Malakoff- Cheese Bombs

I can understand that many people have never heard of malakoffs in other parts of the world but surprisingly even in Switzerland they are not well known. Maybe it’s because each of the 26 Cantons has their own food specialty and each specialty is so amazingly unique and delicious they don’t need to look elsewhere.  This in my opinion is one exception to the rule.  This delicious specialty of Canton Vaud and more specifically the Communes (towns) of Luins and Vinzel are incredibly tasty and need to be shared. 

When I sat down at the Auberge De Luins (www.aubergedeluins.ch) I was well aware of the Malakoff specialty, but I didn’t quite understand what they really were.  Everything I read and everyone I spoke to had a different interpretation of what the ingredients were and how it was prepared.

Before I could open my menu to see the different kinds of malakoffs and what special accompaniments I would be indulging in, my server came over, pleasantly greeted me and immediately asked if I would like a malakoff with salad.  I quickly said yes but then inquired about portion size, how many came with the meal, did I need other items, but before I could get my concerns out she stopped me and said, “I can only bring one at a time...they must be hot when served.”  I closed my menu and knew I was in good hands.  No where does it state that this was a buffet or all you can eat, or even looked like a stuff-yourself kind of place.  In the US they make every effort to capitalize on such an amazing lunch special, but we’re in Switzerland and most everything is very understated.  While waiting for my lunch, eight other tables filled up around me and to my surprise and joy the only thing the server asked was “malakoff salad oui?”  There were businessmen, retirees, even two street sweepers (I know this because I saw them get out of their trucks), and no tourists (ok, maybe one…moi).  These were all good signs that I was about to experience a quality meal ...one specialty to be ordered, no one was asking to see a menu, different people from all walks of life, and outside seating.

 Indeed all the people around me were spot on, because my hot gooey malakoff was perfect...no fan fare, no special sauce, nothing to hide what it really is (a beautiful gruyere cheese bomb) and they just kept coming.  I could only manage to eat three, but those with heartier appetites could add a few more to their plate.  The salad was a shredded cabbage with lemony mustard vinaigrette that was surprisingly refreshing...sure, the whole meal was white, um, make that very white, but the salad was the perfect complement to this glorious fried cheese concoction.     

In the bowl is Gruyere cheese, milk, eggs, mayo, white pepper, and bread crumbs

The mixture is placed on top of a toast round

Chef 

Fried in peanut oil, which is rarely used in Switzerland

No additional breading...only a few uncomplicated ingredients that keep it simple and tasty  

Horses…not just for riding.

I’m sorry did you say horse, like as in nay and giddy up?  You have to be joking right?  This was my reaction when a local butcher in Nyon asked if I wanted to try his most prized air dried meat (cheval). Maybe we shouldn’t have laughed, so I tried it (my daughter was with me and wanted nothing to do with it) and I have to say it was quite lean and flavorful, and had a smooth texture with a deep dark red almost purple color, , but I don’t think I will be eating horse again soon.  I learned early on in culinary school that you need to try everything at least once...isn’t that what we teach our kids?  How will you know you don’t like it if you don’t try it?  Being able to experience other cultures starts with trying the food.  But I had no idea people around the world ate horse meat, let alone consider it a delicacy in Switzerland. 

Smoked

Since I have learned this new word, I found cheval (horse) being sold at our local grocery store and on a lot of restaurant menus. As it turns out, eating horse meat dates back thousands of years and today over 1 billion people around the world eat it.  China, Mexico, Russia, Italy, and Kazakhstan are the top cheval-consuming countries.  In Europe, Italy eats over 16,000 tons per year (and this includes donkeys…again...you’re joking, right?) while France, Switzerland, and Germany don’t fall too far behind. The Swiss often dry cure the meat and thinly slice it to be eaten with their traditional fondue.  The interesting thing about Italy being such a huge consumer is the fact that since the 8th century eating “le cheval” has been prohibited by the Roman Catholic Church.  I’m sure this is not the only thing that happens in Italy (and most countries) that is prohibited by the church!  

Sure it can be said that horse meat is very high in protein and many people look at anything on the farm as a form of food...waste not, want not. Though for me I still see the horse as a sentimental animal that can be ridden for fun or sport or kept as a pet, but not eaten for dinner. 

