Rode kool met appeltjes

Around this time of year, when you walk along the narrow streets of Holland at dinner time, it is very possible that you would smell the lovely, spicey, clove and nutmeg filled smells of hachee, an old fashioned traditional beef and onion stew, emanating from a kitchen window. And if you stand still and concentrate on that mixture of smells, you might be able to detect a sweet and sour undertone, a bit cabbage-like, but not much. You'd be so right! Red cabbage, braised with apples, is THE vegetable to serve with hachee and boiled potatoes. It's a typical Dutch winter dish. The sweetness of the apple combines perfectly with the tanginess of the cabbage and the vinegar, and makes for a beautiful mix. 

Most of our cabbages are grown in the province of North-Holland, near the West-Frisian town of Langedijk, where many varieties of red and green cabbage originated and are still grown to this day. 

As with practically any low-and-slow food, the braised cabbage will taste even better the next day (if there's any left). I've found myself many times sneaking a forkful of refrigerated cabbage in the middle of the night. The slight crunch of the cabbage, the sweet and sour combination, the tenderness of the apples...…yum!!

Rode kool met appeltjes

1 medium sized red cabbage (approx. 2 lbs/1kg)

1 small apple

4 bay leaves

3 whole cloves

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar

1 cinnamon stick

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1 tablespoon cornstarch

Peel the outer, tough leaves off the cabbage. Cut the cabbage in half, then each half in half again. This will give you an easy opportunity to cut out the core which is tough and bitter. Slice each quarter in thin strips. Rinse the cabbage and add to a pan with a heavy bottom. 

Add enough water to cover the cabbage about halfway, and set it on the stove. Add the bay leaves and cinnamon stick, cover and bring to a slow boil. Stir in the vinegar, add the sugar, stir and cover again. Turn down the heat to a simmer. Let it slowly braise on the back of the stove, for a good half hour.

In the meantime, peel, core and quarter your apple. Stick the three cloves in the largest piece of apple before adding them to the pan, and slowly simmer until the apple is soft. Remove the cabbage and apple from the pan until you only have the braising liquid left. Fish out the bay leaves and the cinnamon stick, and pick the cloves off the apple. 

Make a slurry with the cornstarch (one tablespoon of water to one tablespoon cornstarch). Bring the cooking liquid back up to a boil, and stir in the slurry. At first it will color the liquid pink but as the cornstarch absorbs the water, it will clear up. Continue to stir until the sauce has thickened.  Add the cabbage and apple mix back into the pan, stir a couple of times to mix the sauce with the vegetables. Taste, adjust with salt and pepper. If you like it sweeter or tangier, add a bit more sugar or vinegar. When it's cooled, you can keep it in the fridge for two days.

Red cabbage also pairs very well with game: rabbit, hare, venison and elk.

Arnhemse Meisjes

Arnhem is, no doubt, mostly known for its role during the Second World War. The movie "A Bridge Too Far" with some of the world's best actors (Sean Connery, Michael Cain, James Caan, Anthony Hopkins, Ryan O'Neal, Robert Redford, Elliot Gould, Gene Hackman) and directed by Richard Attenborough, chronicles the events around Operation Market Garden.

But even before the bridge, and the actors, and the movie and that horrible war, there was something else that was unique to Arnhem: its girls. Noooo, not those kind of girls. A light, sugary, flaky cookie called Arnhemse Meisjes, or Arnhem Girls. Maybe because the girls were sweet and eh....flaky? I don't know. I've never met anybody from Arnhem, to my knowledge, so I have no opinion on the matter.

Its cookies however....They became famous because Roald Dahl, the writer, once stopped in Arnhem on a book signing tour. While he signed away, he was offered coffee and a cookie. He kept eating and eating (thereby dispelling the terrible myth that the Dutch are so tight-fisted that they will only serve you one cookie and then hit the lid on the cookie jar), and fell in love with the cookie. When he was done (signing or eating, I'm not sure) he expressed his admiration for the cookie and said it was the best cookie in the world. Well! Either way, he obtained the recipe from the local baker and it was published in his book  "Roald Dahl's Cookbook".

Nowadays, there is only one official Arnhemse Meisjes baker: bakery Van Asselt in Arnhem. These cookies stem from 1829 when baker Hagdorn was busy inventing new cookies that would do well at parties and festivities. One day, he made a cookie in the shape of a shoe sole, sugared it, and baked it, and hey presto! the Arnhem Girls were born. The slightly flaky yeast dough pairs nicely with the sugary topping. It is an easy cookie to make and will delight many!

Arnhemse Meisjes
1 cup all-purpose flour (approx. 150gr)
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup (125 ml) milk, warm (but not hot!)
1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest or lemon juice
1 stick (115 grams) butter, room temperature

1/4 cup (50 grams) regular granulated sugar
1/8 cup (20 grams) coarse sugar* (optional)

Mix the flour and the salt, stir the yeast in with the warm milk and let it sit for a couple of minutes so the yeast can be activated. Stir the milk and yeast into the flour, add the lemon juice and stir again. Now add the butter in small amounts while you knead/stir until everything comes together. Shape the dough into a sausage, wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least two hours. The dough will be a bit sticky but as soon as the butter hardens, it will be easier to handle. 

Take out the dough and divide it into equal pieces, a little less than 1oz or 20 gr each. The recipe above should give you approximately 16 cookies. Roll each piece into a small ball. Pour the regular sugar into a bowl and roll the dough balls through the sugar. Retrieve the dough, wrap and refrigerate. Do not discard the sugar. Turn on the oven to 350F/175C.

