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!

Paastaart

Holland celebrates Easter in a similar way as it does Christmas, with two days. In the case of Easter, First Easter Day is always on Sunday, Second Easter Day is on the Monday following and is often a holiday.

The gathering of family and friends around the breakfast, lunch or dinner table is key on First Easter Day. Stores are closed, children are dressed in their "Paasbest" (Easter Best) with new clothes and shoes. Eggs are colored, hidden and if lucky, all found. If it's not celebrated with an extensive brunch with rolls like paashaasjes, bread toppings, a couple of warm egg dishes and large amounts of coffee, the family will get together for a late lunch or early dinner. Lamb is a traditional dish served for Easter.

Friends and family will also spend time enjoying each other's company over a cup or two of coffee or tea, and with that ofcourse comes something sweet: a Paastaart, or Easter cake. Decorated with fluffy whipped cream, a light biscuit batter and an adult amount of advocaat, this Easter cake will put a smile on your face.

Paastaart
4 eggs

3/4 cup (150 grams) granulated sugar
3/4 cup (100 grams) flour
1/4 cup (35 grams) corn starch
1.5 cups (375 grams) heavy whipping cream
4 tablespoons (30 grams) powdered sugar
yellow food coloring
chocolate easter eggs
1/2 cup (100 grams) chocolate hail
1 cup (235 ml) advocaat

Beat the four eggs with the sugar until foamy. The batter should drip off the whisk in a broad, thick ribbon. Preheat the oven to 320F/160C. Butter and flour an 8' (20 cm) spring form. Sift the flour and the cornstarch together and then carefully fold into the batter: do this carefully as you don't want to loose all the air.

Place the form into the oven and bake for about 25 minutes. Do not open the door of the oven the first twenty minutes as the cake will deflate.

In the meantime, beat the whipped cream with the powdered sugar. Add three or four drops of yellow food coloring while you are beating, if you want it to be yellow, but plain white will also do just fine. Remove the cake from the oven, let it cool and remove it from the form. Split the cake in half lengthwise and spread 1/2 the amount of advocaat on the bottom half. Replace the upper part. Spread the whipped cream on the side of the cake and generously on the top.

Use the chocolate sprinkles to decorate the sides of the cake. Pipe twirlie bits with the rest of the whipped cream on top and strategically place the chocolate Easter eggs on top. Pour the rest of the advocaat in the middle of the cake, refrigerate for at least 30 minutes and serve.

This cake contains alcohol and should be served to adults only! Vrolijk Pasen!!

Aspergesoep

"Aspergesoep is afvalsoep" I read somewhere on the internet, and I'd have to agree: asparagus soup is made with all the waste from an asparagus dinner. But what a soup! The sweet earthy flavor of the asparagus and the soft, silky mouthfeel is comforting but not heavy.

After you prepare asparagus for dinner, boil the skins and the end pieces in the remaining asparagus water, cover and simmer for a good thirty minutes, then put the liquid through a sieve. You should have about four to five cups of vegetable broth. Add half a bouillon cube of chicken stock to the broth.

Save four or five asparagus from dinner, and cut them into three or four pieces. Keep the heads and add the rest to the soup. Purée into a homogenous whole. Now melt two tablespoons of butter in a pan, add two heaping tablespoons of flour, stir until you have a paste and add in a ladle full of hot soup. Keep stirring and add one or two more ladles of soup...then pour everything into the big pot, stir until it all comes together and simmer it for another five minutes.

Cut up the remaining ham of your dinner in small dice, and chop some parsley. Taste the soup and adjust it with salt if needed, then stir in 1/4 cup of cream or whole milk. Divide the asparagus points over four bowls, ladle the hot soup on top, sprinkle with parsley and enjoy!

Asperges

"Cut here", my grandma said, pointing her knife at a seemingly random point in the sand. "Cut where?" I asked. I didn't see any difference between the area she indicated and the rest of the raised bed. Or any of the other 300 rows of sandy mounds we were standing amongst, for that matter. "Right here", she laughed, plunging the knife into the sandy soil and pulling up the biggest, whitest asparagus I had ever seen.

It was early Spring, and I must have been about 8 years old. My grandma Pauline had taken me to one of the many asparagus fields outside of the small town where I grew up in Limburg. During those early months, she would often join the asparagus harvesters out in the field to cut the growth for the day, and many, many days we enjoyed freshly cut asparagus, straight from the field.

White asparagus, contrary to the green ones that we are more accostumed to here in the US, grow below the surface in beds of loose sand. The moment their little heads see the light of day, the top hardens, changes color and alters its delicate flavor, so it's imperative that the vegetable is harvested right before surfacing.

Asperges are harvested from early Spring until June 24th. Brabant and the northern part of Limburg are the two areas that are famous for the quality, and the quantity, of its asparagus. During harvesting time, pretty much each village in the area will host an asparagus fest, feed or fair. The vegetable, nicknamed "white gold" because of the exorbitant prices it can fetch on the market, draws fans and foodies from far across the international borders.

