Cooking The Books

German Hot Potato Salad

There's no point in buying lots of tasty stuff from foreign supermarkets and then not eating it so last night I set to work on my bratwurst.  My favourite ways to eat this are with rösti, a potato salad (differing from most I see being vinaigrette rather than mayonnaise based) or with some boiled spuds and saurkraut - all very tasty.  Like most I'm trying to cut down on fat for a while after Christmas so as tasty as it sounded the rösti was out the window.  I've grabbed a recipe for a veal in cream sauce, a common Zurich dish served with rösti, so I'll knock one up in February instead along with that. 

Investigating the potato salad I found it wasn't even vinaigrette on the outside but a sweet sharp dressing made with equal quantities of vinegar, sugar and water - perfect for a low fat month and it beats the boiled potatoes from a flavour perspective.  I just couldn't resist the addition of some bacon and onion though, even if it did up the fat content.  The dish is far lighter than one made with mayonnaise and tastier too.  You could serve it anywhere you'd have a normal potato salad and both hot or left to cool.

Bürli

When eating in the Zeughauskeller in Zurich last week we were presented with a basket of rather tasty rolls.  They had a dark, almost burnt in places exterior which gave them a chewy and heavily flavoured crust that made me think they'd been cooked at a high temperature.  On the inside they had a reasonably open crumb (a wet dough?) whose texture, along with the chewy crust, suggested a long fermentation.  I decided I wanted to try and recreate them.

The more I thought about them the more I thought they had some form of sourdough in them, were made from a high water content dough and cooked at a high heat.  I didn't have a recipe and no one in the house knew the name of them but a flash of inspiration from my Step Dad led us to the meal receipt in his wallet and their name - bürli.  Google returned a lone English language recipe but it confirmed by suspicions: start two days ahead making a little sourdough starter, add to it until you've got a 75% water content (i.e. wet) dough and cook them at the rather warm 240 C.

The sourdough is made using commercial yeast and only requires two days (it's for flavouring rather than leavening the bread) so is a great starter if you've never played with sourdoughs before.  I altered the recipe I found to use dried yeast and also decided to knead it in a Dan Lepard style.  If you're not aware of his methods he's a fan of using liquid and time, rather than heavy kneading, to get the gluten in the dough developing.  Instead of ten minutes of sweat inducing kneading the dough is given a few short bursts of folding with a rest between each.  Using this method sticky wet dough becomes lovely and silky with little effort.

The resultant bread wasn't exactly like that I'd eaten in the restaurant, the crust was thinner and the texture of the crumb not as open, but it was a very tasty roll nonetheless.  With that dark, chewy crust I think it lends itself to dunking in a soup but it 's also great eaten plain or filled for sandwiches.  In Switzerland it's the type of thing you get with a bratwurst as fast food.  I'll definitely be making them again.

Tubes of Mustard

I love to travel around the world and wherever I go I always fit in a supermarket visit.  I don't find it as exciting as visiting places' wet markets but aisle upon aisle of foreign food is always going to be of interest.  It's not just for looking either and I'll always pick up a few goodies to take home.  Luckily Switzerland isn't too far away and so I'm happy to buy fresh produce.  I'm never quite sure whether it's legal to bring back fresh sausages (as Switzerland isn't the EU) but out of all the things in the world one can smuggle I think a bratwurst is fairly low on the morally bankrupt stakes.  This time around I got some big kalbsbratwurst (veal), bratwurst (pork) and weisswurst (pork), all very pale, smooth and delicate compared to a British Banger but tasty nevertheless. 

You can't have a wurst without mustard though and I adore the way the Swiss use toothpaste tubes to sell theirs.  Not only does it look good in their primary colours but it's also a great design for such liquid condiments - nice and easy to squeeze out how much you want and no scraping around the bottom of the jar for the last bit.  This time I picked up a mild and a strong, the mild is very dijon like and the strong like a Dijon English mustard mix.

The Big Mac Index (and how expensive your holidays will be next year)

Not sure if anyone has noticed but over the last few months the pound sterling has had a collapse in value of epic proportions.  It was a tad overvalued against the dollar when we got $2 for every £1 but the pace with which it has declined recently is near without precedent.  What has this got to do with food I hear you ask?  Well The Economist magazine has for a number of years published the Big Mac Index, data that show you the purchasing power of every currency around the world, compared to the dollar, by showing how much a Big Mac costs in each country.  If your Big Mac costs you more than one does in the States then your currency is overvalued, less then you're undervalued.

Although not strictly correct, as we're talking Swiss francs to sterling without a dollar in sight, as well as nearly killing me with shock the price of a Big Mac meal in Switzerland made me think of this index.  6 months ago you got 2.2 francs for every pound and your 11.30 franc Big Mac meal was the slightly steep £5.13 (is it £3.59 here maybe?).  Three days ago, with the exchange rate sat near 1.5 (1.44 for the cash I withdrew once charges were taken into account), a Big Mac meal in Switzerland would cost you over £7.80.  If this is a sign of the future your trips abroad next year could be a tad expensive.

Zeughauskeller, Zurich

I think this place is probably one for the tourists but I like it there - where else can you eat in the shadow of an anti-aircraft gun?

I'm not sure of the exact story of the Zeughauskeller but I know it's something to do with an weapons arsenal and this is reflected in the decor.  Along with the vast gun above we ate in the shadow of a cabinet of machine guns.  The food is very standard Swiss fare which I think is done well.  You have wienerschnitzel, veal in a cream and mushroom sauce, cordon bleu and so on along with a pageful of different local sausages.  The Swiss don't seem too big on vegetables, well not if this menu is reflective of them, with most dishes coming with nothing more than potato salad, swappable to a fine rosti or french fries, for a small supplement.  Vegetables are seen only in salads and a bit of sauerkraut.

After a day on the slopes snowboarding I was starving, craving every bit of meat I read on the menu.  This made it very tricky to decide what to order.  I settled on a pork shank, which had been simmered in dark beer before roasting, served with some gravy and a rosti - it's in focus in the pic above.  Schweinhaxe/pork shank is something which can be gorgeous when done well - crisp on the outside and fork tender in the middle - and awful when done badly - chewy and flacid.  Luckily for me it was in the former camp this time.  The beer gave it a sweet taste and dark exterior and it had been simmered enough that the big tendons where soft, let alone the meat.  The rosti there is lovely too, crisp on the outside with separate gratings of potato (rather than a starchy mush) in the middle.  Others had meaty smoked sausages and a cordon bleu.  The shanks caused a little food envy though, no matter how good the sausages were.

If you're ever in Zurich and fancy some meat and carbs look it out, book ahead though as it's been full every time I've been.