Chufi

Hi Leo, welcome to EGullet! And an especially warm welcome to this thread! I just came home from the market, and guess what, hutspot (or at least my slightly bastardized version of it) is on the menu for tomorrow. I was thinking abut the horsemeat. This was a staple in my husbands family, but it was never eaten in mine. So I acyually never had any! There are still a couple of butchers in Amsterdam that sell really good and tender (if I am to believe my mother in law..) horse's steak. Hmm, maybe I should give it a try... Keep the ideas coming Leo, I love the input!

I would love to see the pictures Melissa! As for the babbelaars, I did find some recipes, but it might be a while before I tackle this.. for some reason making candy scares me If you like, I could PM you the recipe, maybe you are braver than me..

so, why are all these people voting for french food while I am asleep Abra, everything looks so wonderful. The pictures of the scenery really take my breath away and make we want to fly to your part of the world Right Now. Should I add that I vote for Dutch? I just can't wait to see what you would do with Dutch food! I'm pretty sure you would work magic with it!

I agree. Some parents seem to think that although they have a child, they should be able to go on doing everything the way they did it before the child was there. Well, you can't, you made a choice. And yes, in the western world we live in, having children is, for most people, a choice. I chose not to have children. I can enjoy my coffee, my dinner, and many other things in peace. But I will never have the experience of being a mother. That's my trade-off and I am happy with it, even if for many people I know this is hard to understand. You can't have it all. edited to add: for me, the setting makes all the difference. A really nice restaurant where I will be paying a lot of money for a romantic dinner with my husband...the noisy children would annoy me. The coffeehouse, the bar (yes, ever more parents seem to bring their children to bars lately, while they are drinking beer the children are getting bored ) is fine by me.

Abra!! you're blogging!! I'm so excited. I loved your first blog, I always enjoy your posts, and I think of you every time I take out the jar of chestnuthoney. You said somewhere on EGullet that this was good.. I bought it.. and I'm hooked. Looking forward to this week!

Speculaas cookies we usually don't eat dessert and we don't often have sweets and cookies in the house.. but with my dutch cooking project going on, there seem to be cookies all the time.. husband is starting to complain that we're getting fat.. ah too bad

Oh my I want those! could you tell me about them? are they made from risotto? that looks so good. It's a great tart isn't it? But.. the recipe is not mine, it's from Anne Willan of La Varenne Cooekry School.. I got the recipe from Good Food magazine. I could never devise a recipe like that edited to add my own dinner.. strips of turkey breast, in the wok with lots of ginger, garlic and onions. Added shii take mushrooms and bokchoi.. sesame oil, soy sauce and sesame seeds. Served over soba noodles with a big dollop of kochujang on top. Simple, fast, good.

Melissa, thank you! Ofcourse I take requests.. I will try to find a recipe for the babbelaars! More butter and sugar, I'm afraid.. Please post pics from your stay in the Netherlands, I know you were in Zeeland, and that's a province that I'm not that familiar with. There's a trick here in this post in the Techforum on how to work around the ImageGullet problems, I have been using that technique for the past days to post my pics, works fine!

Because I was in the Sinterklaas mood anyway, I decided to bake some more speculaas. I used a slightly different dough, consisting of: 200 grams flour 150 grams butter 125 grams dark brown sugar 1 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon milk 2 tablespoons spicemix. Several of my recipes said that the dough for speculaas has to rest overnight in the fridge to allow the flavours of the spices to develop. So I made the dough last night and proceeded this morning. I don't know if it was the long resting in the fridge or the high ratio of butter in this dough, but it was very sticky and hard to work with. Besides the gevulde speculaas I showed upthread, with the almondpaste filling, speculaas comes in several other forms: in huge irregular chunks, as thin crisp cookies, and shaped as large figures (windmills, or the bishop Sinterklaas). The figures asre known as 'poppen', dolls. They are made with a wooden mould, by pressing the dough into the (floured) mould. This was a real pain to do and after making a couple I rolled out the rest of the dough to make ordinary cookies: the cookies were brushed with an egg glaze and sprinkled with flaked almonds.

