Flammeri
So I'm ill, I got a damn cold, I'm sneezing and coughing and my throat feels
raw and hurts. I took that as a pretext to finally try out the recipes for
"Flammeris" in my mothers cooking book from school (You know, all that stuff about
turning the lemons you're handed into lemonade). A "Flammeri" is what you and me
would call a pudding, but that lovely old cooking book from 1975 states very
firmly that a pudding is cooked in a tightly closed pan in a double boiler,
whereas a Flammeri consists of milk or fruit juice thickened with cornstarch
or something similar. I am deeply in love with that cooking book. It's called
"Das Elektrische Kochen" (roughly "The electric cooking") and gives detailed
instructions and opinions to everything. It states proudly on the first page,
that the ministries of education and cultural affairs of the Federal Republic
of Germany (making it abundantly clear it's West-Germany) permitted this
electro-cooking book for use in schools. I was most impressed to discover a
hidden treasure: a recipe for scalloped brain, it's alternate name being fake
oysters :)
If you get over the recipes for innards, that seem rather disgusting today,
but were perfectly normal then and the helpful advise for housewives and the
general assumption cooking for your family is the extent of your personal
dreams it's a really good book. It has a general introduction into every group
of dishes, that highlights characteristics and possible difficulties. While
most of the specific advise on electric stoves and how to do your grocery
shopping is now obsolete it details everything and brings you many basics
(like which kind of meat is best used for what dish) that are now mostly
disregarded in cooking books. And I never didn't find a recipe I wanted to
try.
I'll now stop my rambling and get to the point (yes there was a point, though
now ist deeply buried) I wanted to tell you about the Flammeri and my aching
throat. So I followed the recipe cutting up chocolate (I added some extra of
that), mixing it with a teaspoon of instant coffee and nearly half a litre of
milk and setting that to boil in a pot, while mixing the rest of the milk with
sugar, vanilla and cornstarch. That I added to the boiling chocolate-milk-mix
and kept stirring viciously and - voila - I got a Flammeri.
Sadly it sports quite a number of lumps, as it thickened quite rapidly. So
next time I'll use a larger pot, so I can stir as viciously as I want without
spilling everything and I reduce the amount of cornstarch, so it thickens more
slowly. Also I will reduce the amount of sugar, as I am fond of a really dark
chocolate and maybe even add cacao.
All in all I don't think I will go back to using the premixed stuff. It's
nearly the same fuss and much more versatile. I'm thinking of trying out
caramel as a flavour next :) Oh, what I nearly forgot: I did this whole thing,
because my throat is sore and pudd - sorry - Flammeri seems to ease that :)
Since I'm bored, I think I'll be blogging a lot today :) see you soon :)