Getting Stuffed, German Style

As if the previous weekend's overindulgence in London wasn't enough, it was off to Germany this past weekend. While the focus of our trip was Düsseldorf, travel issues forced us to spend more time than planned on train changes in Brussels and Köln. And though they were an inconvenience, we found ways to take full advantage.

Half a minute of pleasure

Despite being laid over two hours in Brussels to change Thalys trains, we didn't have much time to indulge Belgian style. Not only was getting anywhere on Brussels' cramped, slow metro system time-consuming (half an hour to go three stops!?) but the weather was so bad, even the locals wouldn't come out with their carts to sell us waffles and fries.

No matter, though. I managed to find one of the most charming beer bars in town, Au Bon Vieux Temps, to relive the greatest part of a previous visit: Westmalle. It's the only Trappist ale you can get on draft (all the others are bottle conditoned).

Unfortunately, by the time we ordered, we had about thirty seconds before we'd have to suffer the godforsaken transit system back to Brusells-Midi/Zuid station, so we more or less chugged our monastery-brewed liquid goodness and booked it back to catch the Thalys train.

But even when not properly appreciated, a proper Trappist ale is, um, appreciably better than most of the swill served up on our side of the border, where Heineken-brewed Affligem passes for an Abbey ale. Poor monks. Not only can they not get it on, but their finest product has been jacked by a conglomerate.

Meat and two veg. Maybe three.

Köln (Cologne) - Brauerei Früh - Do you see the onion, tomato, and lettuce used as garnish above? (Alongside the little pretzels...) Ogle them, because you won't see anymore vegetables. The platter above - consisting of aforementioned garnish, Leberwurst (liver sausage), Blutwurst (blood sausage), Speck (bacon), potato salad and aged cheese contained the last vestige of veg we saw until our return to France. That said, the charcuterie and cheese were so good, we didn't even miss food that contained color.

Taste the golden spray

The beer you wash down all that meat and cheese and dark bread with in Köln is, naturally, called Kölsch. It's light. It's nutty. It's refreshing. And it goes down way too easily. It's as though it's made to go with food. Or without food. Or to be drank by the gallon between train rides. And the waiters know this. They just keep bringing it until you stop them, marking your coaster with a pencil to keep a tally of how many you've had. Not to make sure you don't overindulge, but because it's a much easier way to keep track of the huge quantities being ordered at each table.

We didn't want to leave. We could've ordered even more cured Wursts and other unmentionable animal parts, but we eventually had to get to our destination, Düsseldorf. Which isn't to say we didn't get our tubesteak on before hopping on another train. After all, they sell Bratwurst and Currywurst on the train platforms there.

Slurping on the Axis

Who knew that the best Japanese food I'd ever have in Europe would be in Düsseldorf, Germany? The locals, apparently. People there line up – even in freezing weather (thanks to a heated bench) – for Na Ni Wa's array of authentic ramens. They're big, they're the real deal, and in proper German fashion, they're meaty. Really meaty. I had more cha-shiu in my bowl of ramen than in all the bowls of ramen I've eaten in Paris combined. And that's a lot of ramen. (And never you mind that green onion. It's not a vegetable. It's a garnish.) While Alannah slurped up the most fantastic curry ramen, I went for what they call the "Stamina." It's actually a kim-chi ramen, but they call it stamina because you seriously need some if you want to make it through the giant bowl, not to mention the serious dose of spices.

Oh, but it burns so good. Twice, even.

I like 'em older

Na Ni Wa had dominated us. Bound us. Tied us. Made us her bitch. Despite the fascinating array of old-school German brewhouses (and their accompanying menus), we couldn't eat another bite. But, we theorized, beer is liquid, and thus can fill the crevices without (most likely) killing us.

So we parked ourselves at a booth in Brauerei Uerige to imbibe in some Altbier. That means "old beer," but it's not old, just made using old methods that predated lighter-colored lagers. (By pre-dated, I mean back to the 16th century.) Alt is the Shirley Bassey of beers - older, darker, and still worth fantasizing about after all these years. And despite its rich appearance, its far from heavy, so you can keep drinking it just like with the Kölsch. See the marks on the coaster above for proof.

