Kroketten

Market sign announcing the "one
and only" Van Dobben Kroket  on
a roll

The most popular posts on this blog tend to be either sandwich-related or fast-food related: the broodjes post scores high, as well as the bitterballen and the frikandellen posts. The latter scores high on a list of its own, the Top Ten of Favorite Snacks (http://snacks.toptien.nl/), and is closely followed by the ultimate deep-fried gravy stick, the meat kroket.

Companies such as Van Dobben and Kwekkeboom, both food establishments in Amsterdam, are famous for their meat kroketten and have been offering this fried delicacy since the mid 1940s. Each has their own following, and discussions about which kroket is superior is ongoing. Patisserie Holtkamp, one of the more sophisticated baked goods shops around town, also showcases kroketten, or in their case, croquetten, but has embraced a more varied flavor assortment: veal, cheese, sweetbreads/truffle and lobster. The Holtkamp shrimp croquet is their best-selling item. 

Holtkamp's Shrimp Croquet

Kroketten started as a great way to use up leftovers: Sunday's roast, or meat used to make soups, ended up in the meat grinder, then folded into a creamy thick gravy, after which it was refrigerated, rolled into logs, breaded and deep-fried to a beautiful golden bar. Meat kroketten are usually consumed with a good mustard, either by themself or on a white roll.

The cookbook from the Amsterdam Home Economics School, Kookboek van de Amsterdamse Huishoudschool, in its tenth edition from the 1940s, mentions a variety of croquetten: meat but also potato and shrimp, fish, sweetbreads, cheese and even macaroni. The spelling was fancier (the "c" and "q" were replaced by the more common "k" in later years) which also implied a more sophisticated presentation: according to the book, croquetten were to be deep-fried until golden, stacked in a pyramid-shape and served on a starched napkin with fried parsley for decoration.

Wow. Well, nowadays the meat kroket is usually served in a less charming manner: in a triangular paper cone or simply out of the wall on a paper tray, with no fried parsley or starched napkin in sight. And you'll be hard pressed to find a sweetbread kroket or a macaroni kroket in any of the establishments for supplying fatty foods such as the neighborhood snackbars or Febos.

But let that not stop us! Today we're making meat kroketten. The meat was first used to draw a beef stock for a vegetable soup, then shredded. You can also use leftover roast beef. If all you have is a pound of raw chuck roast or some other simmer meat, place the meat in a saucepan, add eight cups of water, half an onion, two peeled carrots and two chopped sticks of celery. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for two hours. Skim the broth, discard the vegetables and cool the meat.

Make sure you bread the kroket on all sides: one small crack and the filling will spill out into the fryer and cause a mess. You can also use this mixture for bitterballen. Once you get the hang of it, experiment with your own flavors. Leftover bbq beef? Go for it. A vegetarian version with a mushroom medley? Awesome! Just because Kwekkeboom, Holtkamp and Van Dobben come up with all kinds of flavors, doesn't mean you can't :-)

Kroketten
1 lb (450 grams) beef, cooked and chilled
1 cup (250 ml) milk or beef bouillon
6 tablespoons flour

1 tablespoon chopped parsley
1/8 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon  ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon  salt
2 tablespoons (30 grams)  butter
2 eggs
1 cup panko or breadcrumbs

Shred the cooked meat and chop fine in a food processor, or by hand. Melt the butter in a pan, and stir in the flour. When the flour has soaked up all the fat, slowly pour in the milk or bouillon while continuing to stir. The flour will thicken the liquid and turn into a thick, creamy gravy. Stir at least one or two more minutes after the sauce has come together to get rid of some of the flour taste. Now add the tablespoon of chopped parsley, the pinch of pepper and salt and finally stir in the chopped meat. If the gravy is too thin, add another tablespoon of flour. Too thick? Carefully add a tablespoon of milk or broth to the mix and stir.

Spread this meaty mix on a baking sheet or a shallow plate, let it cool for about thirty minutes, then wrap and refrigerate it overnight.

Remove the roux from the fridge. Sprinkle some flour on the counter, divide the mixture into six equal pieces and roll each piece through the flour. Shape into tight logs, approximately 4 inches long and 1 inch wide. Your main concern will be to have kroketten approximately the same size. Wrap and refrigerate, while you prepare the rest.

