Tom Yum Kung Soup

Tom Yam Kung Soup is a thai sour, spicy soup with prawns and straw mushrooms. The recipe in short is: de-shell and devein the prawns. Keep the shells and heads. Heat oil in a huge pot and roast the prawn shells and heads. Add 1L of water and add lime leaves, lemon grass and chilies. Boil for 5-6 minutes. Drain the stock through a sieve into another pot. Add mushrooms, tomatos and prawns. Add finely chopped coriander, sliced spring onion, sliced chili, fish sauce and lime juice.

Amaebi Miso Soup

Today I tried a new variant of miso soup. I de-shelled and deveined some fresh tiger prawn. They were coated in some cornstarch and afterwards slightly boiled in salt water for 2 minutes. The prawns are arranged in a small bowl together with some carrot decoration, wakame seaweed and sliced spring onion. The miso soup is poured carefully over the prawns.

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.