Beer and Cheddar Soup

It may not be German, and it's certainly not healthy, but this was one of the most delicious soups I've ever eaten.  Made by a special friend, it was put together with precision, to ensure that everything came out perfectly.  With ingredients like beer, cheddar cheese, cream, and bacon, I'm not sure how this dish could possibly be bad, but thankfully it delivered on flavor, where it lacked in nutritional value.  Highly recommend this at an Oktoberfest party, or on a cold winter's night.  And definitely look for smoked cheddar if you can find it - it makes a huge difference in the flavor.

Beer-and-Cheddar Soup

From Food & Wine, Contributed by Jonathon Erdeljac

• 1/3 pound piece of slab bacon, sliced 1/3 inch thick and cut into 1/3-inch dice
• 1 celery rib, finely chopped
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1 large jalapeño, seeded and chopped
• 2 large garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tablespoon chopped thyme
• One 12-ounce bottle lager or pilsner
• 2 1/4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 pound sharp yellow cheddar cheese, coarsely shredded
• 4 ounces smoked cheddar cheese, coarsely shredded
• Salt and freshly ground pepper
• Garlic-rubbed toasts, for serving

In a large saucepan, cook the bacon over moderate heat until the fat is rendered and the bacon is crisp, 7 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the bacon to a bowl. Add the celery, onion, jalapeño, garlic and thyme to the saucepan and cook over moderate heat, stirring, until softened, 8 minutes. Add half of the beer and cook until reduced by half, 5 minutes. Add 2 1/4 cups of chicken broth and bring to a simmer.

In a small skillet, melt the butter. Add the flour and cook over moderate heat, stirring, until lightly browned, about 2 minutes. Whisk this roux into the soup until incorporated and bring to a simmer. Cook until thickened, about 8 minutes. Add the heavy cream, cheddar cheeses and the remaining beer and simmer, stirring occasionally, until thick and creamy, about 5 minutes. Stir in the bacon and season with salt and pepper. Add a few tablespoons of broth if the soup is too thick. Serve the soup with garlic toasts.

The cheddar soup can be refrigerated overnight. Rewarm gently and thin with additional broth.

Spicy German Mustard

This mustard accompanies my soft pretzel recipe, both of which were made this past week for an Oktoberfest party.  I was amazed with how easy this process was - soak the mustard overnight in a few spices and vinegar, then blend.  Good lord, why have I been buying mustard at the store?  I know one reason - I hadn't felt like chasing down two different colors of mustard seeds until I decided that I had to try this, at least once.  And now mustard seeds will become a staple in my pantry, because I want to be able to make this at all times.

I thought this mustard was tasty - a bit tangy, slightly spicy, just a hint of sweetness.  I was expecting a darker, sweeter mustard, so I might tinker with this a bit to adjust the flavors to what I was hoping for.  But this was delicious in its own right, so I'm excited to pass this along to everyone with the pretzel recipe.

Spicy German Mustard

By Diana Rattray, About.com

Makes about 1 1/2 -2 cups

• 1/4 cup yellow mustard seed
• 2 Tbsp. black or brown mustard seed, heaping
• 1/4 cup dry mustard powder
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 1/2 cups cider vinegar
• 1 small onion chopped
• 2 Tbsp. firmly packed brown sugar
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 garlic gloves, minced or pressed
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. ground allspice
• 1/4 tsp. dried tarragon leaves
• 1/8 tsp. turmeric

In a small bowl, combine mustard seed and dry mustard. In a 1- to 2-quart stainless steel or nonreactive saucepan, combine remaining ingredients. Simmer, uncovered, on medium heat until reduced by half, 10-15 minutes. Try to be patient and cool the mixture as much as possible before pouring over the mustard mixture; it turns out that both heat and acid will dull the pungent heat developed by mustard seeds, but my guess is that heat will do it faster, while also killing a lot of the flavor.  From About.com:

"It is the chemical reaction between two compounds, myrosin and sinigrin, that combines to turn up the heat when the cells of the seeds are broken and mixed with cold water. "

So my suspicion is that the use of cold vinegar will allow for a slow reaction between these compounds for a while, but eventually it gets in balance, and can be kept refrigerated until the reaction peters out, yielding a stable final product.  If you want to experiment with this (and you can bet I do), try soaking two small quantities in water and vingear, pureeing both and tasting the difference.  I also plan to try experimenting with warm vs cool vinegar liquid poured over the seeds, as well as the total soaking time, to see if these things make a difference.

