Chufi

Today I made sipelsop, Friese uiensoep, onionsoup from Friesland. Main ingredients: onions, butter, hardboiled eggs, Frisian cumin/clove cheese. Not in the picture: stock, flour, salt & pepper, nutmeg and white wine vinegar. Chopped onions are sweated in butter until soft but not brown. Then a large amount of flour is added, and stock. This is cooked together for 10 minutes until you have a thick, glossy soup. The soup is flavored with a bit of nutmeg, salt and pepper, and a tablespoon of vinegar. It is served with crumbled hardboiled egg and grated Frisian clove/cumin cheese. As you can maybe gather from the fact that I am not giving an exact recipe, this soup was not a great success . I have about 5 recipes for this soup and they are all practically the same (and it's a very simple recipe) so I don't think I did anything wrong. This is a famous regional recipe... I had never made or eaten it before.. I thought it would be interesting with the egg and the cheese, but it was mainly dull, bland and sweet, with a gluey texture that was not at all pleasant. I am including it anyway because it is a famous recipe.. and maybe to warn you that if you find yourself in Friesland, maybe you should not order this... The funny thing is, that Amsterdam's leading restaurant critic wrote a review of a new restaurant the other week. This restaurant serves traditional Dutch dishes and one of the things they have on the menu is this soup. Maybe I should go there and try their version, and maybe they'll prove me wrong!

Zucchini mama, I think this is going to be a wonderful blog.. I would happily eat all the food you have planned for this week.. The savoury Pumpkin tart especially intrigues me! Another thing I'm curious about is your screenname. Obviously, you're a mama, and I guess you love Zucchini?

Thanks for the wonderful report and pictures Adam.. I'm glad that with the variety of alcoholic beverages you had, you still remembered to take pictures I was in Vienna a year ago, also just before Christmas, and visited the same Weihnachtsmarkt and ofcourse the Naschmarkt.. I was also amazed by the great quality of the vegetables being sold there. My husband always gets tired of me on trips like this when I keep saying: now why don't we have markets/ shops/bakeries/ etc. like this in Amsterdam? Why don't the Dutch care about food like other nations obviously do? I also brought a bottle of kurbiskernol home and I love it. The color is indeed amazing, almost fluorescent green. It's great drizzled over pumpkinsoup. I also remember reading somewhere (probably on EGullet) that it's good drizzled over vanilla icecream, but I've never tried that.

I have a little writing book that I carry with me, always. It's more a book of ideas than a book of recipes - when I am at the market, and see something interesting, ideas will start to form but that may not neccesarily be the right time to buy that certain item - so I write down my thoughts. I usually spend my lunchbreak in the botanical gardens near my office, with my notebook, musing about past and future meals When I am thinking about a certain dinner, for instance a dinner party with friends that I have planned, I will write all my ideas about it in my book - and when the dinner's over, I write down what I did, how it went, and what should or could be changed. In the notebook I refer to recipes that are written down elsewhere: in books, magazines, on the internet, or in word files in my computer. A recipe on the computer only gets printed out when I am cooking it, and then it goes into a binder I keep in the kitchen, with notes added. I'm not as organized as I would like to be though. Sometimes a week goes by without recording anything. But then I can always check out the Dinner! thread to remember what I cooked and what it looked like

I met my husband on a NYE party.. so it is kind of a special night for us. We have done all sorts of different things the past years, from quiet evenings at home, to dinnerparties with friends, to really big parties thrown by other people. It has become sort of customary in Amsterdam to attend more than one party.. many people are giving parties at their homes, and no-one wants to commit to going to just one, so you end up cycling criss-cross through the city going from one to the other This year we'll probably do 2.. first go to friends for a drink, and then on to another party for dinner. This dinner party will be mixed company of Dutch and Japanese. The Japanese host will make some Japanese food, and I will make the quintessential Dutch NY treat: oliebollen!! Deep fried pastry with rasins and apple, served with powdered sugar. Very fatty, very delicious. they will make an appearance on the Dutch Cooking thread soon

Made my first takikomo gohan today.. it was a big success.. I made it with a pack of assorted mushrooms I found in my market, carrot, aburage, and hijiki. Flavored with mirin and soy, dashi for the liquid. Served with spinach sauteed with garlic and sesame. I made it in my steamer using 1 1/2 cups rice and 2 cups of liquid. Half way through the cooking I panicked that there was way too much liquid so I drained some, but I ended up putting it back in.. looks like that was the right amount of liquid.. edited to add: I'm in love with hijiki seaweed!

