My personal relation to traditional german food

I spent most of my life as an omni but I was a very picky child and teenager. I disliked most of the german sausages and even hated frikadellen. All those disgusting mayo flavoured "salads" like nudelsalat, kratoffelsalat and this like fleischsalat or wurstsalat scared me a lot. I kind of hated processed meat so I was a very bad german ^^. But quiet and other thing is, that my mother and grandmother are both passionate cooks and bakers even if my grandma doesn't cook or bake anymore but they itroduced me to german kitchen. My grandmother used to cook every sundays lunch for us as long as she was able to do it. She cooked things like "Königsberger Klopse", "Goulasch", "Rinderrouladen", "Kohlrouladen", "Reibekuchen", "Sauerbraten" and all those other roast, german kitchen is known for. She also prepared white asparagus when it was in season and was alwas very picky because she always wanted to find the best quality asparagus.
The dishes she made for herself at weekdays were more frugal but also traditional. She used to eat spinach with boiled eggs and potatoes, which I liked very much and she had lots of "Durcheinander"-style dishes with differnt kinds of meat. As a child i liked her fried pork chops and the beef soup. The beefsoup was always made with "Suppenfleisch", that's different kinds of cheap beef which noone would use to fry it or something but was nice in a soup even if it was fatty and soft. An other dish was "Hühnerfrikassee", a thick and tasty chickensoup served with cooked rice, which I will surely veganize in a few weeks. As a child and teenager I also traveled to the north of germany and stayed in munich for a couple of days so I was introduced to the cuisines of other german regions.
Well, this food can be gross and boring and sometimes it is quiet a pain in the a** to veganize some dishes.
The experiment during mofo made me think a lot about vegenazing meet dishes.
The challange is, that meat has it's own texture, taste, a lot of umami and fat and it provides you with raw protein, that is able to work as it's own binder.
When you try to veganize it and you what to fake this stuff autentically it's quiet hard.
I always want the texture the taste, the umami and the fat and that's the challenge for me but I will never give up to try because hey, I sucessfully faked an authentic bloodsausage without using any blood.
Let's veganize everything that's supposed to stay omni!
Do never lose the standart of doing it gourmet stile. I don't want to hear any of those food crisitcs and Antony Boudrains say, that our cruelty free food is inferior. I don't want Gordon Ramsay to cry because he has to try a vegan diet.
Vegan food is great, it's the healties choice of food you can get, it's peacefull, it's good for the environment, it's able to slow down the climate change and to stopp the hunger and it's even cheaper.
Tell me about the food that noone will be able to veganize!
After this project, I will be able to do it.
That's my way of fighting for a vegan world.

Königsberger Klopse

This dish is originated in east prussia (the eastern part of the German Empire before WWII) and it's named after Königsberg, a town which is now part of russia and named Kaliningrad, but it's a common staple all over germany. The klopse are normaly made of ground veal, stale bread, onions and anchovies. That's a lot of cruelty inside of these meatballs but I took the recipe for chickpea cutlets as an inspiration and created a recipe without anything related to small disgusting smelling fish or cute baby cows. The meatballs are simmered in a mixture of vegetable broth,white wine, an onion and some spices. After cooking the meatballs are removed from the broth and the broth is thickened with a "Mehlschwitze" (magarine and flour) and enriched with lovely, vinegary capers. Then the meatballs are going back into the enriched sauce and are served with simple cooked potatoes or plain rice. The combination of the soft meatballs, the rich sauce and the strong flavoures of the capers is just outstanding. It's such a perfect combination, that this dish even made me like capers when I was a young boy.

Königsberger Klopse

Ingredients:

For the meatballs:

1/2 cup of mashed chickpeas

1/2 cup of mashed firm tofu

1/4 cup of fine breadcrumbs

1/4 cup of chickpeaflour

1/2 cup of glutenflour

1/2 cup of nooch

2 tbs of vegetablestock powder

2 tbs of olive oil

1/2 medium siced onion, finely chopped

salt and pepper for seasoning and maybe a little bit of light soysauce or vegemite if you want it to be really hearty

For the cooking liquid:

1/2 a pot of vegetablestock mixed with two glasses of white wine

1 medium siced onion, pealed and spotted with 6 - 8 cloves

2- 4 bayleaves

4 allspices berries

4 juniper berries

6-8 whole peppercorns

For the sauce:

1/2 cup of capers pickeld in vinegar ( not the dry and salted ones)

1/3 cup of magarine

aprox. 1/4 cup of wheat flour

salt and pepper for seasoning



1. Mix all the ingredients for the meatballs until you've got a thick dough and mix in the gluten flour.

2. Make little, plum siced balls.

3. Bring the stock to a boil with all the other cooking liquids ingrendients, lower the heat to a temperature between low and medium. The luquid has to simmer slowly all the time. You have to avoid a rolling boil because it could make your lovely little meatballs fall apart and you'll end up with a soggy mix of mashed fake meat and stock.

4. Add the meatballs and cook them for about 1 hour to 1 1/2.(Try one of them after one hour...).

5. When completly done, drain the meatballs into a colander and save the remaining cooking liquid.

6. Heat your stockpot again and add the magarine. Wait until it has melted. Make a roux with the flour and some of the cooking liquid.
Season with salt, pepper and capers, add the meatballs and serve with cooked potaotes or rice. Some people seam to like pickeld beet roots with this dish but this is quiet unknow to me, maybe I've got to try it.