The vegetable is easy to keep: wrap the stalks in a moist towel and keep it in the crisper for a couple of days. It also freezes fairly well: wash the asparagus, peel and pack them in a plastic bag, then freeze. When you are ready to cook, just remove the package from the freezer, unwrap the stalks and place the frozen vegetables straight into the boiling water.

White asparagus are traditionally served boiled, with eggs and ham, or with a Hollandaise sauce. They can be served cold, as a salad or starter, or warm as a main dish. Because of the whiteness of the vegetable, and being one of the first ones to show up on the table after a cold winter, asperges are a typical Easter dish.

Asparagus
1 lb of white asparagus
Water
Pinch of salt
4 eggs, hard boiled
1 tablespoon of parsley, chopped
4 slices of ham

Carefuly rinse the stalks, pat dry, and peel the asparagus with a vegetable peeler. The stalks are very fragile and will easily snap, so place them on a cutting board laying down, and while holding the stalk with one hand, peel the outer skin off, starting about 1/3 from the top. Cut about an inch from the bottom since that is usually a bitter, hard part. Don't throw the peels or the end pieces away, save them for asparagus soup. 

Put enough water in a pot that the stalks are barely covered, add the asparagus and bring to a boil. Depending on the freshness and size of the asparagus, it may take from 5 -20 minutes before the vegetable is cooked. It's ready to eat when the stalk is easily pierced with a fork.

In the meantime, remove the egg yolks from the boiled eggs and chop. When the asparagus are ready, take out of the water (keep the water for soup), drain for a minute and place the stalks on top of the ham on a serving platter. Decorate the white stalks with the chopped egg yolk, and sprinkle the chopped parsley over it. 

Saveur's Best Blog Award Nominations

 

Saveur, the top culinary magazine of America, is accepting nominations for their 2011 Best Blog Awards. If you enjoy reading this blog, please consider submitting it! It would be a great way to get the Dutch kitchen on the culinary map.

Here's the link: http://www.saveur.com/article/Kitchen/Nominations-2011-Best-Food-Blog-Awards.

Thank you!
Nicole

Advocaat

A sweet lady emailed me the other day wondering if I could assist her with finding recipes for some typical Dutch beverages. That in itself is not so difficult, but when she mentioned they had to be alcohol-free....ah.....that was a bit tougher to do. We like our beverages, we do, but apparently, we also like to spike them with plenty of booze! 

An old-fashioned, traditional, and easy to make at home drink is advocaat. Presumably first known as a tropical colonial concoction made with avocados, upon return to the blistery Netherlands, people sought out a creamy replacement for the fatty fruit and chose egg yolks instead. Smart move! Somehow advocaat with creamed avocados doesn't sound as appetizing as eh...raw eggs. Okay. Never mind :-)

Advocaat is a thick, creamy sweet drink, more often eaten with a spoon than sipped, that is also popular as an ice cream topping, as a pie filling, or flavoring for whipped cream or ice cream. Advocaat as a drink, however, has an old-fashioned feel to it: it's considered an old people's drink, predominantly for "ladies-of-a-certain-age", as my friend Hans said, who like to have it served with a dollop of whipped cream on top and eat it out of a dainty glass with a small spoon. Often, at birthdays or other celebrations,  an "advocaatje" is offered to the (older) ladies whereas the (older) men get a "borrel", a small glass of Dutch gin, jenever.

Advocaat is served and sold year-round. I never cared much for the store-bought version as it has a distinct aftertaste. However, this homemade advocaat is delightful: it's creamy, sweet, with a hint of brandy and smooth with that whipped cream. Maybe I'm slowly but surely reaching "advocaat"-age. If it is, it's surely something to look forward to! 

With the plentiful offering of affordable eggs during the upcoming Easter season, you may want to take advantage of the egg avalanche and try this recipe. The advocaat will hold well while refrigerated for about a week and makes for an interesting and welcome present. In order to avoid any possible food safety issues, you may want to use pasteurized eggs, or make sure the temperature of the advocaat reaches close to 145F for at least 15 seconds before retiring it from the boiler.

Select a smooth brandy for advocaat

Advocaat
7 egg yolks
3 eggs
1 cup (200 grams) sugar
1 cup (250 ml) brandy or vodka*
Pinch of salt

Mix the egg yolks, eggs, and sugar in a mixer until foamy, about a good four to five minutes on medium speed. Pinch a little between thumb and index fingertip to see if the sugar has dissolved, as it should not feel gritty. Slowly pour in the brandy or vodka while you keep mixing on low. 

Get a double boiler going on the stove (a pan with boiling water in the bottom and a bowl or pan that fits snuggly on top, also called bain-marie), pour the eggy mixture in the top bowl or pan, and stir until the mixture thickens. It's the heat that thickens the eggs, not the stirring itself.

