craving

TODAY AT “CHEZ BELLA” – Boiled Beef With Dill-Potatoes & Horseradish-Sauce – (Gekochtes Rindfleisch Mit Meerrettich Sauce & Dillkartoffeln)

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The reason why I love  Traditional German Food  are dishes like the one featured today, which is nearly impossible to find on a menu of any restaurant, anywhere 😦
So, as usual, when the craving scratches, switch-on the stove 🙂
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Bon Appétit !   Life is Good !
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Click here for  Beef With Horseradish Sauce Recipe  on  ChefsOpinion
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Boiled Beef With Dill-Potatoes & Horseradish-Sauce

Boiled Beef With Dill-Potatoes & Horseradish-Sauce

Boiled Beef With Dill-Potatoes & Horseradish-Sauce

Boiled Beef With Dill-Potatoes & Horseradish-Sauce

Boiled Beef With Dill-Potatoes & Horseradish-Sauce

Boiled Beef With Dill-Potatoes & Horseradish-Sauce

Boiled Beef With Dill-Potatoes & Horseradish-Sauce

Boiled Beef With Dill-Potatoes & Horseradish-Sauce

Boiled Beef With Dill-Potatoes & Horseradish-Sauce

Boiled Beef With Dill-Potatoes & Horseradish-Sauce

Boiled Beef With Dill-Potatoes & Horseradish-Sauce

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A Rare Occasion – “Entrecôte Saignant, Avec Salade Verte À La Française” (Rare Strip Steak With French Style Green Salad)

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A Rare Occasion – “Entrecôte Saignant, Avec Salade Verte À La Française” (Rare Strip Steak With French Style Green Salad)

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Usually, I don´t fancy my red meat cooked rare. Medium rare is more to my liking.
However, today I woke up with a craving for a rare steak. This craving stayed with me until noon, and when it was time to prepare lunch, I decided to give-in and have a rare steak. To my dismay, there was no steak in the fridge, so I had to walk to my neighborhood butcher to get the fine steak pictured here. Its only a 10 minute walk each way, so normally that´s not a problem, but the longer I had to wait to dig in, the bigger the craving grew 🙂
Since the steak was big enough, I thought the only side I needed was a green salad, so that was it. A few slices of bread below the steak to soak up the juices and there it was – the perfect solution to satisfy my hours-long craving 🙂
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As for the salad – “Salade Verte À La Française” sounds rather fancy, but it is really just a green salad with a dijon/garlic dressing. This is the classic French salad, the one that invariably appeared whenever you wandered into a bistro and ordered une salade. It consists simply of lettuce and dressing – no cucumbers, tomatoes, radishes or other embellishments. It doesn’t need them. For it is perfection in its simplicity – light and packed with flavor. The lettuce most often used in France is what Americans call Boston lettuce, and what the French call simply salade . Another favorite is escarole (Scarole in French). Rarely were other types of lettuce used in the old days, but now one may encounter innovations like feuille de chêne, literally oak-leaf, a variety of lettuce with scalloped leaves. As for the dressing, in previous times salade verte was almost always served with vinaigrette à la moutarde – a vinaigrette of Dijon mustard, red wine vinegar, sunflower or peanut oil, salt, pepper and shallot or garlic. In Paris, at least. In southern France, olive oil was used, sometimes with lemon instead of vinegar. Now there are variations throughout the country, with balsamic vinegar and other upstarts making an occasional appearance.
The tragedy today is that it’s next to impossible to find a classic salade verte in a French bistro, much less anywhere else in the restaurant World. The lettuce may be the same, but bottled dressings have largely replaced the homemade vinaigrettes that gave this salad such distinction. The newfangled sauce is runny, white and – perish the thought – can be sweet.
(Part of this description of french salad is an excerpt from “The Everyday French Chef”)
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Bon Appétit !   Life is Good !
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Click here for more  Steak  on  ChefsOpinion
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Click here for more  Salad  on  ChefsOpinion
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A Rare Occasion – “Entrecôte Saignant, Avec Salade Verte À La Française” (Rare Strip Steak With French Style Green Salad)

