Zuurvlees

One of the drawbacks of living abroad is missing out on favorite foods. Sometimes it's not the food itself as much as the memory or the experience of eating it, and with whom. One such foods is "friet zuurvlees", a portion of french fries covered in a thick, sweet and slightly tangy beef stew. As soon as the smell hits me, I am transported back to two different places in time: one place is my grandma Pauline's small kitchen in Blerick, and the many, many times we sat at her table and ate this dish. The other place is, oddly enough, the Waterlooplein flea market in Amsterdam, where on Saturday mornings my friend Andy and I would often hit the patatkraam, a small stand that sold sodas, ice creams and french fries, to get a portion of zuurvlees with our fries.

Finding zuurvlees in Amsterdam is a treat in itself, as the tangy, sweet and tender beef stew is a traditional dish from the south of the Netherlands, more specifically from the province of Limburg. Traditionally made with horse meat, the current versions more than often uses beef instead.

Any southern frietkraam worth its name will offer "friet zuurvlees", preferably a homemade zuurvlees. Especially the city of Maastricht is famous for it, so as soon as the opportunity arose I took off to the Markt where I was told I could get a fantastic sample of my favorite food. Well.......not so much. The sauce was thin and riddled with dark specs, which I have yet to identify, and the flavor was off: not sour, not sweet.....it just tasted like a canned, watered-down version of the real stuff.

So, I figured it was time to hit the pots and pans again and make grandma Pauline's zuurvlees: nice chunky pieces of beef, and a thick gravy that clings to every golden french fry on my plate. Yum!!

Zuurvlees
2 lb (1 kg) beef chuck roast, cubed
1 large onion, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup (125 ml) white or red wine vinegar, or red wine
2 cups (500 ml) water
2 bay leaves
5 black peppercorns
2 cloves, whole
2 tablespoons (30 grams) butter
1 tablespoon appelstroop
2 slices ontbijtkoek

Put the beef in a non-reactive bowl, place the slices of onion on top and cover with the vinegar or wine and the water. Add two bay leaves, the peppercorns and the two whole cloves, cover and marinate for at least four hours, but preferably overnight. Make sure to stir the meat once or twice during this time so that all pieces have an opportunity to marinate.

Separate the meat from the marinade, and remove and discard the peppercorns. Pat the beef chunks dry with a towel, and salt and pepper them. Melt the butter in a Dutch oven and brown the meat. Drain the onions and brown with the meat, then add the marinade. Bring back to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer until the meat is tender, a good hour or two.

Now stir in the appelstroop, break the ontbijtkoek in pieces and add it to the sauce. Slowly simmer until the ontbijtkoek has dissolved. Taste, and adjust the seasonings if necessary.

Serve hot over a plate of homemade patat and enjoy!

Vanillevla

Last week's recipe was hopjesvla, and I received great feedback on the blog, on Facebook and through email. Thank you all for your positive reactions, it looks like there are many vla-lovers out and about! Vla triggers childhood memories, as it is a comforting dessert, and one that is solidly engrained in Dutch culture. If you have been near, into, or grew up with Dutch cuisine, you have probably heard of, or even tasted, vla. It is the ultimate Dutch dessert.

But not everybody likes coffee, the predominant flavor in hopjesvla, so when I said I also tried a recipe for vanillavla, the requests came flying in. This is so easy to make, and tastes great. You probably  have all the ingredients at home already so let's get started! If you leave out the vanilla pod, you have the basic recipe for a simple vla: a great excuse to experiment with your favorite flavors. 

Vanillevla
1 vanilla bean
2 1/2 cups milk
3 tablespoons cornstarch
3 tablespoons sugar
2 egg yolks
1 tablespoon of vanilla extract
1 drop of yellow food coloring (optional)

Bring the milk to a simmer in a heavy saucepan. Slice the vanilla pod in half, lengthwise. Scrape the seeds from the pod and add both seeds and pod to the simmering milk. Leave it on a slow simmer on the stove for about ten minutes. Remove the pod.

Mix the cornstarch with the sugar and the egg yolks to a thick paste, stir in the vanilla extract. Add a tablespoon of warm milk to the mix, stir and repeat, as you want to bring the egg yolks up to temperature. Add a couple more tablespoons of warm milk, then stir everything into the saucepan. Bring up to heat, keep stirring until the vla thickens, about two minutes. (Taste to see if it's sweet enough or vanilla-ey enough, if not add a little bit more sugar or vanilla extract. Be careful though, it's hot!!!)

Take the saucepan off the stove. If you must have a supermarket yellow vla, stir in the drop of food coloring. If not, pour the vla a bowl and cover the top of the custard with food film: you don't want a thick skin to form as it cools. Let it cool, preferably overnight. Stir the vla with a spoon before serving. If it's too thick, add a tablespoon of milk at a time until you reach the right consistency. Enjoy it by itself, mixed with tangy yogurt or with fresh fruit. Lekker!

Hopjesvla

Vla is a dairy dessert that is so engrained in the Dutch kitchen, that you will find at least one or two packages of vla in every refrigerator. It's traditionally the most favorite dessert to finish a meal with, often poured into the same dish you were served your main course on (and some will say that the savory gravy leftovers on the plate will add that extra little "something" to the sweet vla), and eaten with a spoon.

