Birnensuppe (Pear Soup)
Serves 2

Cold fruit soups are classic recipes from Germany and Scandinavia. In Germany they even add fruit syrups to their beer! This is a simple recipe that if prepared with care delivers beautiful flavor.

2 tablespoons raisins
1 tablespoon dry sherry
2 pears, cored, pared and sliced
1 ½ cups water
1 inch-long cinnamon stick
1 dash crushed aniseed
2 teaspoons granulated sugar
½ teaspoon lemon juice

Preparation: 1. In small bowl combine raisins and sherry; set aside. 2. In 1-quart saucepan combine pears, water, cinnamon stick, and aniseed; bring to a boil and cook until pears are very soft, about 15 minutes. 3. Remove cinnamon stick and let mixture cool. 4. Transfer to blender container and process until smooth; pour into bowl or container and stir in raisin mixture, sugar, and lemon juice. Cover and refrigerate until well chilled.

Richard Wottrich

Sharon’s Pumpkin Spice Cake
One 8-Inch 3-Layer Cake

We served this for friends at a lovely autumn dinner party at our home in 2003. It is perhaps a more sophisticated alternative to traditional pumpkin pie. Sharon ices the entire cake, but you can also simply ice between the layers and on top.

Pumpkin Cake Batter
¾ cup unsalted butter (1 ½ sticks)
1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup pumpkin purée
½ cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon fresh-ground nutmeg

Pumpkin Cream-Cheese Frosting
(Double this if you intend to frost the entire cake)
1 8-ounce package cream cheese (do not use fat free)
¼ cup pumpkin purée
¼ cup unsalted butter (1/2 stick), softened
1 tablespoon fresh orange juice
1 teaspoon grated orange zest
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
4 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted

Preparation: 1. Heat your oven to 350?F. 2. Prepare cake pans: lightly coat three 8-inch cake pans with softened butter. Cut three 8-inch circles out of parchment paper and fit them into the bottoms of the cake pans. Lightly coat the paper with butter and set aside. 3. Make the batter: Cream butter until smooth in a large bowl with your electric mixer set at medium speed. Add the sugars and mix smoothly. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition, until the mixture is smooth and light. Set aside. Combine the pumpkin purée, buttermilk and vanilla in a medium bowl and set aside. Combine the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda and nutmeg in a large bowl and set aside. In thirds, alternately add the flour mixture and buttermilk mixture to the butter mixture, blending well after each addition until smooth. 4. Bake the cake: Pour batter into prepared cake pans and bake until a toothpick inserted into the middle of each cake comes out clean; about 35 to 40 minutes. Cool the cake in the pan on wire racks for 30 minutes. Remove cakes from the pans and return to the racks until completely cool. 5. Assemble the cake: Place one layer on a cake plate and top with one-third of the pumpkin cream-cheese frosting mixture. Repeat with the second and third layers.

Sharon & Richard WOTTRICH

Fennel, Apple and Almond Soup
Serves 6

This subtle summer soup is served at Peter Dixon’s White Moss House, in Grasmere, Cumbria, UK. William Wordsworth once owned the White Moss House. It is always served as a first course and is apparently based upon an ancient recipe.

As a variation, I serve the soup with a separate shot glass of Cream Sherry. The richness of the cream sherry plays off wonderfully against this unusual fruit-based soup.

2 tablespoons walnut or olive oil
1 8-ounce fennel bulb, sliced
1 medium onion, chopped
2 tart green apples, peeled, cored, chopped
1 6-ounce celery root, peeled, chopped
3 cups chicken stock
½ cup whipping cream
2 tablespoons ground toasted almonds
pinch of ground nutmeg or cloves, as you wish
sliced almonds for garnish
fennel fronds for garnish

Preparation: 1. Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat. 2. Add fennel and onion and sauté until softened, about 5 minutes. 3. Mix in the apple, celery root and chicken stock. Bring to simmer, cover and cook about 30 minutes. 4. Working in batches, transfer the mixture to a blender. Puree until smooth. 5. Add whipping cream, ground almonds and nutmeg or cloves. Season to taste with salt and pepper. (Up to this point the soup may be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover tightly and refrigerate.)

Presentation: Reheat soup. Ladle into bowls and garnish with sliced almonds and fennel fronds. Serve with a shot glass of cream sherry, to be poured in by your dinner guest.

History of Fennel: Fennel has been known for centuries and was cultivated by the Romans for its aromatic fruits and succulent, edible shoots. Pliny the Elder had faith in its medicinal properties, recording no less than twenty-two fenne;-based remedies, observing also that serpents eat it “when they cast their old skins, and they sharpen their sight with the juice by rubbing against the plant.”

In mediaeval times Fennel was employed, together with St. John's Wort and other herbs, as a preventative against witchcraft and other evil influences. It was hung over doors on Midsummer's Eve to warn off evil spirits. Fennel was also eaten as a condiment with seafood and eaten by our forefathers during Lent.

Though the Romans valued the young shoots as a vegetable, it is not certain whether it was cultivated in northern Europe at that time, but it is frequently mentioned in Anglo-Saxon cookery and medical recipes prior to the Norman Conquest. Fennel shoots, Fennel water and Fennel seeds are all mentioned in an ancient record of Spanish agriculture dating AD 961. Charlemagne, who ordered its cultivation on his imperial farms, stimulated the diffusion of the plant in Central Europe. It is mentioned in Gerard (1597), and Parkinson (Theatricum Botanicum, 1640) tells us that its culinary use was derived from Italy, for he says:

“The leaves, seede and rootes are both for meate and medicine; the Italians especially doe much delight in the use thereof, and therefore transplant and whiten it, to make it more tender to please the taste, which being sweete and somewhat hot helpeth to digest the crude qualitie of fish and other viscous meats. We use it to lay upon fish or to boyle it therewith and with divers other things, as also the seeds in bread and other things.”

