Bereklauw

One of Holland's snack bars

Fast food has its own key players in Holland: ofcourse you can get a "vette bek" (literally "a greasy piehole", referring to the state of your mouth after you consume the fast food of your choice) at McDonalds, KFC or any other international fast food chain, but Dutch "snack bars" such as Febo, the neighborhood cafetarias and patatkramen, shoarma places and broodjeszaken have a much more interesting variety of quick snacks. Besides the ubiquitous patat, or French fries, the Dutch have many meaty choices to pick from.

We've covered frikandellen and bitterballen before. Hotdogs and kroketten are also still pretty mainstream, but then we're getting into the more, shall we say, creative side of the snack business: items such as Kipcorn (a deep fried sausage from chicken meat and coated with corn flakes), Mexicano (a spicy rectangular flat beef patty that sports something akin to tire tracks), bamischijf (breaded asian noodles shaped like a bright orange hockey puck), nasibal (breaded fried rice ball), Sitostick (battered cubed turkey meat and pieces of onion on a stick), kaassouflé (a puffed up square of breaded cheese), nierbroodjes (kidney kroket) etc etc etc. These items are all deep-fried and contribute beautifully to the "vette bek" syndrome!

Automatiek Beursken in Velp still makes
most snacks from scratch

To increase business and make it easier for customers to just grab a quick bite to eat instead of having to stand in line to order, the Dutch use a "food in the wall" system called automatiek, or automat in the US.  Deep-fried beauties are showcased behind small windows. You drop in some coins, pull open the window of your choice and enjoy the hot, greasy snack. Repeat.

One of the more hefty choices of these greasy foods, and one that's easy to make at home, is a bereklauw, a bear claw, or berehap (bear bite). Whereas here in the United States a bear claw is a deep fried pastry, the Dutch version is a meatball, cut in thick slabs and speared with slices of onion, then quickly deep-fried. It can be eaten by itself or doused in peanut sauce, mayo or curry ketchup.

The Dutch have a love relationship with meatballs: the large, juicy gehaktballen are a traditional choice for protein for dinner. It goes well with practically any kind of vegetable and is served with a creamy, flavorful pan juice to pour over the potatoes. This snack is made with any leftover meatballs. Usually, you make a pan full. Whatever is not eaten with dinner that night, will be served sliced cold on a sandwich or, in this case, sliced and deep-fried as a midnight snack.

Bereklauw
4 large meatballs, cooked the day before
2 large onions
Skewers (do not soak!!!)

Slice the cold meatballs in 4 thick slices, cut the onion up in six. Take a skewer and start with the end piece of the meatball, then add a layer of onion, the second piece of meat etc etc. See picture below.

Heat the fryer to 375F. When the oil is ready, place one or two in the grease and fry for a good four to five minutes, or until the onions are done.

Douse with peanut sauce or ketchup and enjoy your bear claw!

Limburgse Kruimelvlaai

Vlaaien are a typical pie from the south of Holland, more accurately from the province of Limburg. A Limburgse vlaai may only be called such when the whole pie has been baked. Baking the dough first and then filling it with a cream cheese filling or a bavaroise automatically disqualifies the pastry to be called "limburgse": it will have to suffice with being called a vlaai.

My grandma used to tell me stories about the vlaaien they would bake during Kermis, or fair time. Once a year, the fair would come to town and families would bake up to thirty vlaaien to feed friends and family: fancy ones like rice pie, rich puddings and topped with whipped cream, or plain fruit ones. The richer pies would be consumed first, the simple fruit pies would usually be the last ones to be eaten.

A cup of coffee and a slice of vlaai, it is still a traditional way of enjoying time spent with visitors or of celebrating an important milestone in one's life (even if that milestone is having found the perfect shoes on sale that afternoon!) The dough is not the flaky pastry dough as we know it here in America, but rather a yeast dough that needs to rise twice before being baked. 

This kruimelvlaai (crumb pie) is a streusel-topped vanilla pudding pie. This time I chose to use a store-bought vanilla pudding mix, but you can also make this pie with pastry cream. It's a lovely vlaai, with a crunchy top, sweet pudding and a tender crust, perfect for an afternoon treat!

Limburgse Kruimelvlaai
For the dough

1/3 cup milk and 2 Tbsp (100 ml), lukewarm
1 1/2 teaspoons (5 grams) active dry yeast

1 3/4 cup (250 gr) all-purpose flour
2 Tablespoons (30 grams) sugar
1/2 teaspoon (4 grams) salt

1 egg

1/2 stick butter (55 gr), soft at room temperature

2 tablespoons breadcrumbs or panko

Sprinkle the yeast over the warm milk and set it aside to proof. In the meantime, mix the flour with the sugar and the salt. When the yeast has proofed, add the milk to the dough and mix for a minute. Add the egg and continue to mix until the dough comes together, then knead in the butter. Knead everything to a consistent whole, not too sticky but certainly not too dry. Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover and let it rise.

