Mandarijnenbavarois

This weekend, I stopped by The Wooden Shoe, a Dutch grocery, deli, and gift store in Victoria, British Columbia. While chatting with owner Nicolette, she noticed my orange scarf and asked if I was Dutch.

I laughed and admitted that the scarf was probably a dead giveaway, but her question got me thinking about our remarkable Dutch tendency to surround ourselves with the color orange, and how closely that color has become tied to our sense of identity and heritage.

Why are the Dutch so attached to orange in the first place? It all started with the Dutch royal family, the House of Orange-Nassau. The title "Prince of Orange" originated in the Principality of Orange in southern France, and over the centuries the color became associated with the Dutch monarchy and eventually with Dutch national identity. 

Today, "Oranje", orange, is shorthand for everything from our national sports teams to royal celebrations. Anyone who has ever visited the Netherlands during King's Day, a World Cup match, or a royal celebration knows that the Dutch don't just wear orange, we embrace this bold color wholeheartedly in all forms: orange shirts, orange hats, orange feather boas, orange cakes, orange cookies, and sometimes even orange hair. If it's orange, we'll find a way to celebrate with it! 

So today, in honor of all things Dutch, I'm making a mandarin bavarois: a light, airy, dairy dessert flavored with mandarin oranges. Despite appearing in countless Dutch cookbooks, bavarois did not originate in the Netherlands. The dessert is generally believed to have originated in Central Europe and takes its name from Bavaria. 

But it's a dairy dessert, and over time, we enthusiastically adopted bavarois and made it our own. Part of its appeal was that it looked elegant while relying on simple ingredients: cream, fruit, sugar, and gelatin. A molded bavarois decorated with whipped cream and fruit looked impressive enough for guests but was easy to prepare ahead of time. So while today's mandarijnenbavarois may not have been invented in the Netherlands, it combines two things that feel very Dutch: a love of dairy desserts and our enduring affection for all things orange. 

If mandarin oranges are not your favorite fruit, substitute the fruit in this recipe for fresh oranges, or canned peaches or apricots, if you want to stay in the orange color zone. Otherwise, consider fruits of the season: strawberries especially pair really well with cream. 

Mandarijnenbavarois

2 Tablespoons cold water

3 teaspoons (10 grams) gelatin powder or 5 sheets

3.5 cups (850 ml) whipping cream, divided

4 Tablespoons (50 grams) sugar

1 15 oz (425 grams) canned mandarin oranges

2 heaping teaspoons (approx. 15 grams) powdered sugar, or sugar substitute to taste

Place the water in a small bowl and sprinkle the gelatin powder over it. If you use sheets, soak them in a bowl with cold water. 

Add two cups (500 ml) of whipping cream to a small pan, add in the sugar and warm it up on the stove while stirring to dissolve the sugar, but do not boil. Stir in the gelatin until it dissolves and take it off the stove. 

Drain the mandarin oranges. Select 8 pretty slices, and purée or chop finely the rest of the fruit. Measure out 1 cup of fruit purée. If you don't have enough, add a few spoons of the juice to make 1 cup in volume (approx. 250 grams in weight).

Fold the fruit purée into the warm cream, and set aside to cool. 

In the meantime, rinse a mold (should hold approx. 5 cups/1200 ml) in cold water and place it in the fridge (or select 6-8 pretty glasses or bowls instead). 

When the fruit/cream mix has come to room temperature, whip 1 cup (250 ml) of the cream into stiff peaks and flavor it with the powdered sugar/sugar substitute. Fold the fruit/cream mix into the whipped cream until well blended and pour it into the mold (or bowls). Cover with cling film and place it on a level shelf in the fridge. In the mold, it will take six hours to set up, but it's better to leave it overnight.

The next day, dip the mold quickly into hot water, run a sharp knife along the edges, and invert the bavarois over a pretty plate. Whip the rest of the cream with some sugar to taste to decorate, and use the 8 mandarin slices you selected earlier to decorate. Serve chilled. 

If you wish, you can zest fresh mandarin peel or dark chocolate over the bavarois. 

