Except that this was a bit out of the ordinary for me. For two reasons:
- It's normally a dinner. This time, given the fact that I was having a meal with friends in Atlanta, we ended up having a dinner at 9pm in London (nothing special if you live in Italy or Spain but we just came back from Denmark and dinner there at 7pm is a late affair) and a late 4pm brunch in Atlanta. I did ask if there was a preference to change the time to earlier (selfish from my side as I knew I'd be starving by 9pm) but my friends seemed to be ok with the arranged time.
- I normally am the cook (and Eric when I ask for his help) and it is my food that is partaken around the dinner table. Technology isn't quite yet able to allow transmutations or Harry Potter's spells to get the food over an invisible cable from my south London kitchen over to US tables. Therefore, I set a different rule: I would pick the dishes and my friends could search for their own recipes and prepare their own meal. Or... if they still wanted to participate but not cook, they could get something as simple as pretzels and beer at a local store and enjoy the virtual company.
I was never particularly fond of German food. You think what Germans are good at and food isn't necessarily what pops into your mind. As an Italian I almost always had some disdain for the "simplicity" of German food... as in, nothing special not as in simple pleasures. When I had a job, I often had to travel to Berlin and my lunchtime meal in the office cantine typically consisted of a pretzel and mustard. Sometimes a salad from the salad bar (also very limited). Dinner was typically - and thankfully - at one of the many ethnic restaurants in Berlin. I had probably one of my best Turkish meal in Berlin. Great Korean barbecue too and very nice Thai. "Let's go to a typical German restaurant" was said never by my colleagues. All this said, I've had some really nice meals at my friend's Giovanna's restaurant in Meersburg (by Lake Constance). Side note: if any of you are looking for a nice relaxing holiday, I would highly recommend the Alte Post . Go and spend a little money. After all we've all saved tons in the last couple of months of the quarantine (at least those with a paycheck that is... I am well aware that many people lost their jobs so I'm not being insensitive here).
So, how does a virtual zoom dinner work exactly? Here you get an idea:
Nothing different than any other zoom call except that we lift our plates as well as our glasses to cheer!
The actual meal had some surprising tasty dishes (see above note about my perception of German food). As a starter, I had picked Sauerkraut balls which as the name suggests they are balls made of sauerkraut but also bratwurst (can you say German any louder?). They can be baked or fried. Or they can be vegetarian if one doesn't want to include the bratwurst. Which is probably what I should have done when I couldn't find the bratwurst (of course I could have looked at the polish market since I went to look for filo dough) but instead I opted to use Frankfurters which are probably great in hot dogs but not exactly the best choice for my balls. I did spiced them up a bit with cumin and coriander seeds but trust me, they just don't work as well. They weren't bad though, and frankly anything is made better when served with a bit of Dijon mustard (or Grey Poupon if you want to put some Obama's shade there).
Jan also went for the baked version of the balls and Jeff opted for fried. Both were able to get bratwurst but while Jan enjoyed her balls, Jeff thought the cream cheese in the recipe was overpowering the rest of the ingredients so the overall impression was "meh".
Here is how my balls looked when served. Pretty, no?
As a main course I chose Schweinbraten mit Rotkohl und Kartoffelkloesse. Sounds delicious, right? For those who don't usually masticate German, that is Roast Pork with Braised Red Cabbage and Potato Dumplings. And then I added pretzel bread (that I baked and yes, it was beautiful and delicious... I definitely recommend the recipe that is simple and makes two loaves so plenty for freezing too)
A surprise to me was the huge amount of butter in German cooking. I knew the French love their butter and you can taste it in most of their dishes but who knew the German had such an affinity to butter? Maybe it was just the dishes I picked but seriously, that's not diet friendly at all!
On the other hand, the large presence of butter might in part explain the lusciousness of the red cabbage. At least mine recipe was really good. I think this was probably my favorite dish and will make it again. I could really only taste the butter and not the granny smith apple, vinegar and sugar (this dish is supposed to be sweet and sour) but that's probably because I was a bit conservative with the vinegar. Both Jan and Jeff complained that there was too much sugar and vinegar in their recipes and as such they didn't particularly enjoy it. You can also tell the cooking style was different. You cannot see the apples in mine (first photo) but they are very visible in Jan's version.
The potato dumplings sounded like a lovely idea (I really wanted to make spaetzles which my friend Giovanna make wonderfully well at her restaurant, but it simply sounded to complicated to do without the proper tool). In reading the recipe there was definitely lots of room to fuck up, particularly in the cooking them in simmering water but I trusted that things would have gone well (they did not). I was able to get things going really well... the recipe stated that once you put the dumplings in the simmering water, they would raise to the top after a couple of minutes. And so, once they raised to the top, I felt confident enough to leave them be for the 20 minutes it takes for them to be ready and go get changed. And that was a mistake since I came back to a bubbling mess. I was able to save 4 of them but they were watery and therefore very bland (as you can see from the photo). Jan's were a success... she said she only cooked a few at a time...
And then the pork: it looked - and in Eric and my opinion - tasted delicious. I love pork, it's probably my favorite meat (hello, bacon??), and roast pork is always something I enjoy. Fat and all. Unfortunately the skin didn't come out quite as crackly as I'd have liked but Eric did a wonderful job at not overcooking it and so it was deliciously moist.
Jeff pointed out that it's kind of screwing up a pork roast and I don't know that I agree since I've had overcooked pork and it's not nice. The photo are - in order - Eric's pork roast (he was in charge of it), Jan's and Jeff's dinner plate. You can see how moist Jeff's pork is... I could eat some of it right now.
I of course messed up the recipe. You can't just substitute without further adjustments... so I should have decreased the amount of apples (I have reduced it in the recipe in my blog) as by the time I've put the stuffing on the puff pastry sheet, it was impossible to roll it up. So, instead, I quickly thawed the other half of the packet and put it on top. The result? Too much pastry. Was it a problem for me? No, I love pastry and ate half of the strudel while continuing to enjoy the zoom company.
Jeff's cake looked - and he says - was delicious. Jan's also looked nice but it was store bought...
A special mention to Kiyomi's home made apricot cake... it looked (and she says was) wonderful. I know that both Jeff and Kiyomi make great cakes as I've been lucky to have tried plenty in the past so I have no doubt these were also scrumptious.
Overall, it all went well. It was not as easy and smooth as having friends over for dinner and I really miss that. But we are in this weird time and we might just as well make the best of it... and if virtual dinners are what will take us to the other side with a modicum of sanity so be it...
And here's the menu with a link to my recipes. If anyone is interested in my friend's recipes, let me know and I'll post them.
Thanks to my friends for indulging me in this... All of them have been at dinner at my house in Atlanta and we've always had a great time. So I'm grateful that they were willing to try this virtually. There is also the positive of talking to them much more often now that we're in lockdown. We would probably never have considered having zoom calls before just to catch up. And while it is not the same and sometimes it's a bit awkward, it's nice that the pandemic has brought us together again. Even if through a laptop screen...
Next time I'm hoping that restrictions in the UK will be lifted enough to have a couple of friends over. Or, perhaps I'll just use my own judgement and do it anyway... right, Dominic? I've run out of H countries so we go to Iran. I am looking forward to that one.
Stay tuned...
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