friederike's Reviews
5 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 5Sort by: Title 
| Date | Rating
Aufläufe & Gratins
Very delicious, but... very very cheesy. I don't dislike cheese, on the contrary, I love cheese (and especially when melted), but here it's loads of cream cheese mixed with oil and herbs. Just not something of which you could eat more than a few bites. That shouldn't prevent you from serving this dish as finger food on a buffet (especially as it really looks great!), as long as you provide a suffient number of other dishes. Also, the dish could improve if you use about half the amount of filling.
PS: I chose Breakfast/Brunch as a course type as it's probably the closest thing to finger food...
PPS: DB just read this review and strongly disagrees - he didn't mind the cheesyness as much and would definitely give a 4-star rating...
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Casserole of Schupfnudeln, Cabbage and Ham / Überbackene Schupfnudeln mit Weißkohl und Schinken : page 30
This was really, really nice comfort food. Think of coming home from a day of skiing or skating, what kind of food would you like to have? And what is more, DH said it was the nicest dish with white cabbage he ever had - not that that have been so many, but still.
It does involve a lot of work - not necessarily that you're busy all the time, and there is quite a portion you could also prepare a day in advance, just don't expect this is something you can make without some preparation, and without getting several pans dirty. And it doesn't even look appealing, which seemed to be the most important argument to DH why this shouldn't get a 5 star rating - you wouldn't serve it to your guests, at least not unless you're coming home from a day of... well, you get it.
Regarding the cooking process: We cooked the cabbage for only 5 min and let it steam for even less, to retain some bite - a good decision, in my opinion. Also, how much flour you need depends on the potatoes you use, so don't expect the 100g flour to be written in stone.
Much better than the Schupfnudeln we made last time.
Edited 22 January 2017:
DH made them again (though I might have been the one who made them last time, not sure), and oh my, what a difference. He cooked them less than 5 min as they threatened to explode; they stuck to the pan and broke when he fried them, and they tasted wobbly on the inside. Not sure what went wrong - did he add too much flour, or too little? Knead the dough for too long? We probably won't make these again for a while as they really are work-intensive.
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Very delicious! I was afraid the dough would go wrong, as it was far too dry at a certain moment - it was supposed to be a sticky dough, but with 5 parts flour to 1 part water (plus a little fresh yeast), it wasn't sticky at all. I just added the water that was supposed to be added in the next step, and the dough turned out very nicely. I did let it rise a several times, more than was instructed.
The other small point of criticism is that there is too little tomato sauce - you need about 1.5 times of what is given. I also only added the basil at the very end - I would never cook it in a sauce, as it would then get bitter (I think). And the pizzas definitely needed extra salt, although that is part of the recipe - just be warned that you really need to add enough salt, especially to the dough.
We just made a plain margherita today; we'll probably add ham, rocket and truffle oil tomorrow, and will use another cheese next time.
Edited 7 April 2013:
Mmh, pizza with ham, tomato, mozzarella, rocket, sour cream and truffle oil - delish!
Edited 30 April 2013:
DH made the dough this time, and I don't know what happened, but his dough was too wet! He added a lot of flour and was back on track, the dough rose beautifully and made a great pizza. I've decided I wouldn't try other pizza recipes (as hard as that may be) unless we get fed up with this as it's just so good, and I think that warrants an upgrade from 4 to 5 stars!
Topped the pizza with the tomato sauce from this recipe, mozzarella and grilled courgettes, a leftover from this Zucchini, Tomato and Pesto Pizza - very nice! It was still slightly salty - you can probably skip the salt in the tomato sauce altogether. Chargrilling the courgette emphasized its flavour and worked very well, though I'd make the strips short next time, just for ease of eating. DH commented that next time we should set the oven at a higher temperature and bake shorter (it was 20-25 min now).
Edited 8 June 2014:
When I made the dough again yesterday, I was astonished at how oily it gets - don't worry about that, once you have kneaded the dough properly it will feel way less oily. Also, in the beginning it was incredibly dry again, but once I added the rest of the water it was fine. It's enough dough for two baking trays / four servings, and it really rolls out very, very easily.
We topped it with tomato sauce (this recipe, sans basil), grilled veggies (aubergine, zucchini, red pepper), mozzarella and crème fraîche.
Edited 12 September 2014:
Remember that the tomato sauce shouldn't be too liquid, or else your pizza will get soggy everywhere except for the edges.
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I actually quite enjoyed it but DB didn't, probably because I like pumpkin and he doesn't. So that brings you back to nowhere.
I liked that it was something different than the usual pumpkin soup (which is write in every other pumpkin recipe review), and I though the chili was a good idea, though we only used one instead of three chilis - I believe they meant different ones. The rosemary (one teaspoon dried rosemary instead of one tablespoon fresh) was a good contrast to the chili's hotness and paired well with the sweet soft texture of the pumpkin. On the other side I found it difficult to really taste all of the ingredients because especially the chili and the rosemary were slightly dominant. The mozzarella in any case was a complete waste, of course it couldn't hold up against chili.
One point that annoyed both of us is that according to the recipe, 20 min in the oven is supposed to be enough. Of course it isn't. In our case the pumpkin was done only after about 50 min.
So, would I make it again? I don't know, I'm on the fence. It looked good and makes a nice looking vegetarian appetizer, and it was definitely interesting but maybe just not 100% convincing.
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A bit boring. It didn't really come together as a tart, it rather felt like a few random vegetables interspersed with a little puff pastry.
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