Explore the book

Some dishes begin with a plan. You choose ingredients, consider combinations, experiment, discard ideas and start again. Others come about simply because you are hungry. That was more or less how this salmon happened. Salmon it would be. But not simply fried, with any old side dish next to it.

The complete story, all ingredients and the full preparation are available in the book. As an e-book and PDF.

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Some dishes follow a recipe. You shop, lay everything out, follow quantities and temperatures, and know fairly precisely what should end up on the plate. This is not one of those dishes. There was salmon. Prawns. Mussels. And the idea of turning them into something with a creamy sauce.

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There are days when even someone who loves cooking does not feel like cooking. It is hot outside. It is hot in the kitchen. And by the time you think about heating a frying pan as well, the decision has pretty much made itself. So the hob stays off. There was a melon.

The complete story, all ingredients and the full preparation are available in the book. As an e-book and PDF.

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There was no grand idea. No recipe. No plan. So I simply rummaged through the cupboard. There was some beetroot left. And somewhere I found walnuts, too. Well, their best-before date was already history. But it does say “best before”, not “deadly after”. So I tasted them.

The complete story, all ingredients and the full preparation are available in the book. As an e-book and PDF.

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I have been to Crete twice. On one of those trips, I also found my way to Paleochora, in the far south-west of the island. When I think of Crete today, it is not just sunshine, sea and scenery. I also think of that particular way of eating. Of cooking that often makes no attempt to be complicated.

The complete story, all ingredients and the full preparation are available in the book. As an e-book and PDF.

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With some ingredients, you know immediately that they belong together. Beef fillet and chanterelles are two of them. Nobody needs to think twice. And then came the apple. When the idea for this dish took shape, that was precisely the part I doubted. Chanterelles, beef fillet - and apple? I could imagine it working.

The complete story, all ingredients and the full preparation are available in the book. As an e-book and PDF.

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There are things you probably only understand if you come from Cologne. Mett is one of them. Of course, you could say: raw pork. Finely minced. Seasoned. Done. Someone from Cologne would probably have stopped listening by now. Because Mett is not simply raw mince. It belongs on a fresh bread roll, with plenty of onion - and its proper seasoning can inspire debates as passionate as the question of which Kölsch is the one true beer.

The complete story, all ingredients and the full preparation are available in the book. As an e-book and PDF.

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There are recipes that make you pause during preparation and wonder whether this can really be right. This is definitely one of them. In front of you lies a beautiful sea bass. Beside it, herbs, garlic, lemon and fennel. And two and a half kilos of salt. By now, you might suspect that someone has misread a quantity.

The complete story, all ingredients and the full preparation are available in the book. As an e-book and PDF.

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Or: how to persuade an Italian to change his own menu. Some dishes are born in a kitchen. Others come about because, for decades, you stubbornly keep ordering the same thing. Pizza Chaos was definitely the latter. It all began sometime in the late eighties.

The complete story, all ingredients and the full preparation are available in the book. As an e-book and PDF.

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Some combinations have a hard time. Pineapple and savoury food are definitely among them. The moment a slice of pineapple appears, ham and cheese are already standing beside it in your imagination. Greetings from Toast Hawaii. And let us not even start discussing Hawaiian pizza. None of that is really the pineapple’s fault.

The complete story, all ingredients and the full preparation are available in the book. As an e-book and PDF.

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Some dishes begin with an idea. Others with ingredients that happen to be in the kitchen at the same time. And some were actually finished long ago. This one belonged to that last category. Pork fillet, beetroot, pear, feta and pine nuts - the combination had been around for a while. It worked.

The complete story, all ingredients and the full preparation are available in the book. As an e-book and PDF.

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Tartare is not a dish you can hide behind. No powerful sauce. No avalanche of spices to put everything right at the end. There is raw beef on the plate. And that is exactly why it has to be good. Very good indeed. The fillet is finely chopped with a knife. Shallot, capers and cornichons join it.

The complete story, all ingredients and the full preparation are available in the book. As an e-book and PDF.

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Some combinations do not need reinventing. Honey and lime are two of them. One brings sweetness, the other freshness. Simple, really. Perhaps that was exactly the problem with the first version of this dish. It tasted good. But it was trying a little too hard. More honey. More garlic. More spices.

The complete story, all ingredients and the full preparation are available in the book. As an e-book and PDF.

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With some dishes, you know where the journey is heading while you are still cooking. With this soup, it does not take long. Mussels meet white wine. Saffron slowly turns the broth golden. Add fine strips of carrot, leek and celery. By now, your mind is somewhere on the French coast.

The complete story, all ingredients and the full preparation are available in the book. As an e-book and PDF.

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Some dishes are not born anew. They simply grow up eventually. Prawns, garlic, Parmesan and pasta - that combination has always worked. Perhaps a little too well. Once cream and Parmesan get going, prawns have remarkably little say in the matter. So it was time to make a little room.

The complete story, all ingredients and the full preparation are available in the book. As an e-book and PDF.