Swingin' with the locals

We don't go traveling solely to eat, you know. In fact, the main motivation behind this trip was to see Depeche Mode's final concert of their Tour of the Universe. So we'd met up with fans from all over (and stayed with our friends in nearby Dortmund). Upon the suggestion of one of the locals, a bunch of us got together for a pre-show lunch at Im Füchschen ("The Little Fox") for more Düsseldorfer Brauerei action.

While the beer didn't flow quite as freely (four non-drinkers and slower service in general), I managed to rack up five tallies of Alt on my coaster over lunch.

Lunch itself was a gorgeous, dark set of balls... Liver balls (or dumplings, though they weren't very bready) known as Leberkloße. As part of my put-as-many-unknown-meats-in-your-mouth-as-you-can travel/eating policy, I was excited to try this new sensation... and admittedly a little apprehensive. While the balls themselves were a bit organ-y, they were brilliant with a bit of gravy, sauerkraut and mashed potatoes. To be honest, I also ordered it because I was hoping the sauerkraut would somehow compensate for the lack of vegetables in my diet. But, of course, the cabbage was cooked down to near-nothingness, leaving the chunks of bacon mixed within as the only morsels.

Alannah, growing tired of mystery meats, stuck to the plain Schnitzel.

Stick it in your pretzel hole

If I learned anything at the concert Saturday night, it's that if Germans aren't drinking beer, they're eating. And because outside of a Brauerei there may be a five to ten minute gap between beers, there is food available everywhere. And when I say everywhere, I mean on the floor, in front of the stage, within the audience, at a concert. Not only were there vendors going around selling beer, cola and – WTF? – pre-made caipirinhas, but they'd also come around with enormous baskets of pretzels, cheese bread, and other baked snacks the size of your head. A small bicycle bell on the handle of the basket alerted us to their (omni)presence.

I didn't indulge, fearing that having anything more to eat would make me have to go drop the kids off at the pool during Depeche Mode's most energetic, energized, electrifying show in decades (though the previous week's gig at Royal Albert Hall was their best ever, but in a totally different way).

Between after-parties, staying out late, sleeping in really late, and rushing to catch mostly canceled trains during Europe's biggest storm since the late 90's, our eating and drinking adventure ended prematurely, but this is probably a very good thing.

A steady diet of fat and beer since the previous weekend – while culinarily inspiring in some ways – has actually given us a new mandate: To detox.

So we promise... The next update will be about something healthy. Something fresh. Something that doesn't involve squeezing meat, pulling casings, or chugging as fast as the tap allows. Unless, of course, I find a cheap ticket to Prague.

Goin' Deep / Au plus profond

Deep Dish Pizza two ways / à deux façons

I have a confession to make: I don't really care much about pizza. I know that as an American, that's like saying I could give fuck all about Major League Baseball, Ford Mustangs, and Pamela Anderson's tits. Maybe that's why I moved to France. Before we got married, everyone asked Alannah how she could marry a heathen who doesn't care for pizza.

J'ai une confession : Je ne suis pas vraiment fan de la pizza. Je sais que comme américain, c'est comme dire que je n'ai rien à foutre au sujet du baseball professionel, le Ford Mustang ou les nénés de Pamela Anderson. Peut-être c'est pourquoi je suis venu à France. Avant de nous marier, tout le monde a demandé d'Allanah comment elle peut épouser un homme qui n'aime pas la pizza.

The truth is I do like pizza very much. I just don't subscribe to the theory posited in the film Threesome that "Sex is like pizza. Even when it's bad, it's still pretty good." Well, I don't agree with the pizza part. Good pizza is hard to come by.

En vérité j'aime beaucoup la pizza mais je ne crois pas la théorie du film Threesome ou on a dit "Le sexe est comme la pizza. Même lorsqu'il est mauvais, il reste bon." Bien, je ne suis pas d'accord avec la partie à propos de pizza. Une bonne pizza est difficile à trouver.

While pizza and Italian food in general have been improving vastly in France (you'd think this would never have been an issue considering the proximity), and while the toppings are varied and often creative, the styles are severely lacking. You have your authentic Italian thin-crust, wood-fired oven variety, as well as the godawful pseudo-American kind like Pizza Hut and Speed Rabbit.

