Decorated Sugar Cookies!

My very good friend Isabelle was kind enough to send us in the mail all kinds of supplies for making cookies! She sent us cookie cutters, writing frosting and lots of different sorts of sprinkles. Thanks Isabelle, I hope you see these!
For making royal icing for frosting cookies, I highly recommend Dorie Greenspan's recipe: 3 1/4 cups of powdered sugar, 2 large egg whites, and a teaspoon of lemon juice, all beat together with a hand mixer. The texture was just perfect for icing cookies, and it looked very shiny and glossy!

Holiday Bourbon Balls

I love bourbon, and consequently, I love bourbon balls. There are a two main types: those made with a bourbon-laced cream center, dipped in chocolate, and topped with a nut; and those made with bourbon, vanilla wafers, nuts, corn syrup, and rolled in powdered sugar. The latter I'll admit I've never tasted, but I think they sound overly sugary and gross. I think those are the more Southern bourbon balls, while the former are bourbon balls in the Kentucky tradition. Growing up in the Kentucky area, perhaps I am naturally more inclined towards the creamy Kentucky bourbon balls, but that doesn't stop me from believing that they're superior. To make the balls, you blend a stick of butter with a box of powdered sugar. Then you add bourbon (I used 5 or 6 tablespoons, but I think that after tasting the finished product they could stand to have more). Finally, you roll this mixture into balls, refrigerate them to harden, and dip them in melted chocolate. They look pretty with a pecan or walnut placed on top.

Pictures of the City

Thai Tom Yum Soup and Beetlebean Salad

Yesterday I was walking through the store, trying to decide what to make for dinner, when I came across a little bundle of lemongrass, red chilis, kaffir lime leaves, and some other indistinguishable ingredient that I later learned was Thai ginger (galangal). I knew it must be a collection of flavoring agents for some kind of Thai dish, but I didn't know which, although I suspected it was a soup. I love a good food mystery, so I bought the bundle of exotic ingredients and decided to figure out how to make something with them at home.

After close inspection, I realized that there was a tag on the back of the package that said "Tom Yum Set." I looked up Tom Yum and discovered that it is a very well-known and popular soup in Thailand. It's usually made with fresh shrimp, straw mushrooms, fish sauce, and the ingredients of my Tom Yum set.

I found a highly-rated recipe on the Food Network website and decided to make the soup for dinner. I had some smoked trout, which I decided to use in place of the shrimp, and all I really needed to buy were the mushrooms, fish sauce, and some basil for garnish. I bought button mushrooms instead of straw mushrooms, because the only straw mushrooms you can find in the stores are canned, and I am not a big fan of slimy canned mushrooms. Basically, all you have to do is cut up the ginger, chilis, and lemongrass, and toss them in an oiled pot with the lime leaves. I let this mixture infuse the oil for a few minutes, and then I added some chicken stock. After the stock boiled for about 15 minutes, I strained out the Tom Yum set ingredients (most of them are inedible) and added the fish, sliced mushrooms, fish sauce, and some torn basil.

The soup turned out nicely. The lime leaves, lemongrass, and chilis work together to produce a spicy and citrusy-sour flavor. Next time I probably would use the shrimp, which would pair better with the delicate flavor of the broth. I fear that the smoked trout flavor might have slightly overpowered the rest of the flavors of the soup. I will just have to play around with different ingredients. I've never had authentic Tom Yum soup so it's hard to know what it's supposed to taste like. I think I got slightly close, though.

The nice thing about this soup is, and most articles about Tom Yum soup point this out, is that you can experiment with the flavors a lot to suit your tastes. If you like spicy, you can cut up the chilis and leave them in the soup; if not, you can leave them whole and remove them after they have imparted just a slight spiciness. If you like mild sour, you can just use the lime leaves and the lemongrass, but if you want it more sour you can add lime juice.

The not-so-nice thing about the soup is that unless your local grocery store carries Tom Yum sets, the ingredients can be difficult to locate. But I think that a good Asian market would have all the necessary items.

I wanted a light meal, so as a second course after the soup I made a bean sprout and Styrian beetle bean salad. Both items you can pick up here in Austria in the deli section. Here's my package of deluxe sprouts (3 different kinds!):
Beetle beans, or Kaeferbohnen in German, are grown in the southeast Austrian state of Styria, where the climate is perfect for their cultivation. They are rather big beans and sort of do look like beetles, even though that's kind of gross. Styria is also famous for its pumpkinseed oil, they call it the "black gold" of Styria, haha. In stores you can buy a bean salad made with both of these ingredients--the beans with a dressing of vinegar, diced onions, and pumpkinseed oil. On its own, the bean salad is delicious but a little rich, but spooned over bean sprouts, it is perfect. The juice from the bean salad provides a nice dressing for the sprouts.

Of course, this little bean salad is really only available here in Austria (I tried to find pumpkinseed oil in Bloomington once and it was available in only one store for something like $20, and I don't think you could find the beetle beans at all in the US). But I think this salad would be good with any vinegar-based bean salad.

Fresh Mistletoe!

