Preisoep

Growing up in the Netherlands, prei, or leeks, was the one vegetable that would show up in my grocery cart with just about every shopping trip. For one, it was a cheap vegetable to buy, and second it would flavor so many foods we made, especially as students. Thirdly, I absolutely love love LOVE prei! Leeks would feature in soups, salads, oven dishes, mashed through potatoes, or as a creamed vegetable by itself - it was filling, flavorful and most of all, affordable.

The only thing that annoyed me beyond belief was the fact that it would stick out of my shopping bag and get in the way of cycling! If you've ever ridden a bicycle in Holland with shopping bags on your stuur, you know exactly what I mean :-)

Leeks are predominantly grown in the provinces of Limburg and Noord-Brabant, as it needs a loose soil to grow best in. The vegetable is blanched as it grows taller by hilling up the soil around it - which also explains why so often leeks have sand inbetween its layers. Its flavor varies from onion-y, when raw, to downright sweet when cooked. It is very versatile vegetable!

Prei is also very healthy: it's loaded with fiber, vitamins and minerals and has a slight diuretic effect. All good things, I'd say! For this wintery weather, a cup of hot leek soup with a sprinkle of smoky, crispy bacon bits might be just what you need. Best of all, it's a quick soup to make. With five ingredients, 5 minutes of prep and twenty minutes of cooking, you have a satisfying soup at your disposal.

Preisoep
1 lb floury potatoes

1 large leek
1 vegetable or chicken bouillon cube
4 cups water
8 strips bacon

Peel the potatoes and dice. Cut the root end of the leek, and remove the top dark green/blue layer. We are not going to use this today, but if you rinse, chop and freeze it, it can be used to make a great vegetable stock. Cut the white body of the leek in half, lengthwise, and slice into one inch pieces. Rinse any sand that may be hiding between the layers.

In a saucepan, add four cups of water, the potatoes and the leeks, and a pinch of salt. Add the bouillon cube to the pan, cover and bring to a boil, then turn down medium and boil for 15 minutes. In the meantime, put a skillet on the stove, add the slices of bacon and on a low fire render the fat out of the bacon so that it goes crispy.

After fifteen minutes, check to see if the potatoes are soft. If you like chunky soup, remove a couple of spoons of the vegetables, and add them back in after you've blended the rest. If you prefer it smooth, leave it in and blend the vegetables into a smooth, thick soup. Taste, and see if you need to adjust the seasoning. For a little bit of luxury, stir in one or two spoons of cream.

Drain the crispy bacon on a paper towel and cut into strips. Pour the soup into a bowl, sprinkle the bacon on top, and drizzle one or two teaspoons of bacon fat over the soup (if you want). I always like to give it a good sprinkle of freshly ground pepper, as well.

Makes four servings.

Zalmsalade

The end of the year is creeping up on us, and many of us are busy in the kitchen these days. The month of December is probably the month where we prepare most of the food ourselves: whether that's speculaas for Sinterklaas, Kerststol for Christmas or oliebollen for New Year's Eve.

New Year's Eve is an evening traditionally spent with friends and family. During the day, we're busy in the kitchen preparing snacks, soups and salads as this is usually not a day for a big meal. While listening to the Top 2000 on the radio, we cook, bake, chat, visit, Skype and WhatsApp our way to the end of the year!

One of the typical dishes during this evening are "koude schotels", cold platters: decorated platters of luxury potato salad with chunks of beef, or like today, with salmon or lobster. For one, they're easy to make and hold well in the fridge, and secondly, they feed a large group of people throughout the day. Just remember to pop it back in the fridge after serving to keep it fresh.

Today, we've made a zalmsalade, a salmon based cold salad. It's best the day before so the flavors can blend together, and then dressed and served the day of.

Zalmsalade
1 can Red or Pink Salmon (approx. 15 ounces/425 grams net weight)
2 large red potatoes
1 small can peas and carrots (or mixed vegetables)
1 tablespoon capers
6 dill pickles, chopped
1 stick celery, chopped
4 heaping soup spoons mayonnaise
1 tablespoon tomato ketchup
Pinch of dried or fresh dill
Salt
Pepper

Drain the salmon into a sieve, and save the liquid. Remove bones and skin. Wash and cut potatoes into cubes, boil in salted water until done. Drain the peas and carrots.

