Udon noodles with mussels

So I went to visit my sister in the UK over the weekend and figured it was time to keep a promise I had made to her a while back. When she came to Vienna the last time she chose a few dishes she wanted me to cook from her from a Gordon Ramsay cookery book she had bought me a few months ago.

I chose to cook Udon noodles with mussels this time, an asian inspired dish which can be served as a starter or main. As we didnt have much time to go to the right places for shopping it turned out a bit difficult to find all the right ingredients in the local supermarket (tesco it was), but we managed to get the essentials in palm sugar, lemongrass, ginger, rice vinegar, fish sauce and soy sauce (which we had at home conveniently).

Cooking the mussels did not take much time. If you are not familiar with cooking fresh mussels, here is a quick tip:

They need to be closed when fresh (throw away opened ones), and open after cooking (throw away cooked ones). Also make sure you brush them properly as they can be quite sandy. Luckily the ones we bought were cleaned already.

The noodles just take a few minutes to cook in boiling water and basically you pour the mussel brine on top of them and to add some extra flavour top up with some coriander leaves (or basil if you are not a fan of coriander - like me)

cheer cheer

Der Stadl- XXL Restaurant in Vienna

Here I am again, after battling with the flu for a week I can finally spare a few words on a place I visited over a week ago. "Der Stadl" is a typical Austrian tavern, decorated with rustic wooden furniture and a rural atmosphere. We chose this restaurant as it touts to have the biggest Schnitzel in Vienna and Ribs of the length of a meter.

Overall, I must say the place is really nice and cosy. The waiter's are caring and the food.. well lets put it this way, its a lot! Problem with most places offering these kind of meals is the quality of the actual served dish. Here however I must say the Schnitzel was close to perfect, the Ribs were tender and the fries crispy.

The Stadl also offers a challange for the really brave ones: Finish the XXL Schnitzel platter within 45 minutes and  you get it for free! I can tell you that this is really a huge task as one gets 5 (FIVE) pieces of Schnitzel (around 2,5 kg meat) and 0.5 kg or fries (i think its pretty obvious what I am talking about if you look at the pic). Not an easy task at all and as expected we failed. According to the waitress only one 12 year old girl has made it until now (which i find hard to believe, not the no one else beeing able to do it, but at 12 year old being able to do it bit..).

The 1 meter Ribs looked delicious already. I dont understand why they come with bread, but so be it :) Other then that we ordered Cordon Blue which was OK... not the best in the world but definietly edible.
Both Schnitzel and Cordon Blue can be ordered from Pork or turkey so except you strictly eat halal meat, there is definietly something for you to get. I strongly recommend this place and surely will try the challange some other time!

A breeze of Morocco

Well well, here I am again!!! :-)
This time the craving for meat took over and so I plated up a Moroccan style dish:
Spiced up oven grilled chicken and some fresh couscous with chopped up red and green peppers. Oh, I just noticed that my green peppers are nowhere to be seen on the picture I took....they must be hiding deep inside Mount Couscous. :-)

When cooking rather oily & spicy dishes, I find it nice to balance it out with something rather fresh and light. This way you can enjoy more of it and not have the feeling of your tummy being at the verge of exploding. But believe it or not, I did not use a single drop of oil in this dish....the only fat on the tray was from the chicken itself.
So, one could say that this is quite a healthy meal!

Tip: A bit of yoghurt with a few drops of lime juice and some peppercorns would go well with it! Just realised now that I even had the ingredients at home, but did not think of it yesterday. Oh well, next time maybe!