So, I've told you something about Sinterklaas upthread. saturday November 12 was the day that he actually arrived in the Netherlands, on a steamer all the way from Spain. This is such a big event that it's covered live on national television. Here are some shots I took of the tv, to give you a idea what this very important man looks like (and I've warned you before that this is not a PC holiday ). From the day he arrives in the country, you are allowed to 'place your shoe'. Children put their shoe by the fireplace (or in modern home, next to the central heating ). You put some kind of treat for the horse in your shoe - a carrot, or an apple. No children in the house here but for the education of the EGulleters, we decided to place our shoe anyway (me, my husband and my 16 year old stepdaughter, who is with us for the weekend) [note: that spiky heel is NOT mine ] you go to bed and the next morning the magic has happened: the horse's treats have disappeared and there are presents in your shoe! here's what we got: our inititials in chocolate, my name in chocolate, marzipan moneybag, marzipan dog. It's all about the candy.. The whole letter thing apparently stems from the fact that the bishop St Nicolaas loved to teach little children how to read. You can buy letters in many forms. Chocolate is a favorite, but another really good one is a large letter made from puff pastry, filled with almond paste. Mmmmm...

Wow those chocolate dresses are amazing.. Are they really made out of chocolate? And what happens to them after the Chocolate Show? I would hate to see so much chocolate go to waste! Oh perhaps they just melt them into bonbons??

Thanks lexy! I would use a bean with a good, mellow flavor. I'm no expert on the beans available in the US, but I think red or pinto bean, or black-eyed pea would work. Basically, all you're eating is beans, bacon and pickles, so the beans do have to be tasty

hzrt8w (by the way, I mentally pronounce your name as "hazard to weight "), how wonderful to see one of your dinners here! I have been following you pictorials in the China forum, they're great. Our dinner last night was Dutch kapucijner peas with all the trimmings: bacon, onions, mustard and pickles. Real Dutch winter comfort food.

oops forgot to add their address. They have two shops/tearooms: Huidenstraat 12 Kerkstraat 148

They are also known as capucijner blue pod or Dutch grey pea. I think they are not the same as marrowfat peas (very confusing, researching hundreds of different types of beans and peas )

I use Marcella's recipe as well. I sometimes add a bit of tomatopaste if I happen to have some lying around in the fridge, but canned tomatoes always go in as well. I have used red wine instead if white.. again, if that's what I had available at the time. Sometimes I add some good stock or gravy.. if I happen to have some in the fridge One thing I would like to bring up. I have made this sauce many, many times now, both just for me and my husband (making a big pot and freezing portions) and for company. I have found that other people don't always appreciate this sauce. Many times I have seen people put mountains of cheese on their pasta, or they just keep on adding salt and pepper. I think that when you expect a 'tomato'sauce, Ragu can be a disappointment. The flavor really is unique in it's mellow sweetness, but I guess maybe if you are used to more 'in your face' Italian flavors, you could also call it 'bland'. Not that I would call it that. But one might. Has anyone else had this experience? Oh and one more thing. I had ragu with homemade pasta for the first time this week. Now I know: ragu and fresh pasta are made for eachother. So, so good.

Kapucijners, or capucijner peas, are a kind of pulse that I think, is unique to the Netherlands. Freshly picked and cooked they look like this: They are a bit larger than green peas, and greyer in color. Their texture is a bit more mealy and their taste earthy and delicious. In their dried (and reconstituted and cooked) form, they have always been a great winter staple. They have a lovely flavor, unlike any dried pulse I know, I would describe it as something between a chickpea and a kidneybean. They are the main ingredient for what's known as the "kapiteinsmaal", the Captain's Dinner. Apparently this was what the captains of the big merchant ships, sailing to the east for spices, had for dinner (probably while all the poor sailors were eating nothing but dry biscuits). Every item of this dinner travels well and is almost unperishable: dried beans, onions, smoked and dried meats, and pickles. All together it makes a very satisfying winter dinner! The beans, cooked and mixed with fried smoked bacon all the side dishes: fried onionrings, piccalilly, mustard, pickles and sambal (the last item not being traditional, but we like something spicy with this) all together on the plate: washed down with one of my favorite strong Dutch beers (11.6 %..):

Spain? How random. ← Especially since the 'real' bishop St Nicolas was a bishop in Myra, Turkey, in the 4th century.

you missed it! even the Dutch with their love of bland food would not go so far as to eat their meat without salt & pepper

Dutch Gevulde speculaas (spicy buttery pastry with almond paste filling)

Kevin, just wanted to report that the ragu was delicious.. and I even made my own pasta to go with it... there's a pic here in the Dinner! thread thanks for the inspiration!

I'm glad you liked it. And I'm honoured that not only do you want to cook Dutch food, now you want to be able to say Dutch words as well.. I have no idea how to fonetically transcribe Dutch words. Ill try to find out!