Pay close attention to the heat: if the double boiler gets too hot, the eggs may curdle and the alcohol will dissipate. Pull the bowl as soon as you've reached the 145F/62C temperature (food safety), and place the bowl in an ice bath if possible - it is important that the temperature drops quickly while you keep stirring. For a smooth consistency, you may choose to pour the advocaat through a fine sieve in case you have small lumps.

After you've reached the desired thickness (you're looking for a pourable, thick puddinglike consistency), pour the advocaat in a clean jar or container and refrigerate it overnight, or serve it warm over ice cream or pancakes.

Makes approximately three cups (700 ml) of advocaat. Use the egg whites to make meringue or schuimpjes.

*Alternatively, you can also use a flavored liqueur like vanilla or almond, to give it a different twist. If you are not fond of alcohol, make the recipe without, and flavor the advocaat with a few drops of non-alcoholic rum extract. If the custard is too thick, thin with a little bit of milk. Keep refrigerated. 

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Filet Americain

"You are going to do WHAT?!" my butcher exclaimed, wide eyed. I had just asked him to recommend a cut of beef for filet americain. He shook his head, so I explained to him that I wanted a tender piece of beef to grind up, mix in with some seasonings and then eat it on a bread roll. Raw. I had him nodding agreeably up to the "mixing in the seasonings" part. Up until there it all sounded like a precursor to a nicely grilled hamburger, which is what everybody else in line ahead of me was asking for. But when I told him I was going to let it sit for a while and then eat it raw, I lost him.

"So how do you cook it then?" he asked, not sure whether he heard me right. "Well, see, you don't cook it", I said, "you just mix it all together and eat it. With some crackers", I added, sheepishly, as if the addition of carbs would all of a sudden make the concept somehow sound more sane. "But how can you make sure nobody gets sick?" he then wondered out loud. Hmmm..."I don't know", I hesitated, "I guess I'm just making sure I buy good quality meat from you and keep my fingers crossed" and smiled nicely.

My butcher had nothing to say to that, so just nodded at the piece of wrapped top sirloin steak I was holding in my hand and said that it would do nicely.

Filet americain, or American filet, is a raw beef spread that is served on a roll for lunch, or on crackers as an appetizer. Not for the faint of heart, and most certainly not for anybody with a compromised immune system, or the elderly, children, pregnant women, it is however a much sought-after product and dearly missed by Dutch expats.

How the name came about is anybody's guess. It's a variation on the famous steak tartare, a dish supposedly named after the nomadic Tartars who roamed the plains of Russia. They were so busy running about and doing Tartar things that they did not have time to stop, cook and eat, so they consumed raw steak that they tenderized by putting it underneath their saddle for a day's ride. Nowadays, steak tartare is a patty of ground beef, topped with capers, an egg yolk, seasonings, and served tableside so that each guest can mix in the ingredients themselves and adjust it to taste.

In the early days of the 20th century this dish was called "steak a l'Americaine", steak the American way. Why? Not sure. Maybe back then they figured that our cowboys were as busy as the Tartars, and ate their steak raw. With capers and an egg yolk. Yeah, somehow I don't see that happening. But either way, one thing turned to another and the steak a l'Americaine was born, dubious past included.

Filet americain is a ground up version of the steak tartare: beef, seasonings, capers, onions, and some mayo and mustard to bind it all together....it's ground into a paste and spread on a white crunchy roll, topped with some sliced or diced onions and a few capers by choice.

CAUTION! PLEASE READ BEFORE PROCEEDING!
Before you make this dish, I want to warn you about the possible risk of foodborne illnesses. Raw meat can be dangerous to your health and as mentioned above, anybody elderly, young, pregnant, sick, etc etc, should really NOT eat this dish. Raw meat can be a source of foodborne pathogens such as E.coli or Salmonella, and eating raw meat can cause foodborne illnesses that may lead to serious illness or even death. If you decide to make this dish, you are on your own! I am just posting the recipe as a part of sharing about Dutch culture and food customs, but for pete's sake, don't make yourself sick.

Rubbing the meat with Worcestershire sauce which has a vinegar base will kill some of the pathogens, but not all. After cutting up the meat, clean the knife with hot water and soap and let it air-dry, clean your counter and use a different cutting board for the rest of the ingredients. Take care to not cross-contaminate any other food items and wash your hands frequently. Immediately refrigerate the meat paste after you've decided it's seasoned to taste. Refrigerate for at least an hour before consuming.

Filet Americain

1lb of sirloin steak
4 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon of capers
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of black ground pepper
4 medium sized crunchy dill pickles
3 tablespoons of diced red onion
3 tablespoons of mayo
1 tablespoon of mustard (optional)
Curry, paprika, garlic etc optional

Rub the steak on both sides with the Worcestershire sauce and let it sit for a minute or two. Then cut the fat off the meat and any silver skin, chop the beef in large chunks and place it in the food processor. Add the capers, salt, black pepper, chopped pickles, onion and mayo and grind to a paste. Taste. Adjust seasonings.
Refrigerate until use. Eat within four hours of preparing. Do not keep longer than 24 hours!

