That's a very pretty Zopf loaf, Texaner. Heidi's grandma would approve of it.
Yums.

Thanks for the kind words. But Heidi's grandma might not have stood a chance. It came out of the oven at 23:00 in a kitchen circling with hungry teenage boys. It had barely cooled properly when all but 1/3 of it was devoured in short order. With my trusty bread knife, I was able to stop the frenzy and spare something for the rest of the household to enjoy this morning.

gorgeous, gorgeous Zopf....

Absolutely great Texaner! And you even have hero Delicia blackberry jam. Only the one my American Better Half makes from the little wild blackberries we pick at our secret place on the Leelanau Peninsula on Lake Michigan is better.

By the way, not that it matters much, but I don't think Heidi's grandma was mentioned in Johanna Spiry's book as still being alive. There were her grandpa, a.k.a. Alp Uncle, and Peter's grandma, but not Heidi's. Of course there must have been even two grandmas at some point in time, but not alive during Heid's childhood.

Our 3rd Lunar New Year in Switzerland...

Sticky rice cake -




After cooking




New year dinner to the ancestor

I love how the sticky rice cake is tied up so prettily - is it with banana leaves?
Is the cake made with glutinous rice and sugar? Any coconut milk added?

In the fourth picture, on the left, are those garlic bulbs next to the aubergine?

Sorry the pix are a bit big.
The cake is covered with Phrynium leaves.
http://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%E1%BA..._dong_leaf.jpg
If we can't find it, we can use banana leaves instead. But with banana leaves the shape of the cake is not pretty like that. The cake is made with glutinous rice, green bean, and pork side.

In the forth pix, actually the plate of veges and fruits was just for decoration. But you're right, those are garlic but fake

I don't have a photograph unfortunately but I felt I needed to share my cooking with someone. I successfully made some Welsh cakes the other night and they tasted really good!

They normally end up slightly burnt and disgusting

The contents of your sticky rice cake sounds like one of the Malaysian dumplings called 'hum yoke choong' (savoury meat dumpling), which is traditionally made during the ninth month of the lunar year (I might be mistaken about the month by one or two) but is sold all year round at certain stalls or coffeeshops. It also contains pale sticky rice, yellow/green beans and stewed pork belly.


(pic borrowed from the 'Net, not mine)

The one pictured here is of the dark sauce, pork-and-chestnut variety - called 'ma chang' in Cantonese.

Congratulations! What did the ol' folk say about practice making perfect, eh?

I've never taken a pic of the following salmon soup with coconut milk I love to make quite often, it is my fav soup recipe since it is so easy. They call it Thai soup but I am not sure how Thai it is. It's the quickest soup and tastes devine (even for our toddler, leave out the chillies). I will take a pic next time, in fact I will make it again either tonight or in the next few days.

Recipe:

Heat a few tablespoons of Thai curry paste in a deeper pot on some oil for a few mins, add 330ml of coconut milk and a litre of hot chicken stock, bring to boil, reduce heat and add smoked salmon (they say use 4 salmon steaks but I use whatever I find), do not boil but let it slowly simmer a few mins on low heat. Take the salmon out of the soup, sit it on a plate.

Prepare instant egg noodles according to the pack instructions, divide in 4 bowls, sit pieces of salmon on top of the noodles.

Add 2tbsps of fish sauce to the coconutty broth, with 2 tbsps of lime juice. Pour over the noodles and salmon waiting in the bowls, garnish with green onions and chillies (I use red bell pepper instead, to make it kiddo friendly), both cut in thin strips and add a little bit of green fresh corriander leaves.

Makes me drool just to type this. It's lovely in winter, hot and filling (it is high in proteins and cheap).

where did you get the leaves? BTW, the cakes look delicious.

Banana leaves are available in Asia shops in Zurich anytime.

For Phrynium leaves, we made order at New Asia Market (near Wiedikon). But as I know, these leaves are only available for Lunar New Year.

They had a 'action' price duck breast in co-op so I made some duck burgers - yummy!! The duck was cheaper than the chicken breast so I thought let me try something new.

home made loh mai kai (Glutinous rice with chicken)

I was missing hamentaschen - triangular pastries that Jews make for Purim. My grandmother used to make fabulous ones with prune or poppy seed filling. I had two recipes, one was a cookie like and the other was an eggy yeast dough, almost like a challah. Here's a pic of the yeast dough ones. I like them better than the cookie dough ones, although I think I need a heavier filling. I discovered that the ones that I cooked a little too long in the oven are the most like my grandmother's...I think she had a really hot oven. Still, hers were better...these are filled with fig and apricot jam.

And the other pic is a flemish beef stew, carbonade flamade, made in a crock pot with dark ale, mushrooms, onions and carrots. Since I don't have a deep fryer, I oven roasted my fries (sweet and regular potatoes) and steamed some haricorts. Pics are a little dim...

texaner, that zopf looks better than in sprungli! I think I'm going to go make something to photograph I made florentines over the weekend that were good but got eaten before I could snap a photo off.

everything looks delicious. Texaner, that zopf is awsome. I can't braid bread for the life of me. The sticky rice looks yummy and the coconut soup does remind me of thai coconut soup... I will have to try that one.

And econimisto... florentines. Hmmm......

Thanks for the kind words! I understand completely about things disappearing too fast. My previous two Zopfs were all but gone before I got to my camera. This time I made it abundantly clear there would be a photo op before the knife touched the bread.

I look forward to seeing your handiwork here soon!

I tried making hamentaschen this year for the first time in a long time. Got a recipe from my cousin that turned out really well, cookie dough, but it was really light and fluffy. I need to figure out how to make the poppy seed/mohn filling for next time. I just used jams and it turned out good.