The Oscars Experiment: "Inglorious Basterds"

Our third night together had a better turnout than any of us could have expected. We had, yes, count them, 12 people! The movie of the night: Inglorious Basterds. More than half of us had yet to see this movie, so there was excitement in the air. In addition, we had a secret weapon by the name of Heike. A lovely German frau, she helped us immensely in choosing our menu for the night.



RECIPES

STUFFED MUSHROOMS

Ingredients:

3 packs of white mushrooms
1 small onion
2 or 3 tablespoons of sour cream
Salt and pepper
Parsley
Parmesan cheese

Directions:

Take out the stems of the mushrooms, chop them finely and mix them with the onion (also finely chopped), the sour cream and the spices; then put this paste back in the caps of the mushrooms. Sprinkle some Parmesan - or whatever cheese is handy - over them.

Denuded mushrooms

Place the mushrooms on a rack and place in the oven (180°C) for about 20 minutes, until they are browned.

Note about the stuffed mushrooms:

The ingredients we added to make the paste are not bound by the proportions indicated above. Taste testing is an important factor, as we learned from Heike, who gave us the recipe. Add ingredients according to personal taste.

GERMAN GOULASH SOUP

1 tbsp sunflower oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 crushed garlic clove
350g potatoes, peeled and diced
110g tinned chopped tomatoes
75g tomato puree
1 litre beef stock, homemade if possible
150g beef steak, diced
150ml red wine
50g carrots, finely diced
50g red pepper, finely diced
50g green pepper, finely diced
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp cayenne, or to taste
Salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Heat the oil in a pan and fry the onion and garlic for 5 minutes over a gentle heat, without colouring.

Add the potatoes, tomatoes, tomato puree, stock, half of the beef steak, the red wine, carrots, red and green pepper, paprika, cayenne, salt and pepper and simmer gently until the meat and vegetables are tender. Allow to cool and then puree half the soup coarsely and half the soup smoothly in a liquidizer.

If necessary add some water to achieve desired consistency.

Return to a clean saucepan and add the remaining meat. Cook for 15 minutes, taste for seasoning.

If a chunky soup is preferred then don't puree the soup.

Serve with some crusty bread and enjoy this delicious goulash soup with a great meat flavour.

Note about the goulash:

We tripled this recipe for the number of people we had that night. We also added much more meat to the soup than even the tripling of the recipe required. It turned out beautifully and was very nicely spiced. We also all wanted a chunky soup, so we opted out of pureeing half the vegetables. Plus, it would have been yet one more thing to wash afterwards!

GERMAN TOMATO SALAD

500g tomatoes
1 red or white onion, cubed
1 dessert spoon parsley
1 dessert spoon basil
1 dessert spoon red wine vinegar
pinch sugar
3 dessert spoons oil

Wash the tomatoes in lukewarm water and remove the thick stem. Slice the tomatoes thickly or quarter them and place in a deep dish.

Add the chopped onion and finely chopped parsley and basil. Mix the red wine vinegar with the sugar and oil and pour over the salad. Leave to rest for at least 10 minutes before serving.

Note about the tomato salad:

We added the ingredients according to what we thought would be sufficient for the number of people there. The salad dressing would never have been sufficient in terms of what we wanted for taste, so we added ingredients liberally.

DELICIOUS CHOCOLATE CAKE

1/2 cake of Baker's unsweetened chocolate (grated)
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup of milk
1 teaspoonful of vanilla
1/2 cup of butter
1 1/2 - 2 cups of flour
2 eggs
2 teaspoonfuls of baking powder

Boil together chocolate, sugar and milk. Add butter and when cool add yolk of eggs; then the flour, flavoring and stiffly beaten whites of 2 eggs. Beat all thoroughly and bake in a loaf or layers until done.

CHOCOLATE ICING

Boil together 5 tablespoonfuls of grated chocolate, 3/4 cups of granulated sugar, 2 tablespoonfuls of milk, 1 egg. When the mixture begins to thicken and look creamy, spread on cake. If baked in layers, ice on top and between the two layers.

Chocolate cake: finished product

Note about the cake:

We haven't had the best of luck with desserts so far. As you might have also noticed, the recipe was not as detailed as we would have liked. We set the oven to 390 degrees Fahrenheit. Though the flavor of this cake was wonderful in that it was not too sweet, even with the icing on top, we found that the cake was a bit too dry. We had noticed this even before we cooked it and so an extra egg was added, but for future reference, we would add much more milk so that the consistency of the cake may be more moist and creamy.

Tatiana, Mitra and Tijana taking a break and enjoying the moment

DISCUSSION HIGHLIGHTS ON THE MOVIE "INGLORIOUS BASTERDS":

- Some had trouble with the cross between fantasy and reality

- Some thought that the bar scene was too long, but most loved it and thought it was the best scene in the movie

- Some thought the ending was a bit abrupt and contradictory because of the confusion between reality and fantasy

- Many loved the cross between reality and fantasy; to elaborate, the reality being the reference to real events in history and the fantasy being Tarantino's propensity for flair and the fantastic.

- Most thought the movie represented Europe very well and the accents and representation of the countries and their languages were excellent, especially when taking into consideration the fact that it was a "Hollywood" film


Final rating: 8.3/10