly tasted wonderful, a lot like ciabatta. and despite i am a big big fan of dark bread i really like this one and i will definitely make my own white bread from now on.

let me sum this up: you need flour, instant yeast, salt and water and it does not even seem to matter if you don't stick to the instructions religiously.

instead of a pot and a lid i used my casserole and some aluminium foil.
instead of 268 °C i baked it on 235 °C.

don't be scared to improvise!
be creative!
how much easier can it get?

... now let me get back to my light evening meal with my lovely bread ...

the parsnip, the ancient vegetable

well, you must be getting tired of me rambling on about newly discovered food. but i have another one for you. i am starting to think that my diet was very dull and narrow minded before i ordered this farm box, because now i discover something new to feast on every week. amazing.

maybe i am just such a creature of habit and i only ate what i always knew. there even is a saying here in austria about the stubborn breed of humans north of the danube: "was der bauer nicht kennt, ißt er nicht" -"the farmer does not eat what he doesn't know".

totally true.

we tend to blame this on the granite and its massive, hard and tough geological features north of the danube and the resulting hardship for local agriculture.

before i get off the point again i like to draw your attention to the veggie of the week: the parsnip! apperently this veggie was quite popular in mediaeval europe until the potato appeared. the parsnip then fell completely into oblivion. time for some research, don't you think? and once again i turn to wikipedia:

"The parsnip (Pastinaca sativa) is a root vegetable related to the carrot. Parsnips resemble carrots, but are paler and have a stronger flavor. Like carrots, parsnips are native to Eurasia and have been eaten there since ancient times. Until the potato arrived from the New World, its place in dishes was occupied by the parsnip. Parsnips can be boiled, roasted or used in stews, soups and casseroles."

(image from wikipedia)

so again i have to dive into the depths of the internet to find a decent recipe. i have quite some experience with root veggies, so making something cool should not be a problem. but then again, i wanted to experience the taste of the parsnip as pure as possible. so i went for an easy ...

parsnip au gratin (inspired by this recipe of stuffed parsnip on chefkoch.de)

275 g parsnip
1 carrot
1 small onion
1 clove of garlic
butter
40 g breadcrumbs
salt
pepper

1. clean and peel parsnip
2. cut off four large discs (about 3 centimeters) from the thicker end of the veggie and throw the rest of the root into a food processor
3. cut the discs into chunks and also cut the carrot into smaller discs
   
4. place in a casserole
5. finely chop onion and garlic
6. in a pan, heat some butter and gently fry onion, garlic and the rest of the parsnip.
7. after about 5 minutes add breadcrumbs and continue to fry the mixture.
8. spoon on top of the carrot and parsnip chunks, put a few knobs of butter on top and grill at 200°C for about 30 minutes
   

this can be a side dish, but for me it was the veggie-main course of my late lunch. i ate it with a colorful mix of corn salad and radiccio. the gratin-top of the dish might also make a good stuffing for meat. i have to try that out some time.


okay, there is not much of the "au gratin" left when you ladle it onto the plate, but: oh my god! the taste was just perfect! hearty and rich, very nuttily and a little like parsley, a little like carrot ... it might become a staple food in my kitchen.

flavour enhancers and food additives

for the most part of my life i did not really care what i ate. if i liked a particular product i did not at all care what the label said. while i was aware of some cancer-causing stuff in my preprocessed food, of flavour enhancers and of food additives (i like to call them "e-nummern"), i did not care at all. i ate what i liked and i ate it all up.

i have to admit that i am a very sateless person. and i am a creature of habit. i still am a bit of a careless eater today. if i discover a new taste that i like i usually stock up my kitchen cabinets with the product, fruit or vegetable and just indulge in the new flavour until i am totally sick of it.

that is stupid, don't you think?

but maintaining this foodlog has influenced me beyond belief. i broaden my horizon with every blogpost i read on one of my 300 favorite foodlogs. that might sound cheesy, but i honestly learn so much on my daily tour through the internet. new recipes, new ways of living and cooking ... ever tried to cook gluten-free? that is damn hard! while i don't have to deal with coeliac disease i am always inspired by foodies that cook in a different way. i highly admire that.

and i read labels now. one of my favorite condiments is "brathuhngewürz", flavoring for roast chicken.

when i rip open a pack and sprinkle it over my chicken, i always lick that stuff off my fingers because i think it tastes sooooo goooood. with an increasing feeling of guilt, of course. i have been looking into the subject of flavour enhancers and food additives and i am increasingly worried. i replaced lots of the things i eat with organic products, i make my apple sauce of real organic apples now instead of buying the jars. the jars of apple sauce that always taste the same. always.

i like variety now. i enjoy the different flavours and textures. i am really taking this organic lifestyle seriousely and a reduced waistline, way better sleep and feeling less drained are some of the great side effects.

