Kategorien
Not-the-Kitchen

Currywurst Deluxe

Curry Cologne Logo

The Currywurst is a German original. Presumably invented by a certain Herta Heuwer in Berlin on 4 September 1949 who, out of boredom, started experimenting with the ingredients at her sausage stall, it is now famous on various parts of Germany, mostly Berlin, Hamburg and the Ruhrpott, which is close to where we live, so we get our fair share of Currywurst stalls as well.

Basically it’s a hot grilled pork sausage. The key to what makes a Currywurst a Currywurst instead of an ordinary sausage is the sauce, which is ketchup-based but seasoned with various spices, thus achieving the unique Currywurst flavor. Basically it’s a simple take-away dish, not very healthy – mind you, but seriously: who cares? – and usually served with french fries, but one with a tradition and apparently a legend. There even is a novel called „Die Erfindung der Currywurst“ (The Invention of Curried Sausage) by Uwe Timm, just so you know how important exactly we take our Currywurst. It’s literatureworthy!

However, you usually just get it at take-away stand or small tiny diners, served in a plastic bowl, often drowned in the sauce, which is not necessarily a bad sign, depending on the quality of the sauce. You certainly won’t see it on the menu of a restaurant, because for some reason, it’s just not meant to be served at the table on a real plate with real, rather than plastic, knives and forks.

Or so we thought.

Then some day I stumbled upon a small restaurant called Curry Cologne. At first I thought it could only be an Indian restaurant (curry, you see?), but further investigation showed that this was not the case. Instead we’re talking about a small restaurant serving Currywurst, and Currywurst only, but with some deluxing going on. Naturally, we had to check it out, so this Saturday while on another Cologne shopping spree we decided to go have ourselves a Currywurst deluxe, just as the place promises.

It’s located close to the Ring, near Friesenplatz, so you can easily reach it by foot, especially since we had to change trains there anyway. When we got there it was about 1:30 pm and the place, small as it is, was packed. Once we got seated we ordered the Deal, which is one Currywurst, one order of French fries with a sauce of your choice and one beverage for 6,70 Euro. You can have your sausage normal, spicy or fruity (we ordered spicy) and choose between seven sauces for the fries. I took the peanut-saté, Peter ordered fruity Frites sauce (and there’s also Aioli and French herbs). Both were really good, and I must admit that I liked Peter’s sauce a tiny bit more, so I kept on dipping my fries in his sauce.

Both the sausage and the fries were really good, the fries being of the Belgian kind, which is really large and thick and potatoey and also: really hot when they come to your table. And yes, this was a warning: Don’t be as impatient as I was, a burnt tongue hardly ever is worth it.

You can also order a Krautsalat, which is a bit like the German version of cole slaw, or be decadent and order the Candlelight Deal, which is two sausages and two orders of fries, but with wine or champagne.

We left the place content and full. It’s a nice place to get a quick bite to eat for lunch or dinner, with a little bit more chic and definitely more charm and cool then lots of other places serving similar food. The food is good and plenty and the location, just off Friesenplatz (and therefore close to the subway) is great. Of course I have to go back there, if only to taste the French herbs sauce, but also because of the special tingly feeling you get when your Currywurst is served on an actual plate. Yay!

Curry Cologne
Antwerpener Straße 5
50672 Köln
(0221) 58 94 556
info@currycologne.de
The menu (in German)

Kategorien
Baking My Sweet Tooth

Little Bees

Marzipan-Bienchen

This evening I made cupcakes for work tomorrow as a thank you for the lovely birthday gift my co-workers gave me. I made Nigella Lawson’s Carrot Cake Cupcakes and her Night and Day Cupcakes, both from „How to be a Domestic Goddess“, which was a birthday gift as well.

I had bought marzipan and yellow food color some days ago, because I wanted to make little marzipan bees for my birthday. That was back when I naively thought I’d have the time to actually bake a cake for my birthday. Since my father is an entomologist it would have been a nice surprise for him, but unfortunately I never got around to making anything remotely cake-like. For his birthday then. It’d be perfect.

Anyway, it seemed like I should use the marzipan anyway, since I was afraid I’d just forget if I didn’t and then I’d feel bad if I’d have to throw it away, so I decided to make marzipan bees to decorate one batch of the cupcakes with. It was easier then I thought but took a lot of time and patience. The result however is one of the cutest things I ever made in the kitchen.

I colored the marzipan yellow and made little oval bee bodies. Then I made the stripes and eyes with melted chocolate. I used a teaspoon to dribble the chocolate from for the stripes, but that didn’t work for the eyes, so I used a skewer instead, which – as it turned out – would have been the better choice for the stripes as well. The wings were little shredded almond pieces. I was a bit afraid of that part, but it turned out that finding good wing-sized almond pieces was actually harder than pushing the almond wings into the little marzipan bodies.

I also dribbled some more chocolate on the frosting, but that was mostly because I had so much left (bee stripes and eyes don’t really need a lot of chocolate) and I hate letting things go to waste and could think of nothing better to do with my little bowl of melted chocolate. Just eat it, you say? Well, maybe you’re right.

Needless to say I am really proud of my little bees. Too bad they’re going to be eaten. And soon.

Kategorien
Baking Kitchen Rants

Adventures With Yeast

Somehow I refuse to believe that yeast and I are not meant for each other. I always come back and try again. There’s a good relationship in there somewhere, we just haven’t found it yet. At least we respect each other, or at least I respect The Yeast. A lot. I believe yeast is a very powerful and versatile being and that once we get to know each other better we will be able to achieve a lot of culinary goals together.

For now though, there’s a lot of struggle and misunderstandings. Most of the times we make a compromise, like yesterday when I wanted to make bialys which, for those who just like me, have never heard of those things before, are kind of like bagels, only they don’t get boiled first and they don’t have a hole but are rather punched down in the middle, leaving a depression which is then sprinkled with a mixture of finely chopped onions and poppy seeds. They seem to be a pretty New Yorkish thing and since I consider myself pretty up to date with all things edible, I was a bit confused wondering why I had never heard of bialys before.

So, naturally, once I learned that bialys exist, I had to make some myself. It’s a simple yeast dough, which usually means that I spend all evening in the kitchen either tearing my hair out in despair or leaving dough traces all around. I swear there were little bits of yeast dough everywhere. I don’t know how this always happens, it just does, as Peter never tires of pointing out.

In my own defense I would like to add that I only had two recipes and they both were Americans one, meaning that I had to deal with converting all the measurements, which added to the hair-tearing-out part of this specific cooking experience.

On the plus side I’d like to say that the dough rose perfectly. I used a trick I had read somewhere and put it in the oven with the lights on. Apparently that’s a damn good place for yeast dough to rise and practically climb out of its bowl.

The next struggle came when I had to punch in that depression which is practically what makes a bialy a bialy. Yeast dough has its own will when it comes to shapes and stuff, so convincing it to please, PLEASE stay flat in the middle is not as easy as it sounds. Then came the onion mixture, then came the oven. I had the bialys in the oven for about 30 minutes until they were brown and crispy on top and then set them on the counter to cool down. Two were eaten right away and considered tasty, the rest was packed in freezer bags and then put in the freezer.

In the end, I felt like this was one more step towards a wonderful and enriching relationship. We’re not there yet, though. But I’m confident that one day we have learned so much from each other that baking with yeast will just be easy-breezy for me. That day will come. I am sure.