Turn on the oven to 350F/175C. Retrieve the sugary dough balls from the fridge. Place a dough ball on top of the sugary counter and use a rolling pin to roll each ball into an oval shape, about 3 inches long. Turn it over and press the cookie into the (coarse, if using) sugar, making sure that both sides are well covered. Place each cookie on a silicone mat or parchment paper on a baking sheet. When all cookies are made, sprinkle the remaining (coarse, if using) sugar over the cookies and bake them golden in approximately 20 to 25 minutes.

The cookies will puff up, the sugar will caramelize and you will have a wonderful and unique cookie with a great story to serve with coffee.

I use this kind of coarse sugar. This is an Amazon affiliate link, which means that if you buy through this link, Amazon will compensate me, at no cost to you. This will help with maintaining the website.

Schoenlapperstaart

‘De Verstandige Kock’ ("The Sensible Cook") was first published in 1667 in Amsterdam. A rather thin cookbook, it contained recipes for the average citizen, not wealthy but not overly poor either. Its last print was from 1802. For those that do not read Dutch, there is help as the book was translated by Peter Rose in 1998. It contains a myriad of recipes and historical facts about the way the Dutch cooked and how it impacted the Dutch settlements in the Hudson Valley.

I've copied below the original text that belongs to the recipe I made today, a centuries old but still popular dish in the Netherlands.

"Om een schoenmakerstaert te backen: Neemt suere Appels, schildtse, aen stucken gesneden en gaar gekoockt, wrijft die kleyn, neemt dan boter, Suycker, en Corenten, yder na zijn believen, en dat samen met 4 à 5 eyeren daer in gheroert, neemt dan geraspt Tarwenbroot, en doet dat onder in een schootel, daer op u Appelen geleght, doeter weer geraspt Tarwenbroot boven over, en deckt dan toe met een decksel van een Taertpanne, en vuur daer op gheleght, maeckt een goede korste."

(To bake a cobbler's pie: take sour apples, peel them, cut them in pieces and boil them until soft, mash them, take butter, sugar and raisins as much as you please, and mix this with 4 or five eggs, take shredded wheat bread, and put it on the bottom of a dish, put the apples on top, cover it again with shredded wheat bread and cover it with the lid of a pie dish, on which you place coals, makes a good crust).

I guess punctuation was not that big of a deal in the Middle Ages. Nowadays, we use rusks (beschuiten) or in my case, panko, the japanese variant of breadcrumbs, instead of "shredded wheat bread". I much prefer panko for sweet dishes like these, as it's lighter, a little sweeter and is closest to the rusk crumb. To this dish you can add raisins if you wish, or a pinch of cinnamon, ginger, cardamom....it's a great dish to experiment with. For those that don't want the sugar, the pie holds its own made with a sugar-substitute as well.

Now, why is it called a cobbler's pie? Many have ventured a guess, but nobody so far has been able to give a valid explanation. But it's a wonderful, light dish to finish a meal with, or to accompany a hot cup of coffee or tea, mid-morning. And maybe that's something a hard working cobbler can appreciate as well.

Schoenlapperstaart
4 small apples

1/2 cup of water
1/2 stick of butter
1/2 cup of brown sugar
2 teaspoons of vanilla
3 eggs, separated
1 cup panko or breadcrumbs

Peel, core and cut the apples in small pieces. Place them in a saucepan with the water, the butter, sugar and vanilla. Bring to a boil, stir well, then simmer until the apples are done and you can mash it into apple sauce.

Beat the egg whites until they form stiff peaks. Mix the egg yolks and the panko with the apple mixture, then carefully spoon the egg whites through the mix. Don't overmix it, as you want to keep the air in the egg whites!

Grease a pie pan, heat the oven to 350F, carefully pour the apple batter into the dish, and bake for about 50 minutes. Cool, dust with powdered sugar (if you like) and cut into large slices.

Griesmeelpudding met bessensaus

Every now and then I come across a recipe in my Dutch cookbooks that surprises me once I try it. A traditional dessert called "griesmeelpudding" (grits pudding) sounded old-fashioned even when I was a little girl. My grandma never even made it, that's how old fashioned it was, imagine that!

My mom doesn't care for dairy so our milky desserts were few and far between. Come to think of it, we never ate much dessert, as neither my mom nor my grandma cared for sweets. I guess I've made up for both :-)

Anyway, "griesmeelpudding" did not sound appetizing, partly because of its perceived high "last century" factor, partly because the name "gries" (grits) forms also, phonetically, the first syllable for the verb "griezelen", i.e. shudder in horror ( a "griezelfilm" is a horror movie). Kids would often refer to the pudding as "griezelpudding" and would not eat it. No wonder!

But in my quest to cover the traditional Dutch kitchen, I cannot circumvent something so typically Dutch. And after deliberately cooking and baking twenty other things, I've finally come full circle and decided to tackle the griesmeelpudding. And I am SO glad I did!!

There is something inheritently comforting in the smell of warm milk with sugar. I don't know if it's because my grandma would make "lammetjespap" for me every so often and it reminds me of being a child, or whether it's a nurturing thing. No clue. But when I stand over the stove, warming up milk and stirring sweet sugar into it, I get this homey, warm, fuzzy feeling, perfect for these cold days.

The "griesmeelpudding" is very similar to rice pudding, as we know it here in the United States, but the berry sauce most definitely adds a characteristic and flavorful angle to it.

