Chufi

Claudia Roden mentions a sweet Spinach Almond Pie in her Book of Jewish Food.

I have to ask my mom. I don't make it very often (whenever she makes it, she gives me some of hers, and it's not something you want to eat very often). When I do make it, I always have to call her to tell me what to do. And then I loose the instructions and next time I have to ask her again! Anyway, this might be a good opportunity to ask her, write it down, and make it. I'll report back!

I like winter soups more than summer soups. I make pureed soups of all kinds of root vegetables: parsnip, celeriac, swede. Jerusalem artichoke if I can find them. Sooo comforting. I guess I need more comfort in the wintertime. And pumpkin ofcourse. And bean soups.. And the king of Dutch winter soups: erwtensoep, a very thick splitpea soup with lots of (smoked) pork.

I definitely did not have enough fat. I had about one tablespoon of oil and one of butter to 8 onions (should have read the recipe BEFORE making the confit!) The advantage of my dry version is, that it travels well. Had a winter picnic on the beach today that was much improved by my cheese-confit sandwich. Still I feel I have not had a taste of the real thing yet. I will make another batch soon!

Mine looks very different. Much dryer! I should add more oil/butter next time I think. Or some liquid? Wine? Maybe the oventemp should be even lower so that it doesn't dry out as much. Oh well. I have a feeling there'll be many batches to come so plenty of opportunity for perfecting this.

OK. I've read through 11 pages of confit info and decided it was time to make my own. Cut up some onions..put them in the pan with oil, butter, pepper. No port in the house so I added some Marsala. No demi-glace so I added some reduced red wine sauce from a coq au vin style dish that I made yesterday. Put the thing in the oven (don't have a crockpot, in fact I'm wondering if these things exist in my country..never seen one). It's now about 7 hours later and it looks pretty much done, but I'll give it another hour or so. It looks, smells and tastes delicious. 2 things: next time I'll have thicker slices so the finished thing has a bit more texture (mine is pretty mushy). And next time I'll make more.

... that's another WOW. You must have had a lot of happy people at your dinnertable. Now I want beef...

WOW. I have never seen a piece of beef that big. And I'm a butcher's daughter.. It's bigger than the baby! please post a pic of the finished beef..

that is such a great idea. Other stuff could go in there.. a cheese sauce maybe? Now this is something I am going to play with! thanks!

Your pig looks great! Even without the head, it still looks very much like a pig! I think you were very brave to tackle this. 12 years I ago helped organizing a New Years Eve party where a friend of mine wanted to roast a pig. I can still see us standing in front of his oven, pushing and bending the legs of the beast just to make it fit! It did fit in the end and the meat was delicious. And at that party I met the man who is now my husband, so I will always have very fond memories of roast suckling pig.

I have enjoyed reading about the Thanksgiving Dinners, makes me wish we had that holiday!. Nothing grand like that happening over here though.. just some comforting winter meals. yesterday: lentil stew with home made oatmeal rolls (and some avocado salad in the background) today: "shepherd's pie" baked potatoes, green cabbage braised with bacon and caraway:

what a great dinner. And I am so impressed that with all the shopping and cooking going on, you still had time to work on the blog! I wish I was half as organized!

I agree. For some reason people are really honored when they find out you have baked them fresh bread.. I only started baking bread a couple of months ago and it is addictive!! Tonight I had a friend over for a bowl of soup and some bread.. these ridiculously easy buttermilk rolls that are mixed up in 5 minutes: now the soup had involved lots of chopping, saute-ing and pure-ing (sp?) but it was the rolls she couldn't get enough of!

no they didn't! I only recently started photographing my cooking and it's not easy! And you can't make your guests wait forever for their dinner, just because you want that perfect picture..

Dinner with friends: Risotto with caramellized leeks, topped with seared scallops (thanks bleudauvergne for suggesting that combo, it was great) Wild mushroom tart flavored with marjoram, with a buttery cornmeal crust salad with roasted wedges of butternut squash, drizzled with pumpkinseed-oil Individual chocolate souffle's with a cold orange sabayon sauce. The mushroom tart was the only thing that produced a presentable picture:

Le Hollandais is one of my favorite restaurants in Amsterdam! Great service and wonderful food.

Luxembourg: bistro style, classic food, very much a place to watch people and be seen. never been there myself for dinner De Schutter is mostly frequented by students because of there cheap and filling daily specials. Relaxed atmosphere. I used to go there a lot when I was a student. More of a bar than a restaurant. Spanjer & van Twist - trendy little place great location on small canal, maybe nicer for lunch than for dinner De Jaren: grand cafe style place, nice for coffee and cake while reading a newspaper. Service is really bad (at least that's been my experience). Piet de Leeuw: old-fashioned place serving steaks, liver and stuff like that. If you like that kind of food I would however reccommend Loetje (mentioned in my previous post) over this one. Hope you'll have a great time in Amsterdam!

Well.. the first 2 ended up in the bin but today I have baked my first real sourdough loaf! I am so excited! I was much more patient this time with the kneading and proofing.. I baked the loaf for 45 minutes on 180 C. it did not raise very high but maybe that is also because the basket I used was quite large, so it was very flat when it went into the oven. More importantly.. it tastes great. I do have a final question about the starter, because Jack's instructions and some of the info in this thread are confusing me. This is what I do now: - jar of starter in fridge. - take out 1 cup of starter, refresh this with 1 cup of flour and one cup of water. Throw the rest of the old starter away. - from the refreshed mixture, take 1 cup to make the dough for the bread. - the rest of the mixture, put back in the fridge. So this is what I do when I make the bread. What if I want to feed the starter between baking sessions? How often should I do that and how much should I feed?

Roast guinea fowl with sage, garlic and juniper butter it was served with celeriac/potato mash and a mushroom gravy. Dessert: stewed quinces in red wine jelly

when I met my husband (12 years ago) we both couldn't cook. He had been married before to a woman who could cook very well so I think that's why I decided to learn.. I don't remember any meals from the first 6 months. Then I bought him a Marcella Hazan cookbook and started cooking from it! 12 years later, he is not allowed in the kitchen except to eat, I have 200 + cookbooks and cooking is my passion, my daily joy. And he loves eating my food!

Hi t., I am not fond of Indonesian food so I can't help you there. For a herring (broodje haring): there are lots of 'haringkarren' on the streets where you can get those. For example on the Albert Cuypmarkt (Albert Cuypstraat, market everyday exept sunday) A few other places that come to mind: de Griekse Taverna, Hobbemakade 64 (south). Very good greek food. Lo Stivale d'Oro, Amstelstraat 49 (center), italian food like in Italy, sweet little place with Italian mamma in the kitchen. A great place for atmosphere is cafe/restaurant Het Blauwe Theehuis, right in the middle of the Vondelpark (not to be confused with the 2 other restaurants in the park, Vertigo and het Melkhuis.. both not very good and very unfriendly) Orontes, Albert Cuypstraat 40. (south) Turkish food, fantastic appetizers, very friendly staff. Loetje, Johannes Vermeerstraat 52 (south). Famous for their steaks. Not exactly a restaurant and about as informal as you can get is Van Dobben (Korte Reguliersdwarsstraat 5, near Rembrandtplein). This is a shop that sells sandwiches. Just rolls with good meat or cheese, nothing fancy like bits of lettuce and they have never heard of sundried tomatoes or pesto! But they are famous for their meat-croquettes and their 'broodje halfom' (roll with equal amounts of liver and a pastrami-like meat). I hope this helps.

I have about 200. I don't really have a favorite, I just have different phases. The Marcella - Italian phase.. the Claudia Roden - Middle Eastern phase.. etc. At the moment I am in dough & pastry phase so I search through all my cookbooks looking for breads, cookies, pastry and pies!

2/3 fennel very thinly sliced and 1/3 onions very thinly sliced, caramelized very slowly in olive oil. I use this as a pastasauce (it gets kind of sweet so I sometimes add some salty black olives and lots of grated pecorino). Or the same mixture can be used to make a quiche. I also love the combination of fennel and a good blue cheese.

Thank you for this wonderful blog. I want to say that apart from the food, one thing that impressed me very much is what you shared about the matchbooks. I think that is a very romantic thing to do!

it is, but I think it loses all it's character when it gets too hot. It's like the peppery-ness flies away. So you have to eat fast...