For the filling
Follow the directions on the cooked pudding box or make the pastry cream per the link above. Make sure you have at least two cups.

For the streusel
1 cup (150 grams) all-purpose flour
1 stick (110 grams) butter
1/2 cup (100 grams) sugar

Cut the butter into the flour and sugar until it feels like wet sand.

Grease an 11 inch/28 cm pie form, roll the dough into a circle and line the form with the dough. Poke holes in the dough with a fork, cover and let rise again until puffy.

Pour the cooled vanilla pudding on top of the dough and cover with the streusel. Bake in a 400F/200C oven for twenty minutes. You may need to place the pie under the broiler for a golden touch.

Eat lukewarm with a cup of coffee and in the company of good friends!

Patat

Patatje speciaal

America has its food trucks, and Holland has its patatkramen. An oasis of all things fried in a quiet neighborhood, or a small shack on the daily market, the patatkraam is usually the neighborhood gathering place around dinner time, and a favorite place to grab a quick snack or a greasy lunch.

Kids will come in and order "french fries for five euros" and will be handed a large family size paper bag filled to the rim with golden fried potatoes to take home and have it served as the starch for dinner. The glass case is filled with raw or precooked meat items such as hotdogs, frikandellen, kroketten, bitterballen, bereklauwen, all piled up in neat stacks from which to choose.

And the fries do not come without choice either: whereas the shape may vary only slightly (steak fries, french fries or shoestring), the amount of sauces and condiments to douse these golden spears with is vast: apart from the traditional mayonnaise (just try it), you can also choose curry ketchup (a spiced up type of ketchup), tomato ketchup, mustard, piccalilli, peanut sauce, joppiesaus (a fairly newcomer to the market of fry sauces, it's flavored with yellow curry). ...and then there are ofcourse the combinations: patatje met ( "fries with", meaning fries with mayo), patatje oorlog ("war fries": fries with mayo, peanut sauce and chopped onion), patatje speciaal (mayo, curry ketchup and chopped onion), patatje stoofvlees (french fries with a savory stewed beef sauce).....

Patatje oorlog

Patat is the generic name for the fries, patatje means a single serving. Fries are served in either a paper cone bag, or a white plastic shallow tray. The cone will allow you to tear the paper as you eat, so your hands don't get dirty from the sauce(s) as you pick at the fries with a small wooden pronged tool. If you have fries served on a plate, it's perfectly okay to eat them using your fingers.

Fries are traditionally prepared in ossewit (beef tallow) or less commonly so, horse fat. During the seventies, the saturated fats were replaced by vegetable fat such as Diamant, and most patatkramen stepped away from the tallow. It impacted the fry fat industry positively, and a myriad of television ads appeared, praising the qualities of vegetable fat and pushing moms to serve patat at least once a week. To this day, Wednesday's dinner is usually patat with a side choice.

The secret to crispy, golden french fries is to fry the taters twice. Once to par-fry them, if you will, then let them rest, and finish it off with a second fry to crisp the outer skin and bring out the golden colors. The traditional potato to use for fries is the Bintje. In the United States, choose a white or yellow potato, preferably starchy, like a Russet, since Bintjes are practically non-existent here. Since beef tallow is hard to come by, use canola oil for frying instead.

Patat

4 large Russet potatoes
Canola oil
Salt

Peel the potatoes and slice in inch thick slices, then cut in strips. Heat the oil to 325F. Rinse the potatoes (removing some of the starch will prevent the fries browning prematurely and ending up with a bitter taste) and dry in a cotton towel. Fry in small batches until lightly golden. Remove from the oil and rest the potatoes in a colander for about 25 minutes, then heat the oil to 375F and fry again, in small batches, until the fries are golden. Toss with salt.

Serve immediately.

What's op with drop?

Oh, how we love our sweet treats in the Netherlands! Candy aisles are stocked with all kinds of colorful goodies, cookie aisles equally so, and the chocolate shelves are overrun with seasonal and regular offerings year round. Yet one of the favorite sweets, for lack of a better word, is an unassuming, rubbery black candy called drop, licorice.

Dutch licorice is a popular and traditional candy that comes in many shapes, sizes and ranging from sweet to various degrees of saltiness, the saltiest* being a small briquette-shaped licorice called DubbelZout (twice as salty). The licorice is made with an extract from the Glycyrrhiza glabra (licorice) plant and a generous amount of salmiak, or ammonium chloride, which provides a distinctive salty and slightly bitter taste that is also particularly popular in the Nordic countries.

