Happy Birthday

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HAPPY BIRTDHAY to a very special man in my life, who has supported me since day 1, no matter how difficult I’ve been in the past 25 years (yes, these type of men do exist). Thank you!
I don’t know if you recall the birthday craze two years ago where I baked 5 cakes for one celebration. And there weren’t even many leftovers! Lucky for me, after a certain age, big birthdays only come once every 5 or 10 years (depending how excited the birthday child gets). This year, having reduced the guestlist from roughly 50 to an intimate family affair, one cake fed all. Not just any cake, but my grandma’s famous chocolatey, flourless, moist, gluten free, almondy heaven. It was praised by all tasters. One even demanded I post the recipe online. So here you go, try and recreate, let me know how it goes, invite me to taste and judge, but most importantly – enjoy.

Grandma’s Chocolate Cake

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How to Cure Your Flatmate’s Hangover

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This past month has been insane – I can’t believe it’s already March. It started with two days out of my usual surgical routine, namely in the life of an Anesthetist, because why not. A perfect base specialty for going into emergency medicine – a potential career goal after (hopefully) successfully becoming a surgeon. It continued with a few crazy days of Fasnacht (= my local carnival), the highlight! Have you been? If not, add it to your bucket list. Apparently it’s even listed in 1000 Places to See Before You Die, the city goes insane, who thought Swiss people could actually have fun? Fasnacht lasts for just 3 days, but what glorious days these are. One calls them the “drey scheenschte Dääg” (= three nicest days of the year). I don’t think I would go that far, but they are fun. In a nutshell – parades of giant burning wood pieces, booze, confetti ALL OVER, parades of crazy people throwing oranges, flowers, alcohol and again, confetti, at you, flour soup (ew), booze, cheese tart, cellar bar hopping, booze, more confetti, amazing brass bands, schnitzelbängg (satirical poetry), crazy costumes. Also, very little sleep. Retrospectively it would have been wiser to take the days off work before my 10 day shift……

Now, after all this booze, my roommate and I were not in the best of states, understandably. Ideal culinary hangover cure? 1. Bacon, 2. Garlic, 3. Bacon, 4. Garlic, 5. Alcohol (always), 6. Panko breadcrumbs. Turn that into something crispy and satisfying? You end up with Chicken Kiev. There is a debate going on whether this dish is of American, Ukrainian or Russian origin…. honestly, who cares, thank you to whoever invented it, it’s delicious.

P.S. Apologies for the picture – blaming it on the hangover.

Chicken Kiev with BACON

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Squash, Sprout, Chickpea and Kale Curry

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I’m sure you have all heard of kale (if not, go read about it here – haha ok, so not quite the kale I had in mind, but who knew it was also a beautiful boy). If I recall correctly, the hype about this, let’s face it, not so special cabbage, started a couple of years back in Europe. Everyone was crazy about it. Kale chips, kale salad, kale pesto, kale soup, not to forget kale juice, the list goes on. Personally, I never understood the hype. Now, I must admit, it’s probably due to my only kale experience in 2014 being unsatisfying – kale crisps from Pret. The flavour wasn’t right, they weren’t satisfying, and honestly – fried cabbage? – not my thing.
In most aspects of life I’m not really one to follow trends, I would say I’m always at least a few trend-generations behind. One of my exes always tried to widen my music-horizon by constantly showing me new songs. I’d listen to them once, label them as terrible, forget them for 6 months, then hear them on the radio, fall in love with them and proudly show my ex the greatest new songs of the month. Classic. And how often did this happen? All the time. After a while he gave up. Understandable. Same story with kale, only here it took me years, not just months. How have I lived without it?? In my opinion, the best use of kale is in a curry. YUMS – so here you go, try it.

Butternut Squash, Sprout, Chickpea and Kale Curry

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The Medical Gourmet meets The Nail Stop

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As previously promised – a post for my Swiss readers. Respectively, for Swiss residents.