Japanese afternoon in Amsterdam.. First we had steaming bowls of instant miso soup while watching Kurosawa's Kagemusha on DVD. And then, inspired by the takikomi thread on the Japan forum, I made takikomi gohan with mushrooms, deepfried tofu, carrots and hijiki seaweed. Served with sesame spinach. we'll watch the rest of the movie (over 3 hours, too much for one sitting) later and munch on some wasabi peas.

Alinka, that liversausage looks exactly like the cheap leverworst that is very popular in the Netherlands as a snack with drinks.. in most bars you can order a portion of this, in big chunks, and it usually comes with a bowl of very sharp or coarse grain mustard. And you're right, is does not taste much like liver!

I made a lovely cream of watercress soup.. bright green, creamy, slightly peppery. After that we had sauerkraut braised with white wine and juniper, and mashed potatoes with Frisian clove cheese.. these 2 items were the leftovers from a wonderful dinner some friends of mine cooked for me in my kitchen on wednesday.. Today I only added some cubed of smoked bacon, fried until crisp. dessert: storebought vanilla custard with a slice of my mom's ginger-shortbread

For 13 days, it was "Dinner! what did my husband cook?" as Dennis took a turn in the kitchen while I was recovering from my surgery.. he did really well, (with some instructions from me ), and he took great care of me.. but today we celebrated my first day back in the kitchen and it was great to be cooking again.. I made spicy pork chili and cornbread, served with various toppings: coriander, crispy bacon, sour cream, avocado and cheese.

This dish intrigues me.. I find myself with that odd EGullet phenomenon: craving something I have never tasted Between all the takikomi-gohan's mentioned here, I think I can figure out which flavourings to use.. but I have another problem. I don't have a rice cooker, I cook my rice in an electric steamer-type thing that does not have the marks inside that I see in the pics of the ricecookers. What is the ratio of liquid to rice so that I can just put them in the steamer pot together? Thanks

Ah, Yetty, how wonderful.. I do that all the time.. It really transforms the cookie doesn't it? Sometimes I leave the stroopwafel on so long that the edges really start to melt and syrup is dripping down the sides of my coffeecup not so good...

I'd make chicken turnovers / pastries. Diced chicken, panfried mushrooms and some buttered leeks mixed together with a little cream to bind. Maybe season with a little fresh thyme or rosemary. Put in puff pastry or shortcrust pastry circles or squares, brush with beaten egg to glaze, and bake. If the breast is very large, you could use the same ingredients to make a small chicken pie.

Thanks Megan.. I took a pic of two sugars I have: on the left is what is known here as 'kandij suiker', like yours says on the box, this is used in tea. These are basically very large sugar crystals that melt slowly into a hot beverage. it is quite hard and crunchy On the right is the 'parel kandij' that I used for the Sukerbole. It is much softer and melts in your mouth (or into the sugarbread). This seems to be ordinary sugar pressed together into lumps. So, I think that maybe if you can't find the soft sugar, you should try the crushed sugarcube trick instead. Did those crystals melt into the bread or stay hard?

Those madeleines are perfect.. and thanks for making me laugh out loud.. Only you would think of "macaroni and cheese" as "the cheese course"

Lovely, Grub, just lovely. I love how all the components of the dinner are sort of huddling against the side of the plate, leaving that big white space in the middle, like they are scared of each other..

Hi everybody I am here, not completely my old self, but well enough to browse EGullet and find all these wonderful new posts.. I'll try and answer them one at a time.. But first of all, a thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who wished me well, either on the thread or through PM's.. it really meant a lot to me. You are wonderful people! Megan that looks so good.. Like Danielle, I would love to know what type of sugar you used.. The marbled cinnamon effect is lovely.. Any Frisian baker would be proud of you! Hi Susanne and welcome to EGullet.. That really is a wonderful pronunciation guide you compiled.. thank you so much for doing it, I just did not know how to do it!! I hope you will revisit this thread because I think your comments on ingredients etc. are very heplful to people outside the Netherlands, because you have the other frame of reference as well, which makes it so much easier to explain things. I would love to know on what discussion board is there a link to this thread? Hi Cadbury and welcome.. the thought of someone in Australia having a speculaas sandwich really made me smile.. I'll look at the applepie recipe in Recipe Gullet, thanks for pointing out that I missed an ingredient.. But I'm pretty sure the egg is supposed to be there according to my recipe.. But ofcourse, there are many many 'authentic' apple pei recipes circulating in the Netherlands, this is just my version (or rather my grandmother's version )

Congratulations on your new house Wendy. The food looks as great as ever.. but.. is that your new countertop? Or a table? It's beautiful!