Bien que la pizza et la nourriture italienne ont bien amelioré en France récemment (ouais, c'était un problème, même avec la proximité de l'Italie !), et bien que les garnitures sont bien variées et créatives, on manque le choix de style. On trouve l'authentique comme à l'Italie : croûte fine, dans un four à bois; ou le style pseudo-américain de merde comme Pizza Hut ou Speed Rabbit.

What you won't find here is deep dish pizza. Often mistranslated here as "thick crust" pizza, as it is assumed that's how Americans like it, deep dish pizza is something from Chicago that I believe Europeans would like even more than Barack Obama. And Europeans love him.

Ce qu'on ne trouve pas ici est la pizza "deep dish". Souvent maltraduit comme la pizza "à croûte epaisse" parce que les américains en aime, la pizza à plat profond est quelque chose de Chicago que je crois les européens aimeraient même plus que Barack Obama. Et les européens adorent Obama.

We set out to make a deep dish pizza the Chicago way. Classic sausage, onion and pepper with a cornmeal crust.

Nous avons trouvé notre défi : faire une pizza à plat profond à façon Chicago. La classique de saucisse, oignons et poivrons, avec une croûte à semoule de maïs.

But wait! According to my research, real Chicago pizza doesn't contain cornmeal. It was added by people trying to emulate the golden color of the originals by Pizzeria Uno and Gino's... who allegedly use food coloring to get the right color. Well, I believe that when trying to approximate a national food, you go by what the majority do. And in this case, that's a cornmeal crust. Let's do it.

Mais attends ! Selon ma recherche, la vraie pizza de Chicago ne contient pas de semoule de maïs. C'était ajouté à la recette par des gens qui ont essayé d'émuler la couleur dorée des originales par Pizzeria Uno et Gino's... qui apparement utilisent des colorants dans la croûte. Bon, je crois que quand on veut rapprocher un aliment national, on utilise les ingrédients de la majorité, et donc, la semoule de maïs. Allons-y.

A standard cornmeal crust (enough for a 12" cast iron skillet or pizza pan) is made of 220g all-purpose flour, 40g cornmeal, 1 tsp salt mixed with a solution of 2tsp yeast, 125ml warm water, 1tbsp honey. When a dough starts to form, mix in 4tbsp olive oil. Cover the dough and let it rest at least 4 hours, allowing it to almost double in size.

Une croûte à semoule de maïs standarde (assez pour une poêle de fonte ou plat à four de 30cm) contient 220g de farine type-65, 40g semoule de maïs, 1cc sel, tous mélangés avec une solution de 2cc levure, 125ml eau chaude, 1cs miel. Quand une pâte se forme, ajoutez 4cs huile d'olive. Couvrez la pâte et laissez rester au moins 4 heures, laissant la gonfler à presque 2x la taille originale.

Prepare your toppings, or rather, fillings. Since making pizza at home can be time intensive, you may as well use the best ingredients you should get in order to make it worthwhile. In addition to using fresh onions and peppers, take care to get a good mozzarella di buffala cheese and a high-quality sausage (in links or loose). Lightly sautée one diced onion with one large link sausage, crumbled, five diced button mushrooms. Once browned, add one diced green bell pepper. Set aside. Dice one large ball of mozzarella.

Préparez la garniture. Car faire la pizza chez soi peut prendre du temps, il vaut mieux utiliser les meilleurs ingrédients possible afin de ne pas perdre votre temps. De plus d'utiliser des oignons et poivrons verts bien frais, prenez soin et cherchez du bon fromage mozzarella di buffala et de la saucisse de qualité (sinon une chair à saucisse bien fraiche). Légèrement faites sauter 1 oignon haché avec une grosse saucisse décortiquée, 5 champignons de Paris hachés. Une fois doré, ajoutez un piment vert haché. Laissez froidir. Hachez une grosse balle de mozzarella.

Prepare your sauce: Heat 450g of crushed tomatoes (canned is perfectly fine), mixing in 2 cloves minced garlic, 2tsp salt, 2tsp sugar, and a handful of chopped basil. Stir well to integrate over medium heat.

