Muzemandeln

Muzemandeln is a deepfried pastry coated with confectioners sugar, which is traditionally served during the carnival season.
The carnival season starts on 11.11. at 11:11 and ends on ash wednesday. The pastry is named after almonds becuase they look like them ("Mandel" is almond in german).
Here's the recipe:

Muzemandeln

375 g of wheat flour

150 g of magarine

3 generous tablespoons of chickpea flour

aprox. 3/4 cup of firm tofu, mashed with a fork

3 tablespoons of sugar

1 tablespoons of neutral tasting vinegar

2 tespoons of baking powder

falvour of your choice (vanilla, rum or else, i didn't use a falvour because you know 1910...)

canola oil for deepfrying

about 1/2 of confetioners sugar for coating

1. Knead a firm dough out of the irgendients for the dough.

2. Let it rest in the fridge for about one hour.

3. Roll it out as thick as a finger and take a tablespoon to could out almond shaped pastries.

4. Heat some canola oil inside of a falt pot or a pan and deepfry each side of the muzemandeln until it is golden brown. (This might take just a few seconds so be careful not to burn them.)

5.Coat with confectioners sugar when they are still warm and let them cool before eating.(Ok, they are great when piping hot and I know you're inpatient but to much of warm pastry will cause stomach pain.)

Sigara Böregi

Sigara Böregi is a turkish snack made of a pastry called Yufka, which is traditional filled with a special kind of feta cheese, paprika powder, dill or parsley or both. I created a vegan version with a tofu based filling and I like it even more, than I liked the non vegan version.



Sigara Böregi


Ingredients:

24 leaves of pizza-slice shaped yufka pastry (this might be hard to get, if you can't find a turkish grocery store, but you can also use phyllo-pastry which is quiet similar to yufka)

1 block of firm tofu, pressed

3 tsp of salt

1 hand of dill, finely chopped

3 tbs of paprika powder

1/3 cup of tahina

5 small cubes of fermented tofu

1 tsp of garilc powder

1/2 of nutritional yeast

some canola oil for deepfrying



1. In a bowl, mash the fresh and the fermented tofu with a fork.

2. Add all the other ingredients eccept the yufka and oil and mix well.

3. Place aprox. 2 teaspoons of filling on top of a yufka leave.

4. This is called CIGAR-böregi so you will need you cigarette rolling skills now. Try to roll the yufka around the filling like you would roll a cigarrette. If you want the version shown at a first picture or if you just have phyllo, than you roll it like you whould do with a springroll.

5. Deepfry inside of a pan with a lot of canolaoil until crisp.

Pav Bahji Springrolls

My idea was to create something between samsosas and springrolls.
But a classical samsosafilling would have been way too boring and a had to get rid of half a hokaido squash. Then a indian dish call "Pav Bahji" came to my mind.
It consists of a puree which ist most commonly based on potatoes with some added vegetables, which you spread between two toasted and buttered buns.
One good thing about this dish is, that you can add nearly every vegetable you have around to the squash puree, so it is very versatible . Instead of the squash you could also use the traditional potatoes, maniok, yams, raw green plantains, taroroot, lotusroot, sweet potatoes or what ever strikes your fancy and ist starchy enough to hold the fillig of the springrolls together. As I said before, the rest of the vegetables you're using is completly optional. This high versability makes this dish perfect to get rid of some leftover squash or potatoes an to clean up your fridge an freezer because you could use all the fresh and even frozen vegetables you have around.


Pav Bahji Springrolls

Ingredients:

1 package of 40 springrollleaves

1/2 hokaido squahs deseeded and cooked until mashy

1 hand of chopped caulyflower fresh or frozen

1 hand of peas fresh or frozen (maybe even canned if you have them laying around)

1 big onion

2 carrots

3-4 cloves of garlic

3 tbs tomatopaste

2 tsp black mustard seeds

2 tsp hing

1 tbs chilipowder (or more or less, depending on your taste)

salt for seasoning

1 tbs Pav Bahji Massala (substitute with garam massala or curry powder)

4 tbs canola oil or vegan gee + some canola oil for deepfrying



1. In a small pot, fry the mustard seed in the caonla oil or gee until they stard to jump around.

2.Finely chop the garilc, the onion and the carrots, and fry them with the mustard seeds and hig until the oinons start to get a bit brown on the edges.