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Yes!! If your sweet tastebuds have been craving a bite of The Medical Gourmet’s creations all along (and you have not yet been lucky enough to try any) – head to The Nail Stop in Gstaad this afternoon. Never heard of it? It’s probably the cutest nail salon ever. Interestingly, it is also the first nail salon in the town/village of Gstaad to date. Looks like the creators discovered a niche. And boy, what a successful one. It is booming!  Having opened a few years ago in a small location, it has sadly/luckily had to relocate to a bigger space. Lucky for me, the owner decided to add a Café featuring the one or other medical gourmet special. With winter finally arriving and village life picking up it is high time for the first cupcake special. Head down this afternoon, grab a bite, enjoy.

And for those of you too far away to actually drop by – try the recipe below, add more spice, maybe puree the pumpkin yourself and let me know how it turns out:-).
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A Cheesy Post For All Non-Swiss

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If you are Swiss – stop reading here and wait for my next post. If not, please continue.

Sit back, close your eyes, and try to imagine how a typical Swiss winter weekend is spent. What did you come up with? Let me guess: waking up to blue sky and sunshine in a remote wooden chalet amongst meters of powpow. The day is started with freshly baked bread and hot chocolate, before taking to the slopes (mind you, by this time it’s probably only just gone 08:30 am). After a full days of skiing you slide into the local après ski bar for a glas or two of mulled wine before returning to your chalet and pampering yourself, especially your muscles, in the in-house sauna or steam-bath. Showered, relaxed and changed you gather around the fireplace and commence with an apéro, probably consisting of some bubblies, Hobelkäse and Bündnerfleisch. And dinner? Well, cheese of course. There’s nothing like melted cheese served with potatoes, grilled veggies, garlic and meats, a.k.a Raclette (wohooo low carb!!). The food-belly will be painful, but worth it – no better way to digest than with a sip of Kirsch whilst enjoying fire number two, before heading to bed. And tomorrow? Well, naturally, REPEAT, with cheese fondue instead. Sound about right?

Now, what on earth do the Swiss do when it snows and rains all day? Get all dressed up in ski-gear and watch ski-racing from the sofa, prior to commencing the daily apéro a few hours early? Exactly right. Also exactly how I spent my past weekend (minus the ski-gear, in-house sauna and steam-bath, add the onesie). It was glorious, you should try it.

Raclette

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Turquailakey!!! (A.K.A. Christmas Chez La Medical Gourmet)

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Yes! I finally did it. After many years of wanting to, but never being allowed to, I stuffed our Christmas turkey not only with traditional stuffing, but also with a quail! HAHA. And why? Because I can! Ha! (Yes ok, you got me, also because Ted gave me the glorious idea millions of years ago. His idea was to stuff the turkey with a smaller turkey. However, a 4-6 person turkey doesn’t have a large enough cavity to fit another turkey – hence the quail, because a quail fits into everything:-).)

If it would be up to me, one should have turkey ,with all it’s trimmings, once a month. Actually, the trimmings alone would suffice – the stuffing, cranberry sauce, the sprouts – NOM. This past month I went a tad turkey crazy with three proper full blown on turkey-experiences. Would I eat turkey&co again tomorrow? Hell yeah!
That being said – if anyone out there is still panicking about what to cook for New Year’s dinner – Turquailakey?

Turquailakey with Pork, Onion & Sage Stuffing, Sprouts, Cranberry Sauce, Celeriac Mash and Red Cabbage

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Berner Lebkuchen Bites

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MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL! I cannot believe another year has already passed – and boy what a crazy one it was…. so many fantastic moments, a few not so fun times, yet somehow I feel no different to December 2014 (apart from the odd new wrinkle or two). I also don’t really feel like the holiday season has properly started – let me blame that on the lack of snow. WHERE ARE YOU?

Nonetheless, it is truly a wonderful time of the year filled with family traditions, games, mulled wine, presents and exorbitant amounts of food. I’m pretty sure you all have either a lunch or dinner invitation/duty on the 25th. For those of you out there who haven’t had a chance to bake christmas cookies, but promised to bring something homemade along on Christmas day, these hazelnut bites are perfect – unique, nutty, spicy, gluten-free, lactose-free (sadly not vegan – haha) and delicious. Berner Lebkuchen is a special sort of “gingerbread” from my home town – a.k.a. the capital city of Switzerland. Traditionally it comes decorated with the cantons coat of arms – a rude bear sticking its tongue out. Personally I prefer the bite size finish – one doesn’t feel so bad about eating more than two ;-).

