Meal 98: Liechtenstein

Liechtenstein is one of two doubly-landlocked countries, meaning that every country it borders is also landlocked. So it was entirely unfitting, then, that we held this meal at a party house on the Oregon coast, as part of the celebrations of Laura's 30th birthday.

Sandwiched between Austria and Switzerland, the cuisine is emphatically Alpine Germanic, with dairy products dominating. While this meal wasn't as grand or as eagerly anticipated as Laura's previous birthday feasts of Canada, France, and Italy, it was surprisingly tasty and satisfying. Then again, maybe it's hard to go wrong with so much cheese, cream, and butter!

What a fun crowd for celebrating this birthday: Molly, Ellen, Bryce, Laura, Craig, Kristine, Tim, Sebastian, Chelsea, Haley, Derek, and Alondra!

Spargel vom grill | Grilled asparagus | Recipe

Asparagus is a classic spring vegetable, though I didn't manage to find the fat, white asparagus that's much more common in Europe. So we doctored up plain ol' skinny green asparagus with "spring herbs" (in this case, dandelion greens I plucked from the yardm green onions I grew over the winter, and parsley from the store), plus a smear of butter, and wrapped them in foil and grilled them. (Have you ever seen an indoor grill on a kitchen range? It was kinda weird and uneven, but it worked!) I'm a fan of asparagus, but I really liked this version: the herbs, butter, and grill-steaming all really worked nicely.

Kaninchengeschnetzeltes | Rabbit in cream sauce | Recipe

I should have realized it'd be hard to find a rabbit on Easter weekend! After calling around to a half dozen butcher shops, I found what may have been the last bunny in Portland in a Whole Foods freezer.

I'm glad I didn't have to revert to the backup plan of just using chicken, because this dish really brings out the subtly rich flavor of rabbit, especially with the tweak I made in preparation. See, the recipe calls for cooked rabbit but doesn't say how to cook it, so I browned and braised it in champagne (left over from the previous night's party!), and subsequently boiled down the braising liquid to contribute to the cream sauce.

The dish is rich, soft, creamy and meaty, so the accompaniment of a poached pear half filled with tart jam is a cleverly tart and toothsome contrast. I couldn't find cranberry preserves (other than the stuff in a can, that is), so I went with lingonberry, which was awesome. All in all, a pretty time-consuming and decadent dish, but tasty!

Käsknöpfle | Cheesy mini-dumplings | Recipe

What a crowd-pleaser! Better known by the common German word spätzle, these little squirts are halfway between dumplings and noodles, and you use a special apparatus to form little strands from a mass of dough which then fall into boiling water. It's a fair amount of work to make, but fortunately we had an enthusiastic expert on hand who'd learned to make them when living in Germany. Thanks, Ellen!

I couldn't find the traditional sura kees anywhere, nor was I successful finding advice on a substitute, partly because its English translation, "sour cheese," happens to be a marijuana strain so the search results weren't helpful. I ended up with a grab bag of Alpine cheeses: Emmental, Gruyère, and Fontina. It probably wasn't as sour as it should have been, and we may have put on too much cheese because the recipe didn't specify...nope, no such thing as too much cheese, it was fantastic. We also made one little variation on the recipe by throwing the whole mess under the broiler to brown the top a bit, and then returned to the recipe to shower the top with crispy-fried onion slices. So tasty!

Ribel | Milky cornmeal gruel | Recipe

This was supposed to be a milky, crumbly version of polenta. To keep it vegan we made it with almond milk, and in the chaos of getting ready for dinner, forgot the part about baking it. It wasn't bad, but it was just kinda like regular polenta.

Öpfelküechli | Apple fritters | Recipe

"Don't worry, everyone, I'm about to flambé." Famous last words before a splash of cognac turned into an eight-foot column of flame!

These batter-dipped apple slices were tasty enough, but frankly not worth the effort. Especially since we had no way of coring an apple that would keep it intact as rings, it was just really tedious to batter and fry every little piece — like, making a whole apple pie would have been less work. But without the righteous two-second fireball.