This serves 6-8. 

 

Kaasballetjes

It's funny how the brain can lead one down many, many rabbit holes. 

I was adding a video on our YouTube channel about Nico Molenaar, a former fisherman from Volendam, who dedicated part of his life to creating mosaics from cigar bands. If you're ever in Volendam, be sure to visit the Volendam Museum, where his work is still on display for all to admire. 

But I digress. 

As I was editing the video, I found myself wondering where all those cigar bands came from. That made me think of the cigars my opa would smoke, usually on special occasions: weddings, funerals, and family celebrations. From there, my thoughts drifted to smoking in general, and suddenly I remembered the decorative glass filled with single cigarettes that sat on a side table in our living room, ready for guests during visiteavond, the visiting evening.

For generations, the visiteavond was a fixture of Dutch family life. Friends, neighbors, cousins, colleagues, and relatives would stop by after dinner for coffee, conversation, and perhaps a small snack. It was neither a special occasion nor an organized event. It was simply what people did. 

For many Dutch people, the word visiteavond immediately evokes a flood of memories. There was no background music. The television remained off. People discussed work, family, local news, holidays, and neighborhood happenings. Us kids often disappeared upstairs to play, leaving the adults to talk for hours, and I mean HOURS! 

A typical visiteavond began with coffee and a biscuit or cake. Later in the evening, if the visit continued, a small drink might appear alongside a selection of savory snacks: chips, salted nuts, cubes of cheese (often topped with a slice of pickle or candied ginger), slices of liverwurst, mustard for dipping, and if you were lucky, hot snacks like bitterballen or today's recipe, kaasballetjes, little fried cheese balls. The goal was not to impress guests with culinary skills, but to make them feel welcome, and to create a sense of "gezelligheid". 

To an outsider, it might sound unimaginably simple, but I remember those evenings fondly - and often long for an evening of visiting for hours and hours. Today, the tradition has largely faded, replaced by busy schedules, television, social media, and gatherings that require weeks of planning. 

Fortunately, these tasty cheese balls are quick to make, so there's no excuse to round up a couple of friends, invite them over, and have a good ole' visiteavond to reconnect! Veel plezier! 

Kaasballetjes

2 eggs

3 heaping tablespoons (35 grams) flour, divided

3.5 cups (350 grams) shredded aged Gouda (or Sharp Cheddar) cheese

Oil for frying

Optional: black pepper, parsley, mustard

Beat the two eggs with two tablespoons flour until there are no lumps, and mix in the cheese. Continue to mix for a good two minutes, until the cheese strands have more or less broken down and you have more of a cheesy paste. If you want, you can add black pepper, or parsley, or a small dollop of mustard to give it some extra flavor. 

Roll the mixture into large marble size balls, weighing approx. 0.8 oz/25 grams each. Place them in a container, cover and refrigerate until you are ready to fry these up. 

Heat your fryer to 350F/175C. Take the kaasballetjes out of the fridge. Roll each one in the tablespoon of flour, and fry them in the oil. You're looking for a golden brown exterior, so about 3-4 minutes each. Always test one first, to see if you need to adjust the temperature! Not all fryers are accurate on their temp.

Serve hot, and dip in mustard or sweet chili sauce. Goes well with a cold beer! 

If you prefer a crunchier outside, prepare them like bitterballen by rolling the cheese balls in egg and breadcrumbs. 

Kamper Steur

It was once quite common for residents of neighboring towns to mock one another, hugely exaggerating each other’s (supposed) flaws and passing along insulting stories through local folklore. What is far less common, however, is for a town’s own resident to ridicule his fellow citizens.

Yet that is exactly what happened in the little book Kamper Stukjes, published in 1852, a collection of short stories in which the inhabitants of Kampen, a city in Overijssel, are portrayed rather unfavorably. The book was written by “a native of Kampen,” who was later revealed to be the artist Jan Jacob Fels (1816–1883).