Add the potatoes, the peas and carrots, the capers, the dill pickles and the celery into a bowl and stir together. Throw in a pinch of dried or fresh dill, some salt and pepper. Mix the mayonnaise with two tablespoons of the liquid from the canned salmon into a sauce and fold that into the vegetable mixture in the bowl. Taste and see if you want to adjust the seasonings. Lastly, carefully fold in the canned salmon. You want to try and keep it a bit chunky.

In a separate bowl, mix four tablespoons of mayonnaise with one tablespoon of the salmon liquid and a squirt of ketchup into a pink sauce. This will cover the salad tomorrow, and keep it moist.

Cover both and place in the fridge until ready to serve.

When you get ready to make up your platter, remove the salmon salad from the fridge. Layer a plate with lettuce leaves, and shape the salad on top, dome-like. Slather the salad with the pink sauce you made the day before, and decorate with slices of cucumber, boiled egg, fresh dill, tiny tomatoes and colorful strips of bell pepper. Serve with crackers, toast or dinner rolls.

Itching to get back in the garden?

Are your fingers itching to get started in your garden? If you're an avid gardener like I am, you are probably already looking through your seed catalogs to see what you will grow next and can't wait to get outside.

Or maybe you've never grown a thing in your life, but are willing to give it a go. Did you know that a lot of the vegetables we use in our Dutch cuisine can be easily grown?

If you do, you are in good company. Besides growing fruits and vegetables on balconies, in back gardens and side yards, the Dutch also have almost a quarter million volkstuinen where they spend much of their time. These "gardens for the people" are usually small plots of land that are leased (often indefinitely) from either the city administration or from gardening associations who own or manage these plots of lands. The land is usually on the outskirts of the city or town. Some plots are small and can be found along railways and roads, others are larger and can even contain small huts or greenhouses. The largest volkstuin complexes even have small petting zoos, nature reserves and during the growing season, even small farmers markets.

Many families spend whole summers on their volkstuin place, if the local agreement allows. It's close to home and gezellig, as a volkstuin always has several plots with other gardeners and their families. People share crops, seeds and chats alongside short fences. I'm sure you can imagine that, if you live "third floor up, in the back" and hardly see the light of day, spending a summer outside, with trees, a splash pool, and your family around you is sheer delight!


Growing foods and flowers also creates an opportunity to make memories. It's fun to share this with kids or grandkids, and gives you an opportunity to share your heritage and family stories. If anything, you'll eat healthier foods that you have grown yourself, or grow those that are hard to come by in the store! And if you don't know how to grow anything, you can always ask your local master gardeners in your local university extension office, or that neighbor with the beautiful flowers and vegetables down the road- as gardeners, we're always happy to share information.

I've added a page, Dutch Gardening, to the website, with a short description of traditional Dutch vegetables, and links to places where you can order seeds. Take a look and see if your favorite vegetable is listed. If not, give us a holler in the comments and we'll add them!

Happy gardening!

What's new?

Hello all!

It's a new year and we're working hard on sharing the love for Dutch food and food traditions: we're updating the site, re-testing old recipes and working on new ones, taking new pictures and reading up on old traditions!

We've also expanded our reach and have started a YouTube channel. I've come across a whole pile of these old cinema reels that show what life in the Netherlands looked like during the last century. Some of you may remember these times, others have only heard about it from their parents or grandparents. I'm trying to focus mostly on food related news flashes, but others are just too interesting or curious to leave behind. Take a look at the Twentse Boerenbruiloft - Farmer's Wedding in Twente, for example, or the short Emigratie naar Canada - Emigration to Canada from 1948.

Please consider subscribing to the YouTube channel so you can see the updates as I post them.
Here is a cute video that will take you to the channel, or click on the link above to see all the videos. The news is from 1948 and, as I said on our Facebook page, sometimes we forget how good we have it.

