Chufi

That looks great Jen! I think stamppot is ready to conquer the world.. and who knew it could be WW friendly?

here's what I do: I sautee lardons of smoked bacon until they are crispy and have rendered their fat. take them out of the frying pan and in the fat, fry sliced onion (and a clove of garlic, which is definitely not a part of traditional Dutch cooking, but I like it). When the onion is browned, deglaze the pan with stock or water or wine or whatever you have. Season, put the bacon back in, and add a knob of butter to make a shiny gravy. But I'm sure any kind of onion sauce will do. You do need something liquid to moisten the stamppot though, it's quite dry. In my pic you just see the solids from the sauce I made, the liquid was already absorbed into the mash. BTW my mother never made a sauce or gravy to go with stamppot, because there was always gravy leftover from the braise she had made earlier in the week. And I think here in the Netherlands many people use instant gravy for dishes like this.

EGullet. It has brought me larb. It has brought me roast cauliflower. It has made me make stuffed pasta four times within 2 weeks. It has made me buy stuff I always looked at in my ethnic foodstore wondering what to do with it. And I use it, too. It has made me cook dishes that I always wanted to cook (or always wanted to cook the right way instead of just okay). (Mole, anyone?) It has made time fly on many evenings. It has made me lose sleep. It has satisfied both the voyeur and the exhibitionist in me. It has made me blog (one of the nicest weeks this year, so far). It has made me think and obsess about food even more. Was that possible? Apparently. It has made me realize that I'm not the only person on this planet with this obsession. It has given me the unexpected thrill of reading that someone, on the other side of the world, has cooked one of "my" dishes. It has inspired me, made me laugh, and it has made my world bigger and more beautiful. I EGullet

great looking stamppot you have there BonVivant Do you like the Unox sausage? [for those of you not in the Netherlands - this is a factory produced sausage, the kind you can buy in the supermarket, with a long shelflife] I do not care for it - I always get my smoked sausage at a real butcher, preferably organic - but I have friends who prefer an Unox sausage over the expensive one I bought at my butcher's

Most recipes tell you to use equal amounts of curly kale and floury potatoes, but I usually use slightly more potatoes. Last night I made it with 750 grams of potatoes and about 500 grams of kale. In Holland you can buy the kale already washed and shredded, very convenient for stamppot when you're in a hurry. Put the peeled potatoes in a single layer in a large pot and add some water (they should be just covered). Put the shredded kale on top. Add salt. Old fashioned recipes add sprinklings of oatmeal between the layers, I suspect to make it feed more people at little cost, but I think this would make the dish too heavy. Bring to the boil and cook for about 30 minutes. Drain the water if there's any left, and mash it all together with a knob of butter and some milk. For a less fatty version, don't drain the water and use that as liquid for the mash. I like to add a grating of nutmeg. This is very similar to the Irish colcannon, but I think that is made with ordinary cabbage. Oddly, there is no Dutch stamppot made with ordinary cabbage (at least not traditionally, God knows what they're doing in restaurants nowadays ) It's also very good with raw vegetables like watercress, aragula, turnip tops or curly endive, in which case you use about half the weight of the potatoes in vegetables. Chop up the vegetables finely and just stir them into mash, they will wilt in the heat. Another really great one is called hete bliksem 'hot lightning', and is made with equal amounts of potatoes and apples. Also served with lots of bacon ofcourse. Fancy stamppotten have additions of nuts, cheeses, or even sundried tomatoes and they can be good, but to me this is oldfashioned comfortfood that you should not fool around with It's customary to put a heap of stamppot on your plate, make an indentation with a spoon, and fill that with gravy. Leftover stamppot, fried up the next day in some butter, tastes great.

Amen to that. Although I have to say december is definitely not my favorite month.. but October is. This season is just so inviting for cooks to go back into the kitchen.. have something simmer away on the stove... Amen to that too. That bread looked great. I'm very much looking forward to your month in Tuscany!

