Gaumenperlen autumn session:

Plum chutney

This summer ended suddenly after a very short rainy period with low temperature. The arrival of autumn this year was so quick, that it felt like the blow out sound of a bottle of champaign being opened: Plopp! Summer game over. The light, the colours, the smell in the air, the whole season seemed to ha have changed over night.

I love autumn, even if I am a summer type deep down in my heart. There are many reasons for this love and one surely is that autumn is the time of harvest.

Plums are one of my most beloved autumn fruits. Their taste between sweet and a bit of sour, their complementary inside and outside colour, the smell of fresh plum cake or a plum butter right out of the oven, all theses culinary highlights are connected with plums in my mind and on my tongue.

Last year I invented a plum chutney which was on of the favourites of my friends at the first gaumenperlen tasting. I refined it carefully a few days ago.

The most important thing for this chutney is time: you have to cook it down very very slowly.

It´s a wonderful thing to eat with strong cheese, beef or even a fine smoked beef ham.

Green flat bean salad with lemon and

fresh mint

Today morning I had to create a few salads. Requirements were: easy to prepare, summer flavour, good besides fresh grilled lamb filet.

I tried a few things and immediately nominated this one for winner.

Green flat beans are very fine vegetables to eat with lamb. There are many ways to prepare them - be it softly steamed with seasalt, oliveoil and summer savory or a bit stronger with dried tomatoes onions and a bit of garlic.

The following variation with lemon and mint is more fresh, tastes like summer and is served cold as salad. It can be easily prepared the day before you have a barbecue.

The ingredients

- fresh flat beans

- one organic lemon

- one mild white onion

- 2 tea spoons of honey, the best to use in here is a greek thyme honey

- crunched black pepper

- mild white vinegar

- strong green olive oil, I used a wonderful dark green greek one from Crete

- crunched sea salt

- fresh crunched black pepper

- a bunch of very fine sliced fresh mint

- a bowl of icy water with ice cubes

Spring leek chutney

... with dried plums, garlic and red hot chili peppers

Yesterday I cooked a new kind of chutney, or let me call it "hot vegetable stuff".

It is a strong sweet-sour-hot-combination to use with grilled meat, rice or potatoes.

You can prepare it very easily and preserve it as well.

The ingredients

1 kilo leek

5 cloves of garlic

8 small red hot chili peppers without pits

500gr of dried soft plums, cut into little pieces

1/2 liter freshly squeezed orange juice

1/4 liter of good white wine (strong and deep one is fine)

crashed sea salt

crashed black pepper

5 spoons of balsamico

olive oil

How to cook it

Heat the oliveoil with the small sliced garlic and chili pieces quickly and add the small cut leek as well. Let it roast gently for 10 minutes and stir it. Add the crashed sea-salt and the black

pepper and deglaze it with the white wine. Put the lid on turn the heat down and steam it very slowly. After 10 minutes add the fresh orange juice and the balsamico and the dried soft plums. Taste and add more salt if necessary.

The chutney has to be cooked very slowly for round about 30 minutes all in all. Fill the hot vegetable chutney into presreving glasses and close the lids immediately. Or serve it freshly made and lukewarm with grilled meat or sausages.

dolce vita ahoi • monika ebert • mobile minds

Chicory salad with sesame chicken and

lemon balm

Spring has just arrived very slowly in Berlin. The temperatures are still low, the wind is icy. But the a few warmer sunrays anticipate the upcoming spring season.

The time is right to eat more fresh things and to get body and soul in shape. A very nice fresh vegetable of this season, which can be eaten either hot or cold as salad, is chicory.

The slight bitter taste is a good basis to add fresh components like lemon or to combine with white meat and warm flavours like sesame or nuts.

Preparing the salad

Cut the end off the chicory so that you get single leaves. Wash them carefully with lukewarm water and let them dry. Arrange the chicory leaves starlike on a plate.

Preparing the sesame chicken

Cut a fine organic chicken brest into little pieces, as well as a spring onion and a little bit of ginger. Roast this ingredients carefully and slowly in a pan with a tablespoon of sesame oil. Season it with sea salt, white pepper, add a small glass of fruity white wine and a dash of lime, furthermore three table spoons of sesame mush. Then stir it and cover it with a lid to keep it warm. If you like it more spicy, you can roast the chicken with a red chili and add more lime juice in the end.

Afterwards roast three tablespoons of sesame seed in a pan without oil until it is light brown.

Cut a bunch of fresh lemon balm and rape a little carrot into rough pieces.

Preparing the dish

Put the lukewarm chicken on the chicory. Add the roasted sesame and decorate it with a huge amount of the cut lemon balm and the raped fresh carrot.