3. Ad the tomato paste an spices and fry for an other 2 minutes.

4. Ad the chopped caulyflower and the peas.

5. Add the squash and lightly mash with a potatomasher.

6.Put two teaspoons of the filling to the middle of the end of a springrollleave ,roll it into the leave, folt the edges over the middle, roll until the end end seal with a bit of water.

7.Deepfry the springrolls and defat them on top of some papertowels.

Tofu-Schnitzel with german panroasted potatoes and krautsalad

Tofu-Schnitzel with german panroasted Potatoes and Krautsalat



While don't bein satisfied by the kind of vegan Schnitzel, which you can buy in stores here in Germany, I tried to create my own recipe and succeded after 3 trials.
Inspiration came from this blog entry http://justbento.com/handbook/johbisai/poached-frozen-tofu-fried-frozen-tofu-cutlets .
I changed the recipe a bit and converted the orgininal cutlets into breaded "Schnitzel"



Tofu-Schnitzel with german panroasted potatoes and krautsalad

Tofu Schnitzel


Ingredients:

1 piece firm tofu ca. 400 g freezed and defrosted

for the stock:

2 carrots

2 onions

1 bulb of garlic

1 tbs of olive oil

1 tbs tomatopaste

2 bay leaves

1 glas wine or sherry

some salt an pepper for seasoning

2 tsp of aseofetida, hing or whatever you call it

1 small piece of konbu-seaweed or one small bag of instant, vegan dashi-granulees

for the coatig:

1 cup of breadcrumps

1/2 cup of chickpeaflour

2 tsp tomatopaste

some salt and pepper for seasoning

2 tbs of nutritional yeast

1 package of instant, vegan dashi granulees

2 tsp of mustard or mustard powder

some water

the amount of oil, that you need to fill your pan for deepfrying


1. Cut the tofu into slices. You can decide how thick you want them to be.

2. Roughly chop the vegetables and roast thme until they get some nice bruning-marks.

3. Ad hing, tomatopaste and spcies and roast for one minute. Pour in the wine and half a litre of water.

4. Add konbu or dashi.

5.Cook the mixture for 10 minutes, cur down the heat to very low and ad the frozen tofu slices. Poach the slices for 20 minutes.

6. While the tofu is poaching mix all ingredients for the coated (not the breadcrumbs) with some water until it looks like a thin cakedough.

7. Spread each, the coating mixture and the breadcrum on one plate an spread ist nicely.

8. Take the cliced tofu out of your stockpot an try do dry the surfase with some papertowel.

9.Coat the sliced tofu with the coating and the breadcrumbs.

10.Deepfry the tofu-schnitzel on each side until they turn golden brown.

11. Defat the schitzel with some papertowels and you're done.


Bratkartoffeln (german panfried potatoes)

These poatoes called Bratkartoffeln are a tradional staple all over Germany. Everyone likes them and there are lots of recipes for them. Some traditional recipes call for thick cubes of bacon or want you to fry the potatoes in lard but I think, that even the most die-hard-german-omnivores around here would not use lard for these. If you want them to be a bit smoky you could at a bit of liquid somke oder some smoked paprika to them.

Ingredients:

2 hands of medium siced potatoes

2 medium siced oninions

2 tbs of canola oil

salt, pepper and some caraway seeds for seasoning


1. Boil the potatoes along with some salt for 20 minutes or less.

2. Drain the cooked poatoes thruogh a siff and let them cool down to room temperature. (You may want to cook them in advance of use some leftover potatoes to cook this dish in less time.)

3. Peel the cooked potatoes or leave them unpeeled and cut into medium thin slices ( 1 to 0.5 cm).

5. Peel the onions and cut them into very thin rings.

6. In a non-stick or cast-ironpan heat the oil and and the caraway.

7. Ad the slices potatoes an onionrings.

8. Fry until golden brown and try to turn them around as littel as you can because otherwise they may fall a part and you end op with some oily, crunchy,semyfried mashed potatoes and that's not what you want.

9. Season with salt and pepper and arrange one a plate.