There are many references to Fennel in poetry. Milton, in Paradise Lost alludes to the aroma of the plant:

“A savoury odour blown, Grateful to appetite, more pleased my sense, Than smell of sweetest Fennel.”

Richard Wottrich

Sun Dried Tomatoes & Tuna Penne Pasta Salad
Serves 4














1 pound penne pasta
1 small jar Italian roasted red bell peppers
1 small jar Italian Giardiniera (medium heat)
1 small jar roasted garlic finely chopped tomatoes
1 cup sun dried tomatoes thinly sliced (packed in olive oil)
1 tablespoon apple vinegar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
4 small cans of drained solid white Albacore Tuna
1 cup Italian salad dressing
1 cup pitted black olives
1 tablespoon good olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
salt and pepper to taste
chopped fresh parsley to taste

Preparation: 1. Boil the penne pasta until just done. Drain and toss with the butter and salad dressing. 2. Add the roasted red bell peppers, Giardiniera, roasted garlic tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes, apple vinegar, and lemon juice; toss gently. 3. Drain the Albacore Tuna and fork-separate it into the pasta. 4. Add the black olives, salt and pepper and chopped parsley to your taste preference. 5. Toss the salad gently again and refrigerate over night. Serve at room temperature. Preparation time: 30 minutes

Richard Wottrich
usadsi@mindspring.com

Steak Tartare - Hockepeter
Serves 12

Traditionally Steak Tartare is a German dish made from scraped or chopped meat taken from game after the hunt. In fact, the Tartars probably imported the practice when they swept into Eastern Europe to trigger the Dark Ages. In Germany and other parts of Europe, there is a little metal knife made especially for this purpose, which is utilized by the Tartar Feinschmecker in its preparation. The meat is scraped so that none of the sinew or other non-meat tissue finds its way into the final result. Therefore, the look of the dish is that the meat be coarse. Sea salt, coarse ground pepper, chopped onion and capers help create this look and feel. This is my personal rendition of the dish, refined over the past thirty-five years, combining the best of the German (in Germany they sometimes add nutmeg to the mix) and French (mustard) preparations I’ve tasted in countless restaurants:

2 pounds top round or sirloin (fat cut off) ground twice by a good butcher or by you (no pork in the grinder) served within 24 hours.
3 eggs; yokes only (or egg substitute)
1 large onion, chopped
½ cup capers
½ cup anchovies, chopped (optional)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
sea salt & ground pepper to taste
Tabasco Sauce to taste (6 drops)
Worcestershire Sauce (white sauce) to taste
1 teaspoon vinegar
2 teaspoons brown or Dijon mustard, or to taste
1 teaspoon horseradish sauce, or to taste
1 loaf black bread or pumpernickel, toasted, display
1 stick butter, display
parsley, garnish
1 bunch radishes, display
1 small jar French cornichons (or baby gherkins), display

Preparation: Steak Tartare usually is made at the table so as to guarantee the absolute freshness of the ingredients. Grind or scrape the beef yourself if possible. If you buy from your butcher serve the same day. Bring the meat to room temperature before serving. 1. In a large mixing bowl (usually wooden) combine the ground steak, anchovies (optional), half the chopped onion, half the capers, olive oil, 2 egg yokes (or egg substitute), sea salt, ground pepper, Tabasco sauce, Worcestershire sauce, horseradish, lemon juice, vinegar and mustard to your taste. 2. Thoroughly mix and then arrange meat in a loaf shape on a large wooden platter. 3. Crosshatch the top of the loaf. 4. Garnish with parsley. 5. Put an egg yoke (optional) in the half shell in a depression made with a tablespoon on the center top of the loaf. 6. Display sliced cornichons around the yolk. Serve at room temperature.

Presentation: 1. In small matching bowls display the remaining chopped onion, capers, anchovies, radishes and cornichons. 2. Toast the bread and remove the crust, cut into uniform small squares and display with a stick of butter. The next day grill any leftover steak, spread on black bread, under your broiler.

Important Notes: Find a butcher you trust. Never grind the beef with or after grinding raw pork, as it may carry trichinae. Do not leave Steak Tartare out for more than two hours. Do not leave out in high temperatures. Do not display in direct sunlight.

Richard Wottrich

Plum & Fig Compote
Serves 4

Every once in a while you stumble across a culinary match made in heaven. This past weekend I happened to pair small tart yellow plums with Black Mission figs. The plums were grown in New Haven, Michigan; sometimes called Pershore Yellow Egg plums. I bought those at the Evanston Farmer’s Market on Lake Michigan in Illinois. The figs were from Whole Foods. As in all such matters, the fruit must be perfect for this dish to shine.

16 Pershore Yellow Egg plums
16 Black Mission plums
1 teaspoon of fine Balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar
juice from one lemon
pinch salt
mint garnish to your taste

Preparation: Wash and quarter the plums and figs; having cut off the fig stems and pitted the plums. The quarters should be just bit size. Put them in a small bowl and add the Balsamic vinegar, sugar, lemon juice, and salt. Toss gently.

Presentation: Present in four shallow bowels and garnish with a few small mint leaves.

Richard Wottrich