Different ways cheval is prepared

Supermarket cheval

Jennie's English/Swiss Brownies

Would you pay a little over $9.00 (CHF 8.00 Swiss Francs) for a basic boxed chocolate brownie mix? Sounds expensive, right? Well, living in Switzerland is expensive overall, but it’s even more expensive when you buy imported American items.  But sometimes you just crave certain things, and my family craves brownies, not just any brownies but brownies out of the box.  Sure, I have been formally trained on how to cook and be creative in the kitchen, but for me baking is a whole different ballgame (or so I thought).  It has always intimidated me...weighing, measuring, and being accurate...what if I screw it up and add too much of this or that and then “Poof” I have an irrecoverable disaster on my hands.   

So you can imagine that I struggle with recipes that don’t give me the freedom to throw in a pinch of this or a dash of that.  It is my opinion that recipes are there for interpretation and can be great references but you can’t get hung up on them.  They are there to give you a jumping off point not an end all be all.  So because of my fear of baking and my presumptive thought that baking was very strict and you had to follow the rules, it was never important to me to have a good quality brownie recipe until faced with that $9 price tag.

Jennie’s Brownies (Jen is a British/Aussie friend here in Switzerland)

DRY

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup cocoa powder (I use unsweetened, but you can use sweetened, just cut back a little on the sugar)

1/2 cup all purpose flour (you can use self rising flour, just leave out the baking  powder)

1/4 t. salt

1/4 t. baking powder

______________________________________________________________________

WET

1/4 cup milk

1 Tbsp strong coffee

2 ea. eggs

4 oz melted butter (unsalted)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F or 180 degrees C
2. In two separate bowls mix all DRY ingredients together and then mix all the WET ingredients together, then add wet to dry and thoroughly mix. 
3. Pour into a greased pan (11x7 or 9x9, just depends on thickness)
4. Bake for about 18 to 20 minutes and remove and let cool 

This is a recipe that can modified to your heart’s desire, just remember a few points:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

• Grease the pan with butter, vegetable oil, or spray (or line it with parchment paper) just make sure you have something down.

• Make sure the melted butter is cooled down slight before adding it to the egg mixture (it will scramble if too hot)

• Do not overcook!  If after 20 minutes the brownies are still jiggly in the middle remove and let cool.  There will be a good amount of carry over cooking and even if they seem loose they will firm up once cooled (or be a little gooey in the middle, yum!). Trust me no more than 20 minutes.  I like very moist brownies and usually only cook them for 17 minutes.

• You can swap the milk and coffee amounts (1/4 c. coffee and 1Tbsp of milk), it just depends on your taste

• If you do not like coffee replace with your favorite tea (earl grey would be nice)

• Add 1 tablespoon of vanilla 

Madrid = Jamon iberico

Traveling with kids is never easy, but imagine two parents who are fairly regimented  about when our family eats (yes, we all get really cranky if not fed), and throwing that family in a place that eats all their meals at completely different times than we’re used to.  Well that was us in Spain...lunch isn’t eaten until after 1 pm and dinner, if you’re lucky, isn’t served until around 8:30 pm. We knew this going in and had our snacks in easily accessible places, but it’s still a shock and a challenge.  With that being said, the kids surprised us with their adaptability, and the Spanish surprised us by being very accommodating.  So my official judgement is that Spain is awesome! Madrid could quite possibly be my new favorite city. 

It is so much more a food city than I had ever expected. For me I’ve always enjoyed the unexpected...like the time we toured a chocolate factory here in Switzerland, and instead of the standard protocol where the tour would end by receiving a single piece of crappy wrapped candy, when we got to the end it was like hitting the jackpot, the mother load...all the chocolate you could stuff in your mouth!  When you’re ready for one thing but you get a different but much better substitution, well that just makes me happy.  So seeing ham at every meal was not what I expected, but it certainly made me happy.  It was everywhere and everyone seemed to love the salted pig...every lunch counter, super market, and deli had it in some shape or manner.  

just a huge pile of cured ham in supermarket

Now I knew that the Spanish enjoyed cured meats because everything I read talked about the jamon iberico or the Black-footed pig that is found in Spain. These pigs roam the country side and have a unique flavor that most definitely comes from them being fed a diet of acorns.  With only a few days in Madrid it was important to belly up to a lunch counter for traditional tapas, visit the Market of San Miguel, and of course eat at the Museo del Jamon (which turns out is not a museum at all...ah, if only such a place existed...but instead is a chain of deli-like, ham-loving hangouts that truly places the pig on a pedestal), and to go to El Botin (the oldest restaurant according to the Guinness Book of World Records).

