Endive and Ham au Gratin

2 cups chicken stock
4 large heads of endive
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons flour
1 ½ cup milk*
1 cup grated Gruyere cheese
4 slices of ham
1 cup garlic crouton
Salt and pepper

Preheat the over to 375 degrees.

Poach the endive in chicken stock to remove some of the bitterness for 15 minutes.

To make the cheese sauce, melt the butter in a medium sauce pan. Incorporate the flour into melted butter. Cook until the butter-flour combination for about a minute. Wisk in milk, then add cheese. Heat until the cheese is melted and the sauce become think, about 3 minutes.

Wrap each head of endive in ham and place with the seam side down in a baking dish. Pour the cheese sauce over top; cover with aluminum foil, and bake for 25 minutes. Remove foil and bake for an additional 5 minutes. Allow the endive to rest for 2 minutes before serving.

Garlic Breadcrumbs

3 slices of sandwich bread
2 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
¼ teaspoon salt
Pepper to taste

Cut the crust off the bread. Create bread crumbs by grating the bread on the fine side of a box grater. Finely mince garlic. Heat olive oil in a medium-sized frying pan. Add garlic and sauté for 1 minute. Add breadcrumbs and toast until light brown.

At Wengé, Sous Vide To Go

While wondering through Luxembourg this weekend it seemed as though every other person was carrying a distinctive yellow-green and brown shopping bag. These people didn't fit into any mold – they were male and female, old and young. I couldn't help but wonder what kind of place could attract such a diversified crowd.

Then, turning the corner onto Rue Philippe II, I saw the corresponding yellow-green and brown sign. Turns out the shop – Le Comptoir du Wengé – is an outpost of Wengé Restaurant.* Inside the display counter was filled with pastries, multi-colored cookies, quiches, and savory tarts. But what really drew my attention were the vacuum-packed entrées.

Using a method known as sous vide, which literally translates from French to "under pressure," these entrées are vacuumed sealed in plastic. The bags are then cooked in water baths for a long time at low, but very precise, temperatures. Bacuse it is cryovacked, none of the juices evaporate during cooking. The resulting dish is very moist and flavorful.

Though expensive – each entrée runs between €12 and €20 – I had to try them. As side from wanting to know what half of Luxembourg was having for dinner, I was very curious about the cooking method. In 2005 the New York Times Magazine ran a story about sous vide cooking in New York. A few weeks later, the NYC Health Department banned the technique because the food's internal temperatures never reached Health Department standards. Today, because of the time and expense required to create the requisite food-safety plan, few New York restaurants have resumed using the technique.

The take-out bags that I selected were braised pork medallions and chicken with wine sauce and morels. At home I reheated the bags, as instructed, for 12 minutes in boiling water. I served them with rice and a salad. They were delicous – just as flavorful and moist as promised. Instead of tasting like a take-out meal, it was as though dinner came directly from the restaurant's kitchen.

* Wengé, 15 Rue Louvigny , L-1946 Luxembourg

**Le Comptoir du Wengé, 4-6, rue Philippe II, L-2340 Luxembourg

De-Luxembourg

We spent Saturday afternoon in Luxembourg City. Often described as a storybook city, I'd call the capital of this pint-sized country more of a story-booklet town. But, as promised, it serves up plenty of atmosphere and style.

Two-hours west of Bonn (via the autobahn), Luxembourg is nestled between Germany, France, and Belgium. Smaller then Rhode Island, the country occupies just under 1,000 square miles and is only 51 miles high and 35 miles wide. There are less then 500,000 Luxembourgish citizens.

Despite its diminutive size the country has repositioned itself in recent years among Europe's power elite. It was one of the major instigators to the formation of the European Union, but its financial power lies in the tax advantages it offers residents of other European nations. Driving into the city center you'll notice that the road is lined with major international banks.

With the highest average annual income in Western Europe, the capital city is home to well-healed residents. High-end retailers, jewelry stores, and fashionably boutiques fill the pedestrian-only Old Town shopping district. The city also boasts more Michelin-starred restaurants per capita then any other city in the world.

In addition to great window-shopping along charming streets, there are plenty of tourist attractions. The city is home to a number of museums but we opted to visit the Bock Casemates. Dating back to the 900s, these are a serious of tunnels and caves carved into the ramparts. The best part of the city though was the views. The Grund, the area in the valley has gardens and paths that will take your breath away.

Wurst of the Week - 4/7

This truly is the worst of the wurst. These pre-packaged BiFi snacks are available at every German rest stop.

Rhubarb Joins Spring's Produce

Even though the dark skies and cool temperatures haven't been Spring-like these days, the produce available in the Northern Rhine Valley seems to indicate the arrival of a new season. In the last weeks I've seen fava beans, white asparagus, ramps, and – yesterday's find – rhubarb.

I saw the rhubarb at a little vegetable stand near our house that (I'm ashamed to admit) I haven't checked out before. It's on a side road that we take driving back from the main thoroughfare between Bad Godesburg and Bonn, but it isn't on my usual walking or biking routes. Yesterday I set out on a special mission to see what they had to offer.

I was terrible excited by what I found – local rhubarb. Reputed to have been brought to Europe from China by Marco Polo,* rhubarb is a tart vegetable with poisonous leaves. It can grown indoors, producing the first harvest as early as January, but field-grown produce is only available in late March through early May.

Along with the rhubarb, the farm stand had tiny and sweet strawberries grown in nearby Holland. The combination left me no choice – a cobbler was in my future.