Spring

Spring season is always overwhelmed with expectations. In Berlin suddenly everbody wears dark sunglasses and walks hectically around in town. People often look like they were pierced by a big bee. But the best way to start this wonderful season is to accustom your body slowly and step by step to the faster mode of life. No matter if you wear sunglasses or not:-)

.....Mmmmmmmmmmarcolini

Lately I had some Pierre Marcolini chocolates from Brussels for desert, a gift from a very dear friend of mine. Delicious!!!!! And even the package design is extraordinary. Looking at his website he showed up as a real maniac in his business. Chocolates are presented like holy items in his store. If you have ever tasted them you know why. These refined aromas in the inner chocolate cream are unbelievable. The natural flavours vary from orange-thyme to earl grey or flowery nuances. If you ever visit Brussels, dont´miss this taste!

dolce vita ahoi • monika ebert • mobile minds

christmas-experiments and my new swiss munk

Do you know what a munk is? Nor do I, since yesterday. I got one of those very nice christmas parcels form my dear swiss friends living in Grisons.

In there were a few wonderful products from the fine small swiss food brand viva-la-vida (http://www.viva-la-vida.ch).

My favourite product among the delicious range from viva-la-vida, comprising sugar, salt and fine liqueurs etc. is the "dolce-vita-tea". This is a very nice tea with different fine herbs form the Grisons region which all have a very specific taste. The region herbs grow in is the basis for their difference in taste, smell, size and colour. These differences are similar to the terroirs in wine culture. So I´m very glad to have a delicious, non-alcoholic "dolce vita drink" right now.

There was a very special mentionable item in the parcel - a wooden little animal. As my friend told me it was manufactured by an old carpenter in Grisons. He craves those regional alpine marmots - called munks. The old carpenter was very glad to hear that this one of his munk family will move to Berlin:-)

I immediately fell in love with this little wooden hero and above all with his defiant sight. Standing on my kitchen-shelf he is now responsible to keep an eye on all the gaumenperlen products there. I call him Hugo.

Current gaumenperlen experiments

No cookies, no stollen, no new goose recipies... at the moment I experimentalize for my label gaumenperlen with creams to eat with bread. these creams are made out of nuts, almonds, chocolate and divers liqueurs.

Another new gaumenperlen product line I´m working on at the moment are pralinée-cakes in glasses. They are heavy mixtures out of chocolate, butter, sugar a few eggs and other fine ingredients. Because there´s no flour in it the cakes get a very mellow consistancy and you have to eat them with a spoon - like dough.

Meanwhile the second tasting took place and the first pralinée-cake-edition, a heavy chocolate-orange-bomb, was so coveted that I had to produce a further bunch after the tasting to send them out.

Yesterday I ate my very last own chocolate-pralinée-orange cake and it was a wonderful taste on my spoiled tongue, so I decided to develop this product line to a further degree of excellence in 2011.

Merry X-mas!

dolce vita ahoi • monika ebert • mobile minds

First tasting event: new label gaumenperlen

by mobile minds

On Sunday afternoon the first tasting event of my culinary sublabel gaumenperlen took place in my freshly restyled kitchen - new shelves for the product range were installed before. The gaumenperlen could be translated as palate pearls.

The first products of gaumenperlen - jams and chutneys - were opened for tasting at 5 pm last sunday.

12 jams and 3 chutneys could be degustatetd, all cooked with fine fruits and fresh flavours like ginger, lemon grass, lime and orange pale, cinnamon, star anis etc.

In contrast to this whole sweetness and also for the refreshment of the palates of the tasters ciabatta, italian scarmoza cheese and a fine black pepper salami was served.

This was accompanied by drinks like fine green darjeeling tee, prosecco of a franconien winery and orangewater.

Now let me list - with a little bit of pride of the creating cook:-) - the first range of gaumenperlen products.

The variety of jams was as follows:

- peaches with authentic vanilla

- yellow nectarines with star anis

- white nectarines with authentic vanilla

- yellow nectarines with star anis, orange and lemon peel and ginger

- speptember pears with lime peel and lemon grass

- orange jelly with crawnberries, cinnamon, black pepper

and clove

- blackberry with apples

- dark prune plum with orange

- dark plum with orange and cinnamon

- prune plum butter made in the oven

The chutneys were:

- nectarine chutney

- plum chutney

- onion chutney

I introduced the 2 tasting hours with a little lecture about the creation of my jams, chutneys and the characteristics of every single product. A few lines about the idea of the label gaumenperlen and the tasting event(s) closed my introduction.

Then the tasting began, followed by those wonderful sounds of human beings enjoying all the different tastes and talking about what they were eating.

The guests seemed to be very content about the atmosphere and the tasted results of my gaumenperlen summer production and I was deeply glad about that. In the end each guest could choose her/his fouvourite jam and chutney by leaving a dry little pepperoni on the corresponding cap.

Here is the ranking of the top gaumenperlen - autumn 2010:

The winner of the jams has been the orange jelly followed right up by the speptember pear. The best chutney according to all the tasters has been the plum chutney, followed by the onion chutney.

Thanks to all those lovely people who were my guests at the first tasting of gaumenperlen! Hope to see you soon at the second tasting! My plan for this upcoming event gaumenperlen No 2 is to work out a range of new jellys and chutneys with citrus fruits.

