Dutch Cooking (2007-)

[Cadbury]

2- ONTBIJTKOEK I have a craving for Ontbijtkoek and hope to try to bake my own. My memory of it is that it is quite dense and not overly sweet, with even a touch of sharpness probably because of the ginger. Is it possible that the dark brown, dense cake I had also contained chopped crystaline ginger pieces? Is ontbijtkoek a totally different animal from Gemberkoek as the Dutch know it?  ___

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I have two recipes for ontbijtkoek and both only have almonds and sucade as flavourings, aside from the spices.

Here is the easiest to follow:

250g flour, 200g dark brown sugar, 4 eggs, 50g sucade (finely chopped), 50g almonds (peeled and roughly chopped) 2 small teaspoons (tsp) baking powder, 2 tsp cinnamon, 1 small tsp ground cloves, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 5g salt.

Butter and flour a loaf tin. Sift flour and baking powder. Beat eggs and sugar until thick. Mix together all other ingredients, fold into egg mixture. Spoon into tin and bake in a moderate oven approx 1 1/4 hours, until brown.

Hope this works for you.

[Marcel]

Ashiana,

I've never seen them at supermarkets. I got mine at a bakery, where they just sold me a bag of their bulk supply. Maybe your mother could try that too... have her ask for 'zachte (soft) kandijsuiker voor suikerbrood'.

She could also try health food stores. But make sure she doesn't buy the rock hard 'kandijsuiker', that won't work in the sugarbread (I'm assuming that's what you want to make?)

Goodluck!

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[Marcel]

2- ONTBIJTKOEK I have a craving for Ontbijtkoek and hope to try to bake my own. My memory of it is that it is quite dense and not overly sweet, with even a touch of sharpness probably because of the ginger. Is it possible that the dark brown, dense cake I had also contained chopped crystaline ginger pieces? Is ontbijtkoek a totally different animal from Gemberkoek as the Dutch know it?  ___

←

I have two recipes for ontbijtkoek and both only have almonds and sucade as flavourings, aside from the spices.

Here is the easiest to follow:

250g flour, 200g dark brown sugar, 4 eggs, 50g sucade (finely chopped), 50g almonds (peeled and roughly chopped) 2 small teaspoons (tsp) baking powder, 2 tsp cinnamon, 1 small tsp ground cloves, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 5g salt.

Butter and flour a loaf tin. Sift flour and baking powder. Beat eggs and sugar until thick. Mix together all other ingredients, fold into egg mixture. Spoon into tin and bake in a moderate oven approx 1 1/4 hours, until brown.

Hope this works for you.

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[Marcel]

2- ONTBIJTKOEK I have a craving for Ontbijtkoek and hope to try to bake my own. My memory of it is that it is quite dense and not overly sweet, with even a touch of sharpness probably because of the ginger. Is it possible that the dark brown, dense cake I had also contained chopped crystaline ginger pieces? Is ontbijtkoek a totally different animal from Gemberkoek as the Dutch know it?  ___

←

I have two recipes for ontbijtkoek and both only have almonds and sucade as flavourings, aside from the spices.

Here is the easiest to follow:

250g flour, 200g dark brown sugar, 4 eggs, 50g sucade (finely chopped), 50g almonds (peeled and roughly chopped) 2 small teaspoons (tsp) baking powder, 2 tsp cinnamon, 1 small tsp ground cloves, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 5g salt.

Butter and flour a loaf tin. Sift flour and baking powder. Beat eggs and sugar until thick. Mix together all other ingredients, fold into egg mixture. Spoon into tin and bake in a moderate oven approx 1 1/4 hours, until brown.

Hope this works for you.

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[Marcel]

Thank you, Cadbury, for your ONTBIJTKOEK recipe. I am having difficulty navigating this forum and simply wanted to acknowledge your time and trouble. I finally found this screen for Reply at the very top and don't know if that is where I needed to go.

The bottom line is that the cake I'm thinking of may be a dense Gemberkoek? It definitely has the flavor of ginger, is a deep brown in color and is quite a common commercially available cake in International Deli. shops. It's usually wrapped in cellophane.

Marcel

[Chufi]

Hi Marcel and welcome!

I´ll try and answer your questions.

1- STROOP. When I visited a Pannekoeken house in Duisberg some 12 years ago, the syrup was unlike any I had tasted in the U.S. I bought both Barley Malt syrup, and Sorghum in the hope of finding it. I found that the Barley Malt was closest to my memory of the Dutch syrup but what I had in Holland also had a slight touch of sourness mixed with the sweet. I suspect that because the Dutch use Sugar Beets as a sweetener that perhaps that was the base for the syrup? ___ Any idea what I may have had? ____

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I don´t have any Dutch stroop in the house right now, but I think this might be what you had: stroop

2- ONTBIJTKOEK I have a craving for Ontbijtkoek and hope to try to bake my own. My memory of it is that it is quite dense and not overly sweet, with even a touch of sharpness probably because of the ginger. Is it possible that the dark brown, dense cake I had also contained chopped crystaline ginger pieces? Is ontbijtkoek a totally different animal from Gemberkoek as the Dutch know it?  ___

←

Ontbijtkoek can have a little ginger in it, but if it has a lot of ginger it will be called gemberkoek. My recipe is here:

Kruidkoek (called Kruidkoek - spice cake because it has a lot of spices!)