Griesmeelpudding
For the pudding:
1 cup of grits

4 cups of milk

3/4 cup of sugar

1 slice of lemon peel, no pith
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

For the sauce:
1 can of cranberry-raspberry sauce (or a small jar of berry jam)
1 cup of apple juice
1/2 cinnamon stick

Bring the milk to a slow boil, add the lemon peel and the sugar and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Add in the grits, bring back to a boil but keep stirring to prevent the milk from burning. Lower the heat and cook for about six to seven minutes or until the grits are gorged, but stir every so often to make sure the bottom doesn't burn. Stir in the vanilla.

Rinse the pudding form with cold water and, after removing the lemon peel, pour the grits into the form. Set it in the fridge to cool. It will take a good five hour to set: even better if you can leave it overnight.

When you're ready to serve dessert, add the contents of the cranberry sauce or the berry jam to a small saucepan, add the apple juice or water to thin the sauce and the cinnamon stick. Stir well, bring to a boil, then simmer for a good twenty minutes. Thicken with cornstarch if needed. I decided to put my sauce through a sieve in order to remove all the raspberry seeds, but that's purely a personal preference.

Pour some warm water over the outside of the pudding form, lightly loosen the sides of the pudding and invert the whole thing onto a plate. Pour the thick berry sauce on top and on the sides, and enjoy!

Hallee, it's hachee day!

Hachee (hash-ay) is one of those old-fashioned dishes that pops up on the table the moment the temperature outside drops to "colder than dirt". Looking out the window and seeing snow, I knew it was time for a good old "stick to your ribs" kind of meal, and hachee is just the ticket!

November 15 is National Hachee Day in the Netherlands. The stewed beef dish has been around since the Middle Ages, where its main function was to use up all the pieces of meat that needed to be used up, combined with a bunch of onions, some leftover red wine and set to simmer on the back of the stove. It's such an easy and yet grateful dish to make, and a favorite of the Dutch. Cubes of beef, stewed in a sauce flavored with onions, bay leaf, vinegar, juniper berries and pepper corns, pair perfectly with creamy mashed potatoes and red cabbage or, if you're in the mood, try the stew over a plate of golden fries....patat stoofvlees is a favorite snack!

This is a great dish to prepare in a Crock-Pot. Throw everything together in the morning, turn it on low and go on your merry way: when you come home, dinner will be ready! For this dish, I tend to use chuck pot roast, or a bottom round or rump roast: it's a cheaper cut of meat that will benefit greatly from this cooking method.

Hachee
2 lbs of beef, cubed
1 tablespoon of butter

3 large onions, peeled and sliced
1 tablespoon of flour
1/2 beef bouillon cube, or homemade beef bouillon
4 cups of water
3 bay leaves
3 cloves, whole
4 juniper berries (optional)
8 pepper corns
3 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar or red wine
Salt
Pepper

Melt the butter in a Dutch oven and quickly brown the cubed beef. Add the onions and stir in with the beef until the onions are translucent. Sprinkle the flour over the beef, crumble the bouillon cube and add with four coups of water to the pan. The meat has to be almost submerged. Add the bay leaves, cloves (I stick them in a piece of onion so I can find them again), juniper berries if you want and the pepper corns, then stir in the vinegar or the wine. Bring to a slow boil, then turn down the heat, cover and simmer for a good two hours.

Try a little piece of meat to see if it's tender to your liking. Remove the meat onto a plate, adjust the sauce with salt and pepper or a little vinegar if you like it more tangy and reduce slightly. Add the meat back in, stir to cover, and serve with mashed potatoes and red cabbage, or over a plate of rice.

To make it really Dutch, don't forget the "kuiltje" (pothole)
in your mashed potatoes for the gravy!

Jodenkoeken

The Dutch have a huge cookie culture. The shelves in the grocery store are loaded with sugary breads, cookies, tarts and every other product that can be eaten with a cup of coffee or tea. It is said that the Dutch will only offer you one cookie with your hot beverage, as they are so tight-fisted, but I have yet to experience that. Most hosts just leave the cookie jar on the table and invite you to help yourself.

A traditional Jodenkoeken cookie can.

Beside the coloring, flavors and shapes of the cookies, the most memorable are without a doubt their names: bokkepootjes (billygoat's legs), kletskop (bald head or chatterbox), Weesper moppen (blobs from Weesp), Arnhemse meisjes (girls from Arnhem), ijzerkoekjes (iron cookies), lange vingers (long fingers) or kattetongen (cat tongues). Another cookie with a huge following is the so-called "jodekoek" or Jewish cookies.

The story goes that Davelaar, a cookie baker, bought a bakery from a retiring Jewish baker in the early 1920. The bakery was famous for these large, sweet and buttery cookies and Davelaar continued to bake them, selling them in metal cookie cans and charging a deposit. During the seventies, the name of the cookie was considered not-politically-correct and Davelaar changed it for the export cookies, but never did for the national market. To this day it's called "Jodekoek" or Jewish cookie.

The size of the cookie is most remarkable, it measures a whopping 3.5 inches across. Not very impressive for an American cookie, but most certainly for a Dutch one. The ingredients are few but come together wonderfully as a sandy, buttery cookie: do make sure you use top quality ingredients.