Préparez votre sauce : Réchauffez 450g de pulpe de tomate (ça ira en boite), en ajoutant 2 gousses d'ail écrasé, 2cc sel, 2cc sucre, et 1 poignée du basilic haché. Mélangez bien pour l'integrer sur une chaleur moyenne.

Line your cast iron skillet or pizza pan with butter and a light dusting of cornmeal, then spread out the dough like you would a pie crust. Put the layer of diced mozzarella on the bottom, followed by the sausage/pepper/mushroom/onion mixture, and top the "pie" with sauce until just below the edge of the crust. (See photo above.)

Tartinez la poêle de fonte ou plat à four avec du beurre, faites une couche légère de semoule de maïs et puis mettre la pâte à croûte dedans, comme on fait une tarte. D'abord, faire une couche au fond avec le mozzarella, puis le mélange de saucisse/oignon/champignon/poivron et remplir la "tarte" avec la sauce, jusqu'à juste dessous le bord de la croûte. (Regardez la photo ci-dessus.)

Put the pizza in a 375ºF/190ºC/Th.7 oven for 30-40 minutes - about when the crust is golden. Remove, allow to cool a few minutes, and cut into large slices. Serve while hot. Or eat when leftover, because like any all-American pizza, it's even better the next day.

Mettez la pizza dans le four à 375ºF/190ºC/Th.7 pour 30-40 minutes - jusqu'à la croûte est dorée. Enlevez-la, laissez froidir quelques minutes, et découpez en grosses tranches. Servez chaude. Ou mangez-la froid, car comme toutes les pizzas all-American, c'est mieux le lendemain !

But wait... there's more! Here at Hungry Amateurs, we never do anything only once. We'll try anything twice. Three times if we like it. So of course, we had to do it our way.

Mais attends ... il y en a plus ! Ici chez Hungry Amateurs, on ne fait rien seulement une fois. Nous essayons n'import quoi deux fois. Trois fois s'il nous plait. Donc bien sûr nous l'avons fait à notre façon.

Frankly, I'm not a fan of the cornmeal crust. Again, this is an area where Alannah differs with me, but somehow we work it out. Vigorously.

Franchement, je ne suis pas trop fan de la croûte à semoule de maïs. Encore c'est quelque chose dont Alannah n'est pas d'accord, mais nous subsistons. Vigorousement.

Back in San Francisco a battle rages between the chi-chi hipsters (who love Little Star's faithful version of Chicago deep dish) and sensible people (who prefer Patxi's cornmeal-free approach). The first time I had Patxi's, I fell in love, remarking how buttery and brioche-like their crust is. And I love butter so much I'd do illegal things with it. So it was time for a new challenge: Make a deep dish pizza with a brioche-like crust. This is actually not that hard. Take the recipe above, remove the cornmeal and the olive oil, add one egg, 50ml milk, 80g unsalted butter and an additional 2tsp sugar.

À San Francisco un combat fait rage entre les bobos (qui aiment le resto Little Star et sa version de pizza fidèle à Chicago) et les gens plus raisonnables (qui préfèrent le pizza à plat profond sans semoule chez Patxi's). La première fois que j'ai goûté la pizza de Patxi's j'étais amoureux, remarquant la croûte plein du beurre - comme une brioche ! Et j'aime tellement le beurre, je ferais des choses bien interdit avec lui. Donc le nouveau défi : faire une pizza à plat profond avec une croûte briochesque. C'est pas difficile. Prenez la recette ci-dessus, enlevez la semoule et l'huile d'olive, ajoutez un oeuf, 50ml de lait, 80g de beurre doux et 2cc de sucre de plus.

Our self-imposed rule was simple. Other than the crust, the ingredients had to remain the same: One bell pepper, one link of sausage, one onion, five large button mushrooms, and one ball of mozzarella di buffala. Naturally, though, we're sticklers for texture and mouthfeel. So I sliced everything finely. The onions were first caramelized before adding the sausage, and the mushrooms were cooked separately and not added until the very end. Largely because I forgot them and Alannah had to remind me.