* Source: The Rhubarb Compendium

Strawberry-Rhubarb Cobbler

Filling*
1 1/2 pounds rhubarb
2 quarts strawberries
3 tablespoons flour
3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons butter

Crumble Topping
2 cups oats
1 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup cold water

To make the filling chop rhubarb into 1/2 inch pieces. Core and slice strawberries in half (cut larger berries into thirds). Mix fruit, flour, and sugar together and place into baking dish. Dot the top of the filling with butter.

Assemble the crumble topping by mixing together oats, flour, sugar, vanilla, salt, and nutmeg. Cut butter into pieces and incorporate into the oat mixture with your fingers, as you would while making a piecrust. Add in water one tablespoon at a time until the mixture comes together. Evenly place the topping over the fruit. Cover with tinfoil and bake at 350 until the juice from the fruit is bubbling around the edges of the crumble. Remove the foil and bake for another 5 minutes.

Allow the crumble to cool before serving.

* I used a deep baking disk. For 2 or 3 inch baking dishes, use 1 pound of rhubarb and 1 and 1/2 quarts of strawberries.

Must-Make Dish: Coconut Rice

After making my April Fool earlier this week I had half a can of coconut milk in the fridge that needed to be used. Inspiration hit: I'd steam the rice with coconut milk.

Oh my god! Where has this dish been all my life? So easy! So good! It took plain old white rice and brought it to a whole new level. Rich and flavorful, the rice also had a really nice mouth feel and texture.

I served it under a tofu-ramp stir-fry, but found myself having a second helping of rice – sans veggies! Sure using coconut milk upped the fat content, but I wasn't terrible concerned since the rest of the meal had no saturated fat and was low in calories.

I predict that coconut rice becomes a staple in my repertoire. It will be delicious with spicy shrimp, and I have visions of a coconut-rice dessert. (Think sweetened coconut sticky rice with grated dark chocolate and strawberries or mango. Yum!)

Coconut Rice

2/3 cup water
2/3 cup coconut milk
1 cup basmati or jasmine rice
1/2 teaspoon olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt

Bring water to a boil.

Meanwhile, lightly toast the rice by placing olive oil in a small pot with a tight-fitting lid. Add rice and salt. Stir over a high heat until the rice is fragrant, but before it becomes brown. Remove from heat.

Mix the coconut milk and boiling water together. Add to rice. Bring to a boil. Cover. Reduce heat and simmer until liquid is full absorbed, 15 to 17 minutes.* Remove from heat and keep covered until ready to use. Fluff rice with a fork and serve.

* Try not to remove the lid while the rice is steaming.

Ampted About Ramps

Yesterday I went to the Bioladen (a.k.a. health food store) to pick up my weekly Gemüse Tüte (a.k.a. bag of local, organic produce). I went with every intention of canceling my bag for good.

I signed up for this service because I was interested in learning more about local produce and finding out what unique vegetables are grown in Germany. Instead, for the last couple of weeks I received nothing exciting, only non-blog worthy broccoli, leeks, and carrots grown in Italy and Spain.

While standing on line to cancel next week's vegetables I rummaged through the bag to see what was there. "Are those ramps?" I wondered. The mere through was enough to make me sign up for one more week.

Once home I had to look up the word Bärlauch, which was included on the list of contents to make sure I was right. Unlike ramps that I've purchased at the Greenmarket on New York, the ones in the bag only had the leaves; the bulbs were removed. But, sure enough I'd received a bag of wild garlic.

Also know as wild leeks, ramps are a member of the onion and garlic family. They are indigenous to North America, and commonly found in Appalachia. One of the first spring vegetables to appear in markets, ramps can replace garlic in most any recipes. Last night I threw the leaves into a stir-fry with tofu, broccoli, leeks, and carrots served over coconut rice.

Mincing Your Words

Why is it that cooking terms, when used outside of a culinary context, often have negative connotations?

Fried: Burned-out
Boiled: Greatly excited
Toasted: Doomed
Roasted: Ridicule
Simmer: Anger resulting in quiet state
Steamed: Fume
Stewed: State of anxiety
Poached: To take unfairly or illegally
Baked: Intoxicated
Whipped: Defeated, exhausted, tired
Grate: Irritating
Beat: Strike violently and repeatedly
Grilled: Question relentlessly
Blanch: To turn pale in fear
Cooked: To falsify to make a more favorable impression

Note: I used Dictionary.com to help with the definitions.

Wurst of the Week - 4/1

Ah the sweet life . . . That's right, at one shop in Cochem you can purchase marzipan-shaped wursts.

An April Fool

Halloween doesn't have to be the only day of the year for tricks as well as treats. Compensate for an terrible practical joke your planning – or let your loved ones know that they are forgiven – by serving a round of April Fools for dessert tonight. (See my orange coconut fool recipe.)

In the culinary sense, a fool is a dessert made by folding cooked or pureed fruit into sweetened whipped cream. An English dish that originated in the 16oos, the word's etymology comes from the French verb fouler, which means, “to mash.” Traditionally made with gooseberries, you can use any fresh fruit.

Orange Coconut Fool

2 oranges
1 can of coconut milk
1 tablespoons sugar
A pinch of salt
Chopped, toasted almonds

Cut two rounds from the orange. Supreme the rest of the orange.*

Chill the can of coconut milk to allow the cream to rise and become firm. Open and remove cream, reserving liquid for another use. In a large bowl add coconut cream, sugar, and salt. Beat with a hand mixer until soft peaks form. (Note: This will take slightly longer then when making whipped cream.)

To assemble to fools, place some orange sections at the bottom of a glass. Then add a layer of whipped coconut cream, then chopped walnuts. Repeat until the glasses are filled.

* To supreme an orange you cut off the bottom, creating a flat surface for it to sit on; and cut off the top to revealing the flesh. Next, remove the rind and pith by slicing around the flesh. Then, holding the orange over a bowl to capture all the juice, cut away each section of the flesh.