Last days of 2012 

– gaumenperlen reader´s digest:-)

Christmas is over, leaving us with a wonderfully warm spring-like day today. Yesterday I cooked for two dear friends: a nice little codfish filet on spicy fennel carrot vegetables – baked in the oven wrapped into paper. It was a marvellous evening. We started our dinner with a fantastic cremant and little lukewarm puff pastry with cheese. Then we continued with a endive and pear salad and a little quiche followed by the main dish - the codfish.
For dessert we had the gaumenperlen chocolate cake besides a lukewarm vanilla-orange double cream. I need sportive excercise. Immediately!.-)


gaumenperlen tasting event No 5
At the second of December 2012 the annual gaumenperlen tasting event - the No 5 - took place in the wonderful juwellery gallery of EVA NIEMAND in Berlin Mitte.
Thank you EVA and all the best girls and boys Vicky, Regina, Holger + Axel! Your support was unbelievable! It was a very nice evening - thank`s to all the marvellous guests tasting, talking and appreciating new and well-known gaumenperlen. Nearly sold out this year: Pear Jam with lemon grass and cardamon. I´m very glad, that there are a few glasses of the best stuff left on my kitchen shelves.

last dinner in 2012
Saturday night I will cook the last dinner for friends in 2012. It will be meat for the boys:-) Do not know what and how at the moment. I am a bit indecisive what to cook and above all about the "flow" of the menu. May be we start with a little slice of baked oven potatoe with a lavendel-garlic-chili-dip? Or I ´ll prepare a few goat cheese crustinos with fresh oregano and a salty-spicy pear drop above - made  out of gaumenperlen pear jam? I will see tomorrow.
Sometimes I dream menues, so let´s wait until dawn.:-)

the 2012 quick wrap-up
For all my friends  - including me - 2012 was one of the harder and more demanding years: comprising 12 crazy month, changing a lot of basic perspectives, combining antagonistic incidents, a few lost dreams and a lot of new ideas - keeping us all under a permanent power pressure feeling good and a bit sad mostly at the same time.

2012 was the chinese dragon year. 2013 will be the year of the water snake. I´m really looking forward to a bit more routine, to a long travel holiday and to spending a lot more time with the very dear friends of mine - the ones of the inner circle.-)

Wish you all the best for 2013! Hope to see you soon! I´ll soon post the last menu of 2012 for you: for sure it will be cooked with gaumenperlen.

dolce vita ahoi

monika ebert mobile minds

Cooking with gaumenperlen:

Pickled prawns with balsamico and peach-vanilla-jam

The gaumenperlen edition 2012 is growing fast, the fruit season slowly comes to it´s end in autumn. I discovered a fantastic type of local plums at the Mybachufer market and created a wonderful sweet plum jam two nights before. To enhace the taste of the plums I added some star anis, black pepper pimentos and a few cloves.
Since last year I have been experimenting with the gaumenperlen products in my cooking. I use them to refine the dishes I create. Meanwhile I can´t imagine cooking without my own products anymore. They have become irreplaceable refinements in my dsihes.
Yesterday I cooked a 5-course-meal für two dear friends of mine. As a starter I served pickeld gambas in olive-chili-oil with garlic, parsley and gaumenperlen peach-vanilla jam. The two guests liked it so much, that I decided to blog the recipy.

What you need 

500 grammes of fresh prawns peeled 
3 soup spoons of native olive oil
2 small red hot chilies (en bloc! not opened!)
1 tea spoon of hot chili oil
2 very small onions
bunch of parsley
1 glove of fresh garlic
Rough grounded sea salt as you like it
1 soup spoon of mild white balsamico
1 soup spoon of gaumenperlen peach vanilla.
If you do not have that:-) alternatively take an organic high level peach jam and 1/2 vanilla bean. At the end you can  add a dash of lemon juice, if you like.

How to cook it

Heat a pan with olive and chili oil, steam all the fine chopped ingredents slowly for round about 12 minutes, except for the vineagr and the jam. If the onions are glazed add the prawns, the vinegar and the jam. Turn the oven down and steam it very mildly for a few minutes while stiring it. Do not cook it until the fish is done, stop it before. Dependent on the size of the prawns sometimes it does not need more than 2 minutes. Put your dish in a bowl, add a bit more olive oil and a dash of lemon juice if you like, taste it and let it rest for 2 hours - outside - not in the fridge.
Hope you´ll enjoy your dish!

dolce vita ahoi • monika ebert • mobile minds

summertime! 

high season for

salad dressings

31 degree celcius outside - marvellous summer! high season for all kinds of cool salads and special summer dressings.


