Again - vegetable soup

Today I prepared again vegetable soup. Some frozen vegetable soup stock was still in the freezer. Together with some fresh potatos, carrots, mushrooms, and pies a very nice vegetable soup. Helen added some egg noodles. I had some sliced, smoked sausage added, that gives a nice salty, smokey flavour. As garnish some finely sliced spring onion.

The new kitchen beauty arrived ...

After some hassle with the German custom I have now my new kitchen beauty. It is a custom made deba knife made by Shinichi Watanabe (http://www.watanabeblade.com). It is honed at the left side so that lefthanders can cut properly with this single beveled knife. Another optional feature is the octagonal ho wood handle. I am looking very much forward to use this knife.

Forelle Blau (trout blue)

This is a traditional receipe from south germany (Baden). It is called "Forelle blau". It is poached trout. The stock (Court-Bouillon) is constisting of carots, fennel, leek, shallot, garlic, parsily, thyme, white pepper corns, bay leaf, juniper berry, salt, Noily Prat, and white wine vinager. The trout is poached for 15-20 min in the stock.

Japanese Knives

One of my new hobbies is collecting knives - especially handmade japanese knives. It is not only collecting - also using in the kitchen.


The Cheff Wa Gingami 3 - a sashimi knife with a length of 210mm with a Ho wood handle


Sirou Kamo - Migaki Nikari 165mm - a vegetable knife with Ho wood handle

Healthy Vegetable Soup

Last night I prepared a nice vegetable fond. I used celery, carots, leek, onion, broccoli, mushroom (fresh and dried), garlic, white wine, cloves, bayleave, roasted onion.
Today I prepared a vegetable noodle soup using carots, spring onion, celery, fresh peas, bean sprouts, fresh mushrooms and yellow egg noodles. As an additional dip I prepared some sliced chilies with soy sauce and lime juice.

Marinated Prawns

Today I tried another prawn receipe. The prawns are marinated for some hours. The marinade consists of olive oil, sesame oil, lime juice, lime zest, ginger, salt, pepper, coriander and brown sugar. Some of the marinade is kept aside as vinaigrette to drizzle over the fried prawns before serving.

New Cooking Sessions

Yesterday I bought a new cook book from the "Der Feinschmecker". It is written by Eckart Witzigmann - one of the most famous German kitchen chefs - about young vegetables.

The first trial was a green bean salad with tomatos and freshly sliced mushrooms. The vinaigrette consists of fruit vinager, aceto balsamico vinager, mustard, olive oil, salt, pepper and finely sliced spring onion.


In parallel I prepared a homemade vegetable fond. I needed it for todays potato soup. The fond consists of onion, zucchini, celery, carrots, tomato, leek, broccoli, white wine, water, and herbs.

Today I tried the potato soup recipe from the Witzigmann book. A very creamy, rich soup and very delicous.