Jodekoek
1 stick of butter, room temperature

1/4 cup of sugar
1 tablespoon milk
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch of salt
1 cup of self-rising flour, packed

Cream the butter and the sugar. Add the milk, the cinnamon and the sugar. Knead the flour into the mix, blending all the ingredients. Wrap in foil and refrigerate for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Dust the counter with flour and roll the dough thin, about 1/4th of an inch or less. Cut out the cookies with the help of a canning ring for widemouth jars, it's the right size. Place the cookies on parchment paper on a sheet pan and bake for approximately 15 minutes until golden brown. The last few minutes you may want to keep an eye on the cookies as they "over-brown" rather quickly.

Enjoy with a cup of hot tea, coffee or hot chocolate.

Hete Bliksem

 In this quest to investigate, research and write about the culinary traditions of my country, I stumble across some very interesting details. For one, I think there is nary a thing a Dutch person wouldn't add to a dish of mashed potatoes: we have mashed potatoes with carrots (hutspot), mashed potatoes with kale (boerenkool), mashed potatoes with sauerkraut, a whole array of mashed potatoes with greens and today I am making mashed potatoes with apple.


Boerenkool

The potato was first introduced in the Netherlands in the early 1600's but was not officially recognized as fit for human consumption until 1727. Since then, the country has been producing a large variety of potatoes such as Eigenheimers, Bintjes, Alphas, Irenes, Gelderse muisjes. As with other agricultural products, Holland is one of the market leaders regarding the export on potatoes.

The traditional meal in Holland consists of the Dutch trinity: meat, vegetables and spuds. Most traditionally boiled, potatoes can also be served fried or mashed. One of my favorites are pan-fried potatoes: boil some extra potatoes the day before, chill them, then slice the next day and fry in some butter in a skillet until they are golden brown and crispy. Yum!

Hete Bliksem

Today's dish is called "hete bliksem" or hot lightning. Not entirely sure what generated the name. Some say it's because the high amount of liquid in the mash: the dish stays hot longer than other types of mashed potatoes. That is true, there is no additional milk needed to mash these potatoes and apples into a smooth consistency and it does stay warm longer. Other names for this savory and sweet potato dish are "heaven and earth" referring to the source of apples (heaven) and potatoes (earth), or "thunder and lightning".

The key is to use a mixture of sweet and tart apples, 2 parts potato, 1 part apple. Jonagolds, Braeburns and Jonathans will do well by themselves as they possess both flavors.

Hete Bliksem
8 large potatoes
4 apples (2 sweet, 2 tart)
4 slices of salted pork

Peel and cube the potatoes and place them in a pan with just enough water to cover them. Peel and core the apples, cut in halves and place on top of the potatoes, top with the slices of salt pork. Cover and bring to a boil, then simmer for twenty minutes or until potatoes are done. Remove the pork, pour off the water (save some) and mash the apples and potatoes to your liking, lumpy or smooth. If it's too dry, add a tablespoon at a time of the cooking liquid. Taste. Adjust with salt and pepper if needed.

Slice the pork in narrow strips, mix in with the mashed potatoes and serve. Good with a lick of mustard.

Pasteitje met ragout

As Calvinistic as we are, bent on not having too much of anything and claiming that "being normal is crazy enough", we are set on extending the Christmas celebrations over two days instead of one. First Christmas Day is December 25th, Second Christmas Day is December 26th. And if you are part of those families that also celebrate Christmas Eve, that makes it two days and a half.

Christmas Eve is traditionally the night where you dress up, go to evening mass (even those that are not raised in the church will often attend) and upon return to the house round off the celebrations with hot chocolate and, how else, a bread meal with luxury rolls.

First Christmas Day is a formal dinner day and a day that is generally celebrated with family only. If you are invited to someone's home on First Christmas Day, and you are not family or in any way related, it is quite an honor! This is also the day that will determine where you stand, family-wise. In trying to keep the peace between families and in-laws, children often switch back and forth between families on 1st and 2nd Christmas Day: one year you will celebrate dinner at your parent's on the 1st, the next year it's at your significant other's parents. Being invited, or visited, on 2nd Christmas Day almost automatically classifies you as 2nd class family member......

Second Christmas Day is much less formal. It's when the leftovers are eaten, and everybody runs around in their "house suit", sweats and jammies, hanging in front of the TV or going for long, wintery walks to get some fresh air. Friends will sometimes come over for a drink and a chat, and a less formal dinner (not leftovers!!).

So many of these traditions are slowly changing but one of the standard items on Christmas Day is this appetizer or starter for the meal: a puff pastry cup filled with a chicken and mushroom gravy. It is so seventies, but it is one of those dishes that is comforting, filling and familiar at the same time.

I had some chicken leftover from last night's dinner club. It's getting close to Christmas and all of a sudden I had a hankering for a pasteitje met ragout.......You can also use leftover chicken from your Sunday roast. 

Pasteitjes, puff pastry shells, can be found in the store, in the freezer section. If you can't find them, make your own shells out of a sheet of puff pastry, or serve the ragout with rice or on bread.  

Pasteitje met ragout

For the pasteitjes:

2 sheets of puff pastry
1 tablespoon of flour
1 egg, beaten

Dust the counter with flour and thaw the sheets. Cut eight circles out of the pastry dough. Out of four of these circles, press a smaller circle from the middle. Wet the full circles with a little bit of water, place the rings on top and brush the whole pastry with egg. Place the cut outs on the side, poke them a couple of times with a fork so they don't puff up too much, and brush as well.

Bake on a sheetpan in a 425F oven for ten to twelve minutes or until golden and puffy. Cool on a wire rack.