Here are my three favourite dressings for different kinds of salads. The following dressings have all to be pureed with a blender.

No 1: strawberry-dressing for red oak leave lettuce with radicchio.

4 big strawberries
2 spoon of strawberry vinegar
crushed black pepper
sea salt
brown sugar
organic sunflower oil
1 clove of freshly pressed garlic
wild basil leaves


The basil and the sweetness of the strawberry are accompagnied by the strong taste of fresh garlic. Important for the composition is to have tasty basil and sweet strong strawberries completed by a fine strawberry vinegar.

No 2: sweet bavarian mustard dressing

Bavarians like sweet salad dressings. People of the North often consider these dressings as far too sweet. Born an grown up in Bavaria I love them very much. These sweet dressings get along very well with bitter salads like radicchio or chicory as well as strong ones like rocket or portulaca.

1 spoon of Händlmaier classic sweet mustard (never ever take any other sweet mustard – this is the best:-)

1 spoon of dijon original

2 spoons of tasty apple vinegar

2 spoons of mild olive oil

1 spoon of strong dark honey

sea salt

crushed black pepper

No3: the creamy honey mustard lemon dressing

This yoghurt dressing is on top of my taste list. I love to eat it with butter riasted little lettuce hearts as well as radicchio or iceberg lettuce.

1 spoon of dijon honey mustard (again: never ever take another one – this is the best:-)

2 spoons of tasty white old balsamico 

2 spoons of mild olive oil

1 spoon of dark brown sugar

sea salt

6 spoons of fat mild yoghurt (best is Andechser natural fat)

crushed white pepper

zests from one lemon

3-4 fresh oregano leaves

enjoy your summer salads!

dolce vita ahoi • monika ebert • mobile minds

HOT ONION PEPPERMINT CHUTNEY

Everybody is moaning about the non-existing summer. Yes you are right. But never the less you can get a little hot from the inside. That´s why I created a hot onion peppermint chutney with garam masala, cucuma, curry, red hot chili peppers, crushed pepper, apples vinegar, brown sugar, apple and fresh peppermint. You can serve this slightly sweet and hot thing with grilled meat, chicken or even baked potatoes. Furthermore it is a fantastic ingredient for sauces or the vital addition on the top of a blob of double creme eaten with steamed vegetables.

The ingredients (for 10 little glasses)

1,5 kilos of onions

0,7 liter of unfiltered organic apple juice

1 soup spoon of garam masala

1 soup spoon of hot Indian curry

2 tea spoons of cucuma

3 tea spoons of sea salt

1 soup spoon of fresh crushed black pepper

7 little fresh red hit chili pepers without pits!

2 bunches of fresh pepeprmint

2 sour apples

4 cloves of garlic

4 soup spoons of fine apple vinegar

120 grammes of brown sugar

Easy going preparation

Peel the onions, the garlic and the apple. Cut everything into little pieces. Remove the pits form the red hot chilies and also cut them into very fine slices. Put erverything in a big pot.

Then add the apple juice, the vinegar, salt, crushed pepper and all the other spices.

Start to heat it – lid on – until it is boiling. Then put the lid away and turn it down until it is only simmering at very low heat.

Cut the peppermint leaves (not the stipes) into small slices and add them.

Let the chutney boil until the onions are a bit smoother then „al dente“.

Finally add the brown sugar and let it simmer for another 10 up to 15 minutes. Taste it, add salt, pepper, sugar or vinegar to taste. Then turn it up again for 2 minute, fill the chutney into preserving jars and close the jars immedeately.

Now you are prepared very well for rainy days. If another low pressure ares will hit your soul again you have the possibility to open your hot onion peppermint chutney and make a dish to warm you from inside. You will soon cheer up, be sure of that. .-)

dolce vita ahoi • monika ebert • mobile minds

SUMMER CHEESE

The warm feeling of sun on my skin in mind I want to write about three summer spread cheese recipies. I gave them a try at my birthday buffet and the feedback of my guests was marvelous.The recipies are very simple and easy to prepare. Important is the quality of the ingredients. All recipies serve round about 3 up to 5 guests on a buffet.