Meal 65: Germany

What a convergence -- my 30th birthday, the one-third point for United Noshes, a gorgeous day, an apartment with a backyard...and a cuisine and culture renowned for good cheer around food. While German food rarely makes the rounds of haute cuisine, for those who enjoy meat and beer it's a wonderful, homey way to get a lot of calories. New York City used to have a distinct German immigrant population. Much like Chinatown today, Kleindeutschland in the Lower East Side and other enclaves around town featured whole communities where you'd see more German than English on the walls. Yet today the presence is a lot more subdued, and is hanging on best in the portion of the Upper East Side once known as Germantown. There are many reasons explaining the decline of the German identity, from the General Slocum disaster in which over 1,000 people capsized near shore, to xenophobia during the two World Wars.

About thirty friends and members of the Noshing community passed through in the nine (!) hours the temporary backyard biergarten was open, including three visitors from California! Thanks to all who came for bringing so much beer and wine, too -- it was quite festive!

Aufschnitt | Cold cuts

German food is chock-a-block with preserved meats. To get the party started, I set out a few different kinds. Pictured above is liverwurst; sometimes it's more of a spread but this is the Braunschweiger variety, originating from near Hanover, which is firm enough to slice, and goes great with some onion on a bit of pumpernickel bread. We also had two air-dried ones: Landjäger, from the south, which is like a thin square salami, and smoked bratwurst. To round it out, we enjoyed the rich and appropriately named Butterkäse -- käse means cheese and I'll let you figure out the other part.

Brezeln | Pretzels | Recipe

I've always loved the distinctive flavor of pretzels, that oddly salty nuttiness, most enjoyable a crisp crust and a soft inside. The process was really enjoyable: a quick rise, a supple dough to roll and twist, a quick boil in a baking soda bath to lend the distinctive flavor, and a moderate bake. (In fact, the one modification I'd make to the recipe is to cook at more like 400 or 425, rather than 450, to get it to really bake through -- the crust will darken plenty even at a lower temp thanks to the baking soda.) Since I didn't want to spend my birthday party leashed to the stove, I figured out (with help from my buddy PJ at King Arthur Flour) how to prep and freeze them ahead of time while serving them nice and hot, right in time. I made them the whole way through but pulled them just as the crust was starting to brown, froze them on sheets until mostly hard, and put them in plastic bags and back into the freezer. A few days later, I thawed them for about an hour at room temperature, and put them on a 350 oven for maybe 15 minutes until the house smelled great. Done! I think they turned out even better this way than the original recipe, because the second bake really cooks them through and also lends a pretty thick and crispy crust. However you judge it, I made 65 pretzels and they all disappeared!

If you end up making these pretzels -- and you should! -- make sure you get some good mustards to go with it. We had a straightforward, medium-sharpness yellow mustard, a spicier one, and my favorite, a sweet rich Bavarian. Each brings out a different aspect of the pretzel, and taking your time to decide which mustard is your favorite is a great excuse to eat more pretzel.

Rheinlander Sauerbraten | Sweet and sour pot roast | Recipe

Don't worry, even if the photo were in focus, this dish wouldn't look like much. But whatever soaking three days in a spiced vinegar sauce followed by several hours of stovetop stewing and a dusting of raisins does to make a hunk of beef look unattractive, it sure makes it flavorful. This dish has been enjoyed in Germany for a very long time -- both Julius Caesar and Charlemagne have been credited with its invention -- and the meaty sourness, balanced a bit by the sweetness of gingersnaps and raisins, is still a winner.

Würste | Sausages

While I try to make as much as possible from scratch, I draw the line at sausages. It was surprisingly difficult to find a good variety of German sausages around New York -- Fairway, normally a reliable source of European foods, really came up short. So I headed up to Yorkville on the Upper East Side, an area once well-known as Germantown, to Schaller and Weber. It was tough to choose from their wide variety, but I ended up with delicate Weisswurst, richly spiced and smoked Bauernwurst, and then the famous Bratwurst, which I bought raw, and simmered in beer before grilling. As all the sausages were fully cooked ahead of time, grilling was just for temperature and texture, so I did it with the cover up.

Rotkohl | Stewed red cabbage with apples | Recipe

The classic German stewed cabbage is tender, with a good balance of sweet and sour. While this fulfilled all those elements, it was kind of lacking in depth. The dish was pleasant enough, but didn't really beg to be scarfed down like some versions of these dishes I've found. Not sure what the problem is -- maybe shredding with the Cuisinart made the cabbage too fine, or something?

