Ms. Schnitzel's Double Trouble Burger

Whenever Jen asks her boyfriend what he wants for dinner his response is ALWAYS either, "burgers or fish and chips." This time, Jen succumbed to one of his demands. With German food ideas on her brain, and a fresh taste of German cheese on her tongue,  Jen had a light bulb moment. What if we make a German cheeseburger?! Jen's boyfriend would be so happy and the Ms. Schnitzel test kitchen would have an original recipe to fire up. Brilliant! But what is a German cheeseburger without a homemade pretzel bun?

Jen and Tara quickly got to work following the exact recipe from the Pretzel Bread post and instead of making pretzel bread, they shaped the dough into hearty buns. 

The rest of this idea is simple, the homemade pretzel bun holds an organic, grass-fed burger, sauerkraut and cheese (choose one of 2) topped with your favorite German mustard, layered in whatever order you prefer.  

There are two cheese options for this burger depending on your taste buds. You can either use the Cheddar Beer Spread (from previous post) or use the German blue cheese (from Pretty Cheese with Sugar on Top?). We all had a difficult time choosing a favorite because they were both delicious in their own right. 

We would love to hear what different German cheeseburger combinations and flavors you come up with? Feel free to comment below! 

Pretty cheese, with sugar on top?

This German Cambozola is as pretty as our title suggests - a rich shade of cream veined with dark blue marble. Do yourself a favor, if you see this at your local cheese counter, BUY IT. It is soooo good. 

Tara has been a lifelong hater of blue cheese, but she braced her tastebuds and tried it, never one to shy away from culinary adventure... with some notable exceptions, but we'll save that conversation for a rainy day. Anyways, she could not get enough of this! And Jen, in cheese heaven, was inspired to come up with some of her most creative descriptions yet:

"Like a stinky sock, but a one day stinky sock. Not a five day. That's just the kick." (The kick, get it?! The kick of flavor in the cheese, but we're comparing it to socks, feet, you know?)

"It's like Stilton knocked up Brie and they had a German baby." Indeed, an apt description. Creamy and mild for a blue cheese, but with a definitely blue... kick. Yeah, we said it again.

Stilton and Brie, sitting in a tree
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
First comes love, then comes marriage
Than comes Cambozola in a baby carriage!

So on that note, we'll leave you with a little teaser: We made pretzel buns yesterday from our previous pretzel bread recipe, and will be testing a Schnitz original recipe tomorrow using this Cambozola and the aforementioned buns, but the rest is a secret...Shhhh. Stay tuned!

German Cheese Tasting

While the dynamic duo behind Ms. Schnitzel was out shopping for the ingredients to make Cheddar-Beer Spread, we happened upon this imported Bavarian cheese - or käse, in German - in the cheese case. Remember that cheese case from our first Cheddar-Beer spread post? 

Of course, once we saw it we just had to try it! We do love our cheese here at the Haus von Schnitzel.

This was a soft, creamy, spreadable cheese in an edible rind, much like brie but definitely stinkier. Jen's little pooch, Nuggs, was going NUTS; he wanted it sooo bad. And you know how doggies like stinky things. Just saying.

Having gotten across the odiferous nature of this Limburger, we would like to say it was much milder than it smelled and the odor was not really noticeable after a bite or two. We both really enjoyed it... Should we be embarrassed to admit we ate most of the block in one sitting?

According to the website, which we had to translate from German to English, they've made this cheese exactly the same way for 100 years and only use fresh milk from local farmers in the Allgäu. Check this out: 

"It is a sight to behold and a true example for the preservation of tradition: Every year in September, thousands of cows are brought down from their summer alpine pastures high up in the mountains and treated like celebrity on their return to the valley. Head for Oberstdorf in the Southern Bavarian Allgäu region where this event will take place in September 2014."

We highly recommend doing a Google search on Allgäu cows. Interesting stuff. Happy cows + men in lederhosen = happy fräuleins.

So if you're out and about, you see it, and you're looking for a little cheese and/or German fix, snatch up this St. Mang Limburger! You have the Ms. Schnitzel stamp of approval. Try it with a pretzel, or better yet, Pretzel Bread! Like German brie and baguette, yum. And we've got you covered, we'll be posting a wonderful pretzel bread recipe later this week.

