Notes From Nowhere

So I made beef stew to have something to go with what was left from yesterday’s Brezenknödel. The best thing about stew, however, is dinner the next day. The leftovers are easily transformed into ragù, as Italians refer to meet sauces for pasta where the meat is broken down into tiny bits. The most famous kind of ragu is “alla bolognese,” which is prepared with ground meat: in the olden days, a mix of beef and pork, today often just beef. But stew is also a great starting point for ragù. Just put the pieces of meat on a plate, cut them into thin slices, and return them into the pot. Then add some kind of tomato, fresh or from a tin or even concentrated tomato paste, whatever you have at home. Plus a bit of red wine and some vegetables. Again, pretty much anything works. I took carrot and fennel, cut into very small cubes so that they blend with the meat and tomatoes upon further cooking. Though ragù can be prepared quickly, it will be even more fragrant if you give it a bit of time.

While my ragù was simmering on the stove, I prepared the first course with more leftovers from yesterday: two Brezenknödel, dumplings made from Bavarian brezen. The first time I encountered Brezenknödel was at a family celebration in the Austrian alps. They weren’t served as dumplings, but thinly sliced as a salad. So this is what I tried today, and I liked it a lot: layers of Brezenknödel with some first rate tomatoes I got at the farmers’ market.

Next comes the only bit of hard work for my pasta con ragù dish: grating parmigiano. I often buy grated parmigiano, because I find it so tiresome to grate enough of it (everyone I know loves parmigiano, so it’s not easy to have “enough”). But the taste is of course even better if you’re grating it right before you serve the food.

Now everything was ready for the main dish: pasta con ragù con parmigiano.

But since it was all just prepared from leftovers, it wasn’t all that much. So I added a healthy dessert, the kind of dessert one can eat in addition to having some chocolate later at night. Strawberries with delicious Bavarian yogurt.

My Bavarian-Italian theme continues, with an idea that came about because, as beautifully equipped as the kitchen here is, I don’t have a freezer. And I’ve been buying brezen, the Bavarian bread that Americans call pretzels, once in a while. The real thing is just so much better than any version of it that one can buy in other countries! But they don’t stay fresh for long, so after a week or so, I had some stale brezen and other bits and pieces of old bread. What to do? I hate throwing food away, so I decided to make a version of Bavarian bread dumplings. Usually, Bavarian bread dumplings are made with thinly sliced white bread from rolls (“Semmeln”) that have gone stale. So the trick with Brezenknödel is that you substitute the white bread with brezen. I’ve eaten this once or twice at upscale Bavarian dinners, so it was time to try my own version.

I started by cutting the Brezen into very thin slices. You’ll need a bit of time for this and a good knife. And since I had some other old bread, some of it with spices, I added that, hoping it would all come out right.

Next you need a bit of milk and one egg. And in theory, you need parsley. But I used all my parsley for yesterday’s Simple Pasta. So I used basil from the garden instead. For regular bread dumplings, you’ll also need salt and pepper. For my version today, I went light on that, given that the bread I was using was already on the spicy side.

Now you have to mix the dough, which is easiest done by hand. Once the bread has soaked up the milk and egg, take chunks of it and roll them until you have lovely round dumplings.

Bavarian dumplings, of course, tend to be served with meat, and my meat was already simmering on the stove. I had walked into the butcher’s store in the morning, saying I want something to go with dumplings, and the owner recommended what she called an upscale beef stew, cut from a piece that was almost too good for stew. Well, it was perfect! It smelled and tasted almost like game. Perhaps this isn’t a surprise, since the farm animals here are grazing outdoors, eating wild flowers all day. My stew was super simple, prepared like Boeuf Bourguignon (I’ll tell you some other time what my personal version of that is), only that instead of carrots I used some lovely red peppers.

So here it is all on a plate—I hope it looks as tasty and fragrant to you as my guests said it was!