German Unity Day

My son and I in front of the Brandenburg Gate

Germany is one of our favorite countries. I've been fortunate to visit there a few times and I simply like it more and more with each trip. Most of the time I've spent there has been in the former East Germany, which still has many remnants of its former communist days, such as the East Side Gallery of the Berlin Wall or Karl-Marx-Allee in Berlin. One of many favorite memories was simply standing next to Checkpoint Charlie as it lightly rained, watching the cars drive by without any need to stop or show their papers, all while the tourists snapped pictures. Needless to say, it seems that a united Germany is better than a divided one, and so we want to share in the celebration with all Germans of the 20th anniversary of their unity.

Sadly, German cuisine is hard for us to really work with here in the Middle East. There's a lot of pork involved, which is unavailable to us here, and due to our son's allergies we can't do much with dairy or eggs. There were several new things I wanted to try, but we ended up making currywurst like we always do.

Our Currywurst

Currywurst is a very popular and very tasty street food, largely available in Berlin. The concept is simple, take some sausage (a very nice all-beef hot dog would work in our case), smother it in curry ketchup, then sprinkle it with curry powder, finally eat it with bread on the side, and possibly french fries or vegetables. Usually to make the curry ketchup I'll mix some curry powder, paprika, and chili powder in white vinegar, then mix that with Heinz ketchup. It usually turns okay, though maybe a little grainy. I was excited to find this recipe for homemade curry ketchup. Maybe the whole thing needed more salt, but it was quite bland. It might also be because I'm not the biggest fan of apple cider vinegar. I opted to call the experiment a bust and just use regular ketchup and sprinkle curry powder on top. It may not be exactly like what I ate in Berlin, but it was still a very good guilty pleasure.

Congratulations on twenty years of unity, Germany. Here's to many more!

Gandhi's Birthday

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Throughout the world today is known as the International Day of Non-Violence. In many parts of India, however, it's simply known as Gandhi's birthday. We decided to celebrate his birth by putting together a meal typical of the region surrounding Mumbai, where he was born.

Saoji Chicken Curry, Garnished with diced red chilis

I found a recipe for Saoji curry using chicken, a common dish from the region. Now before anyone says anything, yes, I know that Gandhi didn't eat meat. I'm not sure how we would have felt about us celebrating his birth by eating chicken. I'm not sure he would have cared. If it's any consolation we did accompany our meal with a vegan mango lassi, using tofu instead of any dairy products.

Vegan Mango Lassi

The recipe calls for a plethora of spices which all make up garam masala. Instead of buying all the ingredients separately, you can probably buy garam masala prepackaged or as a powder. We already had some garam masala powder in the house, so we just used that, even though it's not supposed to be as strong and flavorful. It didn't seem to matter much since it still turned out really amazingly good. We've mostly just made Indian curry in the past from prepackaged pastes. This was surprisingly easy to make and much tastier and cheaper than curry from a jar. We thoroughly recommend it. If you're adventurous you could even experiment with different meats, like lamb, or make it a true vegan meal with either lentils or tofu.

Children's Day (Singapore)

Leftover Chicken Rice

Ever since I heard about chicken rice in Singapore I've been looking for an excuse to make it. I found this very easy to follow recipe with giant pictures. We more or less followed it, except I used a different recipe for hot sauce which is as follows:

Mix together 2 to 3 tbsp freshly squeezed lime or lemon juice, 5 tbsp finely chopped fresh red chilies, 5 cloves garlic, chopped, 3 tbsp finely chopped ginger, 1 tsp fine salt, 1/2 cup boiling hot chicken soup

Aside from not realizing that a lot of water was going to come out when I tried to cut the chicken up this went really well. I must confess this dish was really amazingly good. Easily one of the best things I've ever put in my mouth. Truly, if this is the kind of thing kids get to eat all the time in Singapore then they don't just need one day to celebrate.