Uitsmijter

The Uitsmijter. The name evokes images of strength, courage and forceful endings. The word "uitsmijter" itself means "forcefully throw out" and can refer to a profession (bouncer at a nightclub), but in food speak, it's the name of a solid open-faced sandwich with meat, cheese and fried eggs. It's not a sandwich for dainty eaters or a peckish appetite. The Uitsmijter is here to deal with your hunger, with your need for food. It's the ruler of all sandwiches. It's a manwich. It's a ter-mi-na-tor......

In the south of Holland, where I grew up, uitsmijters would be served as the last "one for the road before we get thrown out" meal after a night of partying. Groups of friends would usually end up at someone's house late at night (or early in the morning) after the bars closed to wrap up the night with a warm, comforting meal in their stomach before going to bed. Many a parent has woken up to the smell of ham and eggs in the middle of the night, only to find a kitchen full of youngsters eating breakfast. That was often the point where the "throwing out" happened :-)

The Dutch will often have an uitsmijter for breakfast (on the weekends) or lunch. The sandwich is eaten with knife and fork and is a full meal. The great thing about it is that you can make this sandwich your own: you decide what bread, what cheese, what meat and how you like your eggs fried. It's all good!

Most often the choice of meat will be ham, if not specified, but uitsmijters can also be served with roast beef, pastrami, turkey, bacon or even just with cheese.

The eggs are usually served sunny-side up, over medium. If you order an uitsmijter for breakfast it's served by itself. As a lunch item, it usually comes accompanied with a small salad on the side or some greens to spruce it up.

Uitsmijter
2 slices of bread
Butter
2 slices of ham
4 slices of cheese
2 eggs

Put two slices of bread on a plate, and butter them lightly. Put the slices of ham on the bread, then the cheese. Add butter to a skillet and fry the eggs. If you want, you can also fry the ham. When the eggs are done to your liking, slide them on top of the cheese, add some salt and pepper and you're ready to go!

Broodbeleg



Pink and white "mice",
aniseed dipped in a sugary coating.
Each seed has a little stem that causes the
bread topping to look like a small
mouse...hence the name.

Holland, or the Netherlands, is one of the largest bread consumers of Europe. Many a tourist, when stepping inside a Dutch bakery, is surprised by the large amount of bread varieties. Two out of the three daily meals, breakfast and lunch, consist mainly of bread. As you can imagine, the variety of bread and the huge amount of sandwich toppings is not so much a luxury as a necessity.

On average, breakfast usually consists of two to 4 slices of bread, depending on whether you prefer open or closed faced sandwiches. The Dutch spread butter or margarine on their bread to hold on to the toppings. One sandwich will have a savory cover such as cheese, liver paté or sandwich meat, and the other one will have a sweet choice. From early on, Dutch children learn to eat the savory sandwich first, and save their appetite and creativity for the sweet one. Because it's not just jam or jelly that's available to the Dutch: in regards to bread toppings, they are the master decorators!

Koninklijke De Ruijter, in existence since 1860, is the main producer of bread toppings in the Netherlands. They carry a solid array of favorites and introduce every so often a new variety. The following bread toppings are by far the most favorite.

Chocolate Flakes

Children in Holland have it good: by liberally sprinkling chocolate hail or, as pictured here, chocolate flakes or vlokken on their sandwich, they can assure themselves of eating at least the equivalent of half a chocolate bar in one sitting. Chocolate vlokken come in dark chocolate, milk, white and a combination of all three. The cacao content is at least 39% on average, which makes it a sweet, sugary but also a quality kind of bread topping!

Chocoladevlokken were introduced in 1955, as the first chocolate product to decorate a slice of bread. Barely two years later, chocolate hail followed.

Pink Mice

"Pink mice" is the name of a sweet breadtopping that consists of pink and white sugar coated aniseed. Because of the seed stem, the shape often resembles that of a little mouse. Pink mice, or "roze muisjes" are traditionally served on a Dutch rusk when celebrating the birth of a girl. For a boy, it's blue and white mice, or "blauwe muisjes". The birth of royalty, such as a prince or princess, is celebrated nationally with orange mice, in reference to the name of the royal family, Oranje.

These nativity mice, as they were called, were the first product that was sold by De Ruijter in 1860.



Speculaas

Speculaas, or spice cookie, is a crunchy, buttery cookie made with cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, white pepper and cardamom. It's similar to the American windmill cookie but contains a larger variety and amount of spices. Traditionally a December treat, speculaas cookies are now available year round.

Straight out of the package, speculaas cookies are served with morning coffee or afternoon tea. After several days in the cookie jar, the cookies absorb moisture and soften and are no longer presentable to guests. This is when they become a desirable bread topping, especially for children. The softness of the bread, the slightly salty taste of the butter and the spicy sweetness of the speculaas cookie is a winning combination, and one that is engraved in many a Dutch child's memory. For a recipe for speculaaskoekjes, click here.

