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!!

Bakleverworst

My grandpa Tinus always loved old-fashioned, hearty farm food: liverwurst, blood sausages, balkenbrij.... all those wintery, solid foods that for many of us belong to a different era. It is food that is not readily available at the butcher shop or grocery store anymore, except for a few artisan butchers that still take pride in producing local, traditional, old-fashioned products. But the other day, I ran into a lady of Dutch descent who told me that each year, she and her sisters make balkenbrij, another one of those offal dishes, for Christmas, at home. Much to the horror of everybody else, but they love it and enjoy the process of making and baking it.

The old days of home hog butchering and using up all the goodies is far removed from many of us, and we flinch at the thought of grinding up livers, chopping up kidneys or stirring buckets of blood into flour in order to make bakleverworst, balkenbrij or Dutch boudin, bloedworst. But there is nothing wrong with reaching back to the cooking of our grandparents, or great grandparents. Their cooking was honest, solid, and tasty. Remember, they didn't have all the fancy entertainment options we have nowadays, so food was something everybody looked forward to and was often a source of bringing people together.

One of those by-product foods is liverwurst, or leverworst. The Dutch like their leverworst and purchase it in a variety of options: as a soft, spreadable Braunschweiger-like leverworst for the lunch sandwich, a harder and sliceable ring-shaped leverworst as a cold snack, or in chunks and pickled in huge vats of vinegar (zure leverworst) and available from your local patatkraam or neighborhood fry shop. A not so familiar one is the bakleverworst, a solid liverwurst that you cut in thick slices, dip in flour and fry up in some butter. It's good eaten cold, after being fried, or warm on a slice of bread.

Embrace your inner grandparent and decide that this winter you are going to venture out and try some of these old traditional dishes from long ago. They are easy to make, and easy to keep.

Bakleverworst
2 lb pork liver
2 lb pork shoulder
5 slices of thick sliced smoked bacon
1 onion
1 tablespoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cloves
2 teaspoons ground white pepper
1 bouillon cube
1/2 cup flour

Bring a large pot with water to a boil, add the bouillon cube or stock and lower to a simmer. Cut the liver and meat into cubes and simmer in the stock for fifteen minutes.

Grind the meat, batch for batch, in a food processor or meat grinder. Depending on whether you want a coarser grind or finer grind, you may have to put the meat through several times. I processed it twice to get a finer texture.

Chop the bacon into small dice and mix through the meat, add the spices and the flour. Mix together. Add a tablespoon of cooking liquid at a time to get a mixture moist enough to be malleable but still solid.

Measure out about 22 oz per sausage, a little bit more or less doesn't matter, just make sure they all have the same weight.

Place a piece of plastic food film on the counter, form the sausage and place it in the middle, lengthwise. Now take the ends of the film and tighten them up, rolling the sausage back and forth on the counter, until it's the right shape. Tighten a knot on each end, cut off the remaining film and wrap in another piece of food film, now wrapping it width-wise. Finish with wrapping each sausage lengthwise again, tying off the knots (see picture) and cutting the remaining film.

Bring a large pan with water to a boil, and place the sausages in the water. Make sure that all wrappings are watertight. Leave it simmering for an hour, remove and shock the liverwurst by placing it in a tray with ice cold water. Let it rest until cold (thirty minutes), unwrap and pat each sausage dry. Rewrap, and refrigerate or freeze for later use.

The next day, slice thick slices from the refrigerated liverwurst, dip them in flour and fry them brown and crispy on the outside. Butter a slice of bread, add the bakleverworst and yum!!! Good old fashioned winter food, love it!!

Bruine Bonensoep

"I don't pray for brown beans," little Bart said, pulling his plate away when his mother tried to serve him his dinner. Young Bart Bartels is not alone: few like the brown beans served as a vegetable because of its mushy texture. But put these tan pulses in a soup and you'll find that the texture contributes to a hearty, thick, wonderful stew. The typical Dutch brown cooking beans called "bruine bonen", or in Bartje's dialect from Drenthe, "bruune boon'n", are not available in the United States unless home-grown or purchased from a Dutch store.

