Mix-Up Monday: Duvets

Bed. A place where you spend a good amount of your day (ok, night really, but you get the idea). We don't have any deep insights on the beds in the USA and Germany. Really they are basically the same thing. Rectangle, comfy (if you are lucky), and otherwise pretty dull. The part that gets us talking is what goes on the bed...the blankets, or in Germany the duvet(s).

Single duvet on an American bed (duvetpalace.com)

She grew up using a duvet on her bed so it was nothing new when she moved to Germany. Duvets are quite common in the USA but definitely not as common as they are in Germany. Americans have stuck by the traditional bed making method which includes a fitted sheet, a regular sheet (perhaps it has a fancy name but we do not know it) and layers of blankets.  This combination is more time consuming to make each morning but is great for bedrooms that constantly vary in temperature because you can throw the blankets on and off as you sleep.

She has not yet seen this method in Germany and instead has only seen the fitted sheet with a duvet (even in hotels). This is great for mornings when all you have to do is throw the duvet over the bed and it is "made." Duvets are not as great as blankets for changing temperatures but the one leg out from under the cover method works quite well.

Anyways, that was a lot of talking just to get to the strange part (to both of us)...the number of duvets on the bed.

Duvets in a German hotel (apartmenttherapy.com)

In Germany, each person gets their own duvet which means when there are two people in bed (and we assume this is the maximum number typically for a bed ; ) ) there are two duvets. She found this crazy and completely unromantic when she first moved to Germany. Two separate duvets on the bed? Why not just sleep in separate beds? He, on the other hand, finds the American method of one large duvet for two people just as crazy. Why would you want to spend the night fighting over who gets more blanket he wants to know!?


After time both in the USA (with a single duvet) and in Germany (with two duvets) we have come to see the benefit of both methods. He admits that sharing a duvet is not as bad as it seems and there is enough space for both people. She has grown fond of having her own duvet she can tuck around her when cold and not worry about taking too much blanket. Also, having your own duvet means that when you are hot you can use the stick two legs out methods, impossible when sharing a duvet.

For now we use two duvets on our bed. Why these differences exist we have no idea but that is what cultural understanding is all about...living and sleeping with understanding :)

Best Sweet and Sour Chicken Ever

This sweet and sour chicken is amazing. You will not find a better recipe anywhere (seriously, you think you have a better one let us know and we will try it). The chicken is soft, full of flavor, and just all around perfect. The recipe might be time consuming but it is worth it.

We only made one-third of this recipe but here is the full version:

Chicken:
3-4 boneless chicken breasts
1 cup cornstarch
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup oil
salt and pepper

Sweet and sour sauce:
3/4 cup sugar
4 Tbs ketchup
1/2 cup vinegar
1 Tbs soy sauce
1 tsp garlic salt (we just used garlic and salt, haha)

Preheat the oven to 165 C (325 F)











Use two shallow bowls. Place the cornstarch in one and the eggs in the other.

Cut the chicken into cubes. Season with salt and pepper and dip into the cornstarch.

Move the cornstarch-covered chicken cubes into the egg and cover. Make sure you do this order!(cornstarch then egg, not egg then cornstarch)

During this you can heat your oil on the stove. Brown the chicken (make sure to put it in only after the oil is hot) and then remove from the pan and place in an oven-safe dish. The chicken does not need to be cooked through, only browned. It will be going into the oven for another hour.




Whisk all of the ingredients for the sweet and sour sauce together. Pour over the chicken and bake for one hour. During this one hour you need to turn the chicken every 15 minutes (time-consuming we know but worth it!)







When it is finished you have pure deliciousness. We served our sweet and sour chicken with homemade fried rice. Recipe coming soon!









This recipe was adapted from Life as a Lofthouse

Southern Honey Cornbread

There are few things as tasty as a slab of cornbread, toasted with some butter and honey. Sadly, cornbread is not too easy to come by, even in many parts of the USA. To get the real cornbread experience you have to go to the South where they are the masters of all types of comfort foods. Since taking a trip to the South every time she has a cornbread craving, this cornbread recipe fills the  void.

 
For six muffins:

1/2 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup flour
1/2 Tbs baking powder
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup whole milk
1 egg
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/8 cup honey

Preheat the oven to 400 F (205 C).

Whisk together the milk, eggs, butter and honey. We did not have whole milk (we only drink 1%) so we added 1 Tbs of creme fraiche we had leftover from another recipe. It seemed to work just fine. You can also add heavy cream or extra butter. There are many websites online that have solutions for substituting ingredients.For example, The Old Farmer's Almanac.




Add all of the rest of the ingredients (cornmeal, flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt).

Pour into muffin cups (to almost the top).

Bake for 15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Ours took about 17 minutes.










We ate ours with Hot! Beef Chili for dinner and then had the leftovers toasted for breakfast.


This recipe is adapted from The Neelys

Mix-Up Monday: Cold-Cut Dinner

The typical German dinner consists of bread, cold cuts, cheese, and some vegetables. It is quite common (especially for the older generation) to eat a large warm lunch and a cold dinner. This is how he grew up, eating bread and cold cuts for dinner each night.







Typically this is the other way around in the USA. For lunch many eat a cold meal, such as a sandwich. For dinner, a larger and warm meal is served. This is how she grew up and this is also how we typically choose to eat our house.





 
The other night though, we had some good German bread and a lot of cold cuts on the fridge and decided to go traditional German for one night.

The only not traditional part? We toasted the bread...apparently the wrong way to eat a cold-cut dinner and something that never happened during his childhood :)



We recommend this dinner how ever you want, toasted or "raw" - just make sure the bread is open faced and not like a sandwich - for the real taste!

