Pickled cucumbers

A friend mine recently gave me a glass of home made pickled cucumbers. They were so good I had to have the recipe. I've made them a few times since and they're a huge hit! I eat them with everything: ham or cheese toast, burgers, cottage cheese...

Unfortunately I don't know which book the recipe is from, I just have a photocopy of the page:

 1) Slice cucumbers and onions into thin slices, layer adding sea salt to every layer. Cover and leave for a few hours. Drain liquid and rinse cucumbers.

2) Bring vinegar to the boil along with sugar, mustard seeds, clove, turmeric and salt. The recipe says to use malt vinegar. I can never find it in Swiss supermarkets so I use a mixture of apple vinegar and white wine vinegar instead.

3) Add the cucumbers and onions to the vinegar mixture.

4) Sterilise pickle jars in boiling water.

5) Put cucumbers into jars using a slotted spoon. Bring the rest of the liquid back to the boil and let it reduce a bit. Add it to the jars.

Et voilà, enjoy!

Market in Budapest

One of our road trip stops was Budapest. I went to a great market in Pest with a local friend.

 

Wonderful pickled things!

  

 We bought amazing Mangalica meat - woolly pig.

Trout, once again...

 During our road trip we stayed with friends in the Austrian countryside. While there my Dad caught some trout.

We floured it lightly and fried it with lots of sage.

And then ate it with potatoes and melted butter. The sage was beautifully crisp. Delicious!!!

Hamburg: Fischereihafen Restaurant

In Hamburg we were greeted by very typical weather: wind, grey skies, constant drizzle and low temperatures. After a day of walking around the city and taking a boat around the port in these conditions we went for a well deserved,  absolutely amazing and delicious dinner at the Fischereihafen Restaurant. It was one of the culinary highlights of the journey so far. Service was impeccable and very friendly, every dish was outstanding and prices were fair (EUR 70 per person for aperitif, starter, main, dessert, and two bottles of wine)

Tuna tartar on roasted black bread with soy sauce and ginger (I still dream of this!)

 

'Fischereihafenteller': smoked eel on scrambled eggs with herbs, crispy king prawn, tuna tartar, smoked salmon, herring in curry sauce

Lobster soup

 Freshly caught plaice with bacon and potatoe salad

 Scottish salmon filet with chanterelles and parsley potatoes

Truffel cheese with fig mustard

Lemon sorbet with Vodka

Semolina flummery with rum cherries and walnut ice cream

www.fischereihafenrestaurant.de

Munich II

Of course we had to have a proper Munich breakfast: Weisswurst, Brezn, süsser Senf and a Weissbier at the Restaurant Zum Franziskaner...

...followed by Kaiserschmarrn with Apfelmus and coffee!

www.zum-franziskaner.de

Road Trip: Munich

After a long drive along the beautiful Deutsch Alpenstrasse we arrived in Munich. One of the first places we visited was the famous Delicatessen Dallmayr. It left us quite speechless and very hungry! We felt like we were in 'Schlaraffenland'!

www.dallmayr.de

Road Trip!: Klosters

After months of waiting and planning and getting overly excited I finally set off on a road trip with friends yesterday. Our first destination was Klosters, where we went for a walk to Alp Garfiun despite the rain and fog.

www.garfiun.ch

After a fast paced walk we well deserved a platter of  'Bündnerfleisch, Rohschinken and Alpkäse' with some gherkins and a glass of red wine.

In the evening we grilled sausages in the fireplace. The sausages came from Macelleria Salumeria Fulvi on Schöneggstrasse 28, one of the best butchers in Zurich!

For dessert we had baked apples and a Zwetschgen Schnaps. Both came from Hof Blum in Samstagern where we had stopped earlier in the day to see 'The Garden of Forking Paths', an exhibition organised by Migros Museum. www.hofblum.ch We made a hole in the apples, stuffed it with butter and sugar, wrapped the apples in tin folio and left them in the fire for 15 minutes - delicious!!!