1 Feta-Cheese Spread with fresh lemon

The ingredients

:: around 400 grammes of organic feta cheese
:: 3 spoons of green strong greek native olive oil
:: crushed cubeban pepper
:: 1 organic lemon
:: fresh Thyme


As I mentioned before it is really important to find a very good organic feta cheese as you basis. Take the feta out of the salt lake and put it in a bowl. Add 3 soup spoons of a strong green greek olive oil. Put some fresh crushed black cubeban pepper on top and process it with a fork until it becomes a creamy texture.
Take a fresh organic lemon an rape the pale off. Chop the pale into very little slices. Rape the leaves of the fresh thyme branches (overall not more than a tea spoon full of leaves) and chop them too. Mix both in the feta cream. 

2 Goat cheese with pepper and cranberries

The ingredients
:: around 400 grammes of organic fresh goat cheese/roll
:: crushed black and white pepper
:: 40 grammes of very small chopped cranberries
:: fresh coriander or lemon balm


Put the goat cheese into a bowl. Add the chopped cranberries and the small sliced coriander/lemon balm. Add the crushed two peppers and - if necessary - a bit of fine sea salt. To perfekt it you can add 3 up to five drops of a very old mild aceto balsamico. Do not add any cheep vinegar or young balsamico, it would knock out the cheese taste.

3 Parmesan cream with basil, dried tomatoes 

The ingredients
:: 400 grammes of double fat curd cheese
:: 150 grammes of raped parmesan
:: 6 very small soft tomatoes in small slices
:: 12 basil leaves, chopped
:: mild black crushed pepper


Put the curd cheese in a bowl. mix it with the raped parmesan, the small sliced basil, the dried tomatoes and the black pepper. Taste it and add some salt of necessary. To perfekt it you can add here as well 3 up to five drops of a very old mild aceto balsamico. Do not add any cheep vinegar or young balsamico, it would knock out the cheese taste.


Let all the spreads rest for a minimum of one hour in the fridge. Put it out at minimum half an hour before you serve it, taste it again before serving.

dolce vita ahoi • monika ebert • mobile minds

Winter is back: time for Bavarian cabbage
Last sunday a few friends of mine sat together watching 10 episodes of "Monacco Franze" a fantastic old fashioned bavarian comedy series out of the 80s. As I grew up in Munich it was very amusing to see all those places and people, to hear the broad dialect again für nearly 7 hours of TV watching. And the actors wore the same big glasses which are very trendy these days in Berlin Mitte. These glasses suit only a very few people and so you see a lot of beautiful people turned into ugly faces via their oversized glasses in Mitte at the moment. To see the same glasses in these old TV series was fun. 


We spent a fantastic day together: we started at 2 pm with coffee and cake, had pork roast with an unbelievable crust in the evening and dessert around 10 pm. I was in charge for the bread dumpling and the bavarian cabbage. 


I remembered an old recipe for bavarian cabbage from my mother and tried to re-cook it.
The ingredients:
:: a little cabbage
:: 2 boskop apples
:: 3 onions
:: a clove of garlic
:: 2 tea spoons of brown sugar
:: black pepper
:: sea salt
:: white balsamico
:: 1/2 liter of white whine
:: and do not laugh now: a spoon of heinz tomato ketchup



As I got a very nice mixture of plack peppers for present form a friend recently, I added a bit of it to enhance the taste experience.


Fist cut the cabbage in half, remove the stem and then cut it into very fine slices. Wash and dry them.

Heat 5 spoons of oil in a very big pot. Add the small cut onions, the small sliced apple without peal, the garlic clove,
a god amount of salt and of fresh crushed black pepper. Stir it so that it does not burn and add the brown sugar after rond about 10 minutes, stir on. After the sugar melted, deglaze with a good amount of vinegar, add the cabbage and half of the white wine. Put the oven down to a medium heat and let it cook slowly for 30 minutes, stir it from time to time. Add the other half of the white wine after 15 minutes. If you like it firm, it should be ready. Otherwise add a sip of white wine and let it cook for another 10 minutes. 
Turn it down and add the ketchup, it will perfect the whole taste, believe me:-)


Next time I´m going to write about the Bavarian bread dumplings. Meanwhile I´ll watch the marvellous sunrise every morning.

dolce vita ahoi • monika ebert • mobile minds