Place three deep plates in a row. In the first one, put flour, the second one 2 beaten eggs, the third one, one cup of panko or breadcrumbs. Take the kroketten out of the fridge. With your dominant hand, lightly roll the kroket in the flour, then through the egg (make sure you cover the whole surface!) and finally through the breadcrumbs. Check to see that each area of the log is covered. Set aside while you repeat with the rest of the kroketten. Wrap and refrigerate while you heat up the oil.

Heat your fryer oil up to 375F. When it's ready, place one or two kroketten at a time in the hot oil and fry them until golden. This will take anywhere from 3-5 minutes. Take them out of the oil and let them drain on a couple of paper towels to get some of the fat off.

Serve hot. With or without fried parsley or a starched napkin, but do not forget the mustard!

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!

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.

Frikandellen

In several days time, on January 29th, Holland will be the scene for another highly culinary event: the annual Frikandellen Eating competition. Held for the seventh year and hosted by the Men's Choir of Heukelum, a small town in the province of Gelderland, twenty contestants will compete for the challenge trophy and, oh joy, the Golden Frikandel.

Gelderland is no stranger to interesting sausages: it is supposedly the birthplace of Gelderse kookworst and rookworst. In Dutch, worst means sausage which may, on the whole, not be totally coincidental, as the meat used for many of these sausages is not exactly the best. The Gelderse version is made of lean pork, seasoned with a particular set of spices and slightly smoked over oak and beech, then eaten either cold (kookworst) as luncheon meat or boiled (rookworst) with split pea soup or boerenkool, that lovely wintery dish of mashed potatoes with kale.

Frankwin's "broodje frikandel"

So what is a frikandel? It's a skinless deep-fried sausage, made of chicken, pork and beef. It can be served by itself or with mayo, in a roll (broodje frikandel) or cut open and doused in mayo, (curry) ketchup and minced onion. This culinary concoction is called a "frikandel speciaal". This savory sausage is Holland's number one snack, only every so often bumped off its champion position by number two, the kroket, the big brother of the bitterballen. Fried snacks such as these are traditionally sold in neighborhood "snack bars" or "automatieken", like the Febo.

Kroketten, bitterballen and frikandellen are also the top three fried snacks most missed by Dutch expatriates. The first two are fairly easy to make, but I had never tried my hand at making frikandellen until this weekend. It's a bit of a hassle but you'll be surprised at how close to the real thing this recipe is. So get your mayo, ketchup and onions ready, because it's time for a frikandel!

Frikandellen

1 pound of beef
1 pound of pork
8 oz of chicken
3 teaspoons of salt
1 teaspoon of black peper
1 teaspoon of ground allspice
1 teaspoon of ground nutmeg
3 teaspoons of onion powder
3/4 cup of whipping cream

Grind the meat very, very fine and blend together with the spices and the cream. Watch out for the motor if you do this on your food processor, and do small batches to prevent overheating the appliance.

Many thanks to Frankwin for
the recipe and all the help!

Bring a large pan with water to a boil. If you have a sausage grinder or stuffer, just hang the end of the tube over the pan of boiling water. If you don't, you can make this contraption to push the meaty mush into a sausage shape: take a 16oz soda bottle, preferably with straight edges, and cut off the bottom. Find a glass or something solid that fits snug inside the bottle so that you can push the ground meat through the opening. You are going to need a lot of strength to do this! Please make sure the pan with boiling water cannot be bumped off the stove and keep kids, pets and impatient eaters out of the kitchen. Safety first!

Now fill the bottle with the meat, tap it tight so that there are no air pockets and hold the bottle over the water. Push the meat through the opening and have someone else cut the string of meat every ten inches or so. The meat will shrink at least a third in the water, so the longer the better. Frikandellen measure on average a good seven inches long.

Allow the meat to boil for five to six minutes, on a medium boil, then retrieve the sausages and dry them on a cooling rack.

Once they've cooled, you can freeze them for future use, or you can crank up the deep-fryer. Straight from the cooling rack, they need about 3 to four minutes in the hot oil (fry at 375F). For frikandellen speciaal you can cut them lengthwise, about 2/3s in, before you fry them.

Serve with mayo, with a bun or "speciaal". If you start training now, you might still be in time to participate in the National Frikandellen Eating competition this year. Good luck!!