Chocolate Hail

The story goes that, after receiving several letters from a young boy imploring him to make a chocolate bread topping, Mr. De Ruijter introduced chocolate sprinkles, or in Dutch "chocolate hail", chocolade hagel, in 1957. The earliest advertisements from a company called Venz showed a boy and a girl, hiding from a chocolate hailstorm under a giant umbrella. These children were so smart as to have a slice of buttered bread: they stuck it out from under the umbrella, had their sandwich hailed on and enjoyed a buttered slice of bread with top notch chocolate!

Nowadays you will find dark chocolate and milk chocolate hail. In order to call chocolate sprinkles "chocolate" they have to have a cocoa content of at least 37.5%. The combination of salty peanut butter and sweet chocolate hail is one of the most favorite toppings for both children and adults.

Fruit Hail

Fruit, or sugar hail, combines three bright colors: orange (orange), pink (raspberry) and yellow (lemon) and is a sweet, crunchy, slightly powdery confection. It melts into the butter and leaves bright colors on your bread but the flavors are not distinguishable. Fruit hail was first introduced in 1928 and was an immediate success.

Initially, fruit hail had four colors: the aforementioned three and a white hail (anise). In later years, the white hail was separated from the colored sprinkles and received its own packaging and product line as anise hail. In 2003, De Ruijter introduced a new fruit hail, the Berry Hail, made with berry juices and in the colors purple, pink and fucsia.

Fruit hail was the first bread topping that De Ruijter exported to the Dutch soldiers in Indonesia, in 1946.

Stroop

Stroop, or syrup, is a sweet, sticky spread made from reduced apple juice. Boiled down to a sticky, dark goo, apple stroop is favored on bread and on pancakes and in flavoring certains meat sauces such as "zuurvlees" or rabbit. Of all the bread toppings, it's probably a little bit healthier as it is said to contain iron and vitamins. Stroop is pleasant by itself as a topping but will often be used in combination with cheese.

Stroop is traditionally made in the province of Limburg where, nowadays, only two families have continued the tradition of "stroop stoken", "boiling down stroop". A lengthy process, apple and pear juice is reduced in large copper kettles while stirred down continuously. A more tart version called "rinse appelstroop" is made with apples and sugar beets.


Crushed Mice

Gestampte Muisjes, or crushed mice, is another variation on aniseed bread toppings.  The anise hail that was mentioned under fruit hail is now pulverized and presented as a white, powdery substance. Bread with a thin layer of butter and dusted with gestampte muisjes is delicious but certainly messy to eat. Do not inhale when you are about to take a bite, the light powder will get in your throat and cause you to cough! Gestampte muisjes are a key ingredients in a variety of baked goods of which the most famous one is Oranjekoek.



And the most humble bread topping of all:

Contentment

Holland has certainly known hard times, especially during and after WWII. Little food was there to eat but for the white bread loaves of American and Canadian relief agencies. Sandwiches, or slices of bread, were served with the bread topping "tevredenheid", contentment. A single slice of dry bread reminded the Dutch that, even though these were rough times, they could still imagine bread was topped with something.

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• De Ruijter Hagelslag
• De Ruijter Anise Sprinkles (Muisjes), Pink
• De Ruijter Anise Sprinkles (Muisjes), Blue
• Sprinkles Ground Aniseed (Gestampte Muisjes) 
• De Ruijter Fruit Sprinkles (Vruchten Hagel)
• De Ruijter 8 Kleintjes Mini Box

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Broodjes: The Dutch Sandwich

Sign offering 30
different sandwiches

I just finished reading this month's issue of Saveur, a high quality magazine dedicated to all things food. It is one of my favorite monthly reads, with articles that focus on eats from all over the world, exotic recipes within reach and writers that offer great cultural backgrounds on dishes, traditions and tools. This month's cover boasts "90 Handheld Meals From Around The Globe" and an article about "World's Best Breads and Condiments": it's the Sandwich Issue. 
 
With the huge variety on sandwiches (broodjes) and bread toppings we have in Holland, I was convinced we would be mentioned at least in one, if not in both articles. After all, the sandwich plays such an important role in the Dutch food culture that there are not one but two national Tastiest Sandwich of the Year competitions. Holland, or the Netherlands, is one of the largest bread consumers of Europe. Many a tourist, when stepping inside a Dutch bakery, grocery store or sandwich shop, is surprised by the large amount of bread varieties and toppings to choose from. But for a country where two out of three meals mainly consist of bread, the variety is not so much an option as a necessity.

Broodje shrimp

Sandwiches are therefore par for the course. Many people bring lunch from home in a small lunchbox or eat at a neighborhood sandwich shop or the company's cafetaria. A typical Dutch lunch will consist of a whole wheat sandwich with cheese or meat, a white sandwich with a sweet topping and a piece of fruit or a small yogurt to round off the meal. Boring? Not with all the choices one has to spruce up a slice of bread!

Did they cover the bread toppings? I wondered. Well, heck, how can you not? Whole grocery store aisles are dedicated to just that, ranging from sweet to savory and anything inbetween. "I bet you they featured mice" I thought, those crunchy sugar-coated anise seeds that resemble the shape of rodents, with their little tail pointing upward. Or maybe coconut bread topping, those thin sheets of hot pink coconut paste that so many of us loved when we were young.