Bartje was the main character in two books written by the author Anne de Vries, during the mid nineteen thirties. Bartje is a young boy who lives in a rural village in the province of Drenthe, in Holland's north-east. Brown beans were standard fare for the poor and during one episode, he refuses to say grace, as he's sick and tired of eating them. Needless to say, this earns him some spanking!

You will not encounter such rebellious behavior at the table when you serve this brown bean soup. If you're not able to find any, this soup will also work well with pinto or pink beans.

Bruine Bonensoep
2 cups of beans, dry

1 bay leaf
1 medium size onion, peeled
3 cloves, whole
1 leek, sliced
2 sprigs of fresh thyme
1 small onion, diced
1/2 cup of diced celeriac root
2 potatoes, peeled and diced
1 carrot, peeled and diced
1 handful of celery leaves, chopped
2 tomatoes, diced
4 slices of bacon, diced
1 Kielbasa or 10 smokies
Salt
Pepper

Wash, rinse and soak the beans the night before in sufficient water. The next day, drain, rinse and add to a cooking pot with enough water to cover the beans. Poke the cloves in the whole peeled onion, take the bay leaf and the thyme and add these items to the pot. Cover and bring to a boil, then turn down to a simmer and cook the beans until done. This may take up to an hour or two, depending on the age of the beans.

When the beans are done, dispose of the onion, cloves, bay leaf and thyme sprigs. Take out two cups of cooked beans. Purée the rest of the beans. You may have to add some water or stock if the soup is too thick at this point. Add the remaining fresh vegetables and the bacon to the soup, and simmer for another twenty minutes. Add the kielbasa or the smokies after that until they're hot, and stir in the two cups of beans you've set aside earlier. If you're using kielbasa, remove it after ten minutes, slice it in thick chunks, then return the meat to the soup.

Taste, adjust with pepper and salt if needed, and serve hot with thick slices of whole wheat buttered bread. 

Koffiebroodjes

Coffee and pastries, pastries and coffee.....according to the Dutch, there is always a good reason to sit down, enjoy a cup of coffee (or any other hot beverage of choice) and a pastry to compliment the beverage, preferably in good company. The Dutch love their pastries, sweet rolls and slices of cake, like this sticky, sweet, raisin and pudding filled koffiebroodje.

Koffiebroodjes, or coffee rolls, as they are called, are sticky because they are covered with a sweet glaze. Sometimes the glaze is a powdered sugar base, sometimes an apricot jam one. This recipe showcases the latter.

Koffiebroodjes are available at local bakeries and supermarkets, and can also be found in the train stations kiosks.

With all the variety there is to chose from, the koffiebroodje has a little bit of an old-fashioned feel to it, but it doesn't make it any less appetizing. Instead of using pastry cream, I used a ready-to-use box of vanilla pudding. For a pastry cream recipe, look here.

Usually eaten at 11:00am on the coffee break or visit with the buuf, the neighbor lady, koffiebroodjes are easy to make, and great to share!

Koffiebroodjes

1/3 cup of raisins

1.5 cup of milk, lukewarm

2 teaspoons of active dry yeast

3.5 cups of flour

1/2 stick of butter, room temperature

5 tablespoons of sugar

1 splash of vanilla

1 teaspoon salt

1 egg

For the cream

1 package of French vanilla pudding

1/3 cup of sour cream

For the glaze

2 tablespoons of apricot jam

1 tablespoon of warm water

Soak the raisins in warm water and set aside. Proof the yeast in the milk. Mix the flour with the sugar, then add the proofed yeast and milk, and mix together. Add the salt, the egg, the butter and the splash of vanilla and knead together into a supple dough. Cover and proof until doubled in size.

In the meantime, mix the pudding with half the required amount of liquid on the package. Stir in the sour cream.

Roll the dough out into a square, 12 x 12 inches approximately. Spread the vanilla pudding on the dough, leaving all sides uncovered. Sprinkle the raisins over the pudding. Now take the furthest end of the dough and roll it up towards you. Place it seam down and divide the roll into equal slices, of about an inch to an inch and a half wide.

Place the slices, cut side down on a silicone mat or parchment paper on a baking sheet. Cover and proof for at least twenty minutes or until the dough is puffy. Heat the oven to 350F and bake the rolls golden brown in 25 minutes or until done.