Tonight we had the season's first stamppot The verb stampen means 'to mash', so stamppot means 'a mashed dish'. Basically it's potatoes with an equal amount of another ingredient mashed into it, which makes it different from just any flavored mash. Stamppot is really a dish in itself. It's mostly associated with winter, and the most famous versions are winter classics: potatoes mashed with sauerkraut, with boiled carrots and onions, or (the best one in my opnion) kale. They're usually served with smoked meats - sausage, bacon - any kind of preserved meat that would have been available in the winter months. Recently all kinds of modernized versions of stamppot are popping up in trendy restaurants. And ofcourse, you can mash anything into a pan of potatoes and call it stamppot. But to me, nothing beats this one - traditional kale stamppot, with smoked sausage, crispy bacon, onion gravy, mustard and cornichons!

well well.. I don't visit EGullet for one day and here's percyn, already 2 pages into his blog.. I'm looking forward to this! Your dinners always have a very elegant and glamorous feel.. very far removed from my own cooking... but lovely to see.. so keep the truffles coming please.. Oh and it's nice to see where you get all those mushrooms that keep popping up in your scrambled eggs

Those ravioli look lovely Anna N! was that really your first stuffed pasta ever.. they look great I really like the idea of the lime/ginger sauce, doesn't sound very Italian, but why not be creative with the flavors sometimes..

Autumnal flavors: potato rosemary focaccia salad with roast parsnips, toasted hazelnuts and a walnut oil vinaigrette. yes I know that should have been hazelnut oil in the vinaigrette but I was out.. Roast figs with gorgonzola had been popping up all over EGullet lately so I thought it was time I had some. They were fantastic.. wrapped in Serrano ham.. with just a drizzle of chestnut honey to balance the saltyness of the cheese..

I can't believe it's almost over Susan! It feels like you've just started! Now, I know that blogging only shows a part of life.. in your case, a beautiful, romantic, sunny and luxurious one.. still I'd like to believe that this is at least partly representative of your Real Life. Please don't burst my bubble. Oh, and I want a bar, too. Ofcourse I would need a porch first, which might be difficult since I'm living in a 4th floor apartment. Ah, one can always dream..

that sounds like a very good idea. 2 other things I've learned from your post. - I don't have a potato ricer (bows head in shame). I just mashed them. Took a long time to get them smooth. I guess that with a thing as simple as this, every detail does matter. I need to get a potato ricer... - I did not know that overworking the dough would contribute to the gumminess. When I added flour for the second batch, (which ended up much firmer), I worked the dough for quite some time. Added to the time it took me to mash the potatoes to a smooth consistency, that's almost certainly one of the reasons that the end result wasn't as it should be. I agree that practice seems to be the thing here. At least potatoes are cheap. I already warned my husband there's plenty of gnocchi in his future because I'm not giving up yet

Raspberries. They have that dry, soft, almost fuzzy exterior.. But then you put one in your mouth and just the slightest pressure of your tongue is enough to crush the berry against your palate.. it explodes in your mouth with rubyred tart juicy-ness.. Ohh you need another and another.. just one more.. and before you know it, you've eaten the entire punnet and there's nothing left to make the dessert you had planned for tonight's dinner. That's seduction.

that's not what I meant (about the preparing ahead)... I meant that if you're not sure how they will turn out, either gummy or light and fluffy, I would not be confident serving them to guests.. what would I say.. "I spent the afternoon making gnocchi, chances are they taste like wallpaper glue, but, hey, enjoy your dinner everybody"? Oh well. Maybe I'll just accept that, as much as I love to say the word gnocchi, ,making them is not in my genes.

well, that's not very reassuring. It would certainly mean that I can never make gnocchi for guests... But how do other gnocchi-makers do it?

I made an attempt at gnocchi for the Cook-off.. fortunately I also made a salad that turned out great.. lots of different green leaves (oak leaf, lollo rosso, lollo bianco), chickpeas, hard boiled eggs and a dressing of salted capers, parsley, anchovies, olive oils and lemon juice.

How did you serve this? Cut it into wedges? ← yes, but after you cut into it, ofcourse it's nothing but cabbage & sausage mess on a plate

I once made a whole stuffed cabbage, I think it was a Jane Grigson recipe.. You blanch a whole cabbage, carefully seperate the leaves and then stuff sausage meat between them.. tie the whole thing with string and braise in stock. I remember it was a lot of work and a bit fiddly to do, but it looked spectacular when it was done.

Hey Daniel, anyone going on roadtrips like this, with an appetite like yours, is man enough for me! Seriously.. thanks so much for this report.. I enjoyed it so much.. when's your next trip?