The stories describe the people of Kampen as hopelessly foolish. In one tale, they build a new tower but forget to include a staircase. In another, the mayor’s wife’s canary escapes, prompting the mayor to order the city gates closed so the bird cannot possibly fly away. You get the idea. 

Courtesy of Gouwenaar

These stories and name-calling, once meant as insults, sometimes evolve into markers of local pride, and become foods, festivals, and traditions. The story behind today’s dish is about a sturgeon, the famous Kamper steur, sturgeon from Kampen, and is a perfect example of this. 

According to the tale, the bishop is expected to visit the city, and a grand banquet is prepared in his honor. For the main course, a large steur, a sturgeon, is caught. However, word later arrives that the bishop has fallen ill and will postpone his visit. The townspeople are left wondering what to do with the enormous fish, until one clever soul proposes tying a bell around its neck and releasing it back into the water.

After all, when the bishop eventually recovers and comes to town, they would only need to listen for the ringing of the bell to locate the sturgeon and catch it again. Right? Right!

Well, when the bishop arrives, the sturgeon is nowhere to be heard or seen. The story in the book ends here, but somehow along the years, somebody somewhere added an addendum to the story, describing what the bishop was served instead of the sturgeon: Kamper steur, hard boiled eggs in a mustard sauce. 

What's interesting is, is that the dish with its fishy name existed long before the story was published. The earliest reference I've found to this particular dish with the name "Kempensche stuer" was 1574, so long before Fels's story in 1852 - an interesting twist. The mustard sauce is not a surprise: the province of Overijssel is famous for its mustards! 

This dish is quick to make, and makes a good substitute for meat. Every now and then I add a crunchy topping to switch it up a bit - I've added instructions below. Serves four. 

Kamper Steur

6 eggs

2 Tablespoons (30 grams) butter

3 Tablespoons (30 grams) flour

1 1/4 cup (300 ml) vegetable bouillon

2 Tablespoons coarse mustard

Parsley

Hard boil the eggs in your usual manner. If you don't have a method, try this: place them in a pot, cover with water, bring to a boil and boil for one minute, then turn off heat, cover, and let sit for 13 minutes. Move to cold water or an ice bath for 5+ minutes to stop cooking. 

While the eggs are resting in the hot water, melt the butter in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir in the flour until you have a paste, about two minutes, and then slowly add the vegetable stock. Keep stirring until you have a thick sauce, about five minutes. Stir in the mustard. Taste, and adjust the sauce with salt and pepper or, if you're like me, more mustard. 

Chop the parsley. Peel the eggs and cut them in half, lengthwise. Place them, cut side down in a dish. Stir one tablespoon of chopped parsley in the mustard sauce, and pour over the eggs. Top with additional parsley. 

Serve hot with a green salad and bread. 

*Optional: if texture is a big thing or if you prefer to have something crunchy, add a golden-brown gratin topping by mixing 1 cup of breadcrumbs/panko (approx. 50 grams) with 1/2 cup grated cheese, 2 Tablespoons (30 grams) melted butter, and the parsley, then sprinkle over the dish and broil for 2–3 minutes until bubbly. It's not original, but it sure is tasty! 

Chinese Pindakoekjes

In the early decades of the twentieth century, the cry “Pinda! Pinda! Lekka, lekka!” (peanut, peanut, tasty, tasty) echoed through Dutch streets: the call of the Chinese peanut brittle vendors. 

Most of these vendors were seamen from southern China who had originally worked as stokers and coal trimmers on ships of the Dutch merchant marine, such as the Stoomvaart Maatschappij Nederland. When shipping jobs became scarce (especially after World War I) many of these men were stranded in port cities such as Rotterdam and Amsterdam. Without stable employment, and facing language barriers and discrimination, they resorted to selling Chinese peanut brittle for 5 cents a piece from metal boxes hanging from straps around their necks. 

So familiar was the sight of these peanut brittle vendors that their peanut cry made its way into popular song, most notably in the version performed by Willy Derby. The song exaggerates the character for the stage, as cabaret often did, but behind the humor stood a real figure in Dutch street life - a man making a living, five cents at a time. 

