In Germany, unlike many other countries, shops are normally closed on Sundays and sometimes especially elderly people even get upset with McDonalds or bakeries being open – or even worse: ‚Verkaufsoffene Sonntage‘ – Sundays where stores are allowed to be open. These are, however, rare, so for me this trading situation very regularly creates the issue of having little or no food at home, since I generally forget to buy some beforehand. T most of these times I end up eating boring Pasta with tomato sauce (or without if my ‘issue’ reouccures).
This is why I am proud to present to you my top six ingredients that will keep for years and spice up almost any food.
- Kikoman Soy Sauce [from: Asia Markt & Restaurant (Doberaner Straße) price: € 3.49]
… is probably standard in most of your kitchens. It‘s great with salad and you can use it to get your remaining meat more tender. If you’ve bought that expensive kind, remember not to heat it up to much. That would spoil the taste and destroy all of the healthy vitamins.
- Bamboo Garden Rice vinegar [from: Rewe (Nobelstraße) price: € 2.69]
You may have wondered why I didn’t mention Asian-style fry-ups when talking about soy sauce. That is because they are even better with rice vinegar (and soy sauce as well). I really love it with different kinds of vegetables and also in combination with bare noodles – it makes for a nice alternative to this tomato sauce.
- Rewe Fried onions [from: Rewe (Nobelstraße) price: € 0.99]
There are people who just adore fried onions with just about anything. I’m one of them. You can sprinkle them on any kind of sandwich, simple as it might be, and it will improve. The same thing works with lots of salads and with the noodles from 2.
- Bacon bits [from: amazon price: € 7.98]
Those are something for those of you out there who cannot live without meat taste. You can use them in a similar way as fried onions though they get even nastier when soaking wet. Nonetheless they provide for a quite different taste experience so go ahead and grab some if you can find a German store which has them.
- Double Elephant Couscous [from: Netto (Grubenstraße) price: € 1.49]
Most people in Germany will have potatoes, noodles and rice regularly at home but only few keep Couscous in their cupboard. But to this side dish there are no disadvantages. It tastes great, only takes five minutes to make and you can use it for salad, different cold dishes or in any hot combination. Prepare it with some vegetable consommé and it will almost have as much taste to be its own dish.
- Gram flour [from: Asia Markt & Restaurant (Doberaner Straße) price: € 2.49]
I see, also for me gram flour isn’t something that I’d combine with an awful lot of things but there are two products you can make out of it that are just fantastic. First up there’s Hummus, which is a paste made from chickpeas (or gram flour), garlic and some herbs. You can spread it on your bread, put it on your burger, dripple it over your salad or use it as a dip for some vegetables. And then there’re obviously falafel. Describable as fried dough balls (made from chickpeas or gram flour again), it’s really tasty alongside many eastern-style dishes.
Pictures: Douglas Muth, Rusty Clark – On the Air M-F 8am-noon, stratman² (2 many pix and busy), Gino Carteciano, Myriam M. J. Rondeau, momo, respiritu