A challenge. My Gran. Saechsische Quarkkeulen.

South 3 or 4 backing east 5, then veering southwest 6 to gale 8 later, perhaps severe gale 9 later.

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Update:

Gale warnings - Issued: 1550 UTC Mon 4 May

Southwesterly severe gale force 9 expected later

It always makes me smile when people tell us we should cook like our grandmothers. My grandmother was a lousy cook.
She was a wonderful person who raised 7 children (of which two died in childhood) and two grandchildren. Her husband was a shoemaker and she had a big garden and an allotment. Nearly everything was homemade and homegrown. We had meat once per week, on a Sunday. But if you are poor, you don’t experiment that much. First of all you don’t have the money to buy exotic ingredients and second, if it fails, you have no food. For example: I did not know that there are other spices apart from salt and white pepper until I was about 12. Yes, she grew herbs. But only pretty well known, like parsley, sage, mint or chives. Her food was always bland.

But she taught me many things, and one of the most valuable is what to do with leftovers. One dish I loved was a Monday dish, with the leftovers of the Sunday (cooked) potatoes.
First of all I could hardly pronounce it: Saechsische Quarkkeulen (roughly translated as Saxony curd drumsticks). Second I had no clue where Saxony was, it was behind the “wall”, in the GDR. And thirdly these golden rounds did not look like drumsticks. But most important, how she knew that recipe, Saxony was far away.
The latter I found out much later: Before she married, in between the wars, she worked “in service” in a big mansion. Like a lot of girls from poor backgrounds. And cook was from Saxony. And this dish, the leftover potatoes, was served to the servants on Monday.

When I heard that story, I was furious. Teenagers are always furious about social injustice (I think we should retain a bit of a teenager in us). But teenagers are also stupid. I refused to eat that dish from then on and have not eaten it since over 40 years. To be fair, I forgot about it.

Enter the challenge: Chris from “Cooking around the world” asked for German recipes. Since I already had two challenges: Cooking for one and leftover potatoes, the dish jumped into my mind. Dont ask me why, it just jumped.

So I set out. I tried to remember how my Gran made it (for example she insisted in potato flour in dishes which are fried very quickly). I did not have raisins, only raisins in rum (poor me- but then I am an adult now). Fortunately I had Quark

(most UK supermarket sell it but you can get away with curd or ricotta). So, here we go:

Saechsische Quarkkeulen for one

100gr already cooked and cooled potatoes. Preferable without salt, but if you added salt yesterday, omit the salt in here.

100gr Quark

25gr sugar

25gr potato flour

1 small egg

25gr raisins, washed and drained

The grated zest of a quarter lemon

Tiny pinch of salt

More flour to cover your hands

A pan full of oil, about 3 cm high.

1 teaspoon of sugar and half a teaspoon of cinnamon powder mixed.

Some fruit to serve with it, for example apple stew or some of the frozen forest mix reheated. I used plums from a jar.

Preheat the oven to 100C.

Grate the potatoes into a bowl. Add quark, egg, sugar, flour, salt, the lemon zest and the raisins and make a sticky dough, mash as you go along but don’t worry if it is not perfectly smooth. It is actually quite nice if you encounter a pocket of Quark while eating. The dough will be very sticky.

Heat pan with oil, if you drop a small amount of the dough in it, it should sizzle gently. Dont overheat it. Once the oil is ready (or just before) work fast. Put flour into your hand, scoop half of the mixture and try to form a patty, a burger shape. I found it easier to roll them into a ball, like a dumpling, and then flatten them. Drop into the oil and do quickly the other one. They will brown very quickly, so keep an eye on them. Once they look ready, transfer to the oven and leave them there for 5-8 minutes.

In the meantime make your fruit and get everything else ready.

As soon as you are ready, take the Keulchen out, sprinkle with the sugar cinnamon mixture and serve with your fruit.

And if you want to participate in a challenge, remember to make a photo before you eat, otherwise you end up rushing back into the kitchen, rearranging it on a clean plate (hiding the eaten part) and hoping that it will still look okay. It did not. But fortunately I need to display the “Bloggers Around the World” badge. Pheewww. Saved!

Verdict:

I was a fool to ever give them up. They are worth cooking the extra potato to have it the next day. The combination of warm and crisp outside, with barely warm, smooth inside is unbeatable. Even better if you have “washed” your raisins in Rum.