1 3/4 cup (200gr) flour
5/8 cup (100gr) hazelnuts (ground)
2/3 cup (150gr) butter
1 cup (130gr) powdered sugar
1 tabelspoon (1 Eßl) rum (or rum extract)
1 tablespoon (1 Eßl) cocoa
1 yolk
For Kissing:
red currant jam
raspberry jam
Glaze:
powdered sugar
lemon
water

Mix the dough. Grandma’s advice: The butter is best used at room temperature. You can mix the dough with a mixer, but for the real Grandma flavor beat the dough by hand. Use circle cookie cutters and bake the cookies at 300 degrees F (150 Grad Celsius) for 15. min.

Now be prepared for the kissing: Spread 1 tablespoon of jam on one cookie and sandwich jam with another cookie. Put the sugar glaze on top.

Grandma E. passed this recipe on to my mother who passed it on to me. To share it with you on my blog. I wonder what she would have thought about that.

What’s your Grandma’s special cookie treat?

While many Gluhwein recipes recommend inexpensive wine, I would argue for your head’s sake to take a wine you usually like to drink.

A bottle dry red wine (zinfandel, merlot, burgundy)
2/3 (150gr) cup sugar
Juice and peel of one small lemon
2 cardamom pods (optional)
4 cloves
2 bay leaves (optional)
2 cinnamon sticks
And mugs

Put everything in a saucepan.  Heat the mixture over low heat for about 30 minutes – it should never boil, just steam. Otherwise you lose all the alcohol. Taste it and when you think it’s perferct remove the cloves and cinnamon sticks. This way your stomach won’t get upset.

Yeah and if you ever have the chance to be in Vienna around Christmas time and you like the feel of the imperial, visit the Christmas Market at Schoenbrunn.

Recently I had friends over, M. and L. to delight them with my Chicken Wiener Schnitzel. M. is a video journalist and agreed to produce a video of me cooking my beloved Chicken Wiener Schnitzel. Thank You M..

But before we get to the video first things first:

4 whole chicken breasts
Coarse sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Flour for dredging
2 eggs
1/4 (60ml) cup milk
2 1/2 cups (250gr) bread crumbs
vegetable oil (plenty)
2 lemons, cut into wedges

Cut the chicken breasts in half and slice them.

Season the breasts with salt and pepper and dredge them with flour. Beat the eggs with the milk and dip the breasts first in the milk, then in the bread crumbs.

Done. That was the most tedious part. Frying is fun, but a science of its own. Some people in Austria and elsewhere might still use lard (in the olden days farmers had to work the whole day in the fields), but if you are not working out the whole day like myself, I suggest using vegetable oil instead. You have to cover the whole Schnitzel in oil. Turn the heat on.

By the way. One statement I make in the video is not correct. What is it?

Weninger Red Wine

To see this bottle in a Brooklyn wine store so many miles away from where its grapes have seen the sun and the rain and the wind that make it so special might sound astonishing at first sight. But then it isn’t. The Green Grape’s owner visited Germany and Austria for several weeks and Weninger is one of the wines he brought back from his journey. And this is no surprise at all. It’s just a matter of taste.

Last weekend my friends T. and A. decided to fill their apartment with this particular aroma of Vanilla and, fortunately enough, I got my share of the Viennese taste.

Perfect Vanilla Crescents require experience and a sophisticated technique, but it’s worth the effort. Here’s the recipe to get you started.

1/2 cup (110gr) Sugar
1 1/2 cup (350gr) Flour
7/8 cup (210gr) Butter or Margarine
1/2 cup (110gr) Vanilla Sugar
5/8 cup (100gr) Ground Almonds
1 Yolk, 1 Egg
Powdered Sugar

© T.’s mother

1. Mix the Dough

T. Mixes Sugar, Flour, 1/8 cup (30gr) Vanilla Sugar, Almonds and Eggs

2. Roll Vanilla Crescents

A. and T. Roll Vanilla Crescents. They preheat oven to 365 degrees F (185 Grad Celsius) and bake the Crescents for15 minutes.

3. Sugar Vanilla Crescents

Roll Vanilla Crescents in Sugar and 3/8 cup (80gr) Vanilla Sugar