GoodFellas – honest food

There is always a discussion going on whether France or Italy has the best cuisine. I am not sure either of them is the answer. What I do know is that the honest french bistro deserves every appreciation. A restaurant that has oysters, snails, foie gras, steak frites, mussels, steak tartar on the menu is a restaurant to return to. A good french bistro uses the best ingredients to serve non-complicated wonderful dishes.

Last week we visited Fellas in Stargarder Strasse (Prenzlauer Berg). A restaurant that among others serves some french bistro dishes. We both had the classic steak frites with bearnaise sauce. We got a wonderful pieces of entrecote, perfectly grilled, a tasty bearnaise with a nice touch of estragon. The fries were thin sticks which is not my choise of fries. In all a very good experience.

Inspired by the visit at Fellas, today we grilled a nice piece of steak and served it with chanterelle and a potatoes au gratin. Of course we had a tomato salad aside. A nice burgundy made the dinner complete.

Music: Listened to Charles Aznavour

A Swedish crayfish party #2

In the autumn it is time for crayfish parties all over Sweden. We had excellent timing this year and had already planned an autumn journey to Sweden to attend a wedding and visit friends and family. If you don’t get a hold of fresh crayfish you can always but frozen at IKEA all over the world.

This is a crayfish party according to the Schmidts!

Crayfish liquor (enough for 4 kg crayfish)

• 2 Onions, cut in large pieces
• 4 l Water
• 1 l Beer, lager
• 1 dl Salt
• 2 tbsp Sugar
• 10-15 heads of Dill

Blend all the ingredients together, except for the heads of dill. Make sure that the salt and the sugar dissolve. Then put the crayfish and the heads of dill in layers and pour the fluid over. Let draw for at least an hour.

Homemade Västerbotten cheese pie with chanterelle

You need to eat a lot of crayfish to get full. All snaps make it hard to survive the evening without having something satisfying. This delicious pie help you overcome the evening.

Pie pastry

• 3,5 dl Wheat flour
• 150 g Butter
• 2 tbsp Water
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt

Pie filling

• 4 Egg yolks
• 2 dl Milk
• 2 dl Cream
• 300 g Västerbotten cheese, grated
• 200 g Chanterelle
• 1 small Onion, chopped
• Butter
• Salt
• Pepper
• Nutmeg

Start with the pastry, mix butter and flour together. Use an electric mixer if you have one. Add water and salt. Press out the pastry in a pie dish and let it rest in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

In the meantime, fry the chanterelle and the onion in butter. Whisk the egg yolks, milk, cream and the spices together, grate the cheese. Fill your pie dish with the chanterelle and onion, pour over the milk mixture and finally sprinkle the cheese on top.

Bake in oven at 200 degrees Celsius, for 35-40 minutes.

Lysholms Linie Aquavit

Besides beer we also have a snaps or two to our crayfish. A very popular snaps is the Norwegian Linie Aquavit. 1805 the Norwegians sent a ship with snaps, stored in barrels, to Australia. Unfortunately the company that were receiving the snaps faced bankruptcy and the snaps were sent back to Norway. When it returned the Norwegians thought that the snaps tasted even better than before and from 1842 the Lysholms Linie Aquavit always passes the equator (the line) in a ships before it is filled into bottles and sold.

Music: The crayfish party were accompanied by our own horse and raucous voices, singing Swedish snappsvisor (snaps songs).

Chanterelle sandwich

As a starter we made a very easy but oh so delicious chanterelle sandwich.

Clean the chanterelle and put them in a heated pan, fry them until most of the fluid is gone then add butter, half an onion finely chopped, salt and black pepper.

Finally pour 4 tbsp double cream into the pan and let it simmer for a couple of minutes.

Put the fried chanterelles on top of a slice of really tasty bread. Sprinkle chopped chives on top.