an american in zürich

Yesterday I spent the day learning the ins and outs of the Swiss and Zürich and today I spent the day embracing being an American in Switzerland. This morning I enjoyed coffee and cookies with fellow American women at the American Women's Club of Zürich. It was so nice to be surrounded by people who speak English and have experienced the ups and downs of picking up everything and moving abroad. And this afternoon I enjoyed baking an American treat!

Learning about Swiss specialties yesterday, such as dried meat, made me think about an American specialty - the chocolate chip cookie! In the land of chocolate I have not come across an abundance of chocolate chip cookies. The Chips Ahoys are stashed in a teeny package on the bottom shelf of the cookie aisle in the grocery store. There are biscuits, and chocolate cookies and shortbread and a lot of chocolate bars, but certainly a shortage of chocolate chip cookies. In fact, I couldn't even find bittersweet chocolate chips. Crazy right? The land of chocolate, literally, and they don't having baking chips? I also can't find brown sugar here. I can find something that comes close, but it is still leagues away from the soft Domino brand light brown sugar in the states. And I must admit, these cookies fell short of my expectations. They were flat and crispy, not fluffy and doughy. I think it could be a a variety of factors - perhaps the butter wasn't cold enough when I mixed it, or the dough got to warm before I put the balls of dough on the baking sheet or maybe it was the brown sugar because I can't believe my beloved Swiss butter would let me down.
In lieu of baking chips I bought a couple different brands of dark chocolate and chopped it up with my new, fun, amazingly pink, knife. Although the cookies didn't turn out that well I actually think I might prefer the chopped chocolate to the chips. Chips are all the same size, whereas the cut up bar varies from a thin sliver to a thick chunk, resulting in a cookie that has subtle chocolate bites and intense chocolate bites. I have friends who like their chocolate chip cookies to be 80% chip and I also have friends who prefer the exact opposite, praising cookies that only have two or three chips per cookie. I wonder if the chopped/shaved chocolate bar would satisfy both of these groups.
This new knife is pretty great huh? It's fun, but it does have one fundamental flaw, which I didn't realize until I had already unwrapped it at home - it can't go in the dishwasher. I'm glad I didn't know this in the store because then I would not have bought it, but I love it and it brightens up my kitchen so I think a little extra hand scrubbing might be worth it.
I found this recipe on smitten kitchen, where it had been adapted from a David Lebovitz's recipe. I did something wrong along the way which resulted in flat, crispy cookies and not the deliciously gooey, cakey cookies that were promised. If you are a cookie baking fanatic and think you might know what I did wrong, please let me know because I love chocolate chip cookies and I hate goofing up a recipe!

ingredients

- 1/2 cup granulated sugar

- 1/2 cup brown sugar

- 1 stick of COLD butter (8 tablespoons)

- 1 large egg

- 1 vanilla bean or 1 tsp vanilla extract (beans are much more popular in CH)

- 1/2 tsp baking soda

- 1 1/4 cup all purpose flour

- 1/4 tsp salt

- 1 cup chopped/shaved chocolate bar - or 1 1/2 cups bittersweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 300 and place your oven rack in the top portion of your oven.

Beat the sugars and the butter together until smooth. Do not over beat or you will introduce air into the batter. Once smooth, mix in the egg, vanilla and baking soda. In a separate bowl mix together the flour and salt and then mix into the sugar-butter batter. Chop the chocolate bars until chunks appear to be a reasonable size and then add to the mixture. Scoop dough onto baking sheet and place in the oven for 18 minutes or until edge of cookies is golden brown.

After this first batch came out like pancakes I did a little research and concluded that my dough was probably to warm so I stuck the bowl with the dough into the freezer for ten minutes before scooping the next batch. I was convinced this would solve the pancake problem, but alas that batch resulted in flat and crispy cookies too! They were gooey when they were hot, but they quickly transitioned to crispy

The truth is that by the time the cookies came out of the oven I was over my cookie craving. While the first batch was in the oven I occupied myself by eating a healthy portion of the dough. Tisk tisk, I know, and mom if I get salmonella you can say 'I told you so,' but it was just so delicious, so sweet and salty and gooey. Why do we even bake cookies?
Cookies and milk, the classic combo. But what do you do when the thought of drinking a glass of milk repulses you? Add coffee! For my entire childhood, both at home and at school, the drink options were milk or water and now the thought of taking a sip of straight milk makes me gag. Eww.
I thought it was fitting to enjoy my American snack while reading a trashy American magazine.

Happy weekend everyone!

learning about zürich

So it turns out I didn't jinx myself with yesterdays post about sunny weather and spring approaching. Today was absolutely beautiful, dare I say almost hot at times. I met up with a new friend, who is a friend of a friend of a friend, and had a wonderful day revisiting places I'd been and learning about new places that I have to visit. She grew up in Zürich and knows everything there is to know about this little city - the best chocolates, the best butcher, the best restaurants and the must see cultural sites. I always try and explore a little bit everyday, but that usually means going for a long walk and taking in the sites, but not really learning about them, so today was a nice introduction into the history of Zürich.
It quickly became clear today that there remain a lot of things I need to learn about and or try while I'm living in Switzerland. My new friend was shocked that I had yet to sample the delicious dried meats available in Zürich so we made a bee-line to her favorite butcher and she selected her favorite and bought me some. It was delicious, much different than cured meat in the states. The slices were thin and almost melted in my mouth. I wasn't sure how it should be eaten or with what, so I put together a little sampling of apples, cornichons and soda bread to enjoy alongside the meat.