Fotocollectie Spaarnestad 

The somewhat romantic image in the song ("ik heb bij de mooiste meisjes sjans") however hides a harsher reality. Selling pindakoekjes or pinda platen, was not a romantic enterprise but a means of survival in a country where steady employment was uncertain and social acceptance limited. Many of these Chinese migrants became stateless after losing their jobs. They often lived in overcrowded boarding houses, while anti-Chinese sentiment and restrictive labor practices limited other opportunities. Police sometimes also purposely regulated street vending, especially after complaints from local business owners. 

Yet these vendors also represent the very first visible Chinese community in the Netherlands. The first Chinese restaurant surfaced in Rotterdam in 1920, initially to cater to the Chinese community, but eventually gaining interest and appreciation from Dutch customers. The later rise of Chinese-Indonesian restaurants after WWII grew partly from these early networks. 

Fotocollectie Spaarnestad 

The pinda platen vendors eventually ventured outside of the bigger cities.  Many in the older generations can recall stories about their city's "pindachinees”, the local Chinese peanut vendor. I remember my grandfather often speaking of a gentleman known as “Pinda Willem,” or Peanut Bill (real name Tsen Koa Pai), who lived in Venlo from 1937 to 1963 and became a familiar figure by supplying locals with peanut treats, especially the kids. As the stories go, he often carried “something for the weekend” at the bottom of his bag for the local men as well.

The koekjes themselves were practical: made with a mixture of sugar, peanuts, and a touch of vinegar, they required no oven, just heat. The warm brittle was cut into bars, which hardened as they cooled and could be snapped off and sold individually. For many Dutch people, the first taste of something “foreign” came from a paper-wrapped peanut cookie bought from a man whose story they never knew. And perhaps that is why these peanut cookies matter. They are evidence of adaptation, resilience, and the quiet ways migrants become part of everyday life.

These peanut brittles (in Mandarin Hua Sheng Tang, in Indonesian known as teng teng, a name echoed playfully in Willy Derby's refrain) remain popular in China today and are often enjoyed during Chinese New Year celebrations. Even though they never became a staple in Dutch cuisine, they sort of helped spark the emergence of Chinese-Indonesian restaurants, now firmly woven into our everyday food culture. 

These brittle bars are quick to make. Feel free to experiment with flavors: add sesame seeds, or replace the peanuts with a mix of other nuts you might like better. You could also add a little vanilla, but don't omit the vinegar. The flavor does not affect the cookies, but the vinegar will help keep the sugar from setting too quickly. If you chop the peanuts, you can roll this brittle very thin, which results in a crispy, snappy kind of treat, and much more in style of what they're used to look like. Spreading the mix out on a large baking sheet will be the best choice. I left the peanuts whole which resulted in a thicker, chewier kind of treat.

Chinese Pindakoekjes

2 cups (250 grams) roasted peanuts
1 heaping cup (250 grams) regular, white sugar
1 Tablespoon (15 grams) butter, and a bit extra for greasing the paper
2 Tablespoons white vinegar
1 Tablespoon water

Line a baking sheet or square baking pan (mine is a 9 inch/22 cm) with parchment paper, and grease both top and bottom of the paper.* 

Chop the peanuts into small pieces, or leave whole like I did. In a heavy bottomed pan, cook the sugar, butter, vinegar and water into a golden caramel, until it reaches a temperature of 300F/148C. Quickly fold in the peanuts until they are well coated, and immediately pour the mixture on the parchment paper. With a sturdy spatula or the back of a solid spoon, quickly spread out the mixture so that it has even thickness. With a knife, or the metal edge of a bench scraper, mark out the lines of the bars. As the brittle cools, you may have to do that once or twice, to make sure the indentations stay. 

Let the brittle cool fully before you snap it into bars. 

* Greasing both the top and the bottom will secure the paper in place when you are working hard on getting the peanut brittle spread out. Alternatively, if you are not using a baking pan with raised edges like mine, you can roll the brittle out thin with a rolling pin once it has started to set.  