Berliner Kartoffelsalat | Vinaigrette potato salad | Recipe

Most German potato salads don't have mayonnaise, and I like them for that. This recipe, which makes an unsubstantiated claim of being from Berlin and therefore helped me round out the geography, is pretty clever, using juice from the pickles as the sour base for the vinaigrette. I'd say it was all right, but it probably could have used more vinegar to really make the flavors sing. I also probably overcooked the potatoes a bit, which might have made things mushier than ideal.

Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte | Black Forest cake | Recipe

I didn't feel like I should be making my own birthday cake, so Laura agreed to do it. She even knew what she'd make, a German chocolate cake. Imagine Laura's surprise when she discovered that such a cake is actually American in origin, invented by a certain Sam German working at a chocolate company! Thank goodness our friend Lisa came to the rescue with this cake, which is so German that it was one of two national submissions to a Europe-wide cake fest. Four layers of deep chocolate, generously separated with buttercream studded with cherries, and then evenly sprinkled with shaved chocolate...wow. I might have a German-themed birthday party every year just so I have an excuse to get this cake!

We're about to start into a 16-state, 4500+-mile road trip, and our first stop is to the Jersey Shore where we'll do the Greece meal!

World Food Day + United Noshes: DR Congo

You're invited to our biggest Nosh yet! In celebration of World Food Day, and in partnership with Hostelling International New York and World Food Program USA, we're hosting a big feast on Sunday, October 14, featuring the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It's at 104th and Amsterdam in HI's historic building, and if the weather's good we'll be dining outside.

Whether you've noshed with us before, or are still waiting to give it a shot, we'd love to share chicken in palmnut sauce, peanut stew, and fufu with you! The meal will be suitable for vegetarians and omnivores alike, and it's BYOB.

We're selling tickets in advance so we know how much food to make. We very well might fill up, so buy your spot today! Tickets start at $15, and all proceeds beyond the cost of food go directly to World Food Program USA and will be doubled by Google. (If you're interested to volunteer with cooking, setup, and other tasks, please reply!)

Feel free to forward to friends, and we're looking forward to seeing many of you there.

Detour: Olympic-but-not-UN Potluck!

What do Hong Kong, Guam, Bermuda and Aruba all have in common? Well, aside from being islands in warmer climes, they are all a part of the special group of places that compete independently in the Olympics but aren't UN member states.

Since we had a spare week due to some schedule shakeups, we thought we'd take a brief pause from our march through the alphabet and also acknowledge the great international spectacle that is the Summer Games. What's more, we did this one as a potluck, and it turned out super successfully! As we drank and ate our ways through the foods of some of the smallest teams, we gathered on the porch to watch the rather bizarre closing ceremonies on a TV perched on top of the barbecue.

Piña coladas (Cayman Islands), painkillers (US Virgin Islands) and rum punch (British Virgin Islands)

If you like piña coladas...well, you'll probably also like the other two drinks featuring rum and pineapple juice. Thanks to Elly, John, and Katie for the concoctions! These sweet, cold drinks definitely got us into the mood. (See the little bit of red in the middle? That's from a macerated cherry left over from the Croatia meal!)

Papaya with coconut (Cook Islands)

The Cook Islands make for a small dot in the South Pacific, roughly between Tonga and Tahiti. Their cuisine places an emphasis on simple preparations of fresh foods, and so to balance out the heaviness of the rest of the meal I decided to make a simple dish of papaya with a squeeze of lime juice topped with fresh scraped coconut. To be really accurate I should have used the smaller "solo" or Hawaiian papaya, but on the East Coast those are really hard to find so I went with a big, and unfortunately less sweet, Mexican papaya. (Fun fact: my grandfather was the first person to grow Hawaiian papayas in Mexico!)

Pernil (Puerto Rico) | Roast pork shoulder | Recipe

Congratulations to Puerto Rico for their silver in 84 kg mens wrestling and bronze in mens 400 m hurdles! In celebration, Elly and Jeff whipped up a mean pernil. Simply encrusted with a few spices and slowly roasted, it was a meaty and tasty treat, best enjoyed with a squeeze of lime and a sprinkling of cilantro.

Keshi yena (Curaçao)

The Netherlands Antilles was dissolved as a country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and since then the new smaller countries haven't set up Olympic Committees. So its athletes (along with a South Sudanese marathoner who, understandably, refused to run under the Sudanese flag) participated as Independent Olympic Athletes under the Olympic flag. Anyway, all those former Dutch Antilleans were from Curaçao, so that's what I went for.

