Hungry in Berlin

Here’s Hungry’s discovery of the week. While browsing through Mitte Meer and Aqui Espana last weekend (both on Kant Str., though Mitte Meer also has a store behind the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum), we came across bags full of little green peppers that looked and smelled (a bit) like jalapenos. Because we will happily sell our bodies and/or organs for good Mexican food, we got excited, and asked about them, and were told they weren’t jalapenos at all, but Padróns.

We took them home, and researched. Turns out they are the eponymous specialty of the Padrón region in Spain. One eats them lightly fried, in olive oil, sprinkled with a bit of sea salt. There’s a bit of a game of chance with them too, as most are rich and mild, but every 1 in 10 or so is spicy hot. So, fun…

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A heads-up for more berry picking in the Brandenburg area — blueberries and raspberries are apparently ready to be self-picked, as per the Berliner Beerengarten team. The HIB team really has to get out and do this one of these days…if you have, let us know in the comments below.

And on a random thought, one of the Berliner Beerengarten fields is out in Hoppegarten, which is also a cool old horse racing stadium.  A gaggle of us (led by the very knowledgeable Ms. Bowleserised) had a visit a month or so ago, bet on a couple of ponies, and actually came away richer! Wouldn’t be a terrible double-feature, ponies and berry-pflucking…

Just got a friendly reminder from those in the fields that berry picking season is set to officially open. We did a bit of berry reporting last year, with a couple suggestions for locations to boot.

Berliner Beerengarten is a good place to start.  Here’s their schedule; looks like most of their fields (we’re talking mostly strawberries, it’s still early) will be open as of tomorrow.   And I just saw a bunch of rhubarb at the market the other day…who’s ready for some pie?

Here’s a guest post from Bowleserised, a very talented lady who knows both her food, ponies and the writerly life in Berlin, and who often is called upon by bizarre British TV talent to explain the Hauptstadt to them.  This is an ideal Dönerspende dish, as it’s got few ingredients but is also flexible — i.e., what you’ve got in your ‘fridge or pantry will probably get you by. Enjoy.

This is an adaptation of a Claudia Roden recipe for Brinjal Albaras from The Book of Jewish Food. It’s a dish from the Bene Israel community in India. It should have fresh coriander in the coconut milk mix, which might still be possible depending on the pricing, and the courgette substitution is one I’ve improvised.

I usually use a can of coconut milk so my version is more liquid than the purist’s, which involves creamed coconut milk and water. I like the more liquid version though as then you can eke the meal out with rice. Obviously you can use fewer potatoes and more aubergine or any different combination, according to preference and available ingredients.

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The tomato display at our local Extra is blinding.  Then again, it is always blinding, all year ’round.  Ah, globalization, the glories of greenhouse cultivation, and the resourcefulness of our northwestern neighbors, the Nederlanders.  Factoid: some 1,178 hectares of greenhouses shaked ‘n baked some 525,000 tons of tomatoes in Holland in 1999 (per the Embassy). I’m sure that number’s way higher today.  And, almost a quarter of that ruddy, bouncing bounty comes to Germany.

But, and but. I shouldn’t want tomatoes in winter. And I shouldn’t encourage the clever greenhoused northerners to find even more ingenious ways to solve hunger and stuff and in the meantime, grow a delicious tomato in December.

Delicious?  Hardly.  These things are ping-pong balls with a randy blush.  But that’s news to no one.

While I’m trying not to make a habit of it (in the interest of local fooding and all; choosing tomatoes grown in Deutschen vitro rather than further afield, when possible), I’m buying tomatoes and drying them.  Not completely beef-jerky dry — just enough (say, 50%) to concentrate whatever sugar the thin Northern sun was able to coax to the surface, while still staying a bit juicy.

Oven to 100C. Smaller tomatoes work best; cut them in half, and place cut-side up on parchment or foil on a tray. No need to salt or oil. Let ‘em slow cook for at least 3 hours, or more. Use immediately in pasta or sandwiches or keep in the ‘fridge until you do. Your ideas and recipes always appreciated below…

(Above: “Steinpilze,” aka porcini mushrooms; thanks treegrow)

(This post was generously contributed by Rebecca F. Miller.)

I’ve been looking for any excuse to be outside for the last few weeks, and my favorite places have always been where there are few people and lots of natural landscape. As November waxes, there are precious few days to enjoy one of Germany’s most popular fall pastimes: mushroom hunting. While it’s easy to head to market to find fresh-picked ’shrooms trucked in from Brandenburg, if you’re craving a daytrip to the outdoors – as I and my fellow hunters were a few weekends ago – the woods outside of Berlin are rife with culinary fungus.

