friederike's Reviews
4 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 4Sort by: Title 
| Date | Rating
Stern Gourmet
(Herbst + Winter, 2010)
So-so. I think what I disliked most was the effect the baking in the aluminium foil had on the quinces - they became slightly dry with a strange side flavour, not to speak of that burnt part on the bottom. The clove was only noticeable the moment you actually took a bite off that part of the quince. And last, it was just very difficult to eat, and not elegant to serve.
I did enoy the honeyed yoghurt, though of that there would have been too little - we shared one quince (this season's last one!), and of course I forgot and made the whole quantity of yoghurt instead of just a quarter (I always do).
Compared to the Poached Quinces with Rose Water Syrup from two weeks ago, the latter was definitely better. It might be an idea to give this recipe another try and just poach the quinces instead of baking them. Or what about blanching and grilling the quinces?
useful (1)
Difficult to rate. The blood orange mayonnaise was excellent, though not entirely as it was supposed to be - apparently "... add salt, pepper and blood oranges and stir; the orange fillets should end up being small bits of fruit in the mayonnaise" implies stirring with a spoon not a kitchen machine. My bad. Then again you should have seen DB's face when he realised what I had done with his carefully filleted bits of orange.
Before that, the mayonnaise had a perfect consistency, thick and creamy. Afterwards, well... it was pretty liquid, you could just as well have added some orange juice. I added another egg yolk and 150ml oil but didn't manage to get back that consistency. Lessons learned: stir carefully; you might need to drain the orange fillets before adding them; alternatively, use more orange zest, less orange fillets. Lessons apparently not learned yet: read recipe carefully. All in all, though, the mayonnaise was extremely delicious and a great hit. It tasted especially nice with the roasted potatoes, which brings me on to the next issue, ...
... who ever decided that this dish was supposed to be served with store-bought (!) potato chips? You go through such troubles as making your own mayonnaise, only to serve it with chips? Don't get me wrong, I love chips, I have my own secret supply hidden in the kitchen, but I wouldn't ever dream to serve it with such a dish. The roasted poatoes, on the other hand, worked out perfectly.
Last, the prawns... While it was interesting to learn a new technique of how to prepare them, cooking them rendered them bland and tasteless, in contrast to frying them with salt, pepper and a garlic clove. Together with the other ingredients, I tasted everything but the prawns. What a waste of money!
The (blood) orange mayonnaise is definitely something to remember; I could imagine this working very well with e.g. grilled fish but also most kinds of grilled meats (pork? chicken? even beef!).
And just in case you wondered, the oranges were red on the outside, but somehow that didn't seem to translate to the inside colour. Either way worked well. And the second plate actually shows this dish as a main (2 servings) rather than an appetizer (6 servings).
useful (1)
Red Cabbage Strudel with Sultanas and Pine Nuts / Rotkohlstrudel mit Sultaninen und Pinienkernen : page 21
It was delicious, an interesting variation and certainly visually very attractive - but given that I had spent nearly 3 hours in the kitchen for this one dish only I was somewhat disappointed. I served it as a main dish but it's too monotonous for that - I'd rather serve it as a side dish, but only if it involves less work. We have about half of the filling left over, and I will try using ready made puff pastry instead of filo pastry - that should save about one hour's work. Alternatively, you can also just serve the red cabbage filling as is - it's a nice way to cook it with the sultanas, the nuts (I used hazelnuts) and the marmalade.
useful (1)
What an odd dish! The combination of savoy cabbage and parmesan didn't work at all, the sauce was very liquid, and despite all the bacon and mushrooms (dried chantarelles in our case), it was just little more than boring cabbage. Absolutely not recommended. We had savoy cabbage stuffed with mince meat and chicken liver at my MIL's recently - the idea was similar, but tasted sooo much better (and looked really impressive, too)!
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