Simple cooking in Germany

Yesterday I attempted a "Bercy" fish recipe (white fish in a wine onion cream sauce) which was partially successful. I'm bored with my present cooking repertoire, so I'm trying to teach myself more stuff, mostly through the web and books.

I cook fresh stuff everyday, yet I remember the day when I didnt have a clue. I started when my small daughter looked up at me years ago and I didn't have the first clue what to do.  Thorugh lots of reading and trial and error I learned many of the basics. I think there are TTers in the same boat as I was. It's pretty intimidating starting to cook in Germany imho. Shouldn't we help them along a bit?

I'm talking the basics like:

Home-made pizza bases and sauces,

Baking bread (my own is no better than toastbrot but I want to improve it. However the satisfaction when you successfully bake the first loaf is wonderful)

Simple soups - (that "Suppengrün" in the supermarket). Pumpkin Soup is so easy to make at the moment I can't make it anymore I am fed up with it myself!)

The basic salad principle (three parts oil to one acid)

Simple fish in breadcrumbs

A bog standard lasagne (not the stuff you buy in a silver foil pack in Aldi the home made variety)

there is in fact a free downloadable American Womens Institute Cookery book series somewhere in the web (have to look it up).

...stuff like that. I am no expert (I am sure there may be at least one real expert here can't remember his name) but I can do all the basic stuff. Nowhere like haute cuisine but the simpler stuff and it would be a pleasure to start others off on the culinary road I've been on. If you are like me and was a student living out of tins of beans as a student then basic info like I know would be a godsend. 

So? 

So, the first thing a "beginner" needs to do is understand seasoning and flavor combinations. The second thing is to remember there are several "experts" here.

The first rule of cooking for dumbies is: timing is everything. Therefore, know what you are planning to do before you do it and be prepared. The second rule of cooking for dumbies is: invest the time to do it right. In other words, turning up the heat to rush the job is not your friend. Things take as long as they take and that is especially true of baking. Last minute Promi Dinner shit is for the birds. Don't go there.

This is a good idea...I have been trying to think of new things to cook for a while now. I live on my own and tend to cook what I feel like having on that day, but have become bored of the same thing. I have searched around a bit on the web for 'Simple cooking' recipes which doesn't require strange ingredients that I wouldn't normally have in my cupboard.

How do you make a good pumpkin soup Jeremy, I have wanted to make one ever since I began to see pumkins this year!

Here's a pumpkin soup that I'm enjoying right now. It's really good. I recommend buying a piece of a large pumpkin (I buy a piece at the farmer's market) instead of a small pumpkin, as the small pumpkins are quite resistant to being cut up.

A bog standard lasagne (not the stuff you buy in a silver foil pack in Aldi the home made variety)
PLease do share. I sadly do cook those tin foil ones.

there is in fact a free downloadable American Womens Institute Cookery book series somewhere in the web (have to look it up).
Again please do.

Besides being an Ami, is there any reason why I can't cook fish and chips well? Do I really need a deep fryer, or is there any way to do cook cod with a nice and fluffy batter coating on the stove top? Ta.

no one can cook fish and chips well. I mean if you coat anything in batter, fry it, and dip it in cocktail sauce, it's bound to be all right, but it's not going to taste like it does in a restaurant. A deep fryer is pretty essential I think. Your batter may not contain enough MSG, or you may not be drunk enough.

I have tried (and nearly always eventually succeeded) to replicate all my favorite foods at home except two: Ethiopian stews, and fish and effing chips. For the Ethiopian food it's hard to find the spices, and for the fish and chips I haven't got the magic wand, or unicorn farts, or whatever's required to make it well.

When you find a private citizen who makes a good fish and chip please direct me to that person immediately as I will throw myself at their feet and offer my life as an indentured servant in exchange for their knowledge/voodoo/ruby slippers/unicorn farts.

@ funf

A straight answer is “Yes”. But you will have to be far more careful, as the potential for an accident is obviously higher than with a purpose-made deep fryer – and it can be a bit messy.

Use a deep, heavy cast iron pan and a frying screen (or whatever those mesh covers are called) to restrict spitting. The pan must be deep enough to accommodate the fish and oil, with at least an equal amount of space between oil surface and rim of the pan. Using a cast-iron pan is best to ensure that the oil is evenly heated before placing the fish in it. The oil must be hot (but not too hot); otherwise the batter will slide off.

• Does it taste good? Yes.
• As good as from a domestic deep fryer? IME sometimes, but not always, it depends on how good you are at cooking and what pan you use.
• As good as the fish and chips from my local chippie in the UK? No, never!