Jan im Sack mit Birnen-Apfel-Kompott (Pearl barley with compote)

Well, this was a friday lunch dish because it didn't use any fake meats.
"Jack im Sack" is a quiet unknown dish, which I found during me research on traditional recipes from my region. It's mainly the same amount of pearl barley and dried plums mixed and wrapped into a kitchen towel. Than it's cooked in boiling water for about one hour. After cooking it's topped with melted magarine and your done. As a side dish I served a compote made of pears, apples and a bit of cinnamon and sugar.
Served like this it was quiet bland and I not going to have it this way again. I found some sources that say it should be served as a side dish to acompliment a roast like "Sauerbraten". May be this is a better way to use it.

Himmel un Aed (Fried vegan bloodpudding with mashed potaoes topped with apples and onions)

Vegan WHAT?????

Yes, you're right this is vegan bloodpudding and it's so delicious.
The idea of a vegan bloodpudding came to my mind, when I tasted the iron drops my daughter had to take after she spent a few weeks at the hospital.
Well they tasted like blood and were vegan and the idea was born.
Now a few month later I just had some vegan iron pills but that could not stop my to do a little experiment. The kind of blood pudding a wanted to create first was "Panhas", wich is traditionally made out of the broth you've got after cooking some sausages on slaughter day (Ok, this sounds really really weird on a vegan blog but hey this is an all vegan recipe of course.). Some of the sausages tend to burst and you've got lots of animalparts you won't like to use for something als so this is, when the meat jumps into the game. You at some blood and bind everything with some buckwheat flour and you've got panhas.
Well, unforunately I couldn't find whole and bleeding fake pigs at the supermarket so I
had to do a little bit of inventing and substitution to do and here is the recipe:

Vegan Panhas

1 cup of firm tofu, mashed

1/2 cup of mashed cooked chickpeas

1/2 cup of mashed smoked tofu

1 1/2 cup of homemade vegetable stock, which should be heavy on leeks and onions and include some dried shitakes

1/2 cup of canola oil

1 big onion, chopped

2 tsp of hing

3 tbs of dark soysauce

2 tbs of vegetable stock powder

5 iron pills, grind them with a mortar

a good hand of chrused walnuts

3/4 cup of buckwheat flour

a pinch of salt

some pepper

1. In a big pot, fry the onions with the oil, the hing and the walnuts and add the tofus and chickpeas.

2.Add the stock along with the shitakes and all other ingredients eccept of the buckwheat flour and grind them with a food processor.

3.Put everthing back and add the buckwheat flour.

4.Cook on medium a while contantly stiring until it thickens a lot.

5. Pour into an oiled mold of your choice and let it cool down inside of the fride for a few ours.



Himmel un Aed

Irgendients:

3-4 medium siced potatoes, pealed, cooked and mashed along with some magarine and nutmeg

1 big apple, pealed, deseeded and sliced

1 big onion, sliced into rings or strips

some magarine for frying the apples and onions

a few pieces of vegan panhas

salt and pepper for seasoning

1. Fry the apples and onions with athe butter until caramelized and season with salt and pepper.

2. In a non-stick pan fry the panhas until it's crispy on both sides. ( You won't need any oil because the pnahs is fatty enough.)

3. Put the apples and onions on top of the mashed potatoes and arange the fried panhas near to it.

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.)

Veganer Speckpfannekuchen mit Salat (german savoury pancakes with smoked tofu and a simple salat)

This dish is as simple as tradtional. I made the recipe for savoury crepes from vegan brunch and sprinkeled some cubed smoked tofu on top. I served this with a some iceberg salat witch a dressing made of vinegar, sugar, salt, pepper and canola oil and half a finely chopped onion, which is the the kind of salat, that's served with fatty things like savoury pancakes or deepfried fish around here. Unfortunenatly I didn't manage to make some pancakes, that didn't break because I used a cheap non-stick pan but these pancakes were absoutely delicious and tasted closer to the non vegan original than I thought they would before I made them.
The german definition of a "Pfannkuchen" is quiet unclear. Some people make them as thick as an omlette and other people make them as thin as crepes or something in between those two ways and everything don't matter if sweet or savoury is called "Pfannkuchen", which literally translates as pancakes because "Pfanne" means pan and "Kuchen" means cake, but hey, there's no real translation for "Pfannkuchen". The pfannkuchen batter is never seweetened as it is often used for sweet and savoury pfannkuchen at one time. The most popular version of savoury pfannkuchen are the version I presented and plain ones, which are rolled up and filled with fried minced meat. The variety of sweet pfannekuchen is much bigger. People around here eat them with jam or nowadays with nutella and more tradiotional versions are plain ones with sugar or with sliced apples or bluberries, which are always fried inside of the batter. The last two one are tradiotionally beeing sprinkeled with a mix of cinnamon and sugar.
Back in 1910 these pfannekuchen made with wheat flour were an ocasional treat as wheat flour was expensive and people made there pfannkuchen with buckwheat flour, which I am also going to try next week. Today I am preparing a vegan bloodpudding, so stay tuned.

German Foul

I am a bit suprised right now because I searched for the correct translation of the beans I made, which are called "Saubohnen" or "Dicke Bohnen" in german, and found out that they are fava beans.
Oh my, how long did I search for some beans to make foul and found them at the turkish store where I shop every week. I pay about 60 cent for a small can of cooked "fava" beans there, which is still cheap for canned "exotic" beans in germany but on giant jar of these costs 55 cent at the ordinary supermarket. I don't know why I didn't find this out earlier but ok, it seems like this experiment about ancient german food is teaching me some lessons about how to get the irgendients for my next egyptian sandwich in december.
The fava beans went into a sauce called "Mehlschwitze",which I mentioned before ans were mixed with some lightly fried sliced onions. I served this with fried slices of my homemade potatodumplings and some friedchunks of the seitan, which was one of the edieable parts of my giant chew chew yuba goose.
The seitan tasted a bit plumlike, because it was close to the fillng of the goose but the fried slices of the dumplings and the beans were absolutely gorgeous.