Most often, people will have two or more favorite vlas: with a selection of over twenty flavors, it is easy to find several that you like. The most common flavors are of course vanilla and chocolate, but others like caramel, blanke vla (with a flavor that nobody has yet been able to define, it is simply called "white vla" or "blank vla", depending on how you interpret it), lemon, raspberry...you name it. Seasonal vlas include stoofpeertjes vla, or apple/cinnamon for the fall, and lighter ones, mixed with yogurt for the summer or spring.

But vla has always been one of those desserts that I didn't want to try and make at home: after all, how can you approach the flavor that has been carefully (and chemically) defined in dairy factories all over the country? Newer cookbooks don't mention vla anymore, but digging deep into the early and mid last century cookbooks brought up a few recipes. And I am so glad I did: it turned out to be much easier than I expected and definitely an improvement over any store-bought vlas!

Vla is, as far as I can tell, a typical Dutch dessert, and seemingly one of "recent" discovery. The cookbook of the Haagsche Kookschool from 1895 does not mention any vla: the closest recipe is one for vanilla sauce, but another cookbook, the Nieuw Praktisch Kookboek, first published in 1906 gives recipes for chocolate vla, vanilla vla and even almond vla. Hurray, the vla has been invented!!

And luckily for us, the coffee flavored candy Haagse Hopjes had been invented by then as well, so that the combination of flavor and dessert was just a matter of time......

Hopjesvla
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups milk
1/2 cup strong, black coffee
2 teaspoons instant coffee (optional)
3 tablespoons corn starch
2 egg yolks

Heat a saucepan with a heavy bottom and add the sugar. Watch carefully as the dry sugar turns liquid and slowly colors golden. Monitor your heat carefully as sugar will go quickly from golden to burnt!

Mix the coffee with the milk and stir well to dissolve the instant coffee granules. When the sugar has caramelized CAREFULLY pour half of the milk in the pan. The sugar will seize up and harden, but by stirring and bringing the milk up to a slow boil, the caramel will soften and eventually dissolve. Continue to stir.

In a separate bowl, mix the cornstarch with the two egg yolks and slowly add in the remainder of the coffee and milk. Now take a tablespoon of hot milk out of the pan and add it to the mixture, stir well and add another one. Do this three more times so that the egg/cornstarch mixture is up to temperature. Take the pan off the stove, and carefully stir in the egg mixture. Return the pan to the heat, and slowly bring up to boil, all the while stirring.

The vla will thicken in the next two to three minutes, and will be ready to take off the stove when it "gloops" i.e. air bubbles will come to the surface and instead of disappearing will leave small holes in the vla, making a "gloop" sound. That's the best I can describe it!

Pour the vla in a bowl, cover with plastic film to avoid the formation of a milk skin, and refrigerate until cold.

To achieve the pourable consistency, you may need to add a tablespoon or two of cold milk to the vla and stir it well before serving.

Poffert

Awwww.......it looks like the Elfstedentocht will have to skip another year. Again. The last time the Eleven Cities Tour race was skated (is that a verb?) was in 1997, and was won by Henk Angenent, a fine Brussel Sprouts grower from the province of South Holland. He finished the 200 kilometer race in 6 hours and 49 minutes and many a Dutch man, or woman, has been eager to beat his record since. But it looks like the weather is not cooperating this year either, so another year goes by without the excitement of Holland's largest speed skating event. Thankfully, there are still plenty of dishes from our northern regions to explore, so here we go!

The province of Friesland is proud of its province and its beautiful waterways, and it shows. As a matter of fact, the whole country is taking a larger interest in its own beauty, and several fantastic magazines dedicated to either outdoor living, backyard farming or covering certain regional areas have appeared on the store shelves.

During my visit this last January I came across one of those magazines, a beautiful publication called Noorderland. It covers the most northern region of the country, the provinces of Friesland, Drenthe and Groningen to be exact. Their winter photography of traditional Dutch landscapes was breathtaking, but what really got my attention was a gorgeous picture of a poffert. (Yeah I know, big surprise huh....what can I say!? I love Dutch food!!). The magazine itself was no longer on the shelf, but the editorial team was so kind as to send me a backcopy for which I am very grateful. Thank you, Noorderland!

The poffert, or boffert, is originally a northern dish. Not clear on whether it's originally from Friesland or Groningen, the poffert can also go by trommelkoek (tin cake) or ketelkoek (kettle cake), and is usually eaten as a meal, not as dessert or a coffee cake. It's heavy, thick and a real stick-to-your-ribs kind of baked good, but at the same time a fantastic and sweet discovery.

The Frisian cookbook "De Welkokende Vriesche Keukenmeid" from 1772 mentions the poffert and declares that the poffert is "zeer geschikt om op reis mede te nemen" (very suitable for traveling). And we're not surprised: besides being sturdy, it also holds well and becomes even better tasting after a day or two. Not to mention, whomever you will be visiting will be pleased to receive a slice or two!

While researching this recipe, I came across many different variations, as one can expect for a recipe that's been around for several centuries. The earlier mentioned cookbook adds six eggs to a pound of white flour, half a pound of melted butter, a spoonful of rosewater, a spoonful of yeast and some water. A later recipe adds raisins and apples. Other cookbooks suggest lining the cake pan with strips of bacon, then pouring in the batter so it becomes a more savory dish.

What most recipes agree on, though, is that the cake was meant to substitute a meal. No sugar is added to the initial batter, but the slices of bread cake are served with syrup, and if desired, some butter.

