Pretzels

There's nothing more decadent that creating an Oktoberfest feast - it's just large amounts of deliciously rich foods plus large amounts of German beer! We didn't do all the cooking ourselves, but I did make two of the side dishes: German-style potato salad and pretzels. The pretzel recipe is courtesy of my middle-school era Family Studies course and its teacher, Mrs. Miller-Nesbitt. I knew it would come in handy again! It's pretty similar to this Stefano Faita recipe if you'd like something more official.

Step 1: check to make sure yeast isn't expired (oops). Step 1a: Buy new yeast! Step 2: Pour 3/4 cup lukewarm water into a large bowl bowl and mix in 1.5 tsp sugar. Sprinkle 1.5 tsp yeast on top, and let stand until bubbly, 5-10 minutes. Add 1.5 c flour and 1/2 tsp salt. Stir with a wooden spoon until blended and it forms a ball. Cover your counter with flour and dump the dough out - now you're ready to get out the day's stresses by kneading for about 5 minutes. If it's sticky, add up to 1/2 cup more flour.

Now the fun part! Divide the dough into four pieces, and roll each into long 'snakes' of dough - 1/2" thick and 15" long. This took a bit of work because the dough kept shrinking back whenever we rolled it out... but it ultimately stayed. Then we got to form our four pretzels. Brush each with an egg wash (1 egg and 1 Tbsp water in a small bowl) and sprinkle with coarse salt. We used sea salt on two and smoked Maldon salt on the other two. Bake for about 10 minutes @425 and cool on a wire rack.

The rest of our feast included sausages, saurkraut, and potato salad made with red onions with lots of oil and vinegar, inspired by this recipe. We had the pretzels with mustard and they were fabulous! Warm, bready... not as large and brown as ones you'd find in a Munich beer garden but just right for our feast. Proste!