Georg's Mother is always doing super nice things for us, like leaving us fresh flowers in our apartment. Yesterday we received a fresh bunch, and I am ashamed to say I had no earthly idea what it was. I didn't ask Georg because he is not very plant-inclined, but rather I inspected the bunch of greenery myself. There were lush, dark green leaves punctuated by little white berries.

At first I thought maybe the berries were white currants! I have been looking all my life for fresh white currants and have never laid eyes on any, so I was excited and tried to eat one of the berries to see if my hypothesis could possibly be true. Big mistake. The berry was not sweet and was a gross combination of sticky and slimy, so that ruled out that possibility. Today I finally asked Georg about the mysterious plant and he said that it was mistletoe!

I guess I have just never seen fresh mistletoe. I had no idea! Another one of those holiday delights (like chestnuts) that you talk about a lot but never actually see in person. I thought for sure I had seen it before, but I was wrong. A quick Google image search confirmed that Georg was correct and that all the mistletoe I had ever seen or thought I had seen were fakes!

So here you go. Fresh mistletoe. Yes, I took the picture of the bouquet lying on the wood floor. It's kind of trashy, but I felt it would provide a high-contrast background that would be unparalleled anywhere else in our apartment. I would like to say that I pinned the mistletoe to the nearest threshold and commenced a romantic kissing session with Georg, but no, the best thing I could think of to do with the mistletoe was to throw it on the floor and take a picture of it for my blog. Maybe tomorrow!

In the meantime, everyone should comment upon whether they have actually ever encountered real mistletoe before. I would like to know if I'm the only one who has been in the dark!

UPDATE 12/13/07: Several people have brought to my attention that mistletoe, especially its berries, are poisonous. I did probe the berry of the mistletoe with my tongue, but I did not eat it, so I am fine. It was only a mere taste! According to a Reno Gazette Journal article concerning this matter, "European mistletoe has major toxicity and may cause serious illness or death if ingested." Also mentioned in the article is that holly plants and poinsettias also have mild toxicity. Wow! I hope everyone manages to prevent the ingestion of these deadly holiday plants this Winter!

Christkindlmarkt tour

The Christkindlmarkt originated in Germany and Austria and is an open-air street market where vendors sell gifts and other holiday-oriented items during the Advent season. Last night, Georg and I decided to browse at a few of the markets around town.
The first one we attended was at the Rathaus (city hall). This is the largest one in Vienna, and draws huge crowds of people. It was really beautiful there...the Rathaus was dramatically lit, there were colorful lanterns hanging from all the trees, and winter evergreens hung from the overhangs of the many Christkindlmarkt booths.



As you can see, it was extremely crowded. The Rathaus Christkindlmarkt is probably the most beautiful and dramatic, but it is packed with tourists.

Here are some little Christmas treats for sale at one of the booths.
At another booth, people in plush pink jumpsuits were selling handmade stuffed animals.
Afterwards, we headed to the Altwiener Christkindlmarkt, which was a little less crowded. We had a mug of Gluehwein (hot, spiced wine) and looked at all the different booths there.

I liked this one with all the hanging sausages!
Next, we walked downtown, where there are some very pretty lights.
This pair of men's pants was actually for sale in one of the store windows I saw.
Here are the downtown street lights...every major shopping street has these streetlights, and each its own pattern. The ones downtown near Stephansdom are the most elaborate.
Lots of tourists were taking horse-drawn carriage rides.
Here's another market we stopped by for a moment.
Near the MuseumsQuartier, we came across this strange pig-like sculpture that we thought was a giant elk from far away.
I think it was actually...maybe...a pig with diarrhea?
Here's our street, Mariahilferstrasse. As you can see, it has street lights, but they aren't quite as grand as the ones right downtown.
Our last stop was a Christkindlmarkt right off Mariahilferstrasse. Here I enjoyed a mug of Eierpunsch, which is similar to spiked eggnog, but not as sweet or thick. I have always liked the flavor of eggnog but have found it too heavy, so I really liked the Eierpunsch. The holiday drinks usually come in real mugs, for which you pay a 2 euro deposit. You get the deposit back after you return the mug, or you can keep the mug and not get your deposit back. It's much better than a styrofoam cup.

Well, so Christmas is in full swing here. I want to get into some holiday baking sometime soon. I am thinking about making Louisville Bourbon Balls if I can get my hands on some bourbon. With the rest of the bottle of bourbon maybe I will make myself a Manhattan. I miss bourbon, it is not really a big thing here so they don't make many drinks with it.

Here is an interesting tidbit about holiday baking here: there are no chocolate chips for sale. Apparently Austrians just never make chocolate chip cookies. I am shocked--I always thought chocolate chip cookies were universal. So when you go to make your holiday chocolate chip cookies, you have to settle for chocolate chunks that you chop yourself. I think that is weird--in the US you can get like 100 different kinds of chocolate chips, like white chocolate-Reeses peanut butter swirl chips! On the bright side, I have learned that if you stir marzipan (almond paste) into your chocolate chip cookie dough, your cookies will stay really moist and will have an amazing almond flavor. Try it.