This dish, which means "stuffed cheese" in the local Papiamento creole, has a telling history. Apparently the Dutch landholders would get wheels of cheese shipped from the Old World, and scoop out the insides. When only the rind remained, they'd give it to their slaves, who then filled it with whatever they could find and bake it. Today's recipes includes all sorts of ingredients that reflect the very diverse trading influences on the island, from Indian-inspired English piccalilli to Portuguese olives — and I found the recipe on a local Jewish community's website!

Chicken kelaguen (Guam) | Chicken-citrus salad | Recipe

Marinating meat in a citrus sauce is popular the world over. Kelaguen is the version they enjoy on Guam. With most meats it's made from raw and the acid does the cooking, but with chicken you have to use heat to cook it first. So that's what Chrys did. Chilies gave it some kick, and the tender meat of a young coconut added a nice bit of crisp to balance out the soft meat.

Baked pork chop and rice (Hong Kong) | Recipe

As a "special administrative region" within China, Hong Kong does a lot of things separately from the mainland, including its government system, its currency, and yes, its Olympics team — which won a bronze in women's keirin cycling. Amy, who hails from Hong Kong, made us a dish that she calls her comfort food: a casserole with layers of rice, pieces of fried pork chops, a sauce with big chunks of tomatoes, finished with a layer of melty mozzarella cheese. With a vaguely Asian basis but also some Western ingredients (tomatoes) and techniques (baking cooked rice just isn't something normal Chinese cuisine does), Amy gave us an appropriate taste of her home.

Braised pork belly with preserved greens (Chinese Taipei, aka Taiwan)

Taiwan is not a part of the UN. The Republic of China, as Taiwan's government is formally known, was in fact the representative for China's seat until 1971, until the People's Republic of China took it over. Taiwan has tried many times to gain readmission to the UN, but many factors, not least of which is the PRC's permanent seat on the Security Council, keep this de facto country of 23 million people out. Not wanting to upset the PRC, the US does not officially recognize Taiwan or the ROC as a de jure country, but in de facto terms we're great buds, with embassy-like non-profits in each other's capitals and lots of trade. It's this weird state of affairs that leads to the nonsensical name of Chinese Taipei for much of their representation in international affairs such as the Olympics — and congrats for the silver in women's weightlifting and the bronze in women's taekwondo.

Anyway, when I met Katie, she was sad to hear that we weren't planning to do a Taiwanese nosh, because her partner Phil's family is Taiwanese and a great cook. So when we whipped up this idea, she was the first person I invited. And wow! This was just spectacular: richly spiced and falling-apart pork belly, braised with some sort of preserved green his mother brought back from Taiwan, scooped into a small, fluffy taco-like pancake and topped with pickled mustard greens, cilantro, and chopped peanuts. So much yum.

Fungi (Aruba) | Cornmeal | Recipe

We've experienced fungi, fufu, and all the other names for mush many a time at our Noshing table for both African and Caribbean meals, but I gotta say that Annie did a darn good job with her version. This cornmeal-based one was much more solid, and much of it was cut into pieces and fried, so hence, delicious.

Rum Cake (Bermuda) | Recipe

With all that food, one dessert was enough! Christen made this scrumptious rum cake. She's definitely my kind of cook because the cake arrived with that notch at the top missing — she couldn't resist tasting it!

This culinary tour did leave out two qualifying teams: our American Samoan representative couldn't make it, and Palestine will get a full meal as a permanent observing member of the UN. And with that we're back to the list, albeit a tad out of order, with a dip into the d's with Democratic People's Republic of Korea — aka North Korea — coming up.

The secret is out!

On the heels of our biggest meal yet for Cameroon, we've gotten our first publicity! Mary-Katherine from the State Department's Bureau of International Information Programs caught wind of our project, pitched the story to her editors, and even got an extension on her deadline so she could attend our meal in DC for some first-hand reportage. We're really happy with the article, which you can read in both English and French. The latter is a delightfully florid interpretation, with turns of phrase such as "Ils attaquent les pays (à la fourchette, bien sûr) par ordre alphabétique," or literally, "They're attacking the countries (with a fork, of course) in alphabetical order."

Keri Kae at the WFP USA also wrote up a blog post about the meal and included us in their April newsletter. They're encouraging others to cook international dinners as a fundraising effort, which I think is a great idea. To that end, I plan to write up some posts about what I've learned about recipe research, shopping, and planning the cooking day. And if there's anything in particular you'd like to hear about, please let me know below!