Red cabbage, Rotkohl, is a mandatory part of a winter dinner in Germany. To me, duck, goose, venison or even beef roasts are incomplete without the purple vegetable, fragrantly seasoned with cloves, bay leaves and juniper berries. This side dish is referred to as Blaukraut, blue cabbage, in some regions, where it is prepared with less vinegar that alters the color in this recipe. Continue reading →

Jiaozi, manti, ravioli, pierogi, vareniki – dumplings filled with meat, potatoes, cabbage, even sweet cottage cheese and cherry compote, can be found anywhere between Shanghai and Stuttgart. But why do we have this urge to boil a tasty filling between two layers of pasta? The Swabians in southwest Germany have an answer. During lent, they would hide the meat in dumplings, so God or, at least, the pastor wouldn’t know they were cheating. That’s how the Swabian Maultasche was supposedly invented.  With lent just around the corner, I decided to come up with a truly vegetarian Maultasche that wouldn’t need to hide its filling, but of course will continue to do so – for tradition’s sake. Continue reading →

Whether it’s for your own Oktoberfest, a festive dinner party, a picnic or – yes, that would be very German – breakfast, your guests will remember these rolls for a while. For me, the crispy brown crust sprinkled with sea salt crystals and the nearly sweet white interior will forever make them superior any standard dinner roll. And these pretzels rolls are surprisingly easy to make from scratch. Pretzels are given their characteristic color and flavor by boiling them briefly in a lye solution, but since bakers’ lye is hard to get by, baking soda dissolved in water will do the trick.  Continue reading →