I have been thinking alot about all the rave reviews this recipe is getting. You know, this was a dish I grew up on.. literally.. I think I mentioned this before, but my mom cooked this every other week, a big pan of it, and then we would eat it for days. So I really had countless plates of this in my youth.. and when I left home, it took me maybe 10 years to make it for myself.. for me it symbolized the totally bland, adventureless cooking of my mom, the meat-and potatoes-and boiled vegetable- dinners that kept rotating week after week and never changed. So you see why this thread means so much to me. It is about showing others the food that I am proud of, but I have not been feeling that pride for very long. It's still sort of new to me and that's why all your kind words and encouragement are so valuable. The past weeks have been very enlightening and educational for me. I found a whole new approach to cooking thanks to this project. More respect for single, good ingredients, and more dedication to doing the simple things really right... instead of prettying up something mediocre with lots of spices, garlic and flavorings. I am exaggerating here, because ofcourse, in the kitchen like everywhere else, there is a time and place for everything. And after a couple of nights of traditional Dutch cooking I do find myself craving chillies, tomatosauce and ginger. To me, it's about respect for your food, and learning to listen to what the ingredients demand to make the best of them. Going back to the basics has helped me a lot in this respect. I won't be posting much for a while - I am scheduled to have surgery this Monday, nothing too serious, but I am not sure when I will be up and about and cooking again. I just want to let you all know that I am not abandoning this thread, and so that you know why I am not posting or answering questions. I will be back when I can, with more Delights from my Dutch Kitchen! Thanks for reading along everybody!

Hi miladyinsanity.. I am not familiar with Chinese rock sugar, but I think it may be similar to Dutch rock sugar. This is a very hard sugar.. we use it in tea and coffee, where it melts slowly. It looks like this, there is also a white variety. This is not suitable for the sugarbread. If the pieces of Chinese rock sugar are too hard to easily bite into, then it's not suitable for this recipe. You need lumps of sugar that melt into the dough while the loaf is baking, so that in the endresult you have semi-soft, crunchy bits of sugar. So in that case, i would advise to use regular sugarlumps/cubes and crush them, making sure that they are not crushed to a powder.

Yes, I'm right with you. I do not like this time of year. There's too much pressure - to cook the Christmas food, to buy the Christmas presents, to have the perfect celebratory gatherings with your perfect looking friends and family. last year 3 of my friends had huge rows with their parents on Christmas day. Too much pressure... The supermarkets that have all those weird and expensive ingredients on the shelves that no-one should buy but that you feel you should buy "because it's the season". I like to throw a party on a dark weekend in January, just because I want to see my friends, not because it's Christmas. I like to roast a couple of pastridges on an ordinary November Saturday just because I feel like splurging. Not because it's Christmas. This year I am going to: throw a party on the 24th, for about 15-20 people. I am only going to do very basic, good, simple food. Maybe just a big pot of soup and a salad. Or pasta, homemade pizza, something like that. After that we're going to escape to the Belgian countryside where friends have rented a little house. A couple of days of good wine (he's a wine seller) and homely food by the fireplace. And then it's January, I love January, the blank canvas of the year stretching before you, so many possibilities and choices.

Hi Kaneel! (lovely screenname!) I'm glad you joined us... and yes it would be wonderful if you could start a thread about Surinamese cooking.. I know absolutely nothing about Surinam cuisine.. and I don't think it has been covered very much on EGullet.. so you could really enlighten us!

April, the dried peas look beautiful, and the cooked peas look delicious!! Dutch fusion cooking at its best!

well, it does have bacon, eggs and parmesan.. I don't suppose we could call it celeriac carbonara??

I just finished a little plate with slivers of two very old Dutch cheeses: a 2-year old and a 3-year old. Salty, buttery, intensely flavoured cheese heaven...