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!

A Dutch dinner party!

I love three day weekends! It gives me a little bit more time to do something extra: I sleep in a little bit longer, I pull out a recipe of two I've been wanting to try, or I kick back with a book or a magazine. But the best thing about three day weekends is that it gives me one more evening to plan something to cook. And a Dutch dinner party sounds just like the ticket!!

How about we start with an appetizer while the guests arrive? Maybe some bitterballen and diced Gouda cheese on a platter (with good mustard of course!) while we visit over a glass of something or other. It's a great time to relax, share the latest news, or make plans for a weekend away together.

When people are finally seated, start with a witlofsalade, or a light soup such as groentensoep met balletjes. That's easy enough. But now comes the hard part! What vegetable are you going to serve? Boerenkool met worst is wonderful but perhaps a bit too casual? How about a traditional gehaktbal met jus, cauliflower, and cute little boiled potatoes? Or hachee with mashed potatoes and rode kool met appeltjes? And don't forget those delectable slavinken!

Finish your dinner with hangop or vla, whether it's hopjes or vanillevla. And how about an appelbol, or kersenvlaai with your 8pm coffee to round off the evening. Sounds like a splendid time!

What would you like to see on the menu?

 

Rode Bessensaus

In a traditional Dutch household, as soon as dinner is over, the plates are cleared (although some families will also use their dinner plate for dessert, so as to save washing more dishes!) and the various cartons of vla, yogurt, pudding or pap make their way to the table. Very often, a variety of choices are available as each family member tends to favor one flavor of another: I for one loved hopjesvla, but could also appreciate a creamy vanillevla or chocoladevla!

Together with the dairy cartons, a smaller glass bottle will make its appearance. It contains a thick, red liquid. Now watch the people at the table. As the bottle is passed from one person to the other and makes its way around the table, those that have not yet been able to pour some of its contents on their dessert, guard it closely to make sure nobody takes more than their share, and that there is something left for them! And no wonder, because this small bottle holds Tova, a puddingsaus, also known as "toversaus", magic sauce, because of its name and its possibilities to change your dessert into something even better!

Source: Albert Heijn

Nowadays, Tova puddingsaus is called dessertsaus, and is meant specifically for that: ice cream, vla, pap, yogurt and even pancakes. Tova has been around for almost a hundred years and is still popular today. It used to be produced by the De Betuwe fruit company from Tiel, where Flipje the mascot came from. Nowadays, Tova is produced by the international Hero company.

The sauces used to come in many flavors: strawberry, cherry, chocolate, banana.....but the most favorite sauce tended to be the red berry sauce, rode bessensaus. It was sweet and slightly acidic at the same time, perfect for cutting through sweet dairy desserts, and often specifically served with farina pudding, griesmeelpudding or buttermilk pudding, karnemelkpudding. Nowadays, Hero limits its production to strawberry, raspberry, caramel and chocolate.

Bessensaus is traditionally made from aalbessen, fresh red currants (ribes rubrum), but can also be prepared with a mixture of red currants, strawberries or raspberries, if currants are hard to come by.

Bessensaus
4 cups freshly picked currants (about 450 grams)
1/4 cup water (60 ml)
1/4 cup sugar ( 85 grams)
1 vanilla bean (optional

Pick the stems from the currants, wash the berries and add them to a thick bottomed pan with the 1/4 cup of water, sugar and the vanilla bean. After ten minutes, remove the vanilla bean, split it down the middle and scrape the seeds out. Return the seeds to the pan, as well as the remainder of the vanilla bean. Simmer for fifteen to twenty minutes, until the berries have softened and released their juice.

Remove the vanilla bean. Pour the berries and the liquid into a sieve and use a spatula or wooden spoon to squash the berries through the sieve into a bowl. The seeds and skins remain in the sieve, and you should have a thick berry sauce in the bowl. If the sauce is too watery, return it to the pan and reduce it, or thicken it with a little bit of cornstarch. If you dip a spoon into the sauce and are able to draw a line on the back of the spoon with your finger, it is thick enough.

Taste the sauce and decide if you want it sweeter. If so, add a bit more sugar and stir until the sugar is dissolved. You can now freeze* the sauce, or keep it in the fridge, but no longer than ten days. With any sign of spoilage such as mold, discoloration or bubbly foam, discard the sauce immediately.

Makes approximately 2 cups (500 ml) of sauce, depending on reduction.

* I split the sauce between several small freezer jam jars and keep the sauce in the freezer. I only pull a small jar at a time and let it thaw in the fridge before using it for dessert. This will help keep your product fresh.

Chocoladevla

 Some foods don't need a lot of explanation, like today's vla. It's chocolate, and it's vla. It's good. You can eat it as dessert, all by itself. You can stir it with vanillevla and mix it up. You can use it as a dip for fresh bananas. It's comforting, enticing, yummie and chocolatey. And it's vla.

And if there's something we love for dessert, it's vla, a pourable sweet pudding, available in over fifty flavors. The rectangular vla cartons look much like the American quart sized milk cartons, and will appear on the table after dinner. If you're fairly  new to the table, people will probably give you a clean bowl. If you're family, whether blood-related or not, you will probably pour your vla of choice on the plate in front of you, the one that you just finished eating your main course of. A good reason to finish your plate!

You will find vla in the dairy section of the grocery store. There are seasonal vlas, like an apple-cinnamon for the Fall, or a fruity lemony one for the Spring. There are fufu-fancy ones and there are the run-of-the-mill vlas, like today's chocolade vla. Together with vanilla, hopjesvla and raspberry, it's probably one of the most popular flavors and bound to show up on a Dutch dinner table sooner than later.

The best thing is that it's so easy to make. Some milk, a bit of corn starch and good old-fashioned Van Houten cocoa powder and sugar is all this takes. The making of the vla takes less than ten minutes, but it's the waiting until it's cooled off that takes the longest....unless you eat your vla hot!

Chocoladevla
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup corn starch
1/3 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
2  1/4 cup milk

Stir the cocoa powder, corn starch, sugar and salt together in a bowl. Add a cup of milk and whisk until all lumps are gone. Bring the rest of the milk to a low simmer, add the chocolate milk to the pan and stir together. Keep stirring while the milk comes to a boil, and boil it for a good one or two minutes, or until the mixture starts to thicken. Pull off the stove, pour in a bowl or container. Cover the surface of the vla with plastic food film to avoid a "skin" forming.

Cool in the fridge. Stir before serving.