Chufi

Cadbury, that is gorgeous.. and I love all the Dutch props in your picture.. the cute spice jars, and the wooden shoe!! I gather your Oma is Dutch? did you ever live in Holland or were you born in Australia? I think it's wonderful how you honour your Grandmothers traditions. I wish you and your family a great Christmas!

Great dinners! I'm doing a party for 25 on Christmas Eve. Here's the buffet I'm making: Puff pastry tartlets with a filling of celeriac, bacon, comte cheese and cream (with home made puff pastry ) Parsnip fritters with blue cheese mayo Garlic/ginger/coriander meatballs with a hoisin dipping sauce Tunisian eggplant salad Green pea/roasted garlic puree Tortilla rolls with a spicy black bean/chipotle puree, garnished with creme fraiche and coriander Two types of pizza: tomato, chorizo and rucola caramellized onion, anchovies and black olives Cookie tray: green tea shortbread with pine nuts and white chocolate Peanutbutter/oatmeal/chocolatechip cookies Christmas day we're going to my inlaws (no idea what I will be eating there ). The 26th we're driving to Belgium with a car full of food, to visit friends who have rented a little house there for the holidays. I will cook that evening, probably a nice warming stew, and I'm definitely making Nigella Lawson's clementine tart.

While doing some more prep work for Saturdays Christmas party (frying up 100 meatballs, and things like that ) I needed something quick and easy for dinner. I took a single serving of soup from the freezer that was simply labelled "wintersoup".. fortunately it was delicious.. a thick and creamy white bean, tomato and sage soup. Some grilled cheese toasts to go with it. Dessert: a couple of pieces of green tea shortbread that did not make it off the baking sheet in one piece....

Abra and Susan, how beautiful are those pictures of the Dutch food with the colorful Christmas lights in the background. Abra - the boterkoek looks fantastic. I love that you are giving one away as a present. When I was young I would often come home from school to an enticing smell of freshly baked boterkoek. There would be one or two of them cooling on the kitchentable, but I knew better than to look forward to a slice, because they would all be given away as presents.. it was (and still is) my mom's favorite thing to give away. She brought me one only last week when I was sick. Susan, that's picture-perfect draadjesvlees - thready meat! It looks like it's falling apart which is exactly what it should do. I'm glad you liked it!

Kenji, It's really easy. I usually fry up some smoked bacon lardons. (the amount is really up to you - depending on how much you like bacon ) When they are nice and crisp, I remove them from the pan (leaving the fat behind). In the baconfat I fry a couple of onions, sliced into rings. When the onions are almost ready (nicely browned and crisp), heat up the capucijner peas. (heat them up in their liquid, don't let it come to the boil). Drain them, add the bacon, and warm through over low heat. Add a little pepper, you probably don't need salt because of the bacon. You could mix in the onions, but I like to serve them seperately together with all the trimmings (mustards, pickles, etc.) (see picture) Good luck and let me know how it turns out!

Great!! I know it's not the most photogenic of dishes, but will you please post a pic of it in this thread? Can't wait to see how it turns out!

OK I just had to quote this one.. I will try to remember this when I am at my in-laws for Christmas, with my husband and stepdaughter.. always a great environment for family disagreements.. now this year I will just repeat it as my mantra: "we are NOT having a fight, this is just the cranberry-tartness of Christmas 2005"

I am enjoying this blog so much. It has an energy unlike any other! and p.s... I love Sarah Harmer!

Dutch Stamppot - potato/endive mash with smoked bacon and onions, and Dutch smoked sausage edited to add: full discussion of this dish here

Stamppot is the quintessential Dutch winter comfort food. It consists of mashed potatoes with some kind of vegetable, cooked or raw, mixed into it. The amount of vegetables is large enough to make this a substantial dish, not just flavoured mash. One of my favourites is made with escarole, or curly leaf endive here's the endive washed, dried and shredded. Other ingredients: smoked bacon and the famous Dutch rookworst, smoked sausage. Rookworst is an essential part of many winterdishes - stamppot, but also split pea soup, is just not the same without it. This one is from a little farm in Noord Holland where they make lots of wonderful pork (and other meats) products, De Lindenhoff For the stamppot, use about twice the weight of potatoes to endive. Boil the potatoes in salted water until done. In the meantime, render the smoked bacon lardons. When some of the fat has rendered, I like to add a sliced onion to the pan. Not traditional but good! When the potatoes are done, drain them and mash them with a little milk. Add the bacon/onion mixture (together with some of the bacon fat) and mix and mash. The mash does not have to be completely smooth, in fact I like it better when it still has some texture. Now put the pan with the mash over a very low flame and add the endive, a handful at the time. Keep stirring until you have mixed in all the greens. The trick is to wilt the greens in the heat of the potatoes, without burning the mash or letting the greens go soggy - they should still have a little crispness. Season with salt, pepper and a little nutmeg. In the mean time heat up your sausage. Stamppot is traditionally eaten with ample helpings of gravy - preferably leftover gravy from some kind of braise. Here's some I had left over from the last time I made butter braised chicken - it keeps well in the fridge, but I usually freeze it in little portions. Such a good thing to have a suppluy of . This is what real Dutch gravy should look like: Cold and melted: Finished dish. Serve with the gravy and some sharp mustard.

I don't do a lot of Indonesian cooking, but when I do, I use Sri Owen's Indonesian Regional Cooking. Her descriptions and recipes are really inspiring and they work (even for me ) good luck!

