Hungry in Berlin

Here’s a guest post from Ed Ward, former HIB contributor, who now resides in the lovely city of Montpellier and can eat oysters whenever he wants. Having lived in Berlin for 15 years, he’s well-familiar with the challenges of eating creatively yet cheaply in the Hauptstadt.

“Pastafazool” is some southern Italian dialect for what the rest of Italy calls “pasta e fagioli,” or pasta with beans. Depending on where you go, it’s nearer or further from the poles of sauced pasta and soup/stew with pasta. Since we Americans “oversauce” pasta (which we learned from our Italian-American neighbors), it’s up to you.

To do this as inexpensively as possible, you should start with a cup of dried white beans, water to cover, NO SALT. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat, cover, and let it simmer very slowly for an hour or so, depending on how old the beans are, what type they are, and all that good stuff. When the beans are done, drain them. (Editor note: You can also successfully soak white beans overnight, if you’re the planning-ahead type; it speeds the cooking time.)

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found at: http://www.durum-kebap.at/

OK, rules is probably too strong of a word, but as I mentioned in my last post, the goal of the Dönerspende challenge is to save money *and* eat as healthily and heartily as you can.

Here’s the few guidelines for submitting and suggesting Dönerspende recipes:

1. Each recipe should be a “complete” meal. That is, protein, carbs and veg.  Protein can (and probably will be, more often than not) vegetable-based. Meat is expensive; organic, free-range meat even more so. Get a couple of veg-protein recipes under your belt and you just might realize how much meat you can go without.
2. Each recipe should feed at least two people. Because sharing is nice.
3. Each recipe, when priced out per person, shouldn’t cost more than 2.50 Euro. That’s the average price of a döner in the Hauptstadt.
4. Spices shouldn’t be included in the final price breakdown. It’s way too much a pain to calculate the per-serving price of 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon. That said, recipes shouldn’t require bizarre or only-at-KaDeWe ingredients. Be rational.

A side goal, too, is for people to collectively come to the realization that cooking  with and for other people is actually cheaper than cooking just for yourself. It’s a recession, people, and soup kitchens are cool again. Get your ladle on with other hungry Berliners you know.

Have a suggestion? Or want to share a recipe? Toss it in the comment pile below. For our part, HIB will post weekend-ready Dönerspende recipes on Fridays, or whenever the spirit moves us from the laptop to the kitchen and back again.

All it takes to go from the Ghetto to the Dream is a small investment in three “crispy rolls.”  Granted, in today’s economy (and at current exchange rates), those rolls could cost you 1 billion Euro.  Someone call the IMF, I’m hungry.

It’s a tad disturbing to be out of town for a good month and return to find our Hauptstadt trees in little but their birthday suits.  I guess it’s full-throttle fall, which means us kids at HIB get to indulge our secret love of all things stewed and slowly simmered, generally warming and certainly rib-sticking. (There will be Quarkbällchen, but not quite yet. Have to wait at least until after Halloween, I keep repeating to myself.)

So if you find yourself in Pankow this weekend, you can start the season off right by getting your Wild on–that’s wild boar, venison and the like–at the Berliner Fischmarkt on Rothenbachstrasse 48-50. Yes, it’s a fish market too, but this weekend they’re celebrating game meat by roasting two (two!) wild boar on a spit, cooking up some mean wild goulash and offering other autumn treats. According to our local free paper, there will also be fish at the fest.

Personally, I’ve been curious about this fish market for a while, so this sounds like a great opportunity to check it out. Here’s how to get there; the fest rages from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Oct. 25 (Saturday). See you there!

UPDATE: So we did attend the Wildfest, and I have to say it wasn’t terribly impressive. Apologies to any of you who may have dragged yourself out to Pankow on a drizzly day. The wild selection was OK — we walked away with a piece of venison tenderloin at 3.25 Euro/100g (no, not cheap) but that was very delicious, and a small hunk of venison salami that was tasty, but as expected, pretty dry.

The fish market, however, was a bummer — the majority of the fishies were obviously past their due date (and yah, maybe it was Saturday, but com’on! It’s a festival! Get some fresh fish!) The selection was fairly standard, and what you’d find at any Extra with a fish counter (both fresh, semi-fresh and smoked.) Bottom line: You’re better off sticking to Frische Paradies, or Kaufhof, or KaDeWe or Rogacki if you’re looking for something fresh. That said, any successful fish buyers out there? Where do you go?

