Schupfnudeln with fondue sauce

 

It has been a quiet week and weekend over here with very little significant events. And sometimes those are just the best weeks. I heard that a new street food market opened yesterday fairly close to our home, so I think we will check it out today. Otherwise there is just cooking Sunday dinner on the program. What have you been up to lately?

Schupfnudeln are one of my absolute German food favourites. They are large finger-shaped potato noodles, similar to gnocchi. I love them in any combination, and now I made them with a cheesy fondue sauce. It was so good, best comfort food when it starts getting a bit colder again. This dish is easy to make, it just requires some time and patience. Have a look at my recipe below.

 

Ingredients

 

Schupfnudeln

700 g potatoes

300 g wheat flour

75 g potato flour

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp vegetable oil

Fondue sauce

4 tbsp butter

2 garlic cloves

4 tbsp wheat flour

1 cup white wine

1-2 cups water

100 g Emmental cheese

Onion powder to taste

Ground black pepper to taste

Sea salt to taste

Method

Cook the potatoes and then peel them. Mash the potatoes and let them cool down.

Add the flours gradually to the potato mash, season with salt, add the oil and knead to an even dough.

Shape about 3-4 cm long noodles from the dough.

Cook the noodles in water for about 5 minutes until they float on the top.

Cool them in cold water and then fry in a pan until they have some golden brown frying marks.

Make the sauce in parallel. Melt the butter in a pan and cook the garlic in it.

Whisk the flour in and add the wine.

Then gradually also add water and whisk the mix into a smooth sauce. I put 1-2 cups water to the recipe. Add it until you have the desired thickness.

Then also whisk the Emmental cheese in until it melts.

Season to taste and combine with the noodles.

Serve the dish with a salad. I served some dehydrated cherry tomatoes, mini tomatoes from the garden and spinach leaves with it.

Have a nice Sunday!

Your VegHog

Swiss cheese fondue

A friend of mine got me this chocolate fondue set for Christmas last year, but it hasn't been used until now. And for its actual purpose as a chocolate fondue set it will probably never be used in this household, as we are just crazy about cheese. So I thought it would be actually nice to make a Swiss style cheese fondue and eat it with a good baguette.

A while ago I was watching the BBC programme Great Continental Railway Journeys by Michael Portillo, the episode where he travels in Switzerland (Zermatt to Geneva, series 5), which motivated me even more to finally use the fondue pot. Portillo ate fondue on a train in Switzerland and that was just magnificent. What amazing train catering! I hope to be able to do that one day, but this time it was just in our living room, which was maybe easier than on a moving train.

Before making the fondue I consulted several traditional recipes and made my own recipe based on them, which can be found below. This worked very well, the cheese mixture stayed smooth and it was easy to dip the bread in there. The hint of white wine was very nice. I chose the combination of Gruyere and Emmental cheeses, as both are my favourites, and they did work very well in this.

Swiss cheese fondue

Ingredients

200 g Gruyere cheese

200 g Emmental cheese

200 ml dry white wine

1 tsp corn flour

Sprinkle of ground black pepper

1 garlic clove

2 small baguettes

Method

Grate the cheeses.

Heat the white wine gently in a saucepan at low heat and then stir the corn flour in. Stir it so that it's smooth. I decided to use a whisk for all stirring to make sure, that the mixture stayed smooth at all times.

Then add the grated cheese gradually by whisking it in. Keep the heat low throughout. There should be light bubbling, but no boiling.

Season the mix with a sprinkle of ground black pepper.

Rub the inside of the fondue pot with garlic before pouring the cheese mixture in.

Cut the bread into small cubes.

Light a small candle underneath the pot and start dipping.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Bread and pumpkin fondue

When I saw this recipe for a bread and pumpkin fondue by Yotam Ottolenghi I instantly knew that I would have to make it at some point. And here we are, I have made my own slightly different version of this dish and it turned out to be the perfect dinner for a chilly day. It's nice and tasty, cheesy and savoury and very simple to make. I love the combination of sage and pumpkin.

Ingredients

1 small pumpkin

2 small turnips

120g gruyère cheese

120g emmental cheese

3 slices of sourdough bread

350ml dry white wine

200ml vegetable stock

2 garlic cloves

½tsp nutmeg

10g sage leaves

Butter

White pepper

Salt

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 190C. Cut the pumpkin and the turnips into small chunks and place them into an oven dish.

Gently fry the garlic in butter in a pan. Then add the chopped sage leaves, grated nutmeg, pepper, salt and the vegetable stock and finally add the wine. Pour 2/3 of this liquid on the pumpkin and turnip chunks into the oven dish.

Toast the bread slices and place them on top of the vegetables. Place the grated cheese on the breads and pour the rest of your seasoning liquid on the top.

Cover the dish with a foil and bake for about one hour. Then remove the foil and bake the gratin for further 15 minutes.

Serve with lovely dry white wine or cider and keep warm!

Your VegHog