Poffert
1/4 cup dark raisins
1/4 cup golden raisins
3 each dried apricots
3 each dried figs
1 tablespoon preserved ginger
2 cups self-rising flour
3 egg yolks
3 egg whites
1 cup of milk
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons ground almonds (optional)
2 tablespoons brandy
2 tablespoons panko or breadcrumbs

For serving: pancake syrup, cinnamon sugar, powdered sugar

Soak the raisins in half a cup of water. Chop the apricots, figs and ginger and add them to the raisins, set aside to soak.

Add the flour to a mixing bowl and add three egg yolks, the milk, the butter and the salt. Mix well. Whip the egg whites in a separate bowl until stiff, and fold them in with the batter. Lastly, drain and squeeze the dried fruits, then fold them into the batter, together with the brandy.

Spray some baking spray into your poffert pan (if you don't have a poffert pan, you can use a bundt or angel food pan and cover the top with aluminum foil). Add the panko or breadcrumbs and toss them around in the pan until all sides, and the little pokey part in the middle, are covered. Do the same with the lid. Tap out the remainder of the breadcrumbs. Carefully pour the batter into the pan and close with the lid. Only fill the form to about 75% of its capacity, as the batter will tend to rise.

Insert the pan into another pan with hot boiling water, but keep the water level at about an inch, an inch and a half,  below the rim of the poffert pan. Put a trivet on the bottom of the pan so that the surface of the poffert pan does not immediately touch the bottom of the water pan. Put something heavy on top so that the poffert pan doesn't float or tilt. Add hot water as needed.

Keep at a rolling boil for an hour. Remove from the pan, carefully (watch out for steam!!) remove the lid and insert a food thermometer or skewer to see if the cake is done. If the skewer comes out clean, the cake is done. If not return it to the water pan and continue to boil for another twenty minutes.

When the cake is done, replace the lid and put the pan in a 375F oven, middle rack for another ten to fifteen minutes. This will brown the panko and the outside of the poffert.

Tip the pan on a cookie rack, cool until warm, then slice and serve with syrup, butter or cinnamon sugar. If you feel adventurous, tie on some skates and get to practising, the next Elfstedentocht might be just around the corner!!

Koek-en-zopie

Skating has been on the brain of every Dutch person, voluntarily or not, for the past several weeks. And not just any kind of skating. The air was pregnant with possibilities of another Elfstedentocht this year, and as it always goes, the whole country goes into skate frenzy.

The 200 kilometer ice skating event travels along the waters of eleven Frisian cities, all connected through waterways. But skating is no new pastime for the Dutch: for centuries they've tied skates on and whisked away on the ice, sometimes out of need, but mostly for pleasure.

During the 17th and 18th century, that pleasure part did not only limit itself to slipping and sliding on the ice on a set of iron blades (for the rich) or sharpened large animal bones (for the not-so-rich): as rules and regulations were only applicable to the land, during cold winters and frozen waters, small shacks would appear on the ice. These temporary settlements provided opportunities to strengthen the inner self with hot alcoholic beverages that were taxable and subject to law on the mainland but not on the ice. Other small buildings were constructed to help one lose one's hard earned money in gambling pits or to brave the cold and harsh conditions for eh.....visits of a more carnal nature. Go figure.

But back to the first shack. Called koek-en-zopie's (cookies and hootch), these huts sold cakes and cookies, and something called zopie. The word zopie allegedly comes from the word soopje, which may have been derived from the word zuipen (to imbibe). Regardless, a recipe for the tipple resides online so there was no excuse to not try it out.

Nowadays, koek-en-zopies sell split pea soup, hot chocolate and gevulde koeken, but no more zopie which is a shame, because it was actually quite good and easy to make. So tie on your skates (or tie one on without!) and get to cooking: the Elfstedentocht may be near!

Zopie
3 12 oz. bottles of Michelob Amber Bock (or another type of bock beer)
1 cinnamon stick
2 cloves, whole
2 slices of lemon
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
4 tablespoons rum

Bring the bock beer, with the cinnamon stick, the cloves and the lemon slices to a boil, then turn the heat down and simmer for fifteen minutes. Whip the brown sugar with the eggs until foamy.

Carefully add a tablespoon of  the warm beer to the egg mixture and stir. Do this five more times, then take the beer off the stove. Remove the cinnamon stick, the lemon and the cloves. Carefully stir the rest of the beer into the eggs, in a tiny stream. Make sure the eggs don't curdle, and keep stirring. Pour everything back in the pan, and return the pan to the heat, but do not let the mixture boil, just warm it up and keep stirring until the beverage thickens a bit and gives the drink a smooth, velvety texture.

Stir in the rum, and serve hot with a dollop of whipped cream and a pinch of cinnamon.

Zuurkoolschotel

It's cold!!! Temperatures have dropped and beautiful pictures of white landscapes and bright blue skies are all over the internet. Perfect weather for a wintery dish, the humble but oh so tasty zuurkoolschotel, or sauerkraut casserole.

In the Netherlands, zuurkool is sold raw, i.e. uncooked, straight out of the brine from huge grey or white plastic barrels. The produce man or woman will scoop out a handful, squeeze some of the brine out and deposit the white stringy mass into a plastic bag, tie it closed and hand it to you. And there, in your hand, you hold a humble, flavorful, healthy and chockful with Vitamin C, cabbage bomb, so to say.