but then again there are things like this flavoring for roast chicken. it contains monosodium glutamate, which supposedly is bad for your health. i don't use lots of it, maybe i cook roast chicken every other month, but it still worries me. can i ever call my lifestyle "organic" when i cook with this stuff? it should be easy to reproduce because it only contains salt, paprika, garlic, pepper, marjoram and rosemary. i would ignore that monosodium glutamate, of course.

can you let go of your preprocessed things "poisoned" with the nasty flavour enhancers and food additives? well, for me that is really really difficult.

i forgot to mention that i am not only sateless but also bullheaded, stubborn and very obsessive when i get something into my head.

i already made some good changes in my life.
maybe i shouldn't worry so much.

stuffed onion

i am a real fan of food that makes your breath smelly :) it never occured to me that this affectation might be a problem until i once saw the sick look on my friend's face when i told her about the pleasures of garlic. we where just ordering doner kebap to go in a small turkish shop and she disgustedly asked me if i was ever worried about my bad breath after eating onions or garlic in public. well, i never really was! but from that moment on i always carried mints in my purse. thank good i hardly ever have to worry about my garlicky breath when i cook that stuff at home!

1 large onion
100 g swiss chard
50 ml teriyaki sauce
125 g rice

1. peel and slice top of onion.
2. bring 1 liter of salted water to a boil and add rice.
3. reduce heat, throw in the onion as well, cover and let simmer for 20 minutes.
   
4. wash swiss chard and cut into desired size.
5. in a saucepan heat teriyaki sauce and add the swiss chard. reduce heat and cover
6. make sure that the onion is tender when the rice is done. take out the onion and let it cool.
7. drain the rice and make sure to keep it warm.
8. remove centers of the onion and be careful to leave the shell intact.
9. chop centers and add to the swiss chard.
10. cook over reduced heat for a few minutes and add half of the rice.
11. mix thoroughly. the mixture should be rather sticky. spoon it into the onion and place on top of the remaining rice.
12. drizzle with teriyaki sauce.

i just wish you could stuff garlic. or i could try to stuff an onion with garlic! perhaps i should try to stuff an onion with altoids instead if i have plans for an evening with my thin-skinned friend!*lol*

technorati tags:stuffed onion, onion, swiss chard

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ever tasted an austrian central american tortilla española?

me neither.

but last week i had another cool new veggie in my farm box: the sweet potato. you should have heard my cry of joy when i saw it! because i have been sweet potato hunting here in linz for quite a while. no greengrocer in my area seems to have this central american veggie in their range of goods. how lucky am i to have it sent right to my porch?!

it is funny that the sweet potato is such a cryptical vegetable here in austria and a staple food in central america. is is becoming more popular these days though and people seem to know that a sweet potato is actually quite different from the potato we europeans know.

in my quest to cook this amazing batata i was browsing many recipes lately. originally i wanted to experience the taste of this new veggie as natural as possible. not to much spice, not to many other ingredients. should i make something like rösti? the purer the better, right?

but when i came across a lusty recipe of a remote relative of the rösti, i finally decided to make something inspired by the spanish omelette (tortilla española). i don't really know what a spanish cook would add to the basic recipe, but since i had some other stuff in my fridge i had to save from decay i accidentally made way more than just dinner for one ... and finally came up with a sweet potato tortilla served on a bed of salad.

150 g carrots
150 g potatoes
450 g sweet potatoes
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
4 eggs
75 g flour
salt, pepper, chili powder

(makes about 10 medium sized omelettes)

01 wash, peel and grate the potatos, the sweet potato and the carrots.
02 put them in a large bowl.
03 chop onion and garlic and add to the veggies.
04 add eggs and stir well.
05 if the mixture is too soft add flour to make it more smooth.
06 heat a little oil in a skillet and carefully spread the mixture over the bottom of the pan. i made little flat tortillas with a diameter of about 10 cm.
07 cook for about 3-4 minutes and flip once. cook another 2 minutes. the tortilla should be golden brown.
08 i then placed the mini tortilla on a bed of mixed salad.

i was a bit surprised that the mixture turned out so orange. i always figured the sweet potato is the same color as our potato. the tortilla tasted quite interesting and i still could identify the unfamiliar taste of the sweet potato. the taste of the eggs was quite dominant and maybe i should have taken less of them, but then again i killed to birds with one stone: cooking something remotely spanish for the first time and tasting a sweet potato for the first time as well.

i did put aside a tiny portion of the sweet potato and i fried it in a little butter just to experience a more pure taste. i have to admit that i am a bit clueless how i could use this new veggie in my kitchen but then again i suppose i won't get my hands on one of these babies anytime soon ...

technorati tags: sweet, potato, batata, tortilla

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