Ragout

1 tablespoon of butter

2 chicken breast
1 large onion, peeled and sliced
3 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1 small can of mushrooms (or one cup of fresh mushrooms, sliced)
2 1/2 cups (500 ml) white wine
2 1/2 cup (500 ml) warm water
1 chicken bouillon cube
2 bay leaves
Sprinkle of thyme

For the gravy

1/3 (50 grams) cup flour
4 tablespoons (50 grams) butter

If you have time, marinate the chicken breast the night before in a bowl with the wine, water, onions, bay leaves, thyme and crushed garlic cloves. 

Heat the olive oil in a Dutch oven, add the sliced onion and the garlic cloves and sauté until translucent. Add in the mushrooms and continue to sauté for another two to three minutes, or until the mushrooms have a bit of a sear on them. Dry the chicken, cut it into large cubes, season it with salt and pepper and quickly sear it on all sides in the same pan. Add the wine, the warm water, and the bouillon cube and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat, add the bay leaves, a sprinkle of thyme and pepper and simmer for at least 25 minutes, covered.

Take the chicken out of the stock. The meat should be tender enough that you can pull it apart with two forks. If not, return to the pan and simmer longer. Using a large sieve, separate the meat, mushrooms and onion from the liquid. 

In a different pan, melt the butter, stir in the flour and quickly make a paste. Add a ladle full of your cooking liquid to the sauce and stir until it's absorbed. Do the same with four more ladles, until you have a nice pan full of gravy. Now add the cooked meat, the mushrooms and the onion to the gravy. Taste and adjust the flavor with salt and pepper if needed.

Carefully place the pasteitjes on a plate, fill with ragout, sprinkle with some parsley if you want and serve!

Honingkoek

Breakfast is always a treat in Holland. The amount of cold cuts is amazing, the cheese is fabulous and the large variety of breads always makes it difficult to choose from. If you're not in the mood for bread, you can pick a Dutch rusk, beschuit, a cracker or a large slice of Dutch "breakfast cake" or ontbijtkoek.

Ontbijtkoek is a cake-like quick bread, soft, sweet and with a variety of spices and flavors. The enticing mix of cinnamon, ground cloves and nutmeg is the basis for a large variety of different breads: ontbijtkoek is also known as peperkoek if it also contains a snuff of white pepper, honingkoek if it has an additional amount of honey, gemberkoek if the cake is studded with candied ginger or kandijkoek when the top of the cake is covered in sugary pearls.

Not all ontbijtkoeken are solely consumed for breakfast.  The koek can be sliced and eaten by itself, dry, or improved with a dab of real butter as a snack, or with a cup of coffee. Children will often get a slice to hold them over until dinner, and a popular game at birthdays and national celebrations is "koekhappen", cake nipping. Thick slices of ontbijtkoek are individually suspended on a larger rope, so that they dangle right above the heads of the, sometimes blindfolded, children. Adults on either side of the rope will lower the koek until right above the children's heads who, in order to get a bite out of the cake, have to jump up and nip at the delicacy. First one to finish the koek is declared the winner! The Dutch company Peijnenburg, famous for its koeken, uses koekhappen in most of their commercials: this one is still my favorite!

This morning I was in the mood for honingkoek. It's an easy cake to bake, it fills the house with lovely smells and it's a perfect afternoon snack for later. If you have all the ingredients, this cake can be on your breakfast table in the time it takes you to get the newspaper, make a pot of coffee and toast the bread.

This recipe is for an 8 x 4 inch loaf pan: double the recipe and you'll be able to bake two (save one in the freezer for later!), or bake a larger koek in a 9 x 5 loaf pan. If you do, stick to one egg, and increase your baking time to 50 minutes.

Honingkoek
2 cups self-rising flour (300gr) or two cups regular flour and 2 tsp baking powder)
1/2 cup (75 grams) brown sugar 
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground aniseed (optional)
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup of honey (75 gr)
1 cup of milk (120 ml)
1 egg

Grease an 8 x 4 cake pan. Preheat oven to 350F. Add all the dry ingredients to a bowl and mix together. Set the mixer on low and add the wet ingredients, one at a time. Scrape the sides of the bowl once or twice. Mix until you have a smooth batter, approx. 2 minutes. Pour the batter into the pan, bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let the ontbijtkoek cool on a wire rack, then slice and serve with butter. Best saved in a plastic bag at room temperature, will keep for several days.

Erwtensoep

This morning, when I looked out the window, there was snow on the mountains, and the temperature had dropped significantly overnight. Seeing the snow and smelling the crisp air all of a sudden made me crave erwtensoep, a comforting Dutch split pea soup. It's no wonder that this soup is served when people take their new year's dip in the North Sea each January 1st - it is a stick-to-your-ribs kind of soup, hearty, comforting and provides plenty of fuel.

Split pea soup can also be found for sale in "koek-en-zopie" shacks on, or next to, the frozen canals and lakes. These shacks sell hot soup, mulled wine, coffee and cookies - a great way to warm up after a fun day on the ice!

Snert, another name for erwtensoep, is a popular dish in Holland, and will often be quoted as THE Dutch soup. As of February 2019, it has even been added to the list of Dutch intangible cultural heritages! But as popular as it may be, pea soup has been around much longer than we have, and many cultures have a version of soup made with peas. In our case, the soup features smoked pork meat and tends to be thick - in fact, so thick that a wooden spoon can stand up straight without falling over!

The soup can be served for lunch as the main dish, or as a starter. It is often served with dark rye bread and bacon on the side, or in this case, with plain pancakes. For a more exotic twist, people will sometimes serve erwtensoep over rice, with a lick of sambal or sriracha sauce and fried onions on top. If you're not in the mood for pancakes, and don't feel like rye bread, try the rice sometime!