La regle que nous avons fait nous-mêmes est simple. Sauf la croûte, tous les autres ingrédients doivent rester pareils : Un poivron, une saucisse, un oignon, cinq gros champignons de Paris et une balle de mozzarella di buffala. Naturellement, nous sommes chevaux sur la texture et l'impression en bouche. Donc j'ai tout emincé finement. Les oignons étaient caramelisés avant d'ajouter la saucisse, et les champignons cuits séparément et pas ajoutés jusqu'à la fin. Carrément parce que je les ai oublié et Alannah a du me rappeler.

OK, so I cheated. I used red peppers as well as green peppers, and in a nod to another San Francisco favorite – the drunken 4am delivery of sausage and ricotta from Volare Pizza – I plugged the pie with chunks of fresh ricotta cheese. I paid dearly for this transgression, though. I went to our local Italian deli for a tub of housemade ricotta for a ridiculous price, not knowing that the Monoprix supermarket nearby sells their "gourmet" line of ricotta for a tenth of the price. D'oh! Also, I used a springform cake pan to get a higher wall and, thus, a deeper pizza.

Bon, j'ai trompé. Ainsi que le poivron vert, j'ai utilisé unpiment rouge, et en hommage à un autre favori San Franciscain – la livraison à 4 heure du matin d'un pizza de saucisse et ricotta de Volare Pizza – j'ai ajouté des morceaux du fromage ricotta. Cependant, j'ai payé chèrement cette violation des regles. Je suis allé chez notre épicerie italienne à prendre une barquette de ricotta maison à un prix ridicule, pas sachant que le supermarché à côté vend la version "Monoprix gourmet" à dix pour cent du prix ... Mince ! En outre, j'ai utlisé une moule à charnière pour une croûte plus haute et ainsi, une pizza plus profonde.

The result? Look at that and tell me you don't want to simply stick your di eat it all up.

Le résultat ? Régardez-là et dites-moi que vous ne voulez mettre votre bi manger-la tout.

OK, so Alannah still prefers the cornmeal crust. Everybody has as much of an opinion about pizza crusts as they do about toppings. But overall, the deep dish pizza inspired by San Francisco kicked Chicago's ass to the curb.

Bon, Alannah préfère toujours la croûte à semoule de maïs. Il y autant d'avis sur des croûtes car il ya sur les garnitures. Mais global, la pizza à plat profond inspirée par San Francisco a bien démonté Chicago.

Drunken Paella

It wasn't quite a lost weekend, but definitely a hazy one. We wore ourselves out pretty nicely, but now we've almost recovered enough to get back to the business of exposing ourselves.

The mercury was pushing 30ºC in Paris and the air heavy and balmy, with plenty of sunshine. It's as though someone forgot to remind Mother Nature that the weather here is supposed to suck hard, then unexpectedly snowball you. Such weather calls for just one thing: Hot, sweaty sessions of day-drinking.

Before starting our Sunday session of boozin' in the sun, I prepped everything I could to make a proper paella mixta after coming home later. After lubing up with a beer and bloody Mary first, of course.


If you've done the necessary prep work (the bulk of which is just measuring out your ingredients and having them at hand), making paella is easy. Even hammered. Hell, even without a proper paellera (paella pan).

Take a wide, shallow pan, heat it up, and throw in a few tablespoons of olive oil. Throw in a bunch of whole prawns (or crayfish or langoustines... something with beady eyes, meaty tail, and tasty guts) and heat until nice and pink/red. Set aside.

Now throw chunks of Spanish chorizo into the pan (Mexican chorizo isn't quite the same, but you can do that if you like) and brown. Set aside.

With the pan still going, throw in a mixture of very finely chopped onion, a crushed garlic clove, and if you feel like it, a small tomato that's been beaten to a pulp. (Don't bother with the canned stuff.) Maybe a dash of sweet paprika. Once they're nicely sweaty and soft, throw in two cups of rice and sauté in the mixture until browned.

Pour in 3 cups of seafood broth. Or in my case, I had only made 2 cups of broth (basically by boiling and straining the carcasses of around 2 dozen previously cooked and eaten shrimp) and added an additional cup of water. The homemade shrimp broth is awesome and simple. If you can't swing it, use chicken or vegetable broth.

Get the heat up nice and high until the broth starts to boil, then turn it down to a medium low and let it sit for about 15 minutes. At that point, most of the water should be gone and your rice should be al dente.