Zuurkool is most often served in a casserole (zuurkoolschotel), with three main ingredients: ground beef, mashed potatoes and ofcourse, zuurkool. But that's where it stops, as for every family that eats zuurkoolschotel, there is a different casserole recipe. Some families like to have fruit mixed in: pineapple or apple or raisins or bananas, sometimes even raisins and bananas. Other families prefer a spicier sauerkraut, so they mix in sambal or hot peppers with the ground beef. Yet others rather have a Hungarian twist so they mix lots of paprika and caraway in with the cabbage. Not always are the sauerkraut and potatoes separate: some families like to make a zuurkoolstamppot by mashing the potatoes and mixing in the sauerkraut, which leaves a big old mess for your stamper as the strips of cabbage get tangled in with the wavy metal bars of the masher. But that's half the fun!

And what about the ground beef? Some mix in pieces of fried bacon strips, others use half-om-half (half beef, half pork)........There is no one standard recipe for a zuurkoolschotel and most families will claim that their dish is the best tasting one, but what ALL can agree on is that the zuurkoolschotel is a traditional wintery dish and that it falls in the category of comfort foods.

So make this dish your own, by mixing in favorite flavors. Add garlic, or slice your potatoes instead of mashing them. Use shoarma spices on the ground beef to give it a different twist, or stud the dish with raisins, apples and a spicy, ground mustard. You decide!

Here are the basics:

Zuurkoolschotel
6 large (750 grams) potatoes, floury
4 tablespoons (60 grams) butter, divided
1/4 cup (65 ml) milk

16 oz (500 grams) sauerkraut
16 oz (500 grams) ground beef
1 small can pineapple pieces, drained (optional)
2 tablespoons panko or breadcrumbs

Peel and quarter the potatoes, place with enough water to cover on the stove and boil till done in about twenty minutes. In the meantime, drain the sauerkraut. Most sauerkraut in the US is sold ready-to-eat, but read the packaging to make sure. If it's raw, please follow the instructions on the packet.

Brown the ground beef in a skillet, pour off the fat and season the meat with salt and pepper, or give it your personal twist.

Preheat the oven to 375F/180C. Grease an oven dish with a teaspoon of the butter.

Mash the potatoes with the milk and two tablespoons of butter. Depending on how "dry" your potatoes cook, you may need more milk to get a smooth, creamy consistency. Taste and season with salt and pepper if needed.

Spread the ground beef in the casserole. Top it with the sauerkraut, and add the pineapple on top, if using. Finish with a layer of mashed potatoes. Sprinkle the panko on top and dot with the remaining butter. Bake in the oven for 45 minutes or until the panko is golden brown.

Eierkoeken

It's not even Easter yet, and I'm already eyeing the eggs. Not so much for boiled eggs, egg ragout or other egg dishes, but because lately I've been craving eierkoeken, or Dutch egg cakes.

Egg cakes are large, yellow, sweet, soft, round and slightly domed cakes. You can eat them plain, or spread with butter and sugar on the flat side, like they do in the province of Brabant. Or stick two together, sandwich style, with whipped cream and serve them with fresh strawberries. You can eat them for breakfast, for lunch, as a snack or as a late-night-i-don't-want-to-eat-anything-heavy-snack. Which, in that case, you should have two. Seriously.

Bakeries in Holland pride themselves on having the best eierkoeken (like so many other things): some are larger, some are smaller, some fluffier, some chewier......But very few venture away from the basic yellow, hint-of-vanilla, type of cake. Rumors exist of chocolate egg cakes and even raisin eierkoeken, but they wouldn't be so much eierkoeken anymore as just large eh...muffin tops, I guess.  Some things are just not to be messed with!

The trick with these eierkoeken is to carefully mix the dry ingredients in without losing too much of the air incorporated, and then letting the batter sit for a little while. It will be stiff and stringy when you scoop it onto a baking sheet and will eventually spread out, so do leave plenty of space in between.

Eierkoeken
2 eggs
1/3 cup (65 grams)  sugar
1 envelope vanilla sugar 

3/4 cup (100 grams) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 pinch of salt

Mix the eggs with the sugar and the vanilla until foamy and thick, a good five minutes on medium speed. Rub a little bit of batter between thumb and finger to see if all the sugar has dissolved: if it feels slightly grainy, mix the batter for another minute or two.

Heat the oven to 375F/190C. In a bowl, sift the flour with the baking powder and the salt. Fold it carefully into the egg mix. Try to mix it in within ten strokes: you are trying to keep as much air as you can in the batter. Cover the bowl with a towel for a good five minutes and in the meantime prepare a baking tray with a sheet of parchment paper or a silicone mat.

Carefully spoon six large portions of the batter onto the parchment paper or the mat. Slide the baking sheet on the middle rack of the oven and bake the cakes for twelve to fifteen minutes or until lightly golden.

The longer they bake, the harder they'll be, so as soon as the koek is light yellow and bounces back if you carefully press down on the top, the cake's ready. Turn off the oven and let the cakes sit for another five minutes, then remove them from the oven and let them cool on a rack. The ones in the picture could have probably been removed a couple of minutes before I did: once they start browning, it goes fast!

It takes a little bit of practice to recognize the exact right moment, but there is no loss: even a little crunchy, the eierkoeken taste great and will, if stored in a plastic bag after they've cooled, soften up the next day. If you baked them so hard they've lost all moisture, store a slice of bread with the eierkoeken. They will have absorbed the moisture from the bread and softened.

Whether you enjoy your eierkoeken soft or crunchy, with some coffee, a cup of tea or even a cup of hot chocolate or anijsmelk, it's all good. Spread it with butter, eat it plain, or dig out the jar of Nutella from its hiding place and give the eierkoek a good swirl.....it's a great transportation vehicle for all kinds of spreadable goodies!

