Family Recipe Friday - Oma Cookies

I received a wonderful surprise for Valentine's Day! My darling son made "Oma Cookies" for me, with help from my mother & husband. We had been talking about favorite foods and I mentioned the cookies that my grandmother, Elise Gegenheimer Haberkern, made (and always brought a few when we went to her house). My son remembers having them a couple of times before she was unable to bake them anymore.


This is the recipe from Oma's recipe box for Wildbader Ringele, but we always called them Oma Cookies!

My mother worked on the translation and the recipe before my son made them. These taste just like her cookies, but looked a bit different (bigger). I couldn't find a picture of the cookies or us with Oma when she brought them to our house. Here is the recipe they used:

1 stick butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 package baking powder
1/2 package vanilla sugar
1 tablespoon Hirschhorn Salz (seal up leftover package well)
3- 3 1/2 cups flour (supposed to be 1 pound of flour)
1/2 cup milk (I forgot to put into cookies when I made them)

Cream butter, add sugar and eggs and beat till creamy. Add milk and flour very gradually. You may want to mix with spoon at the end. Dough should be able to be rolled out. Start with 3 cups flour and go from there. You may want to sprinkle a "tiny" bit of flour on top of dough as you roll it out so rolling pin doesn't stick. Cut out with cookie cutter (don't push down on red center). Put on baking sheet with parchment paper and brush with egg YOLK, not the whole egg. Back at 350F for about 8 mins. Of course, it depends on ovens so keep a good eye on it for first batch.

Family Recipe Friday - City Chicken

Here is a family favorite! City Chicken actually isn't chicken, but cubes beef, pork and/veal on wooden skewers (to resemble drumsticks). It seems to originated in Western Pennsylvania, but was popular in other areas of the Midwest. Early recipes for City Chicken show up in the 1930's post-Depression Era. Chicken was costly or hard to find, while the other meats (especially pork) were generally cheaper.

My father remembers his grandmother Mem, Elizabeth Linneman Speck Merz, making City Chicken as a child when they lived in Pittsburgh. She made it with pork, veal and beef. My parents have continued to cook this meal today, although they usually only use pork now. Here is the Cubbage version (there was no written recipe):

City Chicken
1" to 1 1/4" cubes of pork loin (and veal or beef) - put 4 on a skewer
dredge in flour
dip in beaten egg
roll in flavored bread crumbs
brown on all sides
put a grate in bottom of a pot and add tiny bit of water
bake at 400F until the meat is done (not sure how long)- just test it with a fork.

I don't have a picture of our City Chicken (I will be sure to take one next time we have it!). Instead, here is a picture of Mem in her kitchen - probably when she lived on Thelma Street in Pittsburgh.