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A Rare Occasion – “Entrecôte Saignant, Avec Salade Verte À La Française” (Rare Strip Steak With French Style Green Salad)

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A Rare Occasion – “Entrecôte Saignant, Avec Salade Verte À La Française” (Rare Strip Steak With French Style Green Salad)

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Salade verte à la française

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grilled sour dough bread

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Preparation :
To read instructions, hover over pictures
To enlarge pictures and read instructions, click on pictures

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Sautéed  Chicken Thighs

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Sautéed  Chicken Thighs

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Sometimes when I think long enough about a certain dish, I can hardly wait to have it in front of me and to dig in.
Many times, my craving is so strong that I just want to have that particular item, with no “distraction” from side dishes, sauce or condiments. Such was the case with these chicken thighs, which madam and I nearly finished in one sitting.
Aaahhhh, gluttony………….  😦 🙂
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Bon Appétit !   Life is Good !
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Click here for more  Chicken  on  ChefsOpinion
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season chicken with sriracha, granulated garlic, dried oregano, soy sauce and kosher salt for at least 6 hours, better yet, overnight

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pat the chicken dry, saute in peanut oil on both sides until golden and crisp (about 12 minutes on each side, depending on the size of the thighs); the temperature on the bone, at the thickest part of the meat should reach 162 F; remove from pan to absorbent paper, the carry-over heat will take the chicken to a safe and juicy 165F (any more and the chicken will be dry) !!!!!

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almost……….

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Sautéed  Chicken Thighs

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Sautéed  Chicken Thighs

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P.S.
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This dish is part of my upcoming meal plan # 2 –
“HANS’ LIGHTER, HEALTHIER COMFORT FOOD”  –  MONTH TWO 
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Click here for
“HANS’ LIGHTER, HEALTHIER COMFORT FOOD”  –  MONTH ONE

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Escargots A La Bourguignonne (Snails In Garlic-Herb Butter In The Style Of The Bourguignon)

Escargots A La Bourguignonne (Snails In Garlic-Herb Butter In The Style Of The Bourguignon)

Remembering  the “Good Old Times”, when I went to Germany I was looking forward to enjoy escargot as often as possible, since in the not so distant past, escargot was one of the dishes which one could find on the dinner menu of most restaurants, usually prepared “A La Bourguignonne” and served in their own shells, but also frequently as soup or in puff pastry.
I was disappointed to find that escargots have mostly gone the way of so many other delicacies ( Tortue “Lady Curzon,  Foie Gras, Duck a la PresseTurtle Steaks, Turtle Stews, Abalone Meunière,  Sole Véronique,  Crab Louie,  Trout Almondine,  Canard à l’Orange, just to mention a few…….
I did manage to find snails on two occasions on the menu, but sadly, both were but a shameful rendition of the once glorious dish (One was escargots a la Bourguignonne, which were burned on top and completely tasteless, the other was escargots in puff pastry, which was served in a soggy puff pastry shell, bound with a tasteless white sauce, deprived of even the slightest bit of the de rigueur Pernod, which is supposed to grace the sauce of escargots in cream.
So, as usual, in order to satisfy my craving, I had to prepare it myself at home. In the past, I have tried to find escargots in the grocery stores around here and sometimes scored, but in the past few years I was not able to find them anywhere anymore 😦 . Thank you Lord for the internet 🙂 . I ordered one dozen cans, which arrived a few days later and made me a happy man indeed.
Here now is the first version of Escargot I prepared…….
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Bon Appétit !   Life is Good !
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Escargots A La Bourguignonne (Snails In Garlic-Herb Butter In The Style Of The Bourguignon)

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Escargots A La Bourguignonne (Snails In Garlic-Herb Butter In The Style Of The Bourguignon)

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Escargots A La Bourguignonne (Snails In Garlic-Herb Butter In The Style Of The Bourguignon)

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Preparation :
To read instructions, hover over pictures
To enlarge pictures and read instructions, click on pictures
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