Museo del Jamon

I must say I was skeptical of making a reservation at Botin as it was sure to be a serious tourist destination, so how could such a place serve quality food and be up to speed with the culinary trends of Spain that I was looking for.  Well you know what I’m going to say...we made a reservation and hands down it was the best meal we had in Madrid and to boot it turns out the oldest restaurant, in my opinion, is the most kid friendly place we have eaten in all of Europe. They had booster seats, crayons, paper for drawing, kids silverware (for some reason this an anomaly in Europe) and the bread came immediately (though they charged 2,00 Euro for butter, who cares, the kids were happy).  Here are a few of the menu items we ordered:

• Green beans with Iberian ham
• Garlic soup with egg (over-easy)
• Roast baby lamb 
• Roast suckling pig - sounds crazy, but they’ve mastered the crispy skin and all
• Croquettes
• Sangria

I’ll make sure I return to Madrid, maybe even tour some of those famous museums everyone was talking about.  

This Piggy goes to Market

I am getting a little better at going to the food markets and not staring, drooling, or seeming to have no clue of what’s going on.  I ask a lot of questions (in English) and often get confused looks, but my experience has been amazing.  This will not be the last time I talk about food markets!  Most every town and village has their own market on their own days, but the large popular markets are on Saturday and Sunday (where you’ll see some interesting characters). The Sunday market is only in France...the Swiss do nothing on Sunday, no seriously, nothing. 

Like many farmer’s markets back in the States you can buy most everything from bread, cheese, meats and vegetables, but the difference is the atmosphere.  You can almost taste the flakey croissants and pain au chocolat by just walking by the boulangerie.  While we always have a sense of purpose and a list of things we ‘need’ when going to the market, we often just go to walk around.  What new vendors can we find, where did the juicy blood oranges come from, have we been down this street before? We walk the streets and watch the kid’s faces light up when the the fresh churos are fried in the bubbling oil.

Who doesn't love cheese 

Pig is king

Fresh pasta

Each market is unique and it is a place where the locals come together to socialize and enjoy the atmosphere. The smell of roasted chicken intermingles with the caramel roasted almonds, while down the line you can stand at high tables eating the freshest of oysters and sip champagne (ah, the French). There is something to be said about being crammed into a small French street with vendors on both sides and people all over the place, hearing music, laughter and a flowing foreign language being spoken all around you.   

Just Getting Started

Ok, so I have a lot of thoughts and ideas.  Fortunately (and unfortunately) I often follow them...sometimes half heartedly and other times with my full passion.  One thing in my life has always been constant, I’m always thinking about food. . .no not in the “I’m hungry for food” (because as my wife knows, I could be happy with a piece of crusty bread and a glass of crisp cold water) but instead with the production of food, how it is made, where the underlying ingredients come from and how they are cultivated, grown, harvested or raised, why is it different in one region compared to another a mere 30 miles away and what gives it “a sense of place” (i.e., terroir).  I also love the traditions that surround food.  

So my goal (because I need a mission statement, right?) is to research, interview, photograph, and just eat (and of course drink) my way through the artisan and craft food industry in Switzerland and also in surrounding European countries (come on, how could I not go visit France, Italy, Spain, Germany etc...) and to better understand how Europeans have developed and maintained a longstanding and cherished commitment to the artisan producer like no other place in the world.  This blog will help me share my experiences and adventures with my friends, family and fellow foodies.

Luckily I have the luxury of living in Switzerland for the next couple years so I hope that I’ll be able offer a unique view into food life in Switzerland and beyond.  And along the way hopefully I will be able to improve my French while picking up some new culinary ideas and techniques that I can build upon as the craft industry grows.  Otherwise, when we return to the States I’ll have to find another real job which as you may know I was never really good at anyway (resume upon request...you’d be surprised).  

And so my journey begins...