Chow Down to Eurovision 2015 - Germany

Our culinary journey through Eurovision 2015 has taken us to 36 countries (4 to go) and now brings us to Germany. 

After Vienna I did spend a couple of nights in Dusseldorf for research so I have some great ideas for future Chow Down to Eurovision food adventures......though I'm not sure if the poffertjes and chicken nuggets is a traditional German breakfast but it works for me!

This year Germany offers us a sophisticated take on jelly and ice cream with WINE! 

Rote Grutze would be a perfect eurovision party dessert as it needs to rest overnight in the fridge so you can make it add so as not to spend a second in the kitchen while Eurovision is on!

Rote Grutze
Ingredients

• 250ml cranberry juice
• 250ml red wine
• 750ml jar of cherries
• 230g sugar
• 250g mixed berries
• 250g strawberries quartered
• 50g cornflour (made into a paste with some water)
• 300ml Pouring cream

Method

• Add cranberry juice, wine, juice from the cherries and sugar to saucepan
• Bring to the boil and reduce for about 5 minutes
• Add cornflour and stir to thicken 
• Add all the fruit and stir through for a couple of minutes
• Pour into a bowl and leave in the fridge overnight
• To serve pour some cream into a bowl and top with a good helping of the rote grutze

While this doesn't look the best, ok a blood clot, the combination of the tart berries and the cleanness of the cream is bliss. 

Not every red carpet moment is a huge success, in my head I planed a "clever" tie into Ann Sophie's song Black Smoke.

The lyrics are "too hard to say three words" so my question was going to be "while its hard to say those three words...what 3 words do you want to hear at Saturday's final could it be Douze Points Germany?".....you can see in the video that is not what come out more like a raving jumble.

I did manage to employ that timeless technique when someone is not understanding you of just repeating the same thing just louder and faster!

My favourite part of the interview is when she turns away and says "I don't understand" which is fair enough she was probably thinking who is this raving bearded chap.....didn't he quite in the German national final?

Some people have said we look alike??

Photo of Andreas Kümmert source

Sadly no one did say Douze Points Germany and along with Austria they became the Zeros of our time.

Previous Germany Chow Down to Eurovision:

2014 German Farmer's Breakfast

2013 Beef Gulasch by Selin and friends

Chow Down to Eurovision 2014 - Germany

Guten Abend this is Germany calling, with a breakfast post that will be at such lightening speed you can make it at 4.45am before watching Eurovision live. (In Australia that is)

You can imagine as the alarm goes off at 4.15am you have no time to waste so let's get straight onto our taste of Eurovision past.

Les Humphries singers were part of one of the greatest Eurovision years of all time 1976 and gave us a wonderful English grammar lesson with Sing, Sang, Song.

They placed 15th.

 

Ok so with almost 2 hours of songs and what seems like 8 hours of voting you are going to need your strength, so a German Farmer's breakfast or Bauernfruhstuck is perfect!
Plus you are finished in under 10 minutes, enough time to let you hit snooze just once.

 

 

German Farmer's Breakfast

Ingredients

• 4 boiled potatoes chopped (firm not mashable, do them the night before)
• 5 bacon rashers sliced
• 1 large red onion diced
• 2 kranskys chopped
• 6 eggs beaten
• Handful of grated cheese
• 1 green chilli (optional)

Method

• Add a splash of oil to a frypan on medium heat
• Fry the potato, bacon, onions and kransky for about 4-5 minutes
• Add eggs and stir through
• Add cheese and gentle stir like scrambled eggs till just cooked
• Season to taste
• Serve on rye toast with a sprinkle of chopped green chilli to perk you up!
• This feeds about 4 so there is enough for a top up at interval for AB and I



 

Elaiza brought a touch of the oom pah pah to the Eurovision final with Is it Right 

Chow Down to Eurovision 2013 - Germany

The first of our big 5 players this year is Germany.
I managed to get to the Eurovision host city Dusseldorf in 2011 only 4 months late and at 6am on a speeding train bound for Amsterdam but I have the picture to prove it.

Sorry about your eyes with that one.

Germany's dish de jour comes from another of my class mates in Rome, Selin with the help of her friend.  

We had some great times in and out of class when she and Yuka came for lunch and I cooked for about 20, mind you they did have to travel past all the sheep to get to my flat. 
Although the highlight of our class time was our performance of a scene between 2 mothers in Italian about a baby sitter.

We were brilliant but it probably came down to our professionalism and commitment to the craft as we took to the project as Meryl Streep and Kate Winslet, I can't remember who was who but I can still remember our lines "SHHH parli piano!"

Selin got to know the real me well in a very short space of time, I gave her an alarm clock for her birthday as she may have occasionally been a little late to class, she said it was very thoughtful and a little bit mean, yes she knew me pretty well indeed!

Thank you Selin for the contribution of this Beef Gulasch I hope that one day we can all be back together, maybe receiving Oscars for our portrayals of Kate and Meryl.

54 years ago Alice & Ellen Kessler gave us a first glimpse of how choreography would play a role in Eurovision, they did a brilliant job with a space smaller than most people's bedrooms. I wonder what they would think about the elaborate staging the contest offers now, let along the hurricane of wind machines!

This is the recipe given to me, I have also done a Sarah Weiner again and made a Gulasch sauce that can be used to accompany a steak or meat of your choice.

Beef Gulasch by Selin and friends

Ingredients

• 800g beef ( beef for ragout or stew/ cut in pieces, it’s a really soft meat after boiling it)
• 1 large onion
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 3 tbsp. paprika powder mild
• 1 tsp. paprika spicy
• Salt/pepper
• 2 tbsp. tomato paste
• 1 cup red wine
• 1 cup water
• 2 tbsp. flour
• 100ml sour cream 

Method

• Peel the onion and cube it
• Mince the garlic and add it to the onion
• Heat up some oil in a deep frypan and brown the beef
• Add the onion and the garlic to the beef
• Reduce the heat to low
• Mix the paprika with the beef
• Add the wine
• Simmer on low for 1.5 to 2 hours
• Add water and season to taste
• Add the flour and stir to thicken the gulasch
• At the end of the cooking you can put some sour cream in it to make it more creamy
• Serve the gulasch with Spätzle, potatoes, dumplings or bread.

Gulasch Sauce

Ingredients

• 2 medium onions
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 30 ml red wine
• ½ cup stock
• 100ml cream

Method

• Sweat the onions on low till transparent, you don’t want them to colour.
• Add garlic, paprika, wine, and stock
• Simmer for 15 minutes
• Drain the onions and return to the saucepan
• Add the cream and heat through

I'm sure Cascada will continue the Germany tradition of making us want to dance this year with Glorious.

Gluck!