Anijsmelk

The Netherlands is a true dairy country. We spread our bread with butter, then top it with cheese. We drink gallons of milk and buttermilk, and we often finish our meals with a dairy product: vla, yogurt, kwark and lots and lots of puddings. Vla, a pourable thick type of custard,  alone has more than twenty flavors and combinations and is often found in at least two varieties in a Dutch household fridge.

Besides desserts, milk also finds itself back in our beverages. Koffie verkeerd, (wrong coffee, so called because of the large amount of milk it contains), chocolate milk, buttermilk, drink yoghurt and endless milk drinks with fruit flavors are available to young and old. And then of course there are the more traditional beverages such as slemp and anijsmelk, both warm drinks with spices and sugar. 

Anijsmelk is an old-fashioned Dutch “night-cap”. The warmth of the milk and the soothing qualities of aniseed on both the stomach and the spirit will make you want to curl up and snooze. Perfect for those early, cold winter nights when you can’t sleep!

Anijsmelk
1 cup (250 ml) milk
1 heaping teaspoon aniseed* 
Sweetener of choice and to taste

Warm the milk with the seeds, either loose or in a tea egg. Bring to a slow boil, then turn down the heat and simmer for a good five minutes. Strain the milk, or lift the tea egg, add sugar or honey to taste. Drink warm. Welterusten!

*If you don't have aniseed or star anise, try a drop or two of anise extract or an anise flavored liqueur. 

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No post this week!

No post this week! I've just returned from two weeks in Holland and am trying to organize all the information, recipes and impressions I gathered over the last fourteen days: spekkoek, hopjesvla, gemberbolus, hazelnootgebak, kapsalon, bamischijf, friet-ei, bloedworst, balkenbrij......too many to name. I was able to find a real poffert-pan, and a baking pan for reerug, plus several new-to-me cookbooks with some great old-fashioned, traditional recipes, so I can't wait to get back in the kitchen this weekend and report back to you. If any of these recipes have preference, or if you have a different request, do let me know, I'm all ears and only too glad to do the research :-)

Bierpap

Pap, or porridge is a warm milky food that is flavored with sugar or stroop, and served for breakfast to the children of Holland. Lammetjespap, ontbijtpap etc was an easy and affordable way to feed large families and often served as comfort food when children were sick. Lammetjespap, or lamb's porridge, is either milk thickened with flour and sweetened with sugar, or beschuit, crumbled up in warm milk and sugar. Depending on where you grew up in Holland, it can be either one or the other.

Another type of pap is bierpap, or beer porridge. Bierpap, however, was not served for breakfast but rather dinner, or as a shortly-before-going-to-bed snack. The base is still the same: hot milk thickened with flour and sweetened with sugar, but now with the addition of a generous splash of dark brown, sweet beer. Table beer, or tafelbier like the darker beers, used to be a standard beverage during lunch and dinner, especially in the southern provinces and Belgium, where the drinking water was of low quality. Tafelbier, or "yellow belly beer" as a dear friend calls it, has a very low alcohol content, just around 1 to 2%.

When asked about childhood favorite foods, a family friend shared this recipe and reminisced about how her parents would regularly serve this dish for dinner, as it was filling, comforting and ensured that the kids would be asleep by bedtime.  If you can't find a dark beer, like the Heineken Special Dark, replace it with a low alcohol content beer and substitute the regular sugar for a brown sugar.

During these winter days, when it's rainy, cold and dark outside, bierpap might be just the ticket for a filling dinner and then a long, sweet slumber.

Bierpap
2 cups and 2 tablespoons of whole milk, divided
2 tablespoons of flour
1/2 cup of dark beer
1 tablespoon of sugar

Bring two cups of milk to a simmer. Dissolve the flour in the two tablespoons of milk and stir it in the warm milk. Bring the milk to a boil and stir until the mixture thickens, whisking it well so it creates an airy foam on top. Lower the heat, stir in the sugar and the beer and bring the porridge back up to temperature. Serve warm in bowls or mugs.

Sweet dreams!!

Sneeuwballen

The end of the year is celebrated in Holland as it is in so many other countries: friends and family gather, with good food, lovely drinks and with a certain sense of excitement about the change of the year that will happen at midnight. It's virtually the same in many other places in the world, but what sets the Dutch apart is the food that we eat to celebrate the event with: deep-fried goodies such as oliebollen or deep-fried dough balls (presumably the predecessor of the American donut), deep-fried apple slices (appelbeignets)and many other goodies that are available from stands around town or made at home that help us slide into the new year with a greasy grin and a full belly.

One of those golden, deep-fried beauties that shows up in every older Dutch recipes cookbook is the so-called "sneeuwbal", or snowball. A deep-fried (what else?) puffy ball of dough, studded with raisins and candied fruits, filled with whipped cream and dusted with powdered sugar, used to be standard fare for the New Year's celebration, cozily sharing a platter with the formerly mentioned oliebollen and appelbeignets. In later Dutch cookbooks, the sneeuwballen are no longer mentioned.

And I am *not* surprised! This is the third year I try to make these things and I've just about given up. For some reason I just can't get them to puff up in the hot oil and instead of snowballs, I get lumps. Ugly, squishy, heavy, oily lumps, no matter how low I turn the heat. So, as so many times before, I re-read all the recipes in the cookbooks, went back online, and re-read every possible online snowball recipe to see what I could have missed. I just about started to suspect that nobody had actually ever made these themselves but just copied the recipe ad nauseam, until I came across a short video from nobody else but Cees Holtkamp. Yes, that Cees Holtkamp, possibly the most famous patissier in Holland.