This basic recipe is ready in less than an hour. The pork can come in a variety of ways: bacon, kielbasa, smokies, smoked neck bones.....You can chose only one, or combine two, but flavorwise, it's best to have at least one smoked meat product in there. I personally like a smoked rope sausage and two pork chops. Makes enough for four generous servings.

Erwtensoep

2 cups split peas (450 grams)
7 to 8 cups water (1.6 to 1.8 liters)
2 medium carrots, peeled
2 ribs celery (or one cup diced celery root)
1 small onion, peeled
2 bay leaves
Black pepper, optional
Pinch of salt, optional
About 12 little smokies, and/or a smoked rope sausage, rookworst, thick bacon, or pork chops.

Rinse the split peas and remove anything that doesn't belong (stones, sticks, dried up discolored peas...). Put the peas and 7 cups of water in a soup pot. Chop the vegetables and add to the peas. Bring to a boil, add the bay leaves, then turn down the heat and simmer for about 40 minutes. Make sure the soup does not burn so give it a stir every now and then - and add some water if you feel the soup is getting too thick.

If you are using smoked pork chops, or neck bones, simmer them with the soup for a good twenty minutes, then remove and shred the meat. Add the meat back to the soup.

When the peas are soft, remove the bay leaf and either puree the soup with a stick blender or just stir the soup several times vigorously. The peas will dissolve and give it a creamy consistence. Stir in the little smoked sausages or the kielbasa (slice before adding), and heat the soup back up until the meat is hot. Taste the soup, and adjust the salt level if needed. Add a dash of black pepper, if you like.

This is an easy, quick solution for when you come home and want a filling, comforting soup. I always keep a pack of little smoked sausages or a kielbasa in the fridge just for that. Split peas do not have to be soaked in order to cook quickly so you can have this soup on the table in less than an hour.

Pancakes
1 1/2 cup (225 grams) flour
1 1/2 cup milk (350 ml)
2 eggs
Pinch of salt
2 tablespoons butter (± 30 grams), melted but not hot

Butter to fry

Mix the flour, milk, eggs into a batter and add the salt, and the two tablespoons of butter. Cover and rest for thirty minutes. Heat a frying pan, on medium temperature. Melt one tablespoon of butter and add 1/2 cup of batter.  Flip the pancake when the bottom is golden and fry the other side. Makes six to 8 pancakes. Store under tea towel or pan lid to keep soft.

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Boerencake met appel en kaneel

 I don't know why we tend to add the prefix "boeren" (farmers) to food items that are larger than usual. Boerensoepgroenten (yes, that is a word!), or farmers soup vegetables, are the same vegetables as the traditional soepgroenten that consist of carrots, leeks and celeriac, but cut in larger chunks. The same with "boerencake": it's like any other cake, just larger. Odd. Maybe it's because the Dutch farmers work hard and need to eat more food?

On Sunday, my dear friend Naomi brought over a bucket full of apples to process. I ate some, baked with several others and am dehydrating the rest. Since the weather looks just like a typical Dutch fall weather (cold, rainy, dark) and I have not much else to do but watch the apples dry, I decided to bake a golden boerencake with some apples and cinnamon to bring a little bit of light into the kitchen. It worked!

It is important that your ingredients are at room temperature as it will improve the texture of the cake.

Boerencake

2 sticks minus 1 Tablespoon (200g) butter
1 cup (200g) sugar
4 eggs
pinch of salt (if butter is unsalted)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup (200g) all-purpose flour

1 heaping teaspoon (6 grams) baking powder

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

2 small-ish apples(approx. 0.5 lb/250 grams), or 1 big one
1 Tablespoon coarse sugar

Cream the butter and the sugar until they've formed a cohesive, fluffy mass. Break two eggs, and add them one by one, until absorbed into the batter. In a separate bowl, set one tablespoon of the flour aside, and mix the rest of the flour with the baking powder and the cinnamon. Add half of the flour mix to the batter, fold it in, then add the remaining two eggs, one at a time, and the rest of the flour and mix until you have a lovely, thick batter.

Peel and core the two apples. Dice 1 apple, dice half of the other, and slice the remaining half into thin slices. Toss the diced apple with the tablespoon of flour and fold it into the batter. Grease and flour a 9 x 5 (+/- 22 cm) cake form, and spoon the cake batter into the form. Stick the sliced apples in the top, about halfway down into the batter, in a pleasing pattern (I like a herringbone pattern). Sprinkle the tablespoon of course sugar over the top, and bake the cake on the middle rack in an 350F (175C) oven, for about 45 minutes or until golden, and a toothpick comes out clean. Cool before slicing.

Boerenkool met worst

It looks like it froze for the first time last night. Bad news for the garden's summer vegetables, but this is the time that other veggies benefit from cold nights, like kale. The Dutch have a very solid and varied repertoire of winter dishes: solid in the sense that they many consist of the culinary trinity (meat, vegetables and potatoes) and varied because well....because there is scarcely a vegetable the Dutch don't add to their famous "stamppot".

Literally meaning 'stomped pot", stamppot is a dish that consists of boiled potatoes mashed with a raw or cooked vegetable. The meat is either served on top, on the side or cut into small pieces and mixed in. If the choice of protein generates any type of pan juice or jus, it will be served in a small hollow made on top of the mashed potato dish, the so-called "kuiltje jus" (similar to a pothole in the road, but different).

