Germany

My wife requested I make this last night on Christmas Eve to go with our traditional supper of lobster. With me unemployed this year we could have never afforded to buy lobster, but fortunately my wife had 4 of them in the freezer from when she'd found them dirt-cheap and prefrozen back when I was among the employed.

I am not a big fan at all of the potato salad we all know so well from family picnics - drenched in mayonaise as it is. But German Potato Salad on the other hand is heaven on earth! It is a completely different thing altogether, with tart malt vinegar, bacon bits, celery and more. And it goes together surprisingly easy with a mini chopper food processor.

If you are vegetarian, I'm sure this may still be worthwhile, but to me the bacon really makes the recipe. Especially since I used my home made bacon this time around.

Mmmm, there used to be a little stand in front of the train station in Cologne that was famous for the best Reibkuchen (literally : rubbed/grated cakes) in the city. I remember them well! This recipe is directly from Dr Oetker's "Schulkochbuch" (School Cook Book) which is what they use in cooking schools in Germany.

I wanted to try something a little different, and since I already had the deep fryer on the counter from making french fries for supper last night, and still had some potatoes left from it, I figured "why not?". We don't eat deep fried food often, but when we do, we do it right :-)