And guess what? Instead of deep-frying them, he bakes them, just like Bossche Bollen or bananensoezen. He must have had no luck with frying them either, is my guess. (Just kidding, Mr. Holtkamp, just kidding!!) So if Cees bakes them, so can I! Problem solved and pride a tad less damaged. Here we go!

Sneeuwballen
1 cup of water
4 tablespoons of butter
1 cup of flour
4 eggs
Pinch of salt

1 tablespoon of candied fruit mix
1 tablespoon of raisins

16 oz of heavy whipping cream
2 tablespoons of powdered sugar

Bring the water, butter and salt to a boil. Pour the flour in and stir until the flour comes together in a ball, and clings to the spoon. Take the pan off the stove and stir in the eggs, one at a time, until the dough is shiny and has absorbed all the egg. Carefully fold in the candied fruit mix and the raisins.

Preheat the oven to 375F. On a silicone mat or on parchment paper on a baking sheet, place large heaps of batter, or pipe them. This will make 12 medium size puffs or 6 large ones.

Bake them for twenty five minutes or until golden and puffy. In the meantime, beat the whipping cream stiff with four tablespoons of powedered sugar. When the puffs have cooled, fill a pastry bag with a star tip with the whipped cream, insert the tip in the bottom and fill the snowballs up with whipped cream.

Sprinkle with plenty of powdered sugar and serve.

Wishing everybody a wonderful, healthy and fun filled 2012!

Gelukkig Nieuwjaar!!!!!!

Kerstkonijn

Traditional Christmas diners in Holland tend to follow a certain pattern: a shrimp or seafood cocktail to start with, followed by a soup (either clear or cream), the main dish accompanied by wintery vegetables like red cabbage, Brussels sprouts, potatoes in some way, shape or form and finished with ice cream and fruit or stewed pears with hangop. Past diner, coffee with bonbons is served and sometimes even a small "borrel", such as Dutch gin, or something sweeter for the ladies.

Nowadays, this pattern can vary. As we've become more casual with festive holidays, some people replace the whole dinner rigmarole with their favorite foods. In some of the forums online, many have confessed to just making boerenkool met worst, a typical Dutch kale and mashed potato dish with kielbasa. And why not? Christmas is after all what you make it. But in traditional settings, and on the menu of Dutch restaurants that offer a multiple course diner on Christmas Day, you'll find a similar pattern as the one described above. The main course is often wild, or game meat: venison, deer, or smaller game like hare or rabbit.

Rabbit for me is the ultimate Christmas dish. For as long as I can remember, Christmas dinner consisted of a sweet and tangy rabbit dish my grandma Pauline used to make. It was something we all looked forward to, every year, as it's usually not a dish that's served any other time of the year. We all used to gather at her home in Limburg and on Christmas morning, that sweet tangy smell would emanate from the kitchen, and all would be well.

Grandma Pauline is no longer with us, so we're all spending our holidays elsewhere. Since I'm spending Christmas at home this year, here in the United States, I wanted to make sure I found some rabbit to keep the tradition going. Several years ago it was more difficult to find, but slowly our meat selections are changing: goat, lamb and also rabbit are now easier to find than before. Call around to some of your local butchers to see if someone carries rabbit. 

Ofcourse rabbit during Christmas conjures up images of sad little children and eating pets. Youp van 't Hek, a Dutch comedian, once wrote a song called Flappie, about a boy whose rabbit went missing on Christmas Day. Father urged him to stay away from the shed and later, during Christmas dinner while serving the meat, callously remarked that Flappie was found after all. The next day, the little boy urges his mom to stay away from the shed when she comes looking for her husband. A recognizable story (the rabbit part), especially during the difficult war times, with a gruesome twist.

So yesterday, I was in my kitchen cutting up this animal. It was a little unnerving because neither the head nor the tail was on this pink carcass. Enough for my mother to venture the thought that perhaps it was cat after all: it was not unheard of during the war years to buy "rabbit" in the stores and have a diminishing feline population at the same time. These pieces of meat were called "roof rabbits" among the people in the know...... Anyway, back to the bunny. The main meat on the rabbit is going to be the legs. The front legs are easily cut as they are not attached to the main body. Cut the saddle (the rabbit bacon) on the side, and remove the rib cage and the pelvis. Cut the hind legs off, just like you do with a chicken, half the loin part and you're good to go. 

For those of you that have never had rabbit....it tastes a little bit like chicken. Seriously.

Christmas Rabbit
1 medium sized rabbit, approx. 3 lbs
2 cups of water, divided
2 cups of red wine vinegar
2 bay leaves
10 black peppercorns
3 cloves
1 large size onion, peeled and sliced thin
3 tablespoons of butter
1/3 cup of brown sugar or appelstroop
1 tablespoon flour
1/3 cup of water
salt
pepper

Cut the rabbit up. Make sure you remove small bones or splinters before cooking the meat, they can be nasty.

Add the water, vinegar, bay leaves, peppercorns, cloves and slices of onion to a large bowl and add the pieces of meat. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

The next day, take the meat out of the marinade and pat it dry with some paper towels. Heat two tablespoons of butter in a Dutch oven and quickly brown the meat on all sides. Remove from the pan, brown the onions and add the meat back in. Pour the marinade over the meat but keep the peppercorns behind, they are a pain to remove once the sauce is made. Bring to a boil, turn low and simmer for about 30 minutes. Remove the meat from the pan, scrape all the brown bits from the bottom of the pan and add the appelstroop or brown sugar and the second cup of water if needed. Bind the sauce with a tablespoon of flour and 1/3 cup water, taste and adjust with salt and pepper. Add the meat back to the sauce and simmer for another hour or until the meat is tender to the point where it falls off the bone.