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A few days ago, our local Extra started carrying a type of citrus I’d never seen. Green, the size and shape of a grapefruit, they carried stickers proclaiming them as “Sweeties.”

Turns out this is an Oroblanco (called a Sweetie in Japan and Israel, and now apparently here). A cross between an acidless pomelo and a white grapefruit, created by University of California researchers, it’s apparently becoming something of delicacy in the Japanese market. The idea being that it is (surprise) sweeter than an ordinary grapefruit, and less bitter.

A single-serving review: Interesting, but a tad pricy. Ours was sweet, but not as sweet as a good ruby grapefruit. A decently complex taste, with a sour finish. Which I like. This particular one had very thick pulp walls, giving it a bit more of a crunch than a normal grapefruit. Definitely more intereresting to look at than an ordinary grapefruit, but at 99 cents apiece, I’m not sure they warrant the extra spendiness — unless you’re looking for a striking color for the table, in which case they’re an excellent pick indeed .

A quick Kollwitzplatz market spotting yesterday: The dark, sweet muscat grapes are here, which make my eyes light up like a kid’s with candy. Because they are essentially candy. I fell in love with a variety of golden muscats in California, but I like the ones here better –  ludicrously sweet with a hint of jasmine or honey, but balanced by the bitter almost-black skins. I think these might be a variety called Black Hamburg, but since my grape expert is currently picking them in France, y’all are on your own with that one.

(However, assuming I’m right, let’s go for moment to the very earnest Charles M. McIntosh, who in his 1855 “The Book of the Garden” (thanks, Google Books) calls this “the best of all black grapes, and introduced (into England) from Hamburg, in 1724 by a Mr. Warner.”  So there you are.)

I generally can”t do muscat wine. Too sweet for me, my head explodes (although I quite like the Pisco, a distilled muscatel liquor, and the national drink of Chile, which Aimee brought back for me this month). But a handful of these will make me happy indeed.

This summer has seen an outpouring of fresh vegetables like I’ve never seen in 14 summers here. Not only that, the “bio” versions in the outdoor markets are no more expensive — and in some cases cheaper — than the same items in the supermarket.

Making a very rare appearance this year are absolutely fresh green peas. In the past, you’ve been able to get these delightful legumes maybe one year in three or four, and by the time they got to Berlin, the pods were beginning to brown and you had to throw out 10% of the peas inside them. The ones I’ve seen this year are shiny and bursting with fat peas.

The other star of the show is a crop of green beans which are unlike any I’ve seen here previously. Also fat and shiny, they are surprising because, despite their heft, they’re not at all fibrous, and, when properly cooked, give up a wonderfully nutty flavor in addition to the green taste.

I’ve adapted two of my favorite pasta recipes for this joyous occasion, so click away and start boiling some water.

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Alphonso mangos have arrived in Berlin.

If you’re from the United States, you may never have tasted an Alphonso mango. A pale yellow papaya color, the mango has a deep orange, pulpy flesh that you can tell will be more appetizing than those Brazilian greens you find in Plus and Aldi. In India it’s used in the mango products exported to Indian restaurants abroad—juice, ice cream, lassi base—that all taste mysteriously better than what you can buy at home. No wonder: there was a ban on all imports of this special variety to America until last year.

Alphonse mangos (in all their spelling variations) hit the markets in India from March through May. Yet a Pakistani variation has suddenly popped up in Berlin during June, under the trade name of Honigmango.

You won’t find them at your weekly local market, at least not the schmancy one I go to in Charlottenburg, but they’re all over the foreign food shops. The picture is from a Persian food store (also selling merguez!) on Kantstrasse just west of the Charlottenburg S-Bahn. I’ve noticed that some Thai shops in West Berlin have boxes at their checkout counters as well (see the Thai-Viet Markt on Wilmersdorferstrasse), almost as an afterthought.

You can spot the mangos easily: they’re the ones packaged like fragile Christmas tree balls, in tinsel and shredded paper. Don’t be discouraged by the high per-box price; I bargained my man at the Persian shop down to 1.50 last week for a perfectly ripe Alfonso clone and 1 euro for a smaller one.

The exotic flavor is worth the splurge. Try it with yogurt or quark: the juices get all over the place when you cut the thing, and you won’t want to let them go to waste.