soup and soda bread

I have been wanting to tackle baking my own bread for a little while now. My general theory is why buy it when you can bake it, and bread fits squarely in that category. It consists of few ingredients, all available in your local grocery store, but yet remains one of the few baked items that I buy and don't make at home. I don't expect to waltz into my kitchen and whip up a flawless San Francisco sourdough, but I do aspire to bake a crusty french baguette and perhaps a nice ciabatta. Considering Saint Patrick's day is upon us I decided to start with an Irish Soda bread, which consists of very few ingredients and can be made by following a very simple recipe. I should be honest, my desire to bake bread is really fueled by my desire to find a means by which to eat more swiss butter. Irish soda bread is perfect for butter and a little raspberry jam.
This isn't the first time I've said this and I'm sure this isn't the last time I'll say it, but I think spring is here! The last two days have been beautiful in Zürich, sunny and warm. I probably shouldn't say anything, let alone type it because I'm sure it will start snowing the moment I post this entry
On my way to Zug to meet Zach for lunch I happened upon a farmer's market in the main train station here in Zürich. I was running to catch the train so I didn't really get to explore, but it looks incredibly promising and if nothing else there were bratwursts grilling on an open flame ready to be eaten with some spicy mustard and rösti. By the way, did you know that in German you capitalize every noun, not just proper nouns, so really Train, Bratwurst and Rosti should be capitalized...weird huh?
The veggies at the farmer's market inspired me to make a veggie soup to go along with the Irish Soda bread. Something healthy to offset all the butter.
this soup is so easy - just chop a bunch of veggies and throw them in a pot with some water and then eat.

I found this recipe in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine. Mark Bittman wrote a mini article about how easy and simple soup is to make, and he's right, it's really, almost stupidly easy. He outlines 4 simple soups and then generates 3 more soups from each of those recipes by adjusting the ingredients a bit. I chose to make the basic minestrone. I adapted the recipe a bit (more veggies and a bit of chicken broth for flavor) but overall the recipe is very similar to the one he provided. Can you tell I like Mark Bittman? I feel like I use his recipes for almost every recipe post.

ingredients

- 1 sweet onion

- 2 carrots

- 6 chopped celery stalks

- 1 clove garlic

- 2 cups chopped potatoes

- 1 cup chopped tomato or canned

- salt and pepper to taste

- 5 cups water

- chicken broth to taste if desired

Chop the onion, carrots and celery and place in a pot with 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Add the finely sliced garlic and cook over medium heat for about 5-7 minutes or until onions are slightly translucent. Toss in the potatoes, salt and pepper and cook for 2 minutes, follow with the tomatoes and cook for another 2 minutes. Pour in the 5 cups of water and bring to a boil. Once boiling lower the heat and allow to simmer until potatoes are cooked.

On to the soda bread!

The essential ingredient in Irish Soda bread is the baking soda. It turns out that baking soda, like it's close relative baking powder, is not a common grocery store commodity here in Switzerland. That's not really true, you can buy it in the stores but it is often hidden in the baking aisle, packaged in teeny tiny little packages, just asking to be misunderstood or forgotten. That little pink packet in the above photos is the baking soda, otherwise known as Natron - bicarbonate de sodium.
This recipe is from my other favorite chef/cook book, Alice Water's Art of Simple Food. Like the soup recipe, this recipe is extremely basic and quick.

ingredients

- 3 3/4 cups all purpose flour

- 1 tsp baking soda

- 1 tsp salt

- 1 tsp sugar (my addition)

- 2 cups buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 450. Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add 1 1/2 cups of the buttermilk and more if needed. The dough should be smooth, but not wet and sticky. Do not over knead. Really you don't need to knead at all. Just shape the dough in a a disc and place on a baking sheet and shape until the disc is roughly 1 1/2 inches high. Cut a cross into the top of the loaf, making sure to cut all the way to the edge - this cross will help the bread rise. Place the baking sheet into the oven and bake at 450 for 15 minutes then lower the temperature to 400 and bake for another 30 minutes. The bread will be done when you tap on the bottom and the loaf sounds hollow.

I returned to Zürich loaded down with American magazines. Since we don't have a TV, it's nice to curl up with a good mag.
I really do believe soda bread was invented as a medium through which to eat butter. It's delicious, especially when the bread is still hot and steaming and the butter melts into the nooks and crannies. It's a miracle Zach was able to eat dinner considering that he ate two big slices with butter and raspberry jam when he got home from work.

It's 11:20 and I should try and get some sleep, but really it's only 5:20 in the states and I'm just not tired yet.

back in zürich

I arrived back in Zürich this morning after a wonderful week at home and a quick weekend trip to Florida. It's always hard to leave the states, but it's always nice to come back to Zürich. The jet lag adjustment and finding my routine always make the first couple days a bit of a struggle, but there are always recipes to be made, pictures to be taken and blog posts to write!

I cannot believe it, but I am only here for two weeks this time before I head back stateside for...OUR WEDDING! WOW! We got engaged Thanksgiving 2009, which made April 2011 feel like a looong long way away, but now all of a sudden it's almost the middle of March and the wedding is right around the corner.

Off to dig through the cookbooks for a yummy recipe. Any suggestions?