I can highly recommend Diane Seeds little book Top 100 Italian Rice dishes.. maybe half of it is risotti, the rest is other italian rice dishes.. everyhing from rice bakes, soups, frittatta, rice salads, vegetables stuffed with rice.. for me this book really was an eye-opener that there is so much more to italian rice dishes than risotto!

Sam, those gnocchi are awesome. They were, in fact, my inspiration to give the gnocchi-thing another try, after my gnocchi disaster upthread. Today I decided to make the simplest gnocchi - just potato and flour. I realize that with something so simple, the choice of ingredients becomes really important. As for the potatoes: in Holland the potatoes you can buy range on a scale from 'kruimig' which, presumably, translates as 'floury'; to 'vastkokend' (firm in cooking) which, I presume, translates into 'waxy'. I bought potatoes that are supposed to be somewhere in between, but more on the floury side. Simple all purpose flour. Here's what they looked like before cooking. Pretty... I used Marcella Hazan's recipe. She says to stop adding flour when the dough is firm but still slightly sticky. I had not used all the flour she specified, but the dough was firm & slightly sticky, so I thought that was ok. Here's what they looked like after cooking and after tossing with the tomato sauce. They were extremely soft and fell apart during the tossing process. As you can see they almost melted together with the sauce: While we were eating (yes, we did eat them ) I was thinking about it and thought: the only thing holding these things together is the flour. So maybe there just wasn't enough flour?? So after dinner I went back to the kitchen. I had some dough leftover. I just started adding more flour to it (a couple of tablespoons) until it was very firm and decidedly not sticky anymore. Cooked them and tossed them in the little bit of sauce that was left over. they looked like this: They were much firmer. But when we tasted them, we both thought they were just a little bit too heavy.. too gluey. So. I guess my question is: how on earth do you know how much flour to add to achieve light but firm gnocchi???

as it happens I just made a belgian endive gratin yesterday served with a green salad and a chickpea salad. the chickpeas were donated by a friend who came to my house friday afternoon to "make some houmous" in my food processor. I did not know he was talking about 2 liters of houmous.. he made a big mess.. but at least he left me some chickpeas. I tossed them in lots of lemon juice, garlic, walnutoil and parsley. Draped some leftover prosciutto over it. A nice easy dinner after the italian extravaganza of the evening before (see upthread). But, on to the cheese sause.. Mine are really very easy.. with good blue cheese, I just heat some cream (or milk if I don't have any cream) and crumble the cheese in it, heat until melted, season with pepper and nutmeg (I like nutmeg with blue cheese). It also works with creme fraiche.. that's especially good for gratinee-ing.. yesterday I heated a couple of tablespoons of creme fraiche, a tablespoon of mustard, a splash of milk to loosen it up, salt and pepper and various grated cheeses that were lying around in the fridge. Spooned over pre-cooked belgian endive and baked, sprinkled some more cheese on top, then finally grilled to make a nice golden crust. Mmm I love gratins!! edited to add: Helenas, that black pudding dish looks fantastic. Now I'm craving black pudding!

OK I actually posted this picture in the Dinner! thread, because the dish was part of my |talian feast, but the more I look at it, the more I am convinced that it's right home is here in this thread. It's pasta with a roasted tomato/porcini sauce.. the sauce tasted fantastic.. but these are some weird pasta shapes.. the packet says they're called Riccioli, but ..doesn't this just look like maggots in tomato-sauce?? edited to add picture

I very rarely have a breakfast like this.. but today I was craving eggs! scrambled eggs with cheese and lots of butter Sourdough bread with what my butcher calls 'salmon bacon'.. lightly smoked bacon that is very soft and creamy sweet.

last night, friends for dinner.. Italian feast! antipasti: prosciutto & salami mozzarella with pomegranate and olive oil red & yellow peppers with garlic, pinenuts, raisins and balsamic vinegar Pasta with roast tomato & roast garlic sauce, with porcini, panfried portobella, rosemary and sage. It had a wonderful herby, woodsy, deep and complex flavor. Vela involtini with a breadcrumb, salted caper, parsley & pecorino stuffing On the table with the vegetables: roast broccoli and a salad of roast beetroot & belgian endive, with a walnut oil/chive dressing Dessert: blackberry almond tart, served with e lemoncurd cream. This may be one of the best tarts I ever made.. crisp buttery crust, a lovely rich almond cream filling, perfectly balanced by the juicy tartness of the blackberries.