Chocolate hail and flakes

 But that might be too exotic. Maybe they played it safe and only covered the chocolate hail and the flakes. Or the fruit hail, jellybellies, pink or blue mice. Or maybe they didn't cover sweet at all, maybe they only featured savory spreads. A broodje oxen wurst perhaps, or filet americain, pickled liverwurst, raw herring, shrimp, frikandel, warm sliced meat, or kroket? Broodje bal? Smoked eel?

Or perhaps a cheese sandwich? But which cheese? Gouda, Edam, graskaas, meikaas, Old Amsterdam, Maaslander, Parrano, Westland or Waddenkaas? My head was spinning just thinking about all the different options and I felt bad for those Saveurders who would have to try and make sense out of all of this.

The Dutch Uitsmijter

But guess what? Not a word. Not one mention of hail, halfom or herring. Not even a hint on Holland's Sandwich of all Sandwiches, the Uitsmijter. I went through the magazine twice, just to make sure I didn't miss it by accident. The closest we came is the mention of a Dutch crunch roll on page 46, which is supposed to resemble a tiger roll.

It's a little bit our own fault of course. We don't half brag about our food like other countries do and it's almost like we're too humble to mention it. But maybe it's not that we're too humble, perhaps we just don't know where to start!

So to set things straight, and to get our fabulous Dutch food on the map after all, I'm suggesting these additions.

Global Sandwiches Agenda (pg 18)
On June 11, Holland celebrates Luilak, a centuries old tradition predominantly popular in the northern part of the country. Youngsters mock late sleepers and try to prevent anybody from sleeping in on this Saturday morning by ringing doorbells, honking car horns and tying pots and pans to the back of their cars and bicycles and making a huge racket. Bakers prepare luilakbollen, a sweet round roll with raisins and currants, as a specialty for the day. Whomever wakes up last is supposed to treat the family to luilakbollen.

Zebras

Regional Rye Breads (pg 36)

Rye bread is one of Holland's favorites bread choices. The sturdy, coarse slices of roggebrood are used as sandwich covers (wheat bread on the bottom, sandwich topping in the middle and roggebrood on top) or for those pretty, tasty breadbites called zebras: alternate layers of softened cream cheese flavored with fresh chives between moist slices of rye bread.

Friesland's roggebrood is darker and is made with whole rye kernels, Brabant's and Limburg's roggebrood is made with rye flour instead and not as dense. Split-pea soup is traditionally accompanied by slices of roggebrood.


Give Us Bread (pg 46)

Dutch Crunch, or tiger rolls

Thirty breads from all over the world grace these two pages but no Dutch loaf made it onto the list. What about our tiger roll, Frisian sugar loaf, white rolls, raisin rolls, casino bread, Waldkorn.......there are too many to mention! We're so bread-happy in Holland, it's hard to choose. See for yourself how many varieties there are, even per province: http://www.brood.net/default.asp?id=851&pid=streekbrood

Sandwich City (pg 48)
The magazine covered the city of Philadelphia, but it could have easily chosen Amsterdam instead. Home to a large variety of sandwich shops, Amsterdam can also brag about having the largest variety of sandwich toppings that are unique to the city: broodje halfom ( a white roll with two slices of Dutch pastrami and four slices of thinly sliced liver sandwich meat), broodje osseworst (a raw oxen meat sausage, cold smoked, and spiced with salt, white pepper, nutmeg and mace), broodje kroket (either Van Dobben or Kwekkeboom), broodje Sal Meyer, broodje warm vlees, broodje gezond.....The list goes on.

Special Treats (pg 52)
This is the spot for all those sweet Dutch bread toppings! Hagelslag, gestampte muisjes, vruchtenhagel, schuddebuikjes.....

Classic Combination (pg 54)
Ah....the all too famous combo of ham and cheese. The French have their Croque Monsieur and the Dutch have their Uitsmijter. Two slices of bread, butter, ham, cheese and two fried eggs on top. A little bit of lettuce, some pickles and a tomato on the side, this open-faced sandwich is the Kingwich under the sandwiches. Traditionally a lunch item, and fancy enough to be eaten with knife and fork, the uitsmijter gained its name from being served as a "one for the road" after a night of partying. In order to indicate that the night was over, the host would get busy in the kitchen and prepare ham, cheese and fried egg sandwiches and send everybody on their way. Uitsmijter literally means "throw out".

Nuts about It (pg 60)

Where is a mention of the ubiquitous peanut butter and chocolate hail Dutch sandwich? A standard for all kids, and many adults, the combination of salty peanut butter and sweet chocolate is sheer heaven. Bet Elvis never had one of those!