Those that know me well will be surprised to see that I served up mashed potatoes with kale, a dish simply called "boerenkool", so named after the vegetable, farmer's cabbage or kale. There are few things in the food world that I don't care for, and one of them is boerenkool. Or was, I should say!

Somehow the American kale is not half as bitter as the Dutch one is, so after preparing this dish with Michiel for Idaho's Melting Pot, I was pleasantly surprised, enough even to go home and cook it for myself two days later. It's been a keeper ever since.

Kale is a dark-leaf vegetable that will add plenty of nutrition to your diet: it is riddled with vitamins and minerals and contributes plenty of protein. The butter and the kielbasa....not so much. But if you are looking for a healthier option, skip the butter and the milk, save the cooking liquid of the potatoes and vegetables instead. As you mash the vegetables, add a tablespoon of the warm liquid at a time until you reach the desired consistency.

Kale with kielbasa
3 bunches of kale (or 1 lb)
6 large potatoes
3 tablespoons of butter
1/2 cup of milk, warmed
1 smoked rope sausage
Salt
Black pepper

Cut the leaves off the stems and slice the leaves into narrow strips, then chop them into small pieces. Peel the potatoes, quarter them and place them in a Dutch oven. Add water to barely cover the potatoes, then put the kale on top. The amount of kale will look enormous compared to the potatoes, but the heat will wilt the leaves and reduce in volume significantly.

Cover the pot with a lid and bring to a boil. Boil on low/medium heat for about 20 minutes or until the potatoes are done. After the first ten minutes, take the sausage out of its packaging and place it, in one piece, on top of the kale. The heat and steam will plump up the sausage and bring it up to the necessary internal temperature.

Remove the sausage, pour off any cooking liquid that may remain and mash the vegetables with a fork or a potato masher. Add the butter and the milk (or for a less caloric version, add a little bit of the cooking liquid back in) and stir the whole into a creamy consistency. Taste, and adjust with salt and black pepper.

Slice the kielbasa into even sized slices, and place it on top of the stamppot. Serve with mustard if desired.

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Arretje's cake

During the early years, before and after the war, companies in Holland realized that one way of reaching into the tightly pinched pockets of the Dutch housewife was through the hearts (or the constant jengelen) of her children. Marketing companies invented mascots, fictitious people and fantasy figures to distinguish their company from other ones, and promoted their products in marketing materials such as booklets, cartoons, radio ads and even short movies. Especially the cartoons were very popular among the younger kids, and if you happened to own some, you could be assured of plenty of attention!

Flipje is sharing Betuwe goodies
with his friends.
Image from
www.levensmiddelenkrant.nl/

Piet Pelle was a fictitious young man who rolled into one exciting adventure after the other on his Gazelle bicycle. Flipje from the Betuwe, a fertile fruit growing region in the Netherlands, was something akin of a young man, with a human head, the body of a raspberry and limbs made out of currants. His head was adorned with a chef's hat and he would always end his adventures with a party, inviting everybody to eat copious amounts of jam, fruit juice and other fruit related products that, oh coincidence, all came from the Betuwe region. Joris Driepinter, Joe ThreePints, was the figure for the dairy industry, showing that by drinking three glasses of milk a day, you would have enough strength to even lift up a car. Okay.

Arretje Nof was another one of those concoctions of the marketing agencies. The Nederlandse Olie Fabriek (Dutch Oil Factory, or NOF) published regularly booklets about the adventures of a young Arab boy called Arretje-NOF. The cartoons could be purchased by saving coupons with points that were printed on the packaging of NOF products. Not many remember the cartoons but the one thing that, to this day, appears prominently in traditional Dutch desserts is the so-called Arretje's Cake.

The NOF board butchered a beautiful Italian recipe for chocolate salami, stripped it from all quality ingredients and replaced it with affordable items that were easy to find for the Dutch cook: margarine (which the NOF happened to produce in large quantities), dry cookies, sugar and cocoa powder instead of butter, luxury cookies and quality chocolate. Nevertheless, the Arretje's cake (presumably named because that's what Arretje celebrated his birthday with) became a huge success in Holland and has become one of those indelible memories of treats that grandmas make for, or with, their grandchildren.

Is it tasty? Most say that they love this no-bake cake. You can hardly go wrong with sugar, cookies, chocolate and butter. Try for yourself and see what you think! The original recipe calls for shortening, but margarine or even butter ("real butter" as the Dutch say) is more commonly used.

Our recipe includes raw eggs, but brings the batter up to 140F (60C) on the stove to make sure any pathogens are destroyed. Raw or undercooked eggs can be a safety risk. If you don't have a food thermometer, or want to be on the safe side, please use vanilla pudding or heavy cream as an alternative. Safety first!

Arretje's Cake
2 sticks butter (250 grm)
1 cup sugar (225 grm)
6 tablespoons cacao powder (40 grm)
2 eggs (or 1/4 cup of vanilla pudding or heavy cream)
2 oz dark chocolate
About 60 dry Maria cookies*

Melt the butter slowly in a sauce pan, until just melted, on low to medium heat. Mix the sugar and cacao in a separate bowl and set aside.

Beat the eggs well. Temper the eggs with some of the butter (pour in a little bit of the warm butter and stir into the eggs until it's incorporated) and keep adding the butter to the eggs until they're both mixed. Pour the mixture back into the sauce pan and take it back to the stove. Stir in the cocoa and sugar and keep stirring until they're blended into a thick chocolate sauce. Make sure all the sugar has dissolved. If you rub a little bit of the mixture between your thumb and index finger and it feels gritty, the sugar has not yet dissolved.