Berner Lebkuchen Bites

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adapted from Wildeisen

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The Big Apple

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Time for a post. Time for dessert. Using possibly the best fruit of the winter season – blood oranges. NOMNOMNOM.

My new favourite city: New York. Even better: New York before Christmas. Not Thanksgiving though – because oh my is Black Friday crazy (I tell you – stay away from the shops or practice boxing before going in..). Anyways, NYC in the holiday season is truly magical – beautiful Christmas lights, ice rinks in central and bryant park, Christmas music playing in all cafe’s, millions of holiday markets, the Rockettes (hahahahahahaha), waaaay too much good food – what’s not to like? Ok, you Londoners are probably thinking – their Subway is disgusting – true that, true that, in comparison your Tube could almost be mistaken for Swiss public transport;-). One of the best experiences I had while meandering about the city was up north in Harlem. My mother would be proud – I went to church on Sunday – a Baptist church – WOW. Breathtaking. Amazing. If you love gospel music, don’t mind putting on your Sunday’s best and dare yourself to travel above 120th street it is worth the trip. It was something kind of like this: Enjoy. And if church doesn’t quite fulfil your expectations, why not head to the Red Rooster for a gospel brunch.

Blood Orange Mousse with Almond Brittle
blood orange mousse with almonds

adapted from greatbritishchefs

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Balti Chicken Madras, Homemade Chapati and Cucumber Mint Raita

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Here’s a question: Have you ever been accidentally locked in a room somewhere, subsequently had a panic attack because you already pictured yourself dying of starvation in the very near future, and jumped up and down like a frog on crack after finally being found? Last time that happened to me I was luckily not alone – my beloved four-legged bestie kept me company in the tiniest lift on earth for what seemed like forever……. not going to lie, I think I even started crying and calling for my mother…… yeees ok so now we all know I am emotionally unstable, but I was only 12 at this point, ok? Anyhow, after about an hour I was saved and boy I did not set foot into that lift for at least a year.

Now, have you heard of Room Escape? After my childhood experience I never thought I would voluntarily lock myself into a room try to solving puzzles to get out. It was SOOOO MUCH FUN and I recommend you all try it. Don’t worry, it’s nothing like SAW. Although, admittedly, our game-master was pretty creepy – were it not for him I think we’d all still be in there searching for more riddles to solve:-).

As for this recipe, there really isn’t much to say: I love curry, I love raita, and who doesn’t love chapatis??

Balti Chicken Madras, Homemade Chapati and Cucumber Mint Raita

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adapted from Complete Indian Cooking by Mridula Baljekar et al.

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Almond Cardamom Mousse with an Apricot/Passionfruit Sauce

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For all the Swiss and German pastry lovers out there: if you think back to your childhood, what was your favourite breakfast pastry? I’m not speaking cake, but more of pastries such as filled croissants, chocolate buns, cinnamon or nut rolls, donuts, spitzbuebe, danishes. Have one in mind? Well, one of the top contenders on my list is the classic almond croissant. Not the kind you’ll find in an English bakery where a normal croissant is cut in half post baking and stuffed with an almond filling, but the Swiss kind where one fills the croissant before baking. I couldn’t (and still cannot) get enough of that rich almond filling. It’s like marzipan but better. When I came across the filling in a jar, I secretly wanted to run around in the supermarket 10 times screaming my head off to express my joy. Luckily my inner sensible self stopped me before I had a chance to embarrass myself.

Now I have the filling.. what next? I wasn’t in the mood for actual croissants, but desperately wanted to use the filling for something….. what to make for grown ups which isn’t breakfast….. hmm….. and what do I do best….. DESSERT! After googling (haha I cannot believe this is an actual word..) for inspiration I found a recipe to use as a guideline. Of course I decided to add some cardamom, because, why not, let’s face it, cardamom for the win. Let me know what you think!

Almond Cardamom Mousse with an Apricot/Passionfruit SauceIMG_6277

adapted from wildeisen

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