Anyway, let mixture stand, covered, at room temperature for 24 hours, adding additional vinegar if necessary in order to maintain enough liquid to cover seeds.  Process the seeds and mixture in a blender or food processor until pureed to the texture you like, which can take at least 3 or 4 minutes.  If it gets too thick after a few days, stir in additional vinegar.  Scrape mustard into clean, dry jars; cover tightly and age at least 3 days in the refrigerator before using.

Mustard, in 3 easy steps: 1: Mix up the vinegar with spices

2: Pour over the mustard seeds, and let sit for a few hours (up to 24).

3: Puree.

Soft Pretzels

Oktoberfest may have already come and gone, but to most Americans, they think it's still going through the rest of the month.  So to those of you who keep on partying and don't know why, I salute you.  Why not make some pretzels to celebrate someone else's recently passed holiday?

These pretzels were delicious, rivaling any mall store or ballpark pretzels.  As long as you have a couple of concepts understood, you can make your own delicious version of this at home.  I got the recipe from the show Good Eats by Alton Brown, and followed it to the letter.  I will only add more detail when we get to the part about the dough, which I think is important for success.

Also, you don't have to make pretzel shapes with this dough.  I stupidly forgot to take a picture, but with this dough I made 4 large, 4 small, and 4 pretzel rolls, which made for excellent sausage sandwiches.  Just shape them into ovals, let them rise in a towel, and then treat them as you would a pretzel-shaped version.

These went great with my spicy german mustard recipe, which will be an evolving page with updates as I tinker even more to get this exactly the way I want it.

Homemade Soft Pretzels

Recipe courtesy Alton Brown, 2007

• 1 1/2 cups warm (110 to 115 degrees F) water
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 package active dry yeast
• 22 ounces all-purpose flour, approximately 4 1/2 cups
• 2 ounces unsalted butter, melted
• Vegetable oil, for pan
• 10 cups water
• 2/3 cup baking soda
• 1 large egg yolk beaten with 1 tablespoon water
• Pretzel salt

Combine the water, sugar and kosher salt in the bowl of a stand mixer and sprinkle the yeast on top. Allow to sit for 5 minutes or until the mixture begins to foam. Add the flour and butter and, using the dough hook attachment, mix on low speed until well combined. Change to medium speed and knead until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the side of the bowl, approximately 4 to 5 minutes. Remove the dough from the bowl, clean the bowl and then oil it well with vegetable oil. Return the dough to the bowl, cover with plastic wrap and sit in a warm place for approximately 50 to 55 minutes or until the dough has doubled in size.

Here's an important point - you'll get the best, fastest performance out of your yeast if you can find a nice HUMID place to put the dough, not just warm.  I forget where I picked up this trick, but I like to make a small "proofing" chamber out of a plastic tote I bought at the megamart, and put the dough bowl inside along with a small container (at least a pint) of boiling water.  This creates the unbelievable rising effect seen in these photos, which I kid you not are taken only 90 minutes apart, which actually had risen too much.

Note the size of the dough ball before rising.  Also note that there are no shear marks on the surface of this - it's fairly smooth, having been well kneaded until it was elastic and just slightly tacky

My proofing box - dough + boiling / steamy water = awesome.

This is what you would like to see, although maybe this was in there a bit too long

While the dough is rising, start preheating the oven to 450 degrees F. Line 2 half-sheet pans with parchment paper and lightly brush with the vegetable oil. Set aside.

Bring the 10 cups of water and the baking soda to a rolling boil in an 8-quart saucepan or roasting pan.