Grab a healthy pinch of saffron (the real shit, not that turmeric-infused powdered orange trash) and mix it into the rice. I prefer to grind mine down with a pestel and mortar first for even distribution and to get as much scent and color out of it. Re-introduce the sausage to the pan and mix in as well. Press your filter-feeders into the rice and make it look pretty.

Crank up the heat under your pan to high, in order to form a light crust at the bottom. You'll know it's good to go when you smell a slight burning scent. It should take less than a minute.

That's it! Some people like to finish it in the oven, which I did to get a little extra "roast" on the prawns from the broiler. It gives them that just-barbecued-on-the-beach feel.

Trust me, you can easily do all of the above while completely tanked. In fact, it will come out even better when you're in a less inhibited state of mind.

Case in point: After drinking all day, I got to the step that requires a "healthy pinch" of saffron. Apparently, after numerous cocktails and beers, you don't think twice about dumping half a container of real Iranian saffron into your paella. Since it's not polite to discuss finances, let's just say that good saffron makes uncut Colombian cocaine look like a bargain.

While you may want to kick your own ass when you sober up and realize you just used up half a college tuition's worth of spice, the memory of saffron flavor exploding all over your tastebuds and olfactory senses makes it forgivable.

Hell, even if you don't follow our drunken lead, a good paella is still easy and surprisingly simple. And you can make it with just about anything - chicken, rabbit, mussels, clams... Even vegetarian if you swing that way.

Of course, there's never too much of a good thing. Keep your buzz going by enjoying your paella with a nice old-vine Garnacha from Spain. It's the hotness as wine goes right now, and dirt cheap to boot.

Back from ze Market/Back to ze Kitchen

This vacation from cooking has lasted long enough.

My finger is healed, the outdoor markets are irresistibly sunny, and we need to get our fill of quality, unprocessed food before going on (proper) vacation this summer. While we're looking forward to gorging on luscious foods from California and the Pacific Northwest, we'll be dealing with substandard kitchens and, dammit, we're gonna miss just going down the street to pick up stuff like this:


More or less from the top left: Lamb for grilling, gigantic French apricots, roma tomatoes, local cherries, baguette de campagne, enormous avocados, tomatoes on the vine, spiced/herb sausage made by our local butcher, farm-fresh eggs, Catalan and Nicoise olives, organic prawns (I guess that means they're farmed?), and a freakin' lemon.

We can't wait to put all of these in our mouths.

Though not all at once. That's for another site.

[Insert Italian Sausage Joke]

This post is dedicated to another couple in Paris, as it wouldn't have been possible without them.

They recently shared with us some goodies shipped over from family in Italy, and we had to honor the gift by consuming it as elegantly as possible. As much as I'd personally have no problem simply biting chunks out of a hunk of twine-wrapped provolone cheese, or shave off chunks of spiced soppresatta sausage with my pocket knife like a country bumpkin, I have to pretend I'm as classy as the wife sometimes.


So we went all trendy and had it on the cutting board, along with a super fresh baby spinach leaf salad drizzled in olive oil, balsamic, and freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano. There's something almost primal about eating off of a well-used cutting board - maybe the way it invites you to pick things up with your fingers and lick off bits of olive oil here and there, rolling slices of cheese and meat between your fingers... That whole classy thing went right out the window.

Sticking with the board theme, we served up a from-scratch pizza the same way. The smell of the proofing pizza dough (yeast + warm water + flour) drove me nuts all day, and it remained untainted and perfect by being baked as the simplest and best of all pizzas: The Margherita. Mozarella cheese, tomatoes, basil. Nothing else.


The simplicity of this pizza demands the best ingredients, as it can reveal any and all faults. Our only shortcoming was not having a pizza stone or slab to really retain the necessary heat underneath the crust as it cooks. While our oven is pretty admirable, reaching 260ºC/500ºF, that's still nowhere near the heat of a proper pizza oven. And somehow, I don't think installing a wood-burning oven with a reflector dome to achieve 375ºC/700ºF would really be up to code... Mmm, but think of the tandoori we could make!

'Til then, these simple Italian fixin's will do us just fine... We'll put up with slightly less than perfect, as long as the ingredients are...