As a native Californian, I speak culinary Spanish (with an emphasis on the Mexican dialect). Four years of college in San Diego proved that a person can gladly and happily live on rice and beans (and salsa and tortillas) alone. And although my Heimstadt gave birth what has come to be known as the “San Francisco burrito” (see Dolores in Mitte for an up-market, but not totally authentic, version), nothing beats a homemade feast of carnitas, frijoles refritos, handmade tortillas and smoky, spicy salsa. Us gringos celebrate Cinco de Mayo (Mexican military victory over the French, 1862; gradually morphed into a “hooray for all things Mexican” celebration in the U.S., sponsored by Corona) with food. I’m going to focus on the proteins in this post — how to make carnitas, or boiled-then-fried pork shoulder, and refried beans. See “part dos” for a how-to on flour tortillas and chipotle salsa — with ingredients that can be found all here in Berlin. Read the rest of this entry »

Gray winter days call for baked apple crumble, a topping otherwise known as “streusel” here in Deutschland. It’s a simple concept: “streusel” means crumble. Streusel (not to be confused with “strudel,” the super-thin pastry dough) is essentially a lazy pie “dough” that never quite gets its act together, baking crisp yet crumbly over fruit or cake. To make a streusel topping, all you need is flour, butter and sugar, and perhaps a touch of spice. The American and British versions of crumble tend to be a bit more, well, crumbly than the German versions — German recipes seem to call for more sugar (and a bit of egg), which makes the crumble more of a crunchy (and keeps the topping on the cake, rather than the table or your lap). I’m really more of a fan of the messy, brown-sugary and cinnamon (think coffee cake) kind of crumble, which goes especially well with baked fruit. You don’t need to do much: peel, core and chop some apples or other fruit that bakes well. Assemble a streusel: there’s suggestions for recipes here, and here, and here. (I added some granola and chopped hazelnuts to mine, for the crunch factor.) Sprinkle the streusel on top of your fruit and bake until the fruit’s bubbly and the streusel’s browned and slightly crunchy. Not a bad way to pass yet another gray Berlin day, eh?

Short Version: Eier Plätzchen = Vanilla Wafers

Long Version: My wife is a very, very s’phisticated women…a Hamburger, born with pearls rundum her neck…unless it has to do with her tastes in literature, men or food. The other day, before we went to a dinner party with a few compadres up the strasse, I asked my frau: “What should we mit?” Having spent a year in rural Ohio as an exchange student, she (naturally) responded: “Banana pudding.” Hmmm. My initial thought: “Well, schnooks, where the ‘ell am I s’posed to find the one key ingrediant — vanilla wafers?” Well, ladies and gentlemen, believe it or not, as I later discovered, you will find among the cookies in your local grocery store something called “Eier Plätzchen.” These are exactly the same as vanilla wafers.

The only sad thing to report is this: After making what I thought was some arschtretende banana pudding, my wife said: “Well, this isn’t how they do it at Magnolia‘s.” Ugh.

I’m a little late to the Christmas cookie-making party, but for heaven’s sake — it was -8 degrees this morning. What else can one do but bake to warm up the blasted apartment? But before I get ahead of myself here, first, some good news for Yankee bakers: eagle-eye HIB contrib John spied this lovely bag of brown sugar (see photo) at our Asia Markt on Kopenhagner str. It’s the first we’ve found in the hauptstadt. Not to be confused with granulated, or “natural” brown sugar, this is the soft, moist and packable brown sugar used in lots of cookie recipes and sometimes barbecue sauces — and apparently is also key in Thai cooking (news to me, but explains the packaging.) Our bag of light brown sugar is the real deal, if not a bit rustic — we found a few small, dark chunks of sugar amid the fluffy stuff inside. Didn’t seem to bother the cookies a bit.

So to celebrate the new year (and the cold weather), here’s a quick recipe for chocolate “flake” cookies that use one hard-to-find item (brown sugar) and one re-purposed German item (“raspel Schokolade,” or chocolate flakes.) Thin layers of chocolate flakes melt together to create a cookie that appears practically stuffed with chocolate. It rules.

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Who doesn’t want a Parma ham for the holidays? (Vegetarians, put your hands down.) I came across this great spread of hanging hocks at Frische Paradies, a wholesale/retail gourmet outlet on Moresestr. 2 in Charlottenburg/Mitte. Whether you celebrate Christmas, it’s certainly time for gatherings and parties — and that means often buying lots of food, in large quantities — which is where the wholesalers in the hauptstadt come in. (And no, there is no Costco. Thank Gott. But! You don’t have to “belong” to any of these places to buy.) If you plan on doing a large roast or other dish that requires a specialty meat, Frische Paradies is one place to start — yet be forewarned that you will pay a premium.

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As some visitors may have noticed, we’ve been down for a week. We’ve been in the process of switching hosts, and apparently got stuck in the domain system’s Bermuda Triangle. Many apologies to those who have tried to visit in the interim. We’re still working out a few kinks, but everything should be back to normal this week.

You’ll also notice that the look of the site has changed. We’ve redesigned, adding new features and more ways to browse through the content. Our hope is that this site slowly becomes a comprehensive resource for Berlin cooks and foodies, not solely a place to read the latest blog post.

If there are other things you’d like to see here, or you have thoughts on the new look, leave us a comment here or shoot us a message.