Looking forward to seeing you soon in my kitchen!

dolce vita ahoi • monika ebert • mobile minds

Little hero with pears

Autumn in Berlin arrived far to early after a very short hot summer of more or less only three weeks. Rain and coldness are rarely interrupted by precious few hours of sunshine. But autumn is also a lovely time concerning all the fruits and vegetables freshly harvested and put on the markets. Local pears are one of my favourite fruits of that time. Even if they are not as tasty as in other years before because of the scarcity of sunshine in 2010, I was lucky to come upon some very tasty little ones on a market nearby.

Besides a wonderful pear jam with a slight touch of fresh lime and a whiff of cinnamon and cardamom I created little dark cakes with slices of pear for dessert of my first autumn invitation for a few friends. Instead of those muffin cake pans, which dry out the border of the little cakes too much, I use small ceramic souffle bowls.

For the dough

For 3 small bowls the following ingredients are needed:

1 fresh egg

60 gram of warm butter

60 gram of sugar

70 gram of fine flour

20 gram of dark cacoa

2 knifepoints of fresh grounded cardamom

1 knifepoint of baking powder

1 pear, mature, cut in small peaces (with the peel!)

2 table spoons of milk

Make a normal cake dough out of the ingredients and put in the little pear pieces in the end. Portion the dough out to the 3 bowls and bake it around 20 up to 25 minutes at medium heat.

To serve the desert strew it with sugar powder and decorate it wiht a bit of pear jam or fresh pear puree (put some lemon in it so that the puree doesn´t become brown)

At the moment I´m preparing the first official tasting of my limited-lot production of jams in October under my sublabel gaumenperlen. The whole kitchen is full of different jams and I hope all the invited friends will like them. There are classical combinations like pear and blackberry as well as new ones like nectarine with ginger and star anis so that every friend will hopefully find his/her favourite.

dolce vita ahoi • monika ebert • mobile minds

Red summer breeze

Pomegranates are one of my favourite fruits: Their outer form, their inner look, their special colour - an irresistable red and their fine taste. In all, pomegranates are one of that perfect natural things. The colour of pomegranates is used to tint carpets, their inner seeds are full of healthy components. The main harvest season is September until December.

Pomegranates are often processed into sirup, which is mostly over-sugared.More seldom you get 100% pomegranate juice. The best way however is to press the juice out freshly on your own.

The mix

For your summer breeze you should press 3 pomegranates halves and make some ice cubes out of the juice. Keep the seeds of the fourth half for decoration.

Mix 4cl fresh pomegranate juice with one drop of flower honey and two drops of fine lime sirup in a champagne glass. The honey-drop underlines the aroma of the pomegranate, the lime keeps the freshness. Then fill your glass up with a good, not too dry champagne or sparkling wine. Put two of the pomegranate ice cubes into it, decorate with fresh mint and drop a few pomegranate seeds into your glass in the end. The ice juice cubes keep your drink cold without watering it, and spread their amazing colour step by step. Your drink taste like a refreshing summer breeze at the seaside, no matter where you are.

dolce vita ahoi • monika ebert • mobile minds

Iced cucumber soup

Summer heat, 34 degree Celcius last more than a week, everybody is moaning. I like it. Even íf I work a lot these days. The whole city moves more slowly, the inner city is a bit more quiet and everybody seeks dark shadow.

The real challenge is what to eat these days if you have no chance to be allowed to fall in a deep after-lunch-sleep. Solely fruits and salad feels a little bit boring on the tongue after a while. And what your body needs is something salty. So I remembered an old, very simple summer recipe of my childhood: A cold cucumber soup. To cool down the soup more efficiently and tastefully, I made cucumber ice cubes which were served in the soup. Besides the cucumber soup I offered a good italien handmade ciabatta and a zucchini dip.

Cucumber soup + cucumber ice-cubes

Pale and rasp 3 normal big cucumbers. A half cucumber puree with salt and pepper, pure it in ice cube tray and put it into the freezer.

Cut an onion and a clove of garlic into very small pieces. Roast them gently in a pot with 4 teespoons of olive oil until the pieces are light brown. Add a huge amount of sea salt and szechuan pepper and the rasped cucumbers at the end. The best pepper to use in this dish is szechuan-pepper because this pepper has a very fresh taste with a lemon aspect that goes perfectly with the cucumber. Switch of the cooker. Add 2 bowls of natural yoghurt and one bowl of sourcream. Taste it and add 6 leaves of very fine cut basil and lemon pale before you put the soup into the fridge for 2 or 3 hours.

Zucchini summer dip

A very nice thing to accompany bread in summer is a

dip out of oliveoil, a bit of pureed zucchini, garlic, sea salt, medium crushed szechuan pepper, lemon and basil.

Cut a half little zucchini into small pieces. Pour a lot of fine olive oil over it. Add seasalt and crushed szechuan pepper, a bunch of basil leaves and a bit of lemon pale. Puree the whole ingredients until you get a viscous consistency. If it is too solid add a bit more olive oil. This dip goes perfectly with white bread in summer. And in this case it is a perfect addition to the cucumber soup because of its slight taste. I hope, as I do every summer again, that this summer lasts forever:-)

dolce vita ahoi • monika ebert • mobile minds