Mix the apricot jam with the warm water and brush the rolls when they come out of the oven. Brush them again when they've slightly cooled. Serve warm if possible.

Slavinken

Slavink, loosely translated as beat finch or lettuce finch, is one of the several ready-to-prepare foods that are available at the butcher store or in the meat department of a grocery store in the Netherlands. It is also one of the more traditional meat options for lunch (if you have your hot meal at lunch time) or dinner.

Slavink is a variation on the blinde vink, or blind finch, another meat product. Why these birds were chosen to name these products is not entirely sure, although it is thought that the size and roundness of the product reminds one of a small bird. Okay. It is true that in medieval times, out of sheer hunger, people would eat any bird they would catch, and I am sure finches were among the bounty, but more money could be made with selling the songbird to more affluent citizens.

To this day, vinkenzettingen, or finch singing competitions, are held in parts of Flanders, Holland and parts of Germany and France. The amount of songs the birds sing in an hour are counted and whomever had more songs wins. In the early days of these competitions, the birds would have their sight taken away to keep them from getting distracted and stop singing. This would be done rather cruelly. Later on, the cages would be "blinded" instead.

Another, more plausible explanation is the fact that the slavink was created by butcher Ton Spoelder, third generation butcher who opened a butcher store in Laren in 1951. Ton Spoelder decided, with Dutch practicality, that the cost of meat would reduce greatly if customers would come to the store to purchase their meat instead of having a fleet of young delivery boys running all over town. His innovative ideas were not only applied to store management, but also to developing new products, one of which was the slavink. It is thought that the name is an abbreviation of "slager's vink", butcher's finch.

Either way, you'll much prefer this meatroll to a itty-bitty feathery finch on your plate. The slavink, nor blinde vink, at the butcher's is not a bird: it is a small meatroll, wrapped in either bacon (slavink) or veal (blinde vink).

You can use bacon or pancetta for the slavink: the bacon used in Holland is not smoked so unless you can find fresh pork somewhere, select a bacon that is not overly smokey for best practices. I like to use a thicker sliced bacon and pound it flat between cling film to make the wrapping easier.

Makes six slavinken.  

Slavinken
8 oz (250 grams) ground beef
8 oz (250 grams) ground pork

1/4 teaspoon salt
Pepper to taste
Nutmeg (optional)
1/4 cup (28 grams)  tablespoons bread crumbs
2 tablespoons milk

1 large egg
18 slices bacon

4 tablespoons (50 grams) butter

Mix the ground beef with the ground pork, and season to taste with the salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Don't hesitate to add garlic, caramelized onions, paprika, curry, or your favorite meatloaf spices. Knead in the breadcrumbs, milk and the egg, and divide into six equal portions, about 3 oz/80 grams each. Roll into small logs.

Place three slices of bacon on a cutting board: two overlapping slices vertically, and one slice about one third down horizontally, with one vertical piece under and the other one over the horizontal piece. Place the raw meat log horizontally on the middle piece, and fold over the loose ends on the right and left side. Bring over the top pieces, and then roll the slavink down, until you've reached the bottom of the bacon strips. If you want to, you could use a wooden toothpick to secure the bottom pieces. Roll the meat a couple of times with the palm of your hand to tighten it up. After you've done all six rolls, cover and refrigerate for about thirty minutes.

Retrieve the slavinken from the fridge about ten minutes before you are getting ready to cook them. Melt the butter in a frying pan. Place the slavinken carefully in the pan. Cook them on low-medium heat to avoid scorching the bacon. Turn them around, carefully, and cook the other sides, until all sides are golden brown. Use a meat thermometer to measure the internal temperature: 160°F (71°C). 

Remove the meat rolls from the pan, return it to the stove and stir in half a cup of water, a tablespoon or two of tomato ketchup, or a generous spoonful of mustard, scraping the bottom of the pan to loosen up all the crunchy bits, and get a pan jus.

Slavinken serve well with stamppot (here with red cabbage stamppot), as the V in AGV (aardappels, groente,vlees, potatoes, vegetable, meat), or cold and sliced the next day on a white bun.