Berlin on a Platter

Broccoli Rabe in Berlin

Ask me what I miss most, in terms of food, about the States and I'll tell you: stock in a jar and dark green, leafy vegetables. But really, I'd happily give up the jarred stock if it meant I could just have my beloved vegetables. There are only so many Gurken and Blumenkohl and Kopfsalate one can eat before ones goes entirely insane with yearning for a pile of boiled, bitter greens.

But one year and 27 days after arriving back in Berlin, I finally found my beloved broccoli rabe. Sitting inncocently in a bin at the front of the Nazar Market (if you leave your computer's sound on while clicking on that link, you're in for a, er, treat) on Wilmersdorfer Strasse, labeled "cime di rape", which is its Italian name, it looked like it was just waiting for me to come along and finally spy it. They also had beautiful piles of very fresh spinach and baby Swiss chard with tiny red ribs for salads.

Dark green, leafy vegetables, agreeably bitter to boot: I've missed you! I can live without mustard greens, without collard greens and Tuscan kale. But a life without broccoli rabe, well, what kind of a life is that, I ask you?

I like to wash and trim the broccoli rabe stalks, then half boil-half steam them in a covered pot with about an inch of water in it. Cook them longer than you think you should: the longer they cook, the sweeter and more tender they'll get. Take it from all the Italian grandmothers in the world, and from me.

Once you've drained your cooked broccoli rabe, you'll have a mess of limpish greens. These can be, among other things:

a. dressed with olive oil and a squeeze of lemon

b. sautéed in a pan with olive oil, garlic, red pepper flakes and salt (crucial)

The best thing about the second option is that this can be used as a pasta sauce. Just make sure you save a little bit of the starchy cooking water to toss with the pasta and vegetables, in case of dryness. Grated Parmigiano on top brings it all together. (If you happen to have a stash of fresh Italian sausage lying around, you can crumble it into the same frying pan as the broccoli to cook while the pasta boils.)

Nazar Market
Wilmersdorfer Strasse 132
10627 Berlin

Butterschmalz and a Happy New Year

Breaking news from the depths of Bavaria!

A. You can indeed eat your weight in homemade Stollen, roast duck, potato dumplings and buttermilk-marinated venison, and live to tell the tale (even if it means the New Year's resolutions will start a week early, no matter if you'll be spending New Year's in Paris or not).

B. Butterschmalz is not, as you - or I, really - may have thought, a mixture of butter and chicken, goose or pig fat. It is clarified butter! Sitting cheaply and humbly in the refrigerated section of your grocery store. I don't know why I find this so thrilling - maybe because ghee always seemed so exotic and hard to track down in New York? - but there you have it.

C. I am writing this post on my phone in a house in a tiny Bavarian village. Huh. This is a first.

Guten Rutsch, everyone! Here's to happy and healthy 2011's for all of you, with plenty of leafy greens, hot sauce and Champagne to smooth the transition.

Sprattus Sprattus (Kieler Sprotten)

Reading Taras Grescoe's brilliant and depressing Bottomfeeder a few years ago profoundly changed the way I ate fish. I won't begin to list what I don't eat anymore (or what I eat very, very rarely); what I do eat are oysters, wild salmon if I can find it and if I can afford it (so, basically, almost never) and all the small oilies: anchovies, sardines, mackerel. (Unless I'm in Italy visiting my mother - there I'll eat any of the local seafood, but that's another story.) And that's pretty much it.

This means I eat a lot of tinned fish. Nigel Slater made them appetizing to me, both in fish cakes and on toast: toast a piece of pain au levain, butter it generously, then mash tinned sardines with a fork and spread them on top of the buttered toast, finishing with a squeeze of lemon. It's an almost painfully delicious dinner-for-one. Gabrielle Hamilton's sardines on Triscuits with mustard are a surefire way to polish off a box of crackers and at a least a few tins of fish. We put anchovies in our tomato sauces and on homemade pizza. I mix canned wild salmon with Sriracha and eat it on toast.

The other day we were stocking up on tinned fish at Edeka (piri-piri! Princesse!) when, on a whim, I decided to get a can of Kieler Sprotten. Sprattus sprattus, if you will. (Hee!) Sprats are much smaller than sardines and they are tender beyond belief - they practically melt in your mouth at first contact. And Kieler Sprotten are lightly smoked, too. We're starting off well, aren't we, with tender, melty little fish with the barest smoky flavor? At home, we toasted a piece of one of my Berlin bread loves (das Falken from Bio Backhaus), spread it thinly with Dijon mustard and then lay a few Sprotten on top.

People. Oh my goodness. Best New Snack Ever. And ever. And ever. (If you happen to have a few cornichons lying around, they're a good chaser.) You know how tinned fish like sardines or salmon can sometimes be a little dry? Or have a few too many hairy bones (sardines, I mean)? Sprats are moist and delectable. You will literally want to pop every last one in your mouth like a greedy cat and swallow. We politely shared a tin, but it was rather clear that next time each person gets their own. These little fish are delicious.

I love discovering grocery store gems. Sprattus sprattus!

Quality Wine at Aldi

I was about to start explaining Aldi to people who don't live in Germany, but then I checked their website and it turns out Aldi has invaded every corner of the globe! For those of you who still might be wondering what I'm talking about, Aldi is a deep-discount, no-frills grocery store that sells everything from wild salmon to potted meat, cold-pressed canola oil to instant coffee. It prides itself on selling more than just bottom-of-the-barrel goods, so they'll stock good-quality dark chocolate and smoked trout alongside no-name mustard and egg noodles. All for crazy low prices.

I'll admit that I'm a snob about where I shop, but I go to Aldi for things like toilet paper, unsalted butter, Trader Joe's nuts, fresh blood orange juice and the occasional Kinder Schokolade rip-off (that dares to be better than the original), Milch Mäuse. I avoid the produce, the milk, the cold cuts. And it's certainly never occurred to me to buy wine there before.

But the other day, when I stopped in for some OJ, I noticed a bunch of wine bottles in the section of the store reserved for special, even more discounted sales.

Um, Pouilly-Fumé, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Barolo and Crémant de Loire, for €7.99, €8.99, €6.99, and €5.99 respectively.

Run, don't walk, to stock up.