Kaiserschmarren, Asparagus and Hollandaise Sauce

The finished product

May 1 is a holiday in Germany so we used the day off work to travel to Bad-Cannstatt (outside of Stuttgart) to visit a friend and the festival Wasen (like Oktoberfest in the Spring). This friend is definitely not a chef but he is quickly learning and wanted to give a new recipe a try, with us as the taste testers. We are always happy to have someone else cook for us so we took him up on the offer and enjoyed a tasty lunch. He did very well for his first time making a multi-course dish. Nothing caught on fire and everything tasted as it should :)

A beautiful day at Wasen

He asked to share these recipes on our blog and since they were delicious and we might have stepped into help just a little bit ; ) we were happy to do so.

First he made Kaiserschmarren mit Pfaumenkompott. It is a lot like a pancake that then gets cut into pieces to be served with asparagus and hollandaise sauce.




Kaiserschmarren (3-4 servings):
300 g flour
6 eggs
60 g sugar
Enough salt and milk as needed
Oil or butter for cooking

A perfect golden brown

Separate the eggs so you have a bowl of egg whites and a bowl of yolks. Whip the egg whites.

Mix the yolks with the flour, sugar and about two/three pinches of salt. Add milk and continue to stir. You need enough milk to make the batter fluid but still thick. Add the egg whites and mix well.


Heat a medium-sized pan over medium heat. Use butter or oil to grease the pan. Only a small amount is needed but more oil should be added between each pancake.

Pour a portion of the batter (about one-fourth) into the preheated pan. The batter should cover the entire pan but not be too thick (about one-fourth of an inch). Cook until browned. Flip and cook the other side.

Torn apart into pieces to serve

When the pancake is brown on both sides remove from the pan, add butter or oil to the pan, melt and cook the next pancake. It is a good idea to heat the oven on low to keep the finished pancakes warm while cooking the others.

When all pancakes are finished, use a fork to rip them apart. This is how they should be served. 



Hollandaise Sauce

250 g butter
3 egg yolks
3 Tbs (EL) water
1 Tbs (EL) lemon juice
Salt, pepper, cayenne pepper

Water bath

In a saucepan melt the butter on low.  In a hot water bath heat up the egg yolks, lemon juice, water and salt.

Whisk, whisk, and whisk some more

 


Whisk (or easier, use an electric mixer) until the sauce is creamy.

Slowly add the buttter

Remove the bowl from the water bath and add the butter, one tablespoon at a time while continuing to whisk. Season with salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper and serve immediately.


 



He served this over the pancakes and with asparagus (cooked as you usually would, either by steaming or boiling). White asparagus are the most common asparagus found in Germany but we think green would be good too.

Crunchies!

For an additional tasty on top, toast one piece of regular sandwich bread until it is quite brown. Crumble and add it to the leftover oil from making the pancakes. Cook until browned and crispy. This gives you a crunchy topping for the pancakes and hollandaise sauce.

Not bad for a first-time cook!

 Let your guests put their own meal together or serve already fixed.

Mini Pizzas with Currywurst Sauce

Just made German currywurst and have leftover sauce? Try these mini German pizzas using curry sauce in place of tomato sauce.










Use the curry sauce from our super delicious currywurst recipe

You also need cheese and either rolls, bagels or English muffins. We think this sauce would also be good on regular pizza.






 
Toast whatever type of break you are using (a little bit lighter than you normally like it). If you are using rolls (like we did), scoop the inside bread out.













Fill the hole with curry sauce or spread curry sauce on the top of your bagel or English muffin.




 






Top with cheese and place in the oven at 200 (about 400 F). The mini pizza is finished when the cheese is melted and the curry sauce is warm. If you want to save time, heat the curry sauce before putting it on your mini pizza and then just run the pizza under the broiler to melt the cheese.








Yum!











Here is our curry sauce pizza with English muffins.

Super Delicious Currywurst

Delicious Currywurst

Throughout Germany there are many different recipes and types of currywurst. The invention of currywurst is attributed to a lady called Herta Heuwer from Berlin in 1949. We have seen currywurst as pathetic as some ketchup with a few shakes of curry to elaborate curry sauces. You can buy currywurst from many street vendors, typical restaurants, and sometimes even pretty fancy restaurants. In Germany they even have a currywurst museum :). We had currywurst also at a German wedding we went to last August as a midnight snack! We love currywurst and when we realized it is super simple (and we mean REALLY REALLY SIMPLE) to make a good currywurst sauce at home we could not resist trying...twice :)




 
For two to four servings (depending on how much you love sauce)
Wurst (white wurst is typical here but we usually only have red so we used that)
500 g tomato sauce (plain, not with sugar or chunks)
2 Tbs (EL) honey
2 Tbs (EL) vinegar (normal not balsamic)
1 1/2 Tbs (EL) instant vegetable broth powder (we used chicken)
1 Tbs (EL) Worcestershire sauce (or Maggi)
1 Tbs (EL) curry
1 tsp (TL)  paprika powder (spicy not sweet)
2 shakes Tabasco (or other hot sauce)





Mix all the ingredients (minus the wurst) in a pot over low to medium-low heat. Let cook until warm through. Play with the ingredients depending on your taste.

During this time cook your wurst. You can place them in boiling water until warm, or even better, make smallcuts (without cutting very far into the meat) and cook them on the stove with some oil.












Serve over the wurst. Garnish with curry.






We ate our currywurst and sauce with rolls. You can also save the extra sauce to use for something else like mini pizzas with currywurst sauce.