Grate the dark chocolate, or break it into small pieces and add it to the sauce pan. Keep stirring, and bring the temperature of the mixture up to 140F (60C) and keep it there, while stirring, for 3 1/2 minutes. If you are using vanilla pudding or heavy cream, you can skip this step. Just warm it up enough to melt the chocolate.

Take the sauce pan from the stove and let it cool a bit. In the meantime, add the cookies to a bag, or fold them into a clean towel, and roll your rolling pin over the cookies several times. You are looking to break the cookies into pieces no larger than a quarter.

Fold the cookies into the chocolate paste until they're all well covered. Line a cake pan with parchment paper or plastic film, spoon the mixture into the pan and flatten it with a spatula, making sure there are no air bubbles.

Cover and refrigerate for at least four hours, or overnight. Lift the cake out of the pan, and cut into thin slices. This cake is very rich!

* If you don't have Maria cookies, consider any other crisp cookie: iced oatmeal cookies, Oreos, or even Animal Crackers will work!

Bitterballen

In Holland, a night out on the town, or a social event with coworkers, usually starts out at a local café, with a beer and something called a "bittergarnituur". The word translates as the slightly confusing "garnish for bitters", where bitters in this case refers to alcoholic beverages. The Dutch were one of the first to dedicate themselves to perfecting the distillation process, presenting the world with spirits such as Dutch gin (jenever) and a large variety of liqueurs and bitters, these last ones presumably with medicinal properties. Nowadays, one of the most famous drinks is Ketel One, a Dutch vodka that is especially popular in the United States.

Alcohol is traditionally consumed with something savory on the side, and thus the bittergarnituur was invented. This colorful platter will usually contain bite-size cubes of Gouda cheese, miniature eggrolls and meatballs, perhaps some slices of salami or chorizo and of course, how can it not, the marvelous bitterballen.

Bitterballen are one of Holland's favorite snacks. In the early and mid-1900s, they were the housewife's perfect way to transform yesterday's meat leftovers into today's appetizer. Served shaped as a log (kroket) or in bite-size rounds, bitterballen were often served as an aperitif, or tapa, before lunch or dinner.

Nowadays, bitterballen are predominantly served outside the home, either as part of the bittergarnituur or as a snack on the side with a portion of French fries, but are no longer part of the housewife's culinary repertoire. Which is rather unfortunate, because bitterballen are easy to make and freeze beautifully for later use! 

This deep-fried, crispy, bite-size ball of meaty gravy is to be eaten with a good, savory mustard. Take the bitterbal between thumb and index finger, dip one side into the mustard and pop the whole thing in your mouth. No double-dipping! Bitterballen are also, presumably, best eaten while piping hot!

Bitterballen are traditionally made with beef, but can also be made with chicken, veal or even with mushrooms, for those that prefer a vegetarian option.

Bitterballen
1 stick butter (114 gr)

1 cup all purpose flour (120 gr)
3 cups beef stock (700 ml)
3 tablespoons onion, minced

1 tablespoon fresh parsley, minced
8 oz shredded and chopped cooked beef (250 gr)
Salt
Pepper
Nutmeg

For the breading
1/2 cup flour ( 60 grams)
2 eggs, beaten
2 cups bread crumbs (approx. 250 grams, depending on crumbs)

Make a roux with the butter and the flour (slowly melt the butter in a skillet or pan. When melted, add the flour little by little and stir into a thick paste). Slowly stir in the stock, making sure the roux absorbs the liquid and there are no lumps. Simmer for a couple of minutes on a low heat while you stir in the onion, parsley and the shredded, chopped beef. Bring it back up to heat while stirring.Taste, add pepper and salt and a pinch of nutmeg. Taste again and adjust if necessary.

Pour the meat gravy into a shallow container, cover and refrigerate for several hours, or until the gravy has solidified.

The mixture should be so thick that you can cut squares out of it. Take a heaping tablespoon of the cold, thick gravy and quickly roll it into a small ball. I weigh mine out at approx. 20 grams each, or .7 ounces. They can be a bit bigger, up to 23 grams, as long as they're all about the same.

Roll lightly through the flour, and put them back in the fridge while you prepare the next round of covering. Beat the eggs well. If you use panko, you may want to pulse them once or twice in the kitchen processor, or just squeeze it between your fingers, as some pieces tend to be fairly large.

Take the floured balls out of the fridge and rub them between your palms once more, if they need rounding a bit more, then carefully dip them in the egg on the tines of a fork. Make sure that the egg covers the whole surface of the bitterbal. (If it doesn't, the filling will spill out into the fryer and you will be left with a hollow shell, and a messy fryer!). Tap the fork on the rim of the plate to remove any extra egg, and then roll the ball through the bread crumbs. Set each ball aside on a plate.

*Optional: after breading them once, I personally prefer to pop them in the freezer for about half an hour, and then I egg and breadcrumb them again. This creates a slightly larger bitterbal, but with a thicker crust. 

If your kitchen is exceptionally warm, you could refrigerate them in batches of ten. But when all are done, refrigerate or freeze the snacks while the oil in your fryer heats up to 375F. If you are not planning on serving all 50 bitterballen, you can freeze them individually and then store them in a closed container in the freezer for later. There is no need to thaw them before frying.

Fry five to six balls at a time, until golden brown. Serve on a plate with a nice grainy or spicy mustard.

Makes approximately 50 bitterballen.