Serve with boiled potatoes or pommes duchesse and red cabbage. Zalig Kerstfeest, everyone!

Kruidnoten (also known as Pepernoten)

The arrival of certain foods on the supermarket shelves often announces the arrival of another holiday or celebration to come. Chocolate eggs mark the beginning of the Easter season, and Vlaggetjesdag is initiated by the catching of the first herring. But nothing prepares us for this month of December, with its Sinterklaas, Christmas and New Year celebrations, like the smell of speculaas from the bakeries and the sight of pepernoten, pepper nuts, at the store.  Pepper nuts show up as early as mid-September, three full months before the good-hearted Saint Nicholas with his Pieten helpers have even set foot on shore. And with it, also appears another event: the yearly, and sometimes heated, discussion on the difference between pepper nuts and spice nuts.

Pepernoten (pepper nuts) and Kruidnoten (spice nuts) are very different from each other: pepernoten are chewy, taai-taai-esque square pieces, whereas kruidnoten are small round, crunchy peppery speculaas-type cookies that the Pieten throw around as treats for the children. Throwing pepernoten is not encouraged!

Until recently, the difference between kruidnoten and pepernoten was clear to everyone. But as the crispy crunchy tenderness of the kruidnoten gained terrain, pepernoten became the new name for kruidnoten. And from then on, it's all been a bit confusing. Even product packaging, marketing and the customers call it pepernoten, except for the purists. And they are very vocal about it! 

When I first wrote an article on this treat for a Dutch magazine, the editor emailed me back and asked whether the recipe I was submitting was for kruidnoten or pepernoten. Good question, and I am glad he asked. I still called them pepernoten, but the recipe was clearly for kruidnoten. 

Anyway....if you choose to share these and call them pepernoten, you'll know soon enough which one of your friends is a peppernut purist. You've been warned!! :-) 

Kruidnoten

1 cup all purpose flour (150 grams)

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
½ cup brown sugar (100 grams)

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground aniseed
½ teaspoon white pepper
½ teaspoon ground ginger

2 tablespoons butter (28 grams), cold and cubed

1 medium egg


Mix the dry ingredients together, then cut the butter into the mix. Give it a quick knead, then add the egg. Knead everything together into a stiff dough. You may have to add a tablespoon or two of water or milk if it's too dry or too stiff. Wrap and rest the dough in the fridge, preferably overnight but at least for a couple of hours to let the flavors blend. 

Divide the dough into three equal pieces, and roll each one into a small log. Cut small pieces of the dough and roll them into a ball, about the size of a small marble (0.18oz/5 grams). Place them on parchment paper or a silicone mat on a baking sheet and slightly press them down. 

Because of the baking powder they will puff up a bit, as well as spread just a little, so give them a bit of space. If the dough has warmed up because of the rolling or your kitchen temperature, you may want to stick them back in the fridge for about 30 minutes before you bake them. 

Bake the kruidnoten at 375F in about 10-15 minutes or until nicely browned. They will be soft when you pull them out of the oven but let them cool on a rack so they can harden and crisp up. 

Mix with chocolate coins, and hard candy to make an excellent "throw mix" for the Pieten, or put it in a bowl on the table for people to snack on. 

Makes about 70 peper..eh...kruidnoten ;-). See below the picture for additional suggestions.

Listen, I get it. You're busy, you don't have white pepper, or can't be bothered to roll out 5 grams worth of pepernoten dough. Here are some suggestions. Some of these suggestions are links to the product. We are Amazon Associates so any purchase through this link will provide is with a tiny (and we mean TINY!) compensation which helps to keep the website running, at no cost to you. 

Leftover kruidnoten? 

• Make Arretje's cake or kruidnoten bavarois! 

Shopping Ideas:

• Don't care for the peppery bite? Use pumpkin spice or speculaaskruiden instead.
• Can't be bothered to roll 70 dough balls? Roll out the dough (3 mm) and cut out cookies instead.
• Don't know how much 5 grams is? Use this scale!
• Got all your kruidnoten rolled and baked? Practice Dutch with the grandkids with this cute Dutch-English book! 

Borstplaat

You know that the special holiday season, starting with Sinterklaas, is approaching when a series of traditional sugary sweets start showing up in the local bakeries, with coffee at work or if your best friend shows up with "iets lekkers" (something tasty) in a small bag at your appointed tea time.

Enamel-chipping sweet, borstplaat is one of those traditional candies. Fabricated purely from sugar and water, and sometimes a splash of heavy cream for good measure, borstplaat is one of the sweetest confections around. And, honesty dictates me to say, also one of the most addictive ones. Thankfully, it only shows up around the holidays, so you get your fill, vow to never, ever eat another piece of borstplaat again and after about a week wait impatiently wait till next year until you see those innocent-looking, cute little figurines or sugar hearts in the bakery's shop window again......

Thankfully (or not, as the case may be), this sweet candy is easy to make at home. Furthermore, it allows you to be creative with flavors, shapes and dimensions, so the sky is the limit. Traditional tastes encourage strawberry, coffee and a lighter cream flavor, but as soon as you have the hang of making this lovely sweet, you can pull out all stops and go for gold: how about banana flavor, almond, chocolate, caramel, peppermint, coconut? The grocery store offers many varieties of flavorings, natural or otherwise, that you can stir in and make your own personal batch of borstplaat. Try flavored lemonade powders, coffee creamers or basic materials such as instant coffee or Dutch cocoa powder.