Carnavalssoep

I was tempted to give this post a subtitle: The Curious Case of the Carnaval Soup, and here's why. For the last several years, online recipes for a dish called carnavalssoep (a rich tomato based soup with peppers, leeks, white beans, ground beef and smoked sausage) have been appearing with increasing frequency. Depending on where you look, it may also be called truujensoep, oudewijvensoep, or aldewievensoep. 

I first encountered it while researching oudewijvenkoek, and was immediately intrigued. I am a Limburgse at heart and grew up immersed in local carnaval traditions, from the festivities beginning on November 11 through Ash Wednesday, yet I had never heard of this soup before.

Unlike many Dutch dishes whose origins can be traced through old cookbooks, regional archives, or family notebooks, carnavalssoep seems to appear quite suddenly. There are no clear references in older culinary literature, no mentions in early twentieth-century household manuals, and no obvious regional variations passed down through generations. Instead, the soup enters the internet already presented as something familiar and traditional from the start. 

Dutch food culture has always been receptive to new influences and make them its own. What begins as a personal preference, a local joke, or a practical solution can, within a generation, be remembered as always having been this way. A well-known example is the kapsalon, now a staple in snack bars across the Netherlands. Yet the dish did not exist before 2003, when a Rotterdam hairdresser asked his local shoarma shop to combine fries, meat, cheese, and salad into one tray. Other customers began ordering “the kapsalon,” and within a few years it had spread nationwide: a modern invention that already feels deeply rooted in Dutch food culture. 

Something similar may be happening as we speak, on a more local level. This year, the Frisian village of Grou announces the return of Sint Pitersop, Saint Peter's soup. The soup is served during the celebration of Sint Piter on Februari 21st, an event similar to Sinterklaas that has always been unique to Grou. The festivities committee's website states that they are "reviving an old tradition: the St. Piter soup". But research into old cookbooks, online archives, and reams and reams of regional publications has not revealed any tradition regarding soup during St. Piter. 

But back to the carnaval soup. The earliest version of the carnavalssoep recipe I have been able to find dates from 2009. Many online descriptions of this soup repeat the same claims almost word for word: that it is traditional, that it was made by (and for) older women, and that it follows a familiar set of ingredients. Rather than pointing to a shared family history, this may simply reflect a recipe copied and repeated online. Over time, repetition can create the impression of age and authenticity: a gentle reminder that repetition alone does not make something historically accurate.

Carnavalssoep, like St. Pitersop, may therefore not be an old tradition at all. Perhaps it is something more interesting: a new tradition in the making, one that is just as worth documenting. If future generations continue to prepare the soup during carnaval, a tradition will truly have come into being!

The recipe can be adjusted to your liking. I rolled the beef into small balls and simmered them in the soup. If you don't have access to beans in tomato sauce, use regular white beans and two tablespoons of tomato paste, or use a can of pork and beans. 

Carnavalssoep

1 Tablespoon (15 grams) butter

1 lb (500 grams) ground beef

1 large onion, diced

2 garlic cloves, minced

3 bell peppers, diced (one red, one green, one yellow)*

1 large leek, cut in half moons

1 can (15.5 oz/ 440 grams) beans in tomato sauce 

3 cups (0.75 liter) tomato sauce

3 cups (0.75) water

1 smoked sausage, sliced

3 bouillon cubes

2 bay leaves

1 Tablespoon brown sugar

1 Tablespoon sambal or hot sauce

Salt to taste

Melt the butter and fry the ground beef until no longer pink, then add the onion, garlic, peppers, and leeks. Fry the vegetables until they have a little bit of a char and the onion is no longer raw. Add the can of beans, stir everything well and then transfer the content to a crockpot, slow cooker, or stockpot. 

Add in the tomato sauce and the water, the bay leaves, the smoked sausage and the bouillon cubes. Bring it back up to temperature and let it simmer for a good fifteen to twenty minutes, then taste and adjust the salt level. Stir in the brown sugar and the sambal or hot sauce, and you're ready to party! 

* these are the traditional Limburg carnaval colors!