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Some dishes call for patience. With others, patience ruins everything. Tataki definitely belongs to the second group. A beautiful piece of tuna lies before you. Deep red, firm, almost too perfect to do anything to. And then you are supposed to heat a pan until any sensible person would first take a step back.

The complete story, all ingredients and the full preparation are available in the book. As an e-book and PDF.

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Four dishes. One fish.

These four salmon dishes share a story in the book. Here is how it begins.

Some ingredients keep finding their way back into a kitchen. Not because you have run out of ideas, but because they offer a new possibility every time. Salmon is exactly that kind of ingredient for me. It can be bold or delicate, crisply fried or gently cooked. It welcomes acidity, heat and roasted flavours just as readily as vegetables, herbs or a little sweetness.

The complete story, all ingredients and the full preparation are available in the book. As an e-book and PDF.

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This dish is part of the shared story “Four dishes. One fish.”

Read the beginning of the story

The complete story, all ingredients and the full preparation are available in the book. As an e-book and PDF.

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This dish is part of the shared story “Four dishes. One fish.”

Read the beginning of the story

The complete story, all ingredients and the full preparation are available in the book. As an e-book and PDF.

↑ Back to the map

This dish is part of the shared story “Four dishes. One fish.”

Read the beginning of the story

The complete story, all ingredients and the full preparation are available in the book. As an e-book and PDF.

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Matjes salad is a classic. Classics have one great advantage: you know pretty much what to expect. That, however, is also their problem. When matjes herring, apple and cucumber have got along for ages, surely you can ask whether they might fancy a little adventure.

The complete story, all ingredients and the full preparation are available in the book. As an e-book and PDF.

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Some recipes eventually disappear into a drawer. Not because they were bad, but because other dishes arrive, your taste changes, and you start cooking differently. For me, this lamb fillet belongs in precisely that category. The idea was already there: lamb, garlic, thyme, a splash of whisky and a rich sauce.

The complete story, all ingredients and the full preparation are available in the book. As an e-book and PDF.

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In 2023, this dish was simply called “Spicy Asian beef fillet with colourful vegetables and basmati rice”. No grand name, no story attached. Just a dish that tasted good - and was written down for that reason. Three years later, the recipe lay in front of me again. I could have left it exactly as it was.

The complete story, all ingredients and the full preparation are available in the book. As an e-book and PDF.

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Sometimes a dish begins not with a recipe, but with an idea you cannot get out of your head. With these scallops, it was inspiration from Alexander Herrmann. The combination of scallop, parsnip and maple immediately caught my imagination. Not because I wanted simply to recreate it, but because I wanted to know what would happen if I developed it in my own way.

The complete story, all ingredients and the full preparation are available in the book. As an e-book and PDF.

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Some dishes tell you on the very first attempt: this idea works. Beef fillet, avocado and grapefruit. A combination I came across somewhere - I no longer remember exactly where. I do remember tinkering with it, of course. Butter and garlic for the meat, a little chilli in the dressing, toasted pine nuts for crunch.

The complete story, all ingredients and the full preparation are available in the book. As an e-book and PDF.

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Some recipes make you pause while shopping and wonder whether you might have overdone it. Pfundstopf is not one of them. With this one, you know in advance. A German pound of beef. A pound of pork. A pound of smoked pork. A pound of Mettwurst sausages. That settles the meat question for now.

The complete story, all ingredients and the full preparation are available in the book. As an e-book and PDF.

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This recipe is older than Marin d’Or. In 2021, they were simply “Colourful Seafood Summer Rolls”. Salmon, tuna, mango, papaya, cucumber, a little wasabi and crispy onions, wrapped in rice paper. Soy sauce alongside, back then with a splash of olive oil. Fresh, colourful and, above all, really delicious. The story could have ended there.

The complete story, all ingredients and the full preparation are available in the book. As an e-book and PDF.

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Some dishes tell you, even as you plate them, that they will cause a small problem later. Gamberi Verde is one of them. Four large prawns, fried hard in their heads and shells. Cool avocado cream underneath, cucumber, tomato, coriander and lime alongside. A plate that looks rather elegant.

The complete story, all ingredients and the full preparation are available in the book. As an e-book and PDF.

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Some recipes come together in a single evening. Others take a few years. Lemon and sage chicken was long one of those dishes I liked without ever considering whether it needed changing. Chicken, lemon, sage, a little vermouth, honey and butter. Everything was there. Yet one day, the recipe lay before me again and felt like an old acquaintance I had not seen for a long time.

The complete story, all ingredients and the full preparation are available in the book. As an e-book and PDF.

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Some meat calls for a marinade. Spices, herbs, perhaps a sauce. And then there is a piece of bone-in Ibérico pork. At some point, you should simply stop thinking of everything else you could do to it. This rack needs very little. Heat for the crust. Salt.

The complete story, all ingredients and the full preparation are available in the book. As an e-book and PDF.

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