Lastly, I get a lot of questions on what products I use for recreating the recipes, or what types of pans or tools I use. To help out, as I am reworking the recipes, I am adding a selection of Amazon product links on the bottom of the page. I am handpicking these personally, and for every recipe. As an Amazon Associate, I do get a small amount for every purchase that is made through the link. This is the first advertising I am adding to the page, as I have declined to do so earlier, but I thought it might help. Take a look - both the erwtensoep (split pea soup) and the bitterballen recipes have these links already.

Soon, we'll have some additional news on how we're expanding our reach and share our love for Dutch food and food traditions: we're already on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest - can you take a guess?

Thank you for your support of this site and for your appreciation of our cuisine - keep cooking, keep sharing and stay healthy and happy!

Groetjes,
Nicole

Anijskrollen

One of the many strengths of our diverse kitchen are the local and regional specialties. Here I thought that, especially for the evening of Sinterklaas, I had covered all the food traditions: gevulde speculaas, taai-taai, kruidnoten and chocoladeletters. Imagine my surprise when I learned yesterday that in the province of Brabant, more specifically in and around the town of Veghel, Sinterklaas evening is not complete unless anijskrollen appear on the table.

These anijskrollen, anise curls, are soft and tender white rolls, flavored with both ground anise and anise seed. People eat them buttered and layered with speculaas cookies, and with a mug of hot chocolate. Bakers in a twelve mile radius around Veghel start baking these krollen, presumably so called because the knot in the roll represents the curl in St Nicholas's crosier, right around the time the kermis makes it to Veghel in September, and continue to bake them until Carnaval, usually in February. The busiest time around these rolls is Sinterklaas, where local bakers sell thousands of the rolls a day. For many Veghel-ers and surrounding areas it's just not Sinterklaas without them!

It is not clear when this tradition began, or why it is limited to just this particular region. Some people say that the anijskrollen have been sold in this area since the middle of the 19th century and found their origin in Veghel, but I have been unable to verify that claim. But the fact of the matter is that it is a popular practice now, and that many of those that were reared in this region or with this tasty tradition, consider it to be an important part of their Sinterklaas celebrations. So be it then, that tomorrow on Sinterklaas eve, we'll be gathered around the fireplace, ready to unwrap our presents, with a speculaas stuffed anijskrol in hand and hot chocolate within reach. Because, just because we weren't raised in this particular region of the country, shouldn't mean that we can't embrace new traditions and add them to our family's customs. Especially when it concerns these lovely, soft fluffy buns!

If you can't find ground anise, just double up your amount of anise seeds, or crush one teaspoon of anise seeds in a mortar and pestle or your spice grinder. If you want a sturdier bun, you can also substitute 1 1/2 cup of all purpose for whole wheat flour.

Anijskrollen
4 cups all purpose flour (500 grms)
2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast (7 grms)
1/4 cup sugar (50 grms)
1 egg
4 tablespoons butter (50 grms), room temperature
1 3/4 cup lukewarm milk (300 ml)
1 teaspoon ground anise
1 teaspoon anise seeds
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Sprinkle the yeast on top of the lukewarm milk (<110F/43C), and let it proof. In the meantime, mix the flour with the sugar and the anise and cinnamon. Add the milk when the yeast is proofed, the egg and the butter and knead it into a cohesive dough. Cover and let it rise for 30 minutes. Punch the dough down, and measure out 3 oz pieces. Roll each into a ball. You should be able to get 10 -12 rolls out of the mix.

Now take each dough ball and roll it into a rope, about 7 inches long and tie it into a knot. Tuck one end of the rope under the roll, and have the other end come out on top. Grease a baking form (either square 9 x 9, or a 9 inch round springform cake pan) and place the knots in the pan. Cover and let them rise, at room temperature, for 50 minutes or until they are doubled in size and puffy. Heat the oven to 400F and bake the rolls for 15 minutes, or until their internal temperature registers 190F/88C and rising.

After they've cooled, wrap in plastic to keep them soft.

Recipe adapted from the Nederlands Bakkerijmuseum Het Warme Land - a must visit if you can!