Random TR: Cooking with Joe

[ParkTrips]

Hi All

 

Cooking with Joe was essentially retired a while ago, but I recently promised Elissa I would document the next time I made soft, Bavarian-style pretzels (link). Well, with the Oktoberfest trip coming up, I've been fairly 'festive' lately, and figured now would be a good time.

 

I decided to go for a full 3-course meal: pretzels for a first dish, wurst for the second, and a dessert dish of kaiserschmarn. I went to the grocery store with a list of ingredients and came back ready to get cookin... I'll let the pictures tell the tale

 

(note: I had to use my camera phone because I couldn't find my charger for my regular camera. The pictures are mostly ok, not bad, but not all that great either)

 

First, we need to make the dough for the pretzels. In the past, I would just buy a 1lb bag of dough from the deli at Publix. However, I haven't seen that in a while, so I'm going to have to make it from scratch - meaning more danger =/

 

Pour the yeast and some hot water into a bowl, and mix

 

Add a bit of warm water

 

.. stir well...

 

.. then dump in several cups of flour

 

beat it around until you get a big ol ball of dough

 

sprinkle some flour on a board..

 

.. and knead it out

 

break off small chunks, and roll them into thin, long strings (they need to be thinner than you see here, as you'll see later!)

 

once you have your strings, you can knot them like pretzels.. or, anything you'd like, really...

 

.. like that! Really, what's more German than a swastika-shaped pretzel?

 

Bring a bit of water to a slight boil in a frying pan, and add baking soda

 

I didn't have any baking soda, but I figured salt would do. I mean, NaCl is close enough to NaHCO3, right?

 

drop the dough into the pan, and leave it for about 30 seconds

 

unfortunately, getting them out was no easy task, I kind of mangled them a bit. Also, you're supposed to put them on a greased and salted cookie sheet, but I don't have a cookie sheed, and figured a stove-top grilling pan would suffice

 

bake them at 475 degrees for about 10 minutes

 

meanwhile, I have some water boiling for the sausage.

 

I had to settle for turkey sausage since Publix didn't have any "wurst" available

 

I would cook in beer, but that's a waste of perfectly good beer to me. Instead, I just boil them for a while

 

The pretzels are starting to get slightly hard on the outside, time to pull them out! I remember doing this once and coating the dough with something to get that classic "golden brown" look on the outside, but can't remember what it was (butter, I think?)

 

And finally, throw the sausage on some rolls, drip a bit of mustard on them and add the pretzels on the side. That's it! The finished product came out ok, not too bad considering I didn't have all the necessary ingredients/utensils, nor any real knowledge of wtf I was doing. It was edible, and that's all that counts for me!

 

However, after narrowly avoiding disaster several times, I decided against making the dessert dish!! Anywho, thanks for reading, now back to drinking my beer and watching Beerfest

[SharkTums]

I so missed Cooking with Joe.

 

Thanks dear! I'll buy you a much better pretzel next week, although it won't be in a Joey Friendly swaztika shape!!!

Edited September 11, 2010 by SharkTums

[BelizeIt]

Cooking with Joe needs to become an ongoing thread, with new fresh updates from time to time.

 

Your past reports were excellent, and this one was interesting as well. Now this report did lack fire, and apparently no one was injured, but maybe you can improve on that in the future.

 

Pretzels are great, whenever I'm near an Auntie Annes I always get one. Now I can't say that I've ever seen a swastika pretzel at Auntie Annes, but that's what politically incorrect TPR trip reports are all about. Now even though your pretzels looked like dried up dog turds, I'm sure they were still tasty. (A little butter and salt can help any pretzel)

 

I'm sure your going to have a great time on the Octoberfest trip! (Hopefully you'll meet a pretzel girl like they did in the Europe trip report)

[brilinjo]

Oh dear. 10/10 for effort. 1/10 for presentation. Sorry Joe.

 

Looking forward to the next instalment though!

[larrygator]

I don't know. The pretzels at the Wurzburg looked a little different.

 

But still another great Cooking with Joe segment.

[ParkTrips]

^ Yeah, this has worked much better in the past when I was able to start with pre-made dough. They actually looked like pretzels then

 

1/10 for presentation. Sorry Joe.

What was wrong with the presentation? Like, the pretzels looking like crap, or my report being bad? =/

[Meteornotes]

This is still the greatest thing ever, and would still make an amazing TV show. I am in awe.

 

dt

[mcjaco]

I am in awe.

 

Same.

 

CWJ was very much missed!

[Invertalon]

Too bad you had no baking soda, that is what gives pretzels their golden color, versus looking like weird colored dough.

 

The baking soda is a must! IMO.

 

I am sure they still tasted excellent though!