Happy Monday!

Cheddar-Beer Spread Part 2

 

Sprechen Käse! 

It's day 4 of Oktoberfest, and we've been working hard to bring some good stuff to your table. For instance, tonight we sampled beers from three of the six breweries sponsored by Oktoberfest in Munich! Yes, hard work. We took one for the team. Check back Thursday for official reviews!

So close your eyes, relax, roll back in time... a few weeks ago we posted about this amazing Cheddar-Beer Spread. Oh, it was sooo good. Remember? Well, we encapsulated half of it in time for a later date, and that day has come. 

If you've never worked with paraffin wax, it is completely edible and not as scary as it seems.  You melt it, pour it, even mix it with chocolate if you want to make buckeyes... Well, some around here have Ohio roots.

When Grandma's Cookbook instructed us to "Seal top with melted paraffin. Keep refrigerated for several weeks", we looked at each other with big question marks in our eyes, and then decided to try it!  But we needed the overnight fix too. So... Check out our first post for initial impressions.

 

Without much direction from the recipe, this crazy experiment worked! The following reviews are all from people who tasted the initial product and the end product:

Rob: "It takes me back to a train ride in Bavaria, with mountains and castles in the distance."

He liked it better aged.

Adrienne: "The perfect snack.  Some cheese was made for wine, this cheese is made for beer."

She liked it better aged.

Jen:  "The perfect balance of flavors, the original had more potent individual flavors."

She liked it better aged.

Tara: "Drier on top after aging, make sure to stir it up! Flavor mellows with age."

She loved it both ways.

If you want to try aging it, just cut off a chunk of paraffin wax, melt it in a pan over medium-low heat, pour a layer a couple inches thick over the top to seal it, and pry it off after 3-5 weeks. Voila!

Cheddar-Beer Spread Part 1

Guten tag und willkommen to the first of two posts on Cheddar-Beer Spread!

We always read through our recipes before starting to make sure there aren't any wild cards, such as in this recipe where Grandma's Cookbook instructs us to seal the spread with paraffin wax and keep refrigerated for several weeks…. Wait… What?! We have to wait several WEEKS to sink our crackers into this?! Unacceptable.  So we looked into other similar recipes online, and without variation the instructions were to leave the spread (sans wax) in the fridge overnight.  The conclusion we came to was that we simply had to make two batches (there's no such thing as too much Cheddar-Beer Spread, right?) and, for the sake of authenticity, try the paraffin wax method as well as the overnight method and compare the difference.  What a delicious experiment! In Part 2 of this post, we will let you know how the aged spread turns out.
 

We think, as with any simple recipe, the key is to use high-quality ingredients so the flavors really shine.  We also look for pasture-raised and humanely treated animal products, so our version was not exactly cheap, but we both agree the expense of using a high quality German beer and Kerrygold cheddars was totally worth it. Kerrygold, you ask?  Isn't that Irish?  Well, we couldn't find any German cheddars, which we're pretty sure Germany is NOT known for, so we thought to ourselves, "Irish cheddar will do!"  And Kerrygold's website assures us that all cows are raised on lush, green Irish pastures.

Yay, happy cows!

Since we were making a double batch, we needed two 7oz blocks of cheese. We decided to try a little mix and bought Kerrygold's Reserve Cheddar and Red Leicester Cheese. On a side note, while perusing the cheese counter we witnessed a young man without a cart or basket walking around the store creeping on unsuspecting female shoppers. 

Oh, LA.

Afterwards, we went to our favorite local beer store to pick out a German beer (or three) and that was its own adventure. Make sure to look for our future posts on this awesome store and it's massive German beer selection!

Now that we have our ingredients all that's left to do is start mixing, so get your bowl and spoon ready!

This is a fairly simple recipe to throw together, but the flavor is everything you could ask for and more out of a cheese spread - at least the way we made it. The first batch went over so well we had a hard time not eating the entire jar in one sitting! 

Stay tuned for part 2 ...