The molds used in the photograph are old-fashioned borstplaat molds that belonged to my grandmother Pauline. The metal mold is held together by a small pin: after the sugar cools, you remove the pin, carefully separate the legs of the heart and the candy un-molds from the metal. As it takes a while for the candy to set, it is not easy to push it out of the mold without it breaking.

If you cannot find these molds, try using silicone candy molds, or pouring the borstplaat on a slightly buttered piece of parchment paper, let it set until almost hardened and cut out shapes with cookie cutters. It takes a try or two to know when the borstplaat is still soft enough to be cut but not too hard to break, so don't be afraid to give it a try. And if you miss the deadline, no worries. Break the borstplaat into edible chunks and call it good, it's all about the flavor!

Borstplaat
1 cup (200 grams) regular white sugar
3 tablespoons (45 ml) milk, water or heavy cream
Flavoring
Butter
Molds
Parchment paper

Optional: candy thermometer

Use butter to lightly grease the molds and the parchment paper. Line a baking sheet with the paper and place the molds on top. Heat the sugar with the milk, water, or heavy cream in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and stir until the sugar gets "woolly", about five minutes. Dip a fork into the mix; if the sugar forms a sheet on the tines, it's ready to be poured. If you're using a candy thermometer, go up to 240F/115C or "soft ball" stage. 

Take the sugar off the stove, mix in two drops of vanilla extract, stir, and count to five. Now pour the hot sugary mix into the molds. Let it rest for thirty minutes, then carefully see if you can tip the molds on the side so that the bottom can cool and dry. When the candy feels hardened enough (it is difficult to say how long it takes as each kitchen is different, but give it a good another thirty minutes), carefully take the pin out of the mold and separate the sides. If you use silicone molds, see if they will allow you to unmold at this time without breaking. If not, eat the evidence and wait a little longer for the other ones :-)

Let the candy cool on a rack until dry. Keep in a jar or tin that closes well: extreme moisture will make this candy crumbly and soft.

Slagroomtaart - We vieren feest!

Hieperdepiephoera!! We're celebrating today's 100th post on The Dutch Table with an authentic Dutch slagroomtaart, or whipped cream cake. The name itself already suggests reckless abandon, from a Calvinistic perspective, but what can I say? Today is a special day and in good Dutch tradition, any reason is a good excuse to bring out the coffee, some cake and enjoy the company of friends.

Slagroomtaart is THE birthday cake par excellence. It has a very light and airy batter, and is hard to find outside of the Netherlands. It's an easy cake to bake, and a fun one to decorate. Traditionally you will find fruits and chocolate on top, and nougatine, candied nuts, on the side. Since those last ones are hard to find here in the United States, we're making them, it doesn't take long.

Slagroomtaart
For the cake:
4 eggs

3/4 cup (150 grams) granulated sugar
3/4 cup (100 grams) flour
1/4 cup (35 grams) corn starch
Chocolate, fruits for decorating

For the whipped cream
2 cups (475 ml) heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup (60 grams) powdered sugar

For the nougatine
1 cup (125 grams) dry roasted peanuts
3/4 cup (150 grams) sugar
3 tablespoons water

Preheat the oven to 320F/160C. Butter and flour a 9 inch (22 cm) spring form.

Beat the four eggs and the sugar at high speed until it's tripled its volume and is light yellow, full of air and falls off the beater in a thick ribbon. Sift the flour and the corn starch together and carefully fold it into the airy batter. Pour it into the mold and place it in the oven. Bake for about 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the center.

Let the cake cool.  In the meantime, chop the peanuts into small pieces or pulse it several times in the food processor. Take a heavy bottomed pan, and add the sugar and the water. Bring it to a boil and keep stirring until the sugary mixture caramelizes and has a nice, dark golden color to it. Remove from the stove, add in the chopped peanuts and stir them quickly, making sure all the peanuts are coated. Spread the thick layer on a piece of parchment, a marble top or a silicone mat and let it cool. When cooled down, you can use a rolling pin to break it into small pieces, leaving you with caramel coated peanut pieces.

Whip the cream with the powdered sugar and transfer half of it to a piping bag with a big star tip.

Slice the cake in half lengthwise. Spread a generous amount of whipping cream on the bottom half and replace the top. Now cover the rest of the cake in whipping cream with a spatula, making sure you don't miss any spots.

Balancing the cake on the palm of one hand, cup a handful of nougatine in the other hand and apply it to the side of the cake. Rotate a bit and press some more onto the side until the cake is covered. This takes a bit of practice and maybe an extra set of hands.

Place the cake on a serving tray or pedestal and pipe big rosettes all around the outside rim, and another smaller circle in the middle. Fill the rest up with smaller rosettes or ribbons, however you see fit.

Dry off the decorating fruit (pineapple slices, kiwi, strawberries, maraschino cherries, mandarin oranges.....), and start making up the cake. Usually each rosette receives a piece of fruit, or every other one. Add the chocolate (balls, fans, sprinkles....) for a finishing touch and ready is your cake!!!

Best chilled and eaten the same day, with a cup of hot coffee and in good company. I know I'm in good company with all of you, so I'm helping myself to a large piece. Thank you all for these fantastic first 100 posts, there are many more to follow!!