Apfelsaftschorle, Kartoffelsalat, und Lebkuchen
Hallo! We’ve been playing a bit of catch up with our weekly Donnerstags auf Deutsch due to visitors last weekend and some last minute traveling that happened this past week. So we are having Deutsch Samstag and will be watching our German Films on Monday through Wednesday. We’ve also spent some time over the past two weeks compiling several different German language resources which I hope to post about soon.
Kartoffelsalat
Okay on to the food. After the amazing wurst and pretzels we had last week it was hard trying to plan an appropriate follow up that would also be fast and easy to make. We recently had some really good German Potato Salad, so I decided to look into recipes for a quick meal. However I was so very wrong in my assumption that it would be really easy to find a simple authentic recipe because, as I learned, there are many regional variations of authentic potato salad and I spent hours looking at recipes. There’s potato salad with a beef broth, or pickles, some with mustard, and others with hard boiled eggs. For more information on the types of potato salad recipes and links to the recipes I found, as well as recipes we have used and are collecting for future Thursdays, check out our new and improved recipes page. The recipe I made was a Bavarian style Kartoffelsalat, meaning this did not have mayonnaise and was more sour and served hot. Er, or at least I sincerely hope that description is correct.
I did modify this recipe just a tad, using a little less vinegar, used honey as our sweetener, and added an extra two slices of bacon…well, because bacon. I also suspect I had too many potatoes because I couldn’t figure out how to use the scale to weigh the potatoes. Overall I was really pleased with the recipe and in the future would use all of the called for vinegar, Kelsey was also a fan, however I think next time I would like to try a “creamy” recipe.
Apfelsaftschorle
Apfelsaftschorle is a German apple drink that is basically a 60/40 mix of apple juice and fizzy water. I wanted to try to find a drink to balance the sourness of the kartoffelsalat and this was perfect. Actually Apfelsaftschorle is sold commercially in Germany; our grocery store didn’t sell this which made me a little sad. Of course we later switched to the hard cider we had left over from last Thursday which worked just as well with the potato salad.
Lebkuchen
Or German “Gingerbread” that really isn’t gingerbread. Lebkuchen, Pfefferkuchen, or a honey cake, is a German cookie that is similar to gingerbread, but in my opinion is much sweeter and spicier. We’ll probably revisit Lebkuchen when we get to the actual holiday/Christmas season later this year and provide more of a detailed history then, but in the meantime if you would like to read more about the really interesting history of Lebkuchen you’ll find descriptions here, here, or here…
Usually in July I start to become anxious for the fall season; I typically declare the start of autumn on the Monday after my birthday at the beginning of August-thus giving myself free reign to burn pumpkin candles, add cinnamon/pumpkin pie spice to my coffee grounds, drink lots of apple cider, and listen to my Halloween playlist on the drive to work. Anyway, I don’t know if it was all of the apple strudel I had last weekend, or the cool weather we’ve been experiencing in central PA, or the Christmas movies that have been on tv, but it definitely felt like fall this week and I was in the mood for gingerbread.
There are many recipes for Lebkuchen, and I found several contenders. The recipe I used was simple, would totally recommend, and was on a Huffington Post article about the history of Lebkuchen. The glaze I made was different from the one provided within this recipe, instead I just mixed powered sugar and apple juice. As a side note, I thought it was somewhat interesting to find many recipes where there was no fat (butter or shortening) in the dough, and the recipe I used had neither. However in the future I think I would try a recipe with butter to see the difference. I didn’t add any dried fruits or nut since Kelsey is not a fan of either in baked good.
Horrorfilme
Keeping with our fall theme of the week I spent some time looking at German Horror films. Raised to have an adoration for horror movies of all times, I was pretty game to see what was out there, sadly my choices were somewhat limited due to library holdings and what is currently available on netflix. I’ve become obsessed dedicated to finishing season one of Helmlock Grove on Netflix, so we will watching Anatomy, Nosferatu, and Vampyr on Monday. Check back later for movie reviews, notes about German Expressionist films, and a German Horror movie list.
donnerstags auf deutsch 