Get a life!

So that my boss has told me to get a life.

No. That's not quite right. She had only told me to take some time off for myself- but as any good employee would know her/his employer-you learn to READ between the lines.
To cut the long story short- hence the time that I have been away from this- quite a lot had happened at work.
Funny though I had thought about 3 years ago: it couldn't be simpler than being a chef. You just deal with the vegetables and dead animals. What could happen in a peaceful kitchen?

Now that I know better- mine was never going to be an easy ride.

I am not saying that it isn't fun or exciting for me. I am not saying that I haven't enjoyed every moment of it. This job has offered so much to me, only that I have not expected so much to happen in such a short space of time.

Enough about the moaning. And everything is yet rolling into a bigger snow ball. While I am waiting for it to happen. Like my boss said: you need to take some time off and just do nothing and relax.

This is mine: "Doing Nothing".

I have been travelling in my kitchen with all different styles of cuisine everyday. This week- I have a Munich day.

I am extremely fond of Munich. For the memories and everything else. Was thinking to make a LEBERKASE for the occasion but for the timing reason, I had decided against it in the end. Apart from the usual sausage salad, apple + potato salad and grilled mackerel Isar river style from my good old time. I have also made Schweinshaxe. I was very pleased with it. It wasn't hard and it is very similar to our Taiwanese special porky dish. The only difference is the addition of oriental ingredients: soy sauce, ginger, garlic and star anise.

For this special day, I have also made an extremely simple and Germanic dessert: some sort of Apfelstrudel.

Kind of Apfelstrudel

ingredients: 

1/2 pack of filo pastry (from supermarket)

125g butter, melted
3 apples, peeled-cored and cut into small pieces

juice of 1/2 lemon
50g sugar
5g ground cinnamon


for the topping:
60g softened butter
60g sugar
150g flour

Method:

1. Cut the filo pastry to fit a small baking dish. Line the baking dish with layers of filo pastry with melted butter brushed onto each sheet.

2. Sprinkle chopped apple+ sugar+ cinnamon+ lemon juice onto the filo pastry lined baking dish.

3. Mix the softened butter with sugar before mix in the flour- spread this over the apple layer.

4. Bake in the oven 180 degree for 30-40 minutes. sprinkle some more icing sugar on top before serving.

This dessert is so easy. I almost feel embarrassed when guys at work asking me for the recipe. Necessity is the mother of most of my recipe creations. I had half pack of filo left from the Greek day and some old apples to use. Butter and sugar are readily available in my kitchen. Everything fell into places. Simple!

Changing the topic. This is the Poutine that I have tried for my Canadian day preparation.

I don't know if there will be some Canadian people reading this when I post this blog. If there is any- please be kind enough to let me know about any authentic Canadian place in London. I had this Poutine in a Canadian pub near Charing Cross. Although I have enjoyed it very much while being extremely sick and doing research for work. I don't think this is the real thing. 1st of all: Cheese curd! It's not something that I know exist in the UK. I have read that the closest thing to it is Mozzarella. 2nd: turkey or beef gravy. This one tasted like Bisto. Nothing is wrong with Bisto. I just want to try the real thing. Anyways, I have now a pretty good idea what this is like- so I will post pictures when I have done one.