Wonderful, Cadbury! I'm so glad they turned out well! About the oven temp: yes, ovens do vary so. However I feel you might be right that 125 C is a bit low. It's what my Dutch recipe book says and it's what I used, but I have often found that my oven is hotter than it's supposed to be - I guess I should buy an oven thermometer So, based on your experience, I think I will adjust the temp in the Recipe Gullet recipe. Thanks for being a recipe tester!

gorgeous! I have a question about these.. how long do they keep? Or, to be more specific, if I make them Thursday evening will they taste good on Saturday? I have had such mixed results with keeping cookies for a couple of days, that I want to be sure..

Abra, Do you want a pudding that is supposed to set in the fridge and then turned out on a plate, or something more custardlike, like I did in this layered dessert? (note: the Dutch word pudding always means the firm kind) For bitterkoekjesvla (custard) proportions are: 500 ml. milk 6 bitterkoekjes 20 grams cornstarch 1 egg yolk sugar to taste (about 30 grams) (a few drops of vanilla.) For the set pudding, same ingredients but 40 grams of cornstarch instead of 20. Crumble the cookies into the milk and bring to the boil. Cook until the cookies are dissolved. Cream the egg yolk with the sugar. Mix in the cornflour. Use a bit of the milk to loosen the eggyolk mix, then pour this into the pan. Whisk, bring to the boil and cook for a couple of minutes. Cool and chill. For the dessert in the picture, I have to admit I was sort of winging it and the endresult was pretty runny/custardlike. While it looked great in the serving dish, when it was time to serve I found that the layers were all running together. My advocaat was pretty runny too. So my suggestion would be that even when you are not making a pudding to turn out, it's best to stick to the proportions for pudding, so you have the contrasting layers of set pudding and liquid advocaat. Or you could do a pudding to turn out on a plate, and pour the advocaat on top. Also, I would add something for texture: some chopped almonds, or decorate with whole bitterkoekjes. I hope I'm making sense here, my English is a bit rusty today... Goodluck! Did you already make the advocaat? How did it turn out?

Quick question. Has anyone made these and how did they turn out? Someone on another thread mentioned they did not turn out very well. I checked the recipes and they seem to be correct.. Just wondering what went wrong.

Yes Roast Cauliflower! I made my husband a cauliflower convert with that! Fried chicken. I never would have attempted that if it wasn't for the cook-off. Reading about it in cookbooks I always thought: what's the big deal about frying chicken? Now I know I am sorry about that Angela. I checked both recipes (the one in Recipe Gullet and the one in the thread), and the proportions are right, and it's the exact same recipe I used in the pictorial. Did you convert to other measurements, maybe that's where it went wrong? If you would like to discuss it some more maybe we should do that in the Dutch Cooking thread.

I always thought my semolina is the same as yours. I'll take a picture of mine in the morning, in daylight, so you can see the proper color. I also wanted to add, that this is definitely a dessert for grown-ups.. I ate that entire portion and sort of forgot that the liquid is actually pure brandy.. So maybe there's something to be said for 'eating' this as an aperitif, in tiny glasses with tiny silver spoons...

The Xmas markets here in Amsterdam sell spun sugar and hotdogs. Great report, thanks! Did you eat/ drink anything? was it good?

Remember this one? I made it in October: boerenmeisjes, farmers girls, Apricot brandy. After almost 2 months in a cool place it is nicely matured, the fruit has become really soft, and it's ready to use. Today I used it to serve with semolina pudding. Semolina pudding is a very old-fashioned Dutch dessert, and the most traditional way to serve it is with a black- or redcurrant coulis. But I thought it would be good with the boozy apricots as well.. and it was To make semolinapudding, heat 1/2 liter of milk. Sprinkle in 50 grams of semolina, and 40 grams of sugar. Boil for about 8 minutes until thick. Pour into 1 large mold or individual ones, cool and refridgerate. Turn out on a plate when ready to serve.

Home alone with yesterdays leftovers, but I don't complain when this is what they look like: dessert: semolina pudding with Dutch apricot brandy

Abra welcome to the Dinner! thread! Now I am craving mole.. and I have none left in the freezer, and no time to make it.. I will plan a date with some chillies in January, and make a giant batch to last me a while.. Little ms Foodie what a lovely Christmas dinner. I'm glad the pear tart is such a success! Happy holidays abroad and please report about your trip! Grub that chicken dish looks fantastic.. this is going on my "must make this soon" list. I love the combination of spinach and rasins.

I was boiling up a large pan of black beans to make a filling for tortilla's fro my Christmas party on Saturday (trying to get ahead - trying not to get too stressed this year, having 25 people over for food & drinks) so I used some of the beans to make a sort of vegetarian chili, with black beans, chipotle chilies, sweet potato and some tomato sauce. Nice & spicy.. fresh coriander stirred in at the last minute, soft goat cheese crumbled on top. Also made cornbread muffins with cheese and cherry tomatoes.

Thanks for the green tea shortbread link.. They look beautiful! I'm going to make those (with Ling's adjustment ) for my Christmas party Saturday!. They don't see too complicated and I have some Japanese matcha in my cupboard so..

Sometimes I really don't know what allures me! It happened just this weekend while I was reading the takikomi gohan thread on the Japan forum. I don't even like rice, but somehow the descriptions and the enthousiastic reviews presented me with what I described there as "that weird EGullet phenomenon: I find myself craving a dish I have never tasted before". It's one of the reasons I spend so much time here: EGullet makes me curious about food in a way cookbooks seldom achieve. I think it's the directness, knowing somebody else just cooked this, what makes it so gripping.

I have maybe 200 cookbooks but the ones I cook from / have cooked from the most are: Jane Grigson - Vegetable book Jane Grigson - Fruit book Anna Thomas - Vegetarian Epicure Penelope Casas - Foods and Wines of Spain all Marcella Hazan books Claudia Roden - Middle eastern food Claudia Roden - Book of Jewish food.