HTH

There has been a long thread with recipes for a spaghetti meat sauce, which is the basic for lasagne, but I can't find it. The main thing is that it should be cooked for a long time (couple of hours in oven would do it), not just a quick brown it, season, a few tomatoes and throw together. Lasagne is dead easy, a good basic to practice. And if you make a large quantity of meat sauce, it can be frozen in batches for future quick lasagnes or to eat with spaghetti.

Quick note on lasagna---- when I simmer my meat sauce( an hour at least), I add about 3/4 cup of red wine to the sauce. I forgot it once, and it just didn't taste right. Any red wine will do...I typically just use a basic red table wine, but I've used whatever was in the house...a shiraz, a cabernet, whatever.

If you add red wine then you will need to add sugar or honey too as the wine will make the sauce bitter.

Okay you did ask about lasagne. Here is my take on this. I don't follow recipes anymore as I know the principles. If you boil food down to principles you can put in what you like once you understand it. Some may find my method overkill but I reckon the more stuff in there the richer the flavours. (Heaven knows what the don will think).

Your first step is to make the tomato base. Fry some cloves of garlic (I love garlic for its health properties so I tend to use more than most) in a pan with olive oil. Meatheads may like to add their mince beef here but I am a part time veggie so I will ad whatever veg I have laying around like carrots, mushrooms, green peppers or whatever if I don't want meat in there. Add two tins of chopped tomatoes then at the end add some of that torn up basil from that pot plant on the windowsill. Glop in some red wine, making of course sure that it tastes okay by setting some aside in a glass....

Simmer that for about an hour or so. Meantime keep checking up on the quality of the wine.....

Turn on the oven round 200C and dig out those Lasagne sheets. I think some need precooking in water like spaghetti, some don't.

The next step is to make what's known in posh cooking as a "roux". Melt a couple of knobs of butter in a pan then add plain flour to it. When that's mixed itself pour in milk and stir with a whisk type thing to make sure it doesnt go lumpy. (This is a basic white sauce you can use in other recipes btw for parsley sauce, onion sauce etc)

Into the mix add some grated cheese - bog standard Emmentaler or bit or old Parmesan grated up. Melt that into your Roux.

Now get your oven dish and drop half of the bottom layer - the meat or veggie mix in. Then lay half of the lasagne sheets on top of that.
Pour the roux mix on the sheets. Repeat that process and finish with a roux as the top layer. Now pour over a load of grated cheese and plop in the oven 30-40 minutes (if you can wait that long)

Eat.

That is my basic take on the dish.

Now your cooking like Don.

Cocktail sauce? On fish and chips? From a restaurant?

No wonder you have failed to make your own. You aren't even looking in the right place

Fish and chips should be from a chippy late at night, when drunk and only covered with salt, vinegar and if you are strangely nothern then some sort of yellowy green "curry" stuff may be purchased but only as a dip for the chips.

I think it must be the combination of the age and how many times the chip fat has been used that gives chippy stuff its flavour.

Oh and no I can't get it right either

Here here!

If you are making a meat-sauce based lasagna, you can also do as follows to get maximum cozy flavour: add some milk to the pan. It's also the method for a trad & delicious bolognese sauce.

Start by making a mire poix. Mire poix is a flavour base for soups & sauces. simply put a pan on medium-low heat and 'sweat' one or two handfuls of diced carrots, onion and celery in olive oil & butter - as much as you like, depending how waistline-conscious you are - until onion is translucent.
Then turn up heat & add a decent amount of chopped garlic. sauté for a few seconds.
Add minced meat & a bit of salt & pepper & cook until it has just changed colour.
Then add a half cup milk and simmer until reduced to almost no liquid in the pan.

Then add a cup of wine (usually white wine in Italian recipes..) and a can or two of tomatoes (in whichever order you prefer. some recipes advise adding wine first & reducing it down. depends how much time/patience you have)

Then simmer for 2-3 hours. Really succulent meat dishes often benefit from a very long simmering/braising time!

One more thing about milk: it is a great way to add moisture to hamburger patties. One mistake people often make with hamburgers is to compact them too much and then burn them so they're completely dried out.
I like to add chopped onion, seasoning/herbs, a bit of breadcrumbs, an egg and 2-4 tbsp milk to the minced meat.
If you prefer , you can use stock/broth instead of milk. You can also soak the breadcrumbs in the milk briefly before adding to the mince.
loosely mix 'til the mince is an almost uniform shade of pink and gently form patties without compacting too much.
If you are going to be really obsessive about a juicy patty, you can even sear them on both sides in a hot pan and then put a lid on to steam them until cooked (about 10 min).
If you then want to get a charred flavour you can briefly fling them on a grill on high heat.

A friend of mine suggested (I haven't tried it): "If you really want to up the fat ante, stuff the burgers with a mix of butter and blue cheese."