Alp Garfiun in Winter

It has almost become a tradition that we (my parents and any brother, sister-in-law, nieces and nephews that are around) take a horse drawn sleigh to Alp Garfiun on 26th December.

Pferdekutschen Flütsch

www.pferdekutschen.ch

www.garfiun.ch

Once there we eat a hearty Bünder Gerstensuppe with sausage, some Alpine cheese, Bündnerfleisch and Salsiz. I can't think of a better way to spend the second day of Christmas!

Some light, culinary Christmas reading

I've just started reading a new book and am thoroughly enjoying it:

Reise zum Geschmack by Christian Seiler

Seiler is clearly a well traveled man and enjoys food. The book is split into 12 chapters, each one representing one city, eg. Vienna, London, Naples, Munich, Istanbul... And each chapter is filled with stories about local foods, restaurants and food related experiences specific to the location. I highly recommend!

Trout again

Clearly I like to eat trout - it's pretty much the only fish I ever write about.
I recommend the trout dish they are currently serving at Restaurant Volkshaus in Zurich:

http://www.restaurantvolkshaus.ch/

The best burger of my life and other Geneva tips

I recently spent a couple of days in Geneva for the wedding of two friends of mine. The wedding was a culinary delight but I was so busy taking pictures of the wedding for the couple that the camera's battery was empty by the time dinner was served (luckily I wasn't the official wedding photographer!).
So all I have are a couple of links:

1) Dinner was at Les Bains des Paquis, which is part of the Lake Geneva Lido, where people swim in summer and go to the hammam in winter. They serve Champagne Fondue in their pop up restaurant during winter. Service is chaotic but the atmosphere lovely - the tiled changing cubicles serve as mini cloakrooms. And the fondue is one of the best I've ever had - the champagne makes it much 'lighter' than normal fondue. http://www.buvettedesbains.ch/pages/fondue.html

2) The wedding cakes (s - there were three huge ones, no chance that we could eat them all. Luckily we were given some to take home the next day, which we ate in the car while stuck in traffic between Geneva and Zurich...)

The wedding cake was definitely the best I've ever had! I'm not that into sweet things, especially not creamy, chocolatey cakes, but this one was a whole different story. It had one layer that tasted a bit like the filling of Kinder Schokolade and a lovely crunchy, very moreish layer.
It seems that the Chocolatier who made the cake doesn't have a website, so here a link with all infos: http://www.itaste.com/list/restaurant/de/geneve/christophe-berger-confiserie-patisserie.html

The day after the wedding we sat in Cafe Remor all day with people, food and coffee coming and going. They had the normal selection of bistro type food like soups, hot and cold sandwiches, salades, quiche, croque monsieur and a selection of burgers with special ingredients: lamb burgers, different chutneys and sauces, grilled peppers etc. All burgers were served in a poppy seed bun and with salade and baby potatoes. It was by far the best burger I've ever had!!!

http://www.remor.ch/

Thanksgiving III: a 10kg turkey and a whole lot of other stuff...

In preparations of our Thanksgiving Dinner Garrett and I spent the entire day in his kitchen, chopping, cooking, baking while chatting, listening to music and drinking Champagne... Pretty much a perfect day in my books...

Garrett was responsible for the 10kg turkey he had bought from an organic farm in Germany the day before. To keep it moist he stuffed fresh cranberries under its skin. It worked! Personally I find turkey a bit boring and it tends to be a bit dry. But this one was amazing! We also filled it with stuffing I made inspired by a recipe I found on Epicurious (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Chestnut-Prune-and-Pancetta-Stuffing-236422). The recipe uses chestnuts, prunes and pancetta. I also added some sausage meat. It was so good we couldn't stop picking it straight out of the turkey...

Garrett's 10kg Turkey

Stuffing

We couldn't quite decide what side dishes to make we had so many ideas, so we just made them all...
Gravy, cranberry sauce, green beans with fried onions, mashed potatoes, mashed butternut squash, sweet potatoes, brussel sprouts, kale with pinenuts...

Brussel sprouts

For the Brussels sprouts we friend onions, garlic,  bacon and parsley. The sprouts we cleaned and halved, mixed them with the onions, garlic,  bacon and parsley, put everything in oven proof dishes, poured some cream over everything and sprinkled Gruyere cheese on top. Then we baked the Brussel sprouts at 180 degrees until soft.

Sweet potato wedges

As the oven was occupied by a huge turkey we had to figure out a way to make other things without using it. So we cut the sweet potatoes in wedges and then briefly boiled them. We then fried them sprinkling brown sugar and drizzling honey on them.

Yorkshire Puddings

Finally we made Yorkshire Puddings, my favorite to go with roast dinners. And so easy to make - mix 500 ml milks with 3 eggs, 150 gr of flour and a pinch of salt. Leave to rest for half an hour. In the meantime pour a bit of oil in all the holes of a muffin tin and heat in the oven until piping hot. Pour a bit of batter into each hole of the muffin tin - not too much otherwise you'll get small, dense and uneatable puddings. Put back in the oven and don't open for 15 minutes - they should be big and fluffy and perfect.

I'm looking forward to next year's Thanksgiving! Until then I'll be cooking many a Sunday Lunch Roast!