Chocolate, ah. There's Puccini Bomboni (website is a litle weird, if you click on the white squares with the number, you get info about their different shops) One of my favorite places to have coffee and a delicious cake or chocolates is Chocolaterie Pompadour. It's mentioned in my blog (see link in my sig). Another great place for chocolates isUnlimited Delicious. markets. There's a famers market every saturday on the church square at the Noorderkerk (Noordermarkt). If you like applepie, on the conrt of the market is lunchroom Winkel, famous for it's applepie (people stand in line for it every Saturday). The Albert Cuyp market (Albert Cuypstraat) is held every day except Sunday. It's nothing fancy, but it's where the 'real' people do their shopping (like me ) and it's one of my favorite places in the city, just for the huge variety of little shops and foodstuffs you can get there. For a quick Surinam/Indonesian bite, visit Toko Tjin in a little street just off the market (1e van der Helststraat 64) I'm afraid you will be very disappointed in the supermarkets and grocerystores. They are generally small and lack variety. When you are here next week, the Sinterklaas festivities won't be in full swing yet (the day of the celebration is december 5th), but you will be able to buy all sorts of Sinterklaas related sweets. For more about Sinterklaas see this post in my little blog on Dutch Food.

inspired by Kevin72's ragu in his Year of Italian cooking thread, I made ragu yesterday.. I think it was on the stove for about 6 hours. Today when I was cycling home from work and thinking about food as usual, I thought about the pasta I was going to serve it with, and then I thought: why not make fresh pasta? It wasn't until I was at home and making the pasta, that I realized how I've changed.. a year ago (that would be BE, Before EGullet ) I would not have dreamed of going through 'so much trouble' just on a weeknight after work. Turns out it was no trouble at all! And I finally got to use my cute pasta rack Pasta with ragu.. best I ever made (or tasted )

Speculaas is the Dutch pastry associated with winter (in summer you can buy them, but I don't think many people eat them) and especially with the Dutch celebration of Sinterklaas. Sinterklaas (St. Nicholas) is celebrated on December 5th. It is traditionally a children's feast, for young children who still 'believe' that this man in a red cloak, with a long white beard, sitting on a white horse, with his bishop's mitre and surrounded by his (very politically incorrect) black little helpers called Zwarte Pieten (black Peter), is a real person who lives in Spain all year and who comes to The Netherlands every winter to reward the children who have been good with presents, and to punish those who have been bad by putting them in an bag and taking them home to Spain. But adults love this celebration as much as children. This a day when you give each other presents anonymously, often these presents are wrapped up in something completely different (for instance, a book can be buried in a bowl of dirt or hidden in a doll's house). Sweets are a large part of this celebration. Marsepein (marzipan) is formed and coloured into every imaginable shape (one of the most popular is bright pink pigs). Everybody gets his or hers initials in large chocolate letters. Pepernoten are everywhere in large bowls to munch on. And speculaas, in different shapes - as thin cookies, as large crunchy chunks, or filled with almond paste. The smell of speculaas pastry is everywhere these days, when you pass a bakery this wonderful spicy scent comes wafting out into the streets. Today I made it myself. For speculaas, you need the special spice blend. You can buy it readymade over here but you can grind your own. The spices that need to be in this mix are: 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. You can add some white pepper if you like it really spicy. Here are all the ingredients: 300 grams of flour 150 grams butter 150 grams soft dark brown sugar 1-2 tablespoons (to taste) speculaaskruiden 1 teaspoon of baking powder 1-2 tablespoons of milk 250 grams almond paste (make your own by grinding together 125 grams of almonds with 125 grams of sugar, mix this with 1 egg until you have a course paste) grated rind of half a lemon 2 tablespoons of cream or milk egg to glaze almond halves to decorate. Make a dough by mixing the first 5 ingredients together, adding some milk if you have to, to make it come together. Divide into 4 equal parts. Mix the almond paste with the lemon zest and the cream until you have a spreadable mixture. Roll out tow parts of the dough into a narrow rectangle. Put unto a buttered baking sheet (or one lined with baking parchment). Spread the almond paste on top. It will still be pretty stiff. Carefully spread it over the pastry with the back of a spoon, wetting it to keep the paste from sticking. Roll out the other 2 parts of the dough and place on top. Press the edges to seal and trim all around with a knife. Press the almond halves on top and glaze the two logs with the beaten egg. [note: I made a little less dough, so I made one large log instead of two smaller ones] Bake at 180 C / 350 F for 20- 30 minutes. Cut into small pieces (it's very rich) to serve.