In the meantime, turn the dough out onto a slightly oiled work surface and divide into 8 equal pieces (definitely consider doing 16 pieces instead, the 8 pretzels this makes are just way too huge). Roll out each piece of dough into a 24-inch rope. Make a U-shape with the rope, holding the ends of the rope, cross them over each other and press onto the bottom of the U in order to form the shape of a pretzel. Place onto the parchment-lined half sheet pan.

Start with a nice long rope.  I had to roll it as shown to get an even diameter all down the length

I asked a German baker about the trick here, and he said "just bring the two ends up and let it come together".  That didn't really work, but I got it after a few tries.

It helps to look at a store pretzel while doing this.  You basically cross the tips over twice, and then press in slightly where the dough rejoins or crosses itself.

Place the pretzels into the boiling water, 1 by 1, for 30 seconds. Remove them from the water using a large flat spatula. Return to the half sheet pan, brush the top of each pretzel with the beaten egg yolk and water mixture and sprinkle with the pretzel salt. Bake until dark golden brown in color, approximately 12 to 14 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack for at least 5 minutes before serving.

Before the bath, wash, and bake

Taking the first bath, before a quick rinse with some egg yolk and a sprinkle of sea salt

The final product!

Warm German Potato Salad (Kartoffelsalat)

Ah, potatoes - those tasty little tubers that seem to be on every menu in the Western world, and which can stump Dan Quayle in a spelling bee.  While potatoes are originally from the Americas (Peru, to be exact), some cultures over in Europe have managed to do amazing things with them in a the few centuries that they've been cultivated there.  And I'm not talking about the Irish.  I'm talking about the Germans, who transformed the potato salad of the United States into something entirely different.

German potato salad is pretty much the opposite of American potato salad.  It's served warm.  It has only a thin sauce to it.  It is almost entirely vinegar-based, as opposed to mayonnaise or mustard.  And you can practically eat it as its own meal, since it almost always has meat right in the dish.  And bad news for some of you - this dish isn't meant for the devoutly Jewish, as it contains bacon.

I mashed up this recipe from a few different sources, then tinkered to get the consistency I wanted.  The result is from too many places to cite just one, but if you look really hard you should see the same few ingredients in different orders or with different ratios all over the internet.  But you're here reading this one, so just roll with it.


German Potato Salad (Kartoffel Salat)

• 3 pounds Yukon gold or red potatoes
• 1/4 pound thick-cut bacon
• 3/4 cup finely chopped onion (white, yellow, bottoms of a green onion, and/or red)
• 1/3 cup white vinegar
• 3/4 cup water
• 2 tbsp flour
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 tablespoon mustard seeds
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 3 green onions, tops, sliced thinly
• 2 tbsp parsley, chopped

Scrub potatoes and place in a large pot.  Add water until potatoes are submerged at least 1".  Boil the potatoes until they are cooked through, at least 20 minutes.  If you use Russets here, they will be mealy and gross.  Go with a waxier potato like a red or Yukon gold.  Drain potatoes and allow to chill for at least a few hours, or preferably overnight.  Once cooled, slice potatoes into 1/4" thick rounds and set aside.

Boil the potatoes the night before if you can.  Then assemble just before serving

If you want a little kick to your salad, place the mustard seeds in the cold water and let hang out for 10 minutes.  If not, just skip this step.  In a fairly large saute pan, cook bacon until crispy, and set aside.  Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of bacon grease from the pan.  Over medium heat, cook the onions until translucent, about 3-5 minutes.  I used the bottom of the green onion tops I would add later to complement red and yellow onions.

Saute your onion mix

Dissolve the flour in the water, and then add water, vinegar and mustard seeds, and deglaze the pan for a few seconds.  Add the salt, sugar, and flour, and stir to combine.  Now add the sliced potatoes to this and fold them into the sauce.  Once you have tossed this around a bit, added the parsley and green onions, and crumble the bacon and throw that in too.

Toss again to combine, and that's it!  Serve warm, and enjoy with whatever German food tickles your fancy.

It's bacon!