In My Kitchen – July 2013

The conversation went something like this.  Custom’s Officer “Do you have any food in your baggage?”.  Me “Yes.”  Custom’s Officer “What do you have?”  Mr Grumpy “What doesn’t she have!”.  Yet despite me bringing more food than ever before back from our recent trip to Germany and Paris, for the first time ever I got waved straight through Customs without a bag check.  I thought I would share my recent haul.

Good horseradish (meerrettich) is really hard to find in Perth, and expensive.  So I was delighted to find horseradish and horseradish cream without heaps of additives.  The horseradish is destined for a smoked mackerel gratin that I love, whilst the horseradish cream is good in ham sandwiches.  The red tube of mustard will be paired with sausages.

This strawberry pasta was too intriguing to pass up.  My German is non-existent, but I managed to work out that it should be served just with butter.  I, however, am thinking butter, balsamic vinegar & a touch of black pepper.  Classic strawberry accompaniments in our house.

We did a tour of one of the oldest salt mines in Bavaria, and these cute salt samples were our parting gift.  The salt is mined from ancient sea salt deposits buried deep in the Bavarian Alps.  Whilst in the Viktualienmarkt we came across one stall selling a vast array of these flavoured sunflower seed spreads.  I would have liked to buy many more, as they were all very tasty, but was quite restrained and only bought the one jar.

These sugar crystals were commonly offered with coffee.  They seem to come in an a number of sizes, from large rocks to demerara size crystals.  I bought the mid sized crystals and see biscuits in my future.

Chocolate is a must in any country.  I limited myself to a couple of unusual flavours, and am particularly interested in the ginger and sea salt ones.  The Princess and I couldn’t resist this bag of rocks.

They look so real but are actually an assortment of chocolates and fruit pastes covered in candy shells.  They are quite hard to bite but delicious all the same.

We stumbled across a large Christmas shop in Rothenburg ob der Tauber that is open all year long, so I took the opportunity to stock up on some new cookie cutters.  My old potato peeler broke just before we left so I also bought a good quality German one to replace it.

These schneeballs would have made it to my kitchen but we ate them.  They were too yummy.  They are a local German specialty of deep fried shortcrust pastry, covered in flavoured sugars or chocolate.  You can buy small ones but where is the fun in that?  You eat a schneeball by placing it in a paper bag, crushing it, then eating the shards.  One ball was enough for the three of us.

That about sums up the German haul.  Next month I will share my Parisian purchases.  Don’t forget to check out what is happening in other people’s kitchens over at the monthly In My Kitchen event hosted by Celia at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial.