Chufi

I've made something today that I'm really proud of. I'm not going to tell you all what it is... just wait and see! I have some other things to finish tomorrow and then assemble. I've had so much fun and this has been a completely new way for me to think about dessert. For me, dessert is usually a big beautiful cake, that will get some oh's and ah's when I bring it to the table, before it's destroyed by cutting into it. I don't think I've thought about, let alone made, a plated dessert in my life! So this has been a very educational week for me. Stay tuned for final results tomorrow...

Pontormo, I am sorry, but the white chocolate stays I am hoping to convince you with the final results! That membrillo recipe does look easy. I might give that a try. After all, this is a challenge, right? Still thinking about the part of the challenge that says that this dessert should evoke the spirit of Sinterklaas. The Sinterklaas fest is all about little (not necessarily expensive) gifts and surprises. I am wondering how to incorporate that into the dessert. I was thinking of wrapping something in puff pastry.. but how to make it look like an actual parcel/gift?

This month, a bunch of us are cooking our way through Emilia Romagna, where some of the most gorgeous fresh and stuffed pasta comes from. Here is some I made recently: spinachlasagna bolognese and spinach tortellini, stuffed with mashed potatoes & chives I used Marcella Hazan's recipe for the spinach dough, but found I had to use a LOT more flour than she stated, and the dough was still reall wet and sticky. The color of the dough improved dramatically after a few days though (even if the texture didn't). From flecked with green, it turned to a uniformly bright green dough. Really beautiful. So I would recommend always leaving spinach dough for at least a day before using.

hey! this thread shouldn't drop to the second page! here are the elements that will go into my dessert: quinces pears speculaas-spices almonds clementines white chocolate cream and ofcourse the usual suspects, butter, flour, sugar and eggs. Does it sound good? I could be still open to last inute changes so... creative thoughts still welcome!

No, 'cause I don't have the book! Maybe that's what I should've asked for Christmas!

Oh, and as for the pickles: I'm guessing that one of them has pickled turnips in the stuffing.

I am so enjoying this blog. Seeing the pictures makes me think that next time I visit Istanbul, it should be in the winter (when I was there, it was midsummer and really hot, which is NOT my kind of weather). Now this is one of my all time favorite photos from a foodblog. The colors, composition, the movement, the contrast between the cold white tiles and the fierce heat of the oven, the careful attention with which the peel is pushed in the oven, the posture of the baker, it's all about loving the bread. Really beautiful!

what to do with leftover mash and leftover spinachpastadough? make more pasta ofcourse! Elies mash-ravioli, and Shaya's perfect little poufy hats were on my mind. hathor asked, somewhere, though I can't find her question anymore, if I'd let the spinachdough rest, and why it should rest. The dough I used on Monday was sort of speckled with green, whereas the dough that rested in the fridge for 2 days, was a uniform bright green. So I guess that's what the resting is for. The texture wasn't much different though, still soft and sticky! (the coarse semolina looks wierd, but it all melts away in the cooking water) The filling tasted really good, but it was a little bit dry. (just mash, chives, egg and parmesan, like Elie said). And thank you Shaya for inspring me to try a new stuffed pasta shape! They came out so pretty! Served with a bacon/mushroom creamsauce, this was a very good dish for 'cooking with leftovers'...

Hachee I'm planning to make hachee somewhere in January ← well, it took me until now, but I finally made hachee! the word probably comes from the french hâché (cut in little pieces). The Dutch spelling is hachee. The meat for this beef & onion stew is diced into 1.5 inch cubes. Ingredients: 1 pound lean stewing beef, diced 3 medium onions, cut up 2 tablespoons butter 2 tablespoons winevinegar + 1 teaspoon to add right before serving 3 bayleaves 4 cloves salt, pepper 3/4 cup of light beef stock (not pictured) 1 slice of soft gingerbread such as this This will thicken, sweeten and spice up the sauce. If you don't have it, sprinkle the meat with a bit of flour before frying to help thicken the juices, and add a pinch of cinnamon, ground ginger and nutmeg to the stew when you add the liquid. Season the meat with salt and pepper and brown the meat in the butter. You don't have to be too thorough about the browning process. When the meat is browned add the onions. Fry over high heat. They won't brown much but they should soften and cook down. Add the cloves, bayleaves, stock and vinegar. Bring to a simmer and cook over low heat, at a very lazy simmer, with the lid very slightly ajar, for about 3 hours. the onions should have cooked to a mush. Lift the meat from the sauce with a slotted spoon and set aside. (Take out the bayleaves and cloves, if you can find them, and discard). Crumble the gingerbread into the sauce, stir until it has 'melted', and cook the sauce over high heat until it is nice and thick. Put the meat back in and correct the seasoning. If possible, leave until the next day before you serve it - it will taste even better! When you reheat it, sprinkle with a tiny bit of vinegar. This is optional, but I like the way the vinegar cuts through the rich sweetness of the spices and onions. This is traditionally served with mashed or boiled potatoes and braised red cabbage. But because I braise my red cabbage with bayleaves, cloves and red wine, I feel the flavors of the 2 dishes are too similar. So I serve it with another vegetable, sprouts are good, as are green beans or simply cooked green cabbage. Yesterday we had it with carrots tossed with parsley, tarragon and lemon juice, and a nice buttery mustard mash. and a close up, because it looks so good!

Good idea! Those pears ('stoofperen' - braisingpears) look very similar to quinces when they are cooked for a couple of hours. Their texture is different, softer, and their flavor is less sweet. You are right that a combination could be intriguing.

Thank you everybody for thinking with me and for your ideas. This is a lot of fun! So, I've done a lot of thinking today. Every now and then I've sniffed my bag of speculaasspices to see if it would inspire me further. I'm telling you, good stuff I also made a little hot chocolate and flavored it with the spices. It was really good, but I don't think I'll be using chocolate. I'm thinking of not going the really dark and spicy way, but more the light and fragrant way. I keep thinking of something like trifle.. or meringue.. clouds of cream, subtly spiced.. The quinces keep coming back to me. Membrillo scares me though.. Macarons: there is a Dutch cookie, called bokkepootje (goatleg...) that I've been wanting to make for the Dutch Cooking thread. It's 2 long macaronlike cookies, sandwiched together with apricotjelly, both ends dipped in dark chocolate. It's very lightly flavored with cinnamon, so I could use the spices instead, and sandwich together with something quincey. And I do think that a trifle, made with speculaas-flavored spongecake, lots of custard, amaretto liqueur and roasted quinces, would be very good.

sazji, I can't resist linking to my post about these. A Kurdish friend of mine taught me how to make them.. red lentil kofte for making them, I bought a big jar of red pepper paste. I think in your first post of this blog you mentioned this and said something like "it's all about the pepper paste". The big jar is still sitting in my fridge, I occasionally add some to tomatosauces and stews, but would love to hear some other uses for it!

Mottmott, in which book does she simmer the ragu in the oven? I ask because I always thought she doesn't really use the oven except for baking. So, I made Marcella's ragu today. I ate many spoonfulls over the course of the 4-hours it was simmering, but still had enough for my lasagne and some extra to put in the freezer for another day. Then I made spinach lasagne. I had some problems with this. Used Marcella Haza's recipe, but had to use a LOT more flour and still the dough was really sticky, fragile and hard to work with. And yes, I made sure my spinach was really dry before adding it. Anyway, after boiling the sheets they seemed to firm up, and the final dish was absolutely fantastic. Such an amazing marriage of flavors. So mellow and sweet and comforting and rich.

Beautiful dinner Elie, especially the tortelli. Is the filling just chive-mash, or anything else? cheese? Oh so true. Now my problem with ragu is that I can't stop eating it while it's cooking.. I have a pot on the stove right now, cooking at "the laziest of simmers" just like Marcella stipulates. And every time I pass the stove I have to eat a spoonful, telling myself it's just an experiment to see how the flavor changes over the course of 4 hours.. but if I keep going, there'll be nothing left for my lasagne tonight.. what is it about that stuff that makes it so addicitive? After all it's nothing but meat and a couple of vegetables..

interesting suggestions. I never would have thought of coffee, but yes, I think that would work really well. Just now I was thinking of cheesecake, on a speculaascookiebase.. coffeeflavored cheesecake? Instead of eggnog, there is ofcourse the Dutch version of eggnog, advocaat... I love your broadest brainstorming type thoughts

So, what are speculaas-spices? a spicemix used for Dutch pastries and cookies, closely associated with December and more specifically with the holiday Sinterklaas on December 5th. These are the spices: cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, aniseed, coriander, cardamom, in a ratio: cinnamon 3 : cloves 2: nutmeg 2: ginger 1/2: aniseed 1/2: coriander 1/2: cardamom 1/2. They are used for cookies and for a pastry filled with almond paste. You can buy the spicemix ready made over here, but to make the end result of this challenge something that anybody anywhere can make, I'll be making my own (which I have done before). One of my favorite icecreamshops in Amsterdam always has speculaasicecream in the winter. It's unbelievably delicious and I think I will steal their idea for this challenge! However, my icecreammaker broke a while ago, and as much as I love eGullet, I'm not going to replace it just for the Challenge. So I'm probably going to cheat and mix crumbled cookies into storebought icecream. Or something like that. I would also really like to use the spices in an unusual way so not just make cookies or pastry with it. I think, once on eGullet, Abra made a speculaas-flavored creme brulee. That sounds delicious but I can't see it paired with the icecream though. As for the seasonal fruit/vegetable: Pears are in season, but I don't want to use them because Kerry just did. Apples go well with the aromatic spicemix, but I may look for something more exciting. Maybe quinces.. ? I'm obsessing about this already. What fun! What do other people think about when they read about the flavors in the spicemix?

Kerry, I humbly accept this challenge As most of you who follow some of my posts on eGullet may know, I am definitely NOT in the same baking category as the other challengees in this Baking Challenge! So I am honoured to be chosen, and I'll do my best to make this an interesting and inspiring week. Speculaas is one of the great joys of December in the Netherlands. It's aroma is everywhere, wafting out of the the bakeries all over the city, and the flavor is just quintessential Dutch winter to me. My biggest challenge will be to take this homey spice mix, team it up with other things, and turn it into an elegant plated dessert - which is not something I do every day! I already have several ideas in my head... can't wait to start playing with them! I'll talk about the spice mix a bit more later, as I'd be interested what flavorcombinations other people might think of.

Oh, wonderful! I've been to Turkey 2 times (first trip was Istanbul and the westcoast, second trip southcoast) and I loved loved LOVED the food. And the tea! We had countless glasses of that strong black sweet tea, sitting in the shade in teagardens, with a book or our little portable chessboard. Can't wait to see what you have in store for us.

Koggetjes According to the writers of Koekje, a recently published book about Dutch cookies of past and present (written by 2 well-known Amsterdam patissiers, Kees Raat from Unlimited Delicious and Cees Holtkamp from Holtkamp patisserie), this cookie was invented in 1935. It was the winner of a bakery contest to invent a truly 'Amsterdam' cookie. Koggetjes were named after the large Dutch medieval ships, 'koggen'. I don't know what's particularly Amsterdam about these cookies, but they sure are delicious. Only the members of a certain bakery society were allowed to sell these under the name koggetjes - other bakeries sold them as 'nougatines', maybe a more appropriate name because of the nougat! This is adapted from the recipe in Koekje Preheat oven to 160 C. First, make your nougat. Heat 75 grams sugar with 25 grams water until you have a nice, golden brown caramel. Pour on a baking sheet lined with paper and leave to harden and cool. When cold, crush with a rolling pin into small pieces. Make the dough by mixing together 200 grams butter, melted and cooled, and 150 grams sugar, and 2 tablespoons vanilla sugar. Add 2 tablespoons of milk, a pinch of salt, and mix well. Then mix in 200 grams flour and finally, mix in the pieces of nougat. On baking sheets lined with baking parchment, place walnut sized balls of the dough. I just rolled them by hand, but for a more professional finish, pipe them on the baking sheet with a plain nozzled pipingbag. Make sure to place them well apart because they will spread! Bake for 10-12 minutes. They should be golden brown. When out of the oven, they will still be quite soft. If they have spread too much (the edges should not be too lacy) you can nudge them into shape a bit, but work fast, because they crisp up fast. These are really delicious cookies. Very rich and buttery, with the unexpected chewy crunch of the nougat. Enjoy!

happy birthday lexy! LOVE your pictures, as always. Dramatic and original.

I didn't make any resolutions for 2006. Can I make them now for 2007? I'm inspired.. or should that be a new thread...

Janet, congratulations. I love your blog and the amazing wealth of information on it, and how you present it with such enthusiasm and wit. Happy book-writing!

just use the recipe as it is, but add 2 tablespoons of the spicemix to the dough. btw I did not make 150 of those.. I took the easy way out and just made 8 or so big logs of the gevulde speculaas, and cut them into squares. They were a big hit anyway...

Oh, no! The finished cookie is not supposed to be soft but crisp. I think I should just change the soft white sugar in the recipe to regular sugar. Obviously that works, just look at apronstring's beautiful cookies....

that's a really good idea. onion confit! Keeps for along time, and the flavor is so concentrated, you don't need much as a flavoring. And because it's so concentrated, it doesn't take up much room in the fridge.