Finishing Touches (pg 76)

What better than a lick of appelstroop on a cheese sandwich......the slightly tart flavor combined with a dense sweetness, Appelstroop, a thick syrup made from reduced apple juice and sugar, is a staple in the Dutch kitchen. Its tangy, sweet flavor adds dimension to sandwiches, is used to flavor meat stews such as zuurvlees and is the number one choice of topping for those big cartwheel-sized Dutch pancakes.

Nevertheless, Saveur's Sandwich issue was a good one. Wonderful sandwich ideas, great pictures, lovely breads and educational articles.....enough for this Dutch girl to sit and savor each page!

Puddingbroodjes

I've had several people asking me when I was going to make puddingbroodjes, a sweet roll filled with a vanilla cream pudding and dusted with powdered sugar.

I don't have much with these rolls. As a solid bread lover, the roll is too fluffy and too sweet for me, but these rolls are a huge favorite with the Dutch. Also called roombroodjes, cream rolls, they often show up at coffee time or on special occassions.

The puddingbroodjes fall in the same category of messy, drippy and powdery pastries like the tompoes or the Bossche bol. You'll either have a dab of cream on your face, powdered sugar on your nose or worse, on your black suit. Heed caution! I sometimes wonder if half of the desserts we have in Holland are not purely based on our schadenfreude sense of humor and affection for practical jokes.

Nevertheless, here goes. There are two ways of making this: you either buy store-bought rolls and store-bought pudding and assemble the dessert at home, or you bake it from scratch. The recipe below is for you let's-make-it-from-scratch people.

All others, find a nice sweet Hawaiian type roll, buy a package of instant vanilla pudding, some whipping cream, powdered sugar and a gallon of milk. Whip the cream with the pudding powder until it's sturdy enough to hold if you want a fluffier cream, or just plain make the pudding per manufacturer's instructions, split the rolls on top, fill with the cream or pudding, dust generously with powdered sugar, pour yourself a glass of milk, kick back and relax while the rest of us wait for the dough to rise (and rise again, and again) and fret over burning our pastry cream.

Maybe you can offer us one of your puddingbroodjes while we wait for ours :-)

Puddingbroodjes
2 1/2 cups of flour (500grm)
1 cup and two tablespoons of milk (250ml), warm
1/2 stick of butter (40gr)
2 tablespoons of powdered milk
1/3 cup of sugar
1 teaspoon of salt
2 teaspoons of active dry yeast

Melt the butter in the warm milk. Mix all the dry ingredients, add the warm milk and knead into a sweet, supple dough. Oil a bowl, add the dough and turn over: cover and rise until doubled in size. Punch down, knead once or twice carefully, and rise again. Cut in eight pieces, roll into round or elongated shapes. Grease a baking pan, place the rolls in it and let rise one more time. Heat the oven to 400F, brush the rolls with milk and bake in about 15-20 minutes. Cool on rack.

Pastry Cream
1 cup of milk
1 tablespoon of pure vanilla essence (or 1 vanilla bean)
3 egg yolks
1/4 cup of sugar
1/4 cup of flour

Warm the milk, add the vanilla bean and steep for 15 minutes. Mix the egg yolks with the sugar, add the flour, one tablespoon at a time. Stir until creamy.

Take the vanilla bean out of the milk, open it up and scrape out the seeds (or add the vanilla essence to the milk) and stir. Take one tablespoon of warm milk and stir it into the egg yolk mix, then stir in the rest of the flour. Carefully stir all this back into the warm milk into the pan, put it back on a low heat and stir until it becomes a thick mass. Take off the stove and cover with a piece of plastic, to avoid forming a skin when it cools down.

When the rolls have cooled, make an incision along the top length of the roll and pipe the pastry cream inside, adding a decorative strand across the top. Dust with powdered sugar, grab a napkin and a glass of milk and enjoy!

Haringsalade

Holland celebrates its yearly Carnaval season this week. As a traditionally Catholic festivity, it is held in the southern provinces of the country, such as Limburg, Brabant, Gelderland, and even Zeeland. The northern Protestant areas tend to do a lighter version, if at all, but still haven't quite gotten the hang of it yet :-).

The south sure makes up for it! Being the more lively half of the country, children and adults will dress up in costumes, parties are held at schools and work and the whole bottom half of the country is pretty much out of the running during these last carnaval days. For those party-poopers that wish to escape all lunacy, ski destinations are especially popular during this time of year. As you may remember, Holland has no mountains, so the Dutch flee en masse to hillier countries such as Switzerland, Norway, and Austria. Ski away!!

Carnaval organizations from various cities in the south will select a theme and organize parades with huge floats with which they reflect on important local events, make fun of political happenings or represent their organization, guild or sports club, each in their own distinct dialect. Most places will also adopt a different name during these last five days before Lent: the city of Den Bosch is now known as Oeteldonk, Breda becomes Kielegat and my own Venlo is now called Jocus. The city of Sittard, now 't Marotte Riek, is well known for its deep-fried Carnaval donut called nonnevot. 

