Spargel feast
Now that I did my homework, the spargel dinner was delicious (:
Thank you for the great company and be guinea pigs!
Mussels, finally.
Plan A: Mussels in Brussels - failed.
Plan B: Mussels in Belgium!!!
Just stare and enjoy.
A warm dinner
One of the rare chances that a few of us gather together to have dinner! This was an impromptu decision to have spargel and carbonara. Yes, how can they co-exist when both are main dishes?!
It’s our first time having spargel and knew zilch about how to cook it and how it was served. Nevertheless, the carbonara (with spinach linguine) was delicious and made up for the spargel. Of course, it was great having dinner with an awesome helper and a “michelin 3 stars chef”!
Yummy!
I always knew I had a flair for this..but just not the patience and that I am a lazy bum.
This is probably the first little step in cooking up more complicated stuff*. And I think its addictive because I keep on thinking about new stuff to cook up and I just bought Spinach pasta** and cheese, which is not usually found in my list.
So I tried doing Carbonara. Yum (:
Main ingredients: spaghetti/ pork goulash (cut into smaller cubes)/ sliced mushrooms
Sauce ingredients: egg yolk + milk + reypenaer cheese***
For a first try, I think its excellent job!
Because of the Carbonara, I had leftover egg white. I decided to bake Meringues****.
Ingredients: Egg white/ Sugar
Its so tough to beat the egg white manually, I think I took a good 30min to do it. Eventually I was rather pleased with my creation and put them into the oven.
I eagerly waited for my dessert
…There’s a smell. A nasty smell of burning food…
My meringues were burnt because the oven was too hot!
Aww, I have to try making them again.
Anyway, this shot includes St Albray cheese because I am now into cheeses, thanks to my sudden cooking fever.
This is produced in France from cow’s milk and is a soft cheese. Rather similar to Brie but has a orange rind. It is high in calcium and has less fat content than Brie.
* This just means that I will use more ingredients and more steps in cooking up something!
** Because of my cooking fever this afternoon, I was so tempted to get better tasting pasta like the spinach pasta that I eventually got. How am I going to finish the 500g pasta?!
*** Bought this amazing cheese from Amsterdam. Its really gooooddd, the finest Dutch cheese indeed. Oh yes, it was expensive.
**** Baking?! I think my family members will have eyes popping out of their heads already.
16 Mar Day 7 Berlin
Delicious colours of the rainbow.
One priviledge of being a student is that u can get access to the very affordable prices offered by the network of mensas in Berlin. A mensa is like a canteen back in Singapore, just that the main items change daily and you pick the items youself.
I look forward to having lunch at mensa. Not only does it provide a proper sit down meal, the meal is also HOT n very filling.
My first distinct memory was at the mensa at HTV. It was much larger than the one at HWR*. The selection of food was much wider, and the best part was
the YOGHURT**.
They greeted me with a row of vibrant colours and flavours. Pink raspberry with banana, brown chocolate, beige mango flavoured. Not to mention the colourful sauces and rice pudding.
YUM.
They became my staple for the lunches.
Boy, i will miss them after the two weeks intensive german lang course ‘cause we will be back on HWR, in the much smaller mensa.
*and that is my school :/
** They make me so happy!! its like ice cream but healthier. And imagine ‘ice cream’ for every meal! There’s also something called ‘quark’ - its like a special kind of low fat cream cheese. Yum.
15 Mar Day 6 Berlin
Little Turkey in Berlin
In the 6 days so far, my friends ate turkish döner kebab for 4 out of 6 days*. Oh yes, the turkish food stores are everywhere. Apparently, Berlin has the largest turkish community outside of Turkey - even the ALIENS registration office hav a block specially catered to the turkish (updated on 18 mar).
So there are döners, dürüms..and many more! I dont remember all the names since we usually eat the two mentioned. A typical döner starts with a big toasted bread (squarish shape) and in goes the greens and then the roasted meat (chicken or beef)**. It is then topped up by three options of sauces - hot(spicy), garlic or sweet(not sure). The first gets really spicy after a while! I usually get the garlic sauce, yum. A dürüm is more like a wrap. A long one that is then wrapped in aluminium foil before serving. You can wiki for more detailed info!
I find the roasting of the meat an art. Layers and layers of meat is piled on and the whole chunk is roasted vertically on a skewer. The chef will then slice off bits of roasted meat when preparing the döner of dürüm. Of course, there are electric slicers, but the best is still by hand and u get uneven chunks of meat that adds to the texture of your bite!
Although I only had one so far***, it is not difficult to understand why there is a döner addict amongst us.
Oh, but sometimes if you end up at an unpopular store, the meat could have been left there for a number of days…so it is not very healthy. Also, you have no way of knowing where the meat came from…
(Updated 21 mar:)
Kebab stores to look out for in Berlin-
1. Merringdam Mustafa dürüm
You can find chunks of potatoes in the kebab and the meat is delicious. A must try! 3.00 euros.
2. Alexanderplatz kebab place (I dont know the name, it is just at the station)
The turkish pizza salat mit döner is a super value for money meal. It is huge (and very filling) for 3.50 euros.
* Okay, i made up e number cause i cant remember e exact number. But, they really ate it almost everyday!
** no pork! Kosher.
***I dont mind eating more!