Drop, in all shapes and sizes, is consumed in large quantities and it is rumored that the average Dutch person nibbles away approximately five pounds a year, sharing about 32,000 kilos (about 70 thousand pounds) between themselves. Dutch licorice is definitely an acquired taste and seldom liked by non-natives, as noted by an incident in my office not too long ago.

"What's this drop stuff?" my co-worker asked, pointing to a small bag on my desk.

"It's Dutch licorice," I said, squinting at my computer screen. "You won't like it."

"Oh, it's black licorice ! I love black licorice!". Her hand reached for the bag as I pushed it aside.

"It's not the same. Your black licorice is very different from our black licorice".

"No, it's not, it looks just the same. Why can't I try some?"

*sigh*

I handed over a piece of Dutch licorice. Triumphantly, she put it in her mouth and grinned at me. "See? I like it!" Not so fast, I thought, and reached for the waste basket under my desk. And not a second too late, either.

"EWWWWWWW!!!!" It never fails. About ten seconds after they try Dutch licorice, the ammonium taste will hit the buds, with a vengeance. People will pull an ugly face and start looking around desperately for a place to get rid of it. That's when I hold up the trash can, where they gratefully (albeit not gracefully) spit out the contents of their mouth.

"OHMAGAWD!! That is SOOOO gross!! How can you EAT that???" Her eyes open wide, her mouth still reeling from the palatal pummeling it just experienced, she suddenly stopped speaking and glared at me, her eyes narrowing slightly. Was this a prank? Surely, this was a prank!? I could see her thinking. It's hard for others to understand how we can love our drop so much, and I don't even try to explain it anymore. The Icelanders have their hákarl, the Chinese have their fermented or so-called stinky tofu, and the Dutch have their licorice. We all love something different!

For as much as we like our sweets, licorice is one of those oddities that makes the Dutch food culture so unique and interesting. Grocery stores, candy stores and even drugstores will have bulk-sized bins with a rich assortment of various licorices to scoop, weigh and take home. Cat shapes, coins, railroad ties, shoe laces, farm animals, buttons......drop comes in so many flavors, shapes and levels of sweet- or saltiness that there's something for everyone.Well......almost everyone.

* I distinctly remember one called Driedubbelzoute drop, although that one is harder to find.  

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Koninginnesoep

Happy Birthday, Queen Beatrix!!
(Courtesy of eo.nl)

Hip Hip Hurray, it's the Queen's birthday! The whole country is going nuts on April 30th: huge yard sales everywhere (yard- or garage sales are not a common occurence in Holland), open air concerts, food fairs....everybody will be in a festive mood today. To show your support, either for the Royal family or just for partying in general, wear something orange. A wig, a shirt......it's all good. Eat some orange cake, have an orange beer.....and enjoy Queen's Day.

Queen's Day started officially on August 31st, 1890 to celebrate the birthday of the then Queen of the Netherlands, Wilhelmina, and was a yearly festivity until 1948 when her daughter, Juliana, took over the reigns. Juliana was born on April 30th, so Queen's Day moved to early Spring. By the time Beatrix, daughter of Juliana and current Queen of the Netherlands became Head of State in 1980, it was such a tradition to have all the outside activities, that she didn't have the heart to move Queen's Day to her day of birth, January 31st. Which is just as well. The weather cannot be guaranteed to be sunny and pleasant at the end of April, but it's bound to be a heck of a lot better than on January 31st! Beatrix kept April 30th as the date for this colorful national celebration.

Traditionally, the Queen visits one or two locations in the country where she's greeted by the local authorities, given a tour and has the opportunity to show, perhaps feigned, interest in the local sights. Noblesse oblige. This year, she is visiting the two towns of Thorn and Weert in the province of Limburg. Smart move! They'll probably fete her with a nice slice of Limburg vlaai......

There is no food directly related to Queen's Day. Yes, the icing on the cakes will be orange. The tompoezen will have changed their pink icing to sunny orange, there will be orange beer, orange desserts, and many other orange food items. I may even give those orange tompoezen a go tomorrow, I'm always game for dessert.

However, there is one item that holds it own today: Koninginnesoep. A fairly late comer to the Dutch kitchen, a recipe for Queen's Soup appeared for the first time around the 1900's and has been a steady regular at celebratory events. It's a creamy, chicken-stock based soup that will please everybody in your family, and is easy and quick to make. Which is a good thing, today is after all a holiday!

Koninginnesoep
6 cups of seasoned chicken stock
2 cups of whole milk or half-and-half
1/2 cup of peas
1/2 cup of diced carrots
2 cups of cooked chicken meat, diced
1 tablespoon of ground almonds

Warm the stock, add the vegetables and boil until they're tender. Whisk in the milk and bring back up to temperature, but don't boil anymore, the milk might curdle. Stir in the chicken and the almonds, let the soup simmer for another five minutes, then taste and adjust if needed.

Serve royally!