The word Carnaval presumably originated from the Latin "carne vale", something akin to "farewell meat", as this period precedes Ash Wednesday, the first day of the forty days of Lent, a period of sobriety and penitence. Carnaval, therefore, is the last stop to indulge in all things human: food, drink, dance, and God knows what else. The official Carnaval period starts on November 11 (the number attributed to fools), the eleven of the eleventh, and reaches its climax during the weekend before Ash Wednesday.

But as it is, all good things come to an end, and when Ash Wednesday comes around it's time to regroup, repent and retreat. After partying for five days straight, people go back (to their own) home, wash the makeup off their face, remove the confetti from their hair, and put away their costumes. After so many indulgences, in Limburg it is traditional to celebrate the end of Carnaval, and the beginning of Lent with haringsalade, a pickled herring salad. Beets, potatoes, pickles, apple, and herring make a creamy, slightly tangy dish that is refreshing, nourishing, and makes up for the lack of meat. Eaten preferably with buttered cold toast, it's a good way to put up your feet, relax and mentally prepare for next year's Carnaval. After all, November 11th is only nine months away......

Haringsalade

1 small jar (12oz/340 grams) pickled herring (in sour cream or white wine sauce)

2 medium beets, boiled and peeled

1 large potato, boiled and peeled
1 large apple, crisp
6 tiny dill pickles
1 tablespoon capers
1 small shallot or onion
2 tablespoons mayonnaise

Four slices of white bread
Butter

Dice the beets and potato. Peel and core the apple, then dice these as well. Chop the shallot or the onion, do the same with the dill pickles. Fish (no pun intended) the herring pieces from the jar, and cut them in half. Add two tablespoons of mayo to the remaining liquid in the jar, mix and toss carefully with the rest of the ingredients into a creamy salad until the beets have colored everything a purplish red. Add additional sour cream or mayo if the salad needs it.

Toast the bread, let it cool, and butter on one side. Cut in two or three pieces and serve with the salad.

 

Witte bolletjes

Our love for all things bread started early, around 4500BC, when a tribe of growers settled in the valley of southern Limburg and started growing grain. Slowly the grain selection expanded as wheat came in from France and rye from the German neighbors, causing a variety of breads, porridges and puddings to make their way onto the Dutch table.

The best soil for growing grains was (and still is) in the province of Zeeland, already famous for its quality flour in the twelfth and thirteenth century. Other provinces such as Friesland, Groningen and even Northern Holland tended to have a wetter soil and proved more beneficial for pasture land than cropland. Those provinces were often dependent on the import of grains from neighboring countries.

Besides wheat and rye, the Dutch also grew combinations of grain. Masteluin, a mixture of rye and wheat, provided the basis for a bread of the same name. Rye mixed with oats was called mancksaet and rye with barley spilkoren. All these grain mixes provided heavy, chewy, dark bread, that fed the masses of hard workers. White bread was limited to the wealthy and was nick-named "professor's bread" in the city of Leiden, birthplace of the first university in Holland in 1575, indicating that only the educated and affluent people were able to afford it.

Bread is a common theme in Dutch etymology. "Wittebroodsweken", or "white bread weeks", refers to the honeymoon period, those first six weeks after the wedding when a couple is still enjoying the festive and unique character of the celebration.

White rolls are used for broodje frikandel or broodje kroket, for lunch boxes and to grace the table on a sunny Sunday morning for breakfast. Elongated breads, called puntjes, are the hotdog bun by choice or serve as the foundation for a puddingbroodje. Round ones, bolletjes, hold savory slices of cheese and tomato, juicy sheets of roast beef with slices of red onion, or peanut butter and hagelslag...... Such a simple bread, and yet so versatile. Makes 12 rolls.

Witte bolletjes
4 cups (600 grams) all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons (15 grams) salt
1 teaspoon (5 grams) sugar
1.5 cups (350 ml) milk
2 teaspoons (8 grams) active dry yeast
4 tablespoons (55 grams) butter, room temperature

For the wash
1 small egg
4 tablespoons milk

Mix the flour, salt and sugar in a mixing bowl. Warm the milk to about 120F/40C, add the butter and set aside to melt. Sprinkle the yeast over the dry ingredients in the bowl, and mix in the warm milk and butter. Knead the dough for a good ten minutes, until the dough is well mixed and pliable but holding together and smooth. Place in an oiled bowl, cover and let rise until almost doubled in size.

Brush the risen rolls before
they go into the oven

Punch down and divide into 3oz (85 grams) rolls. Grease a 9 1/2″ x 13″ (24 x 33cm) baking pan or add a silicone baking mat or parchment paper, and place the rolls in the pan, leaving about an inch of distance in between in the rolls. If you want high rolls, keep the inch, if you want flatter rolls, increase the distance. Cover and let rise until doubled in size.

Brush the rolls with the egg/milk wash, bake at 375F/190C for about twenty minutes, or until done (internal temperature is 190F/85C and rising. Remove pan from oven, set aside and place the rolls on a rack to cool. When cooled, wrap to avoid drying out.

Now slice open a roll, smear with butter  and add some good cheese or sandwich meat and enjoy this little luxury!