3- ROOKWURST I live in Oregon and have been unable to find a true Rookwurst as I tasted it in my youth. The sausage I find at the on-line Dutch food stores looks like baloney. The sausage I had was stuffed in real animal casings, was speckled with chunks of fat, was almost a purple color, looked more like a fatty Italian salami, and was very densely smoked. Have you ever tasted a Rookwurst as I describe it? ____

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There´s a big difference between the factory produced sausages (I´m assuming that that´s what you can order online) and ´real´ rookworst from a butcher who makes his own. (btw wurst is German for sausage, worst is Dutch).

A rookworst from a good butcher should look something like this picture on my Dutch blog). Definitely a lot coarser than the mass-produced ones, but not with huge chunks of fat.

Hope this helps!

[Marcel]

Hi Marcel and welcome!

I´ll try and answer your questions.

1- STROOP. When I visited a Pannekoeken house in Duisberg some 12 years ago, the syrup was unlike any I had tasted in the U.S. I bought both Barley Malt syrup, and Sorghum in the hope of finding it. I found that the Barley Malt was closest to my memory of the Dutch syrup but what I had in Holland also had a slight touch of sourness mixed with the sweet. I suspect that because the Dutch use Sugar Beets as a sweetener that perhaps that was the base for the syrup? ___ Any idea what I may have had? ____

←

I don´t have any Dutch stroop in the house right now, but I think this might be what you had: stroop

2- ONTBIJTKOEK I have a craving for Ontbijtkoek and hope to try to bake my own. My memory of it is that it is quite dense and not overly sweet, with even a touch of sharpness probably because of the ginger. Is it possible that the dark brown, dense cake I had also contained chopped crystaline ginger pieces? Is ontbijtkoek a totally different animal from Gemberkoek as the Dutch know it?  ___

←

Ontbijtkoek can have a little ginger in it, but if it has a lot of ginger it will be called gemberkoek. My recipe is here:

Kruidkoek (called Kruidkoek - spice cake because it has a lot of spices!)

3- ROOKWURST I live in Oregon and have been unable to find a true Rookwurst as I tasted it in my youth. The sausage I find at the on-line Dutch food stores looks like baloney. The sausage I had was stuffed in real animal casings, was speckled with chunks of fat, was almost a purple color, looked more like a fatty Italian salami, and was very densely smoked. Have you ever tasted a Rookwurst as I describe it? ____

←

There´s a big difference between the factory produced sausages (I´m assuming that that´s what you can order online) and ´real´ rookworst from a butcher who makes his own. (btw wurst is German for sausage, worst is Dutch).

A rookworst from a good butcher should look something like this picture on my Dutch blog). Definitely a lot coarser than the mass-produced ones, but not with huge chunks of fat.

Hope this helps!

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[eVITAERC]

A quick question for the Dutch natives: is koffiemelk the same as "evaporated milk" in North America? I find it excellently suitable for the Hong Kong style milk tea I like to make. In fact I like the Friesche Vlag stuff a lot more than using the "traditional" canned Carnation evaporated milk, no doubt due to the excellent standards of dairy products in this country!

[Chufi]

A quick question for the Dutch natives: is koffiemelk the same as "evaporated milk" in North America? I find it excellently suitable for the Hong Kong style milk tea I like to make. In fact I like the Friesche Vlag stuff a lot more than using the "traditional" canned Carnation evaporated milk, no doubt due to the excellent standards of dairy products in this country!

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sorry for being very late with my reply.

Yes, koffiemelk is evaporated milk.

if you see something labelled koffieroom, know that it's not the same as koffiemelk (and not evaporated).

[kaneel]

A quick question for the Dutch natives: is koffiemelk the same as "evaporated milk" in North America? I find it excellently suitable for the Hong Kong style milk tea I like to make. In fact I like the Friesche Vlag stuff a lot more than using the "traditional" canned Carnation evaporated milk, no doubt due to the excellent standards of dairy products in this country!

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sorry for being very late with my reply.

Yes, koffiemelk is evaporated milk.

if you see something labelled koffieroom, know that it's not the same as koffiemelk (and not evaporated).

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I was trying figure that one out myself because i loved my coffee with friesse vlag in holland .I tried a lot of different brands of evaporated milk in my coffee but they're not the same here. There is a little dutch store i discovered not too far from here so i have to try them. They're a lot of dutch here in houston to my (happy) surprise .

[deensiebat]

We were invited to a New Year's Eve party that has, for reasons that are still unclear to me, a Dutch theme. Any recommendations on particularly good Dutch party snacks we can make?

[Chufi]

We were invited to a New Year's Eve party that has, for reasons that are still unclear to me, a Dutch theme. Any recommendations on particularly good Dutch party snacks we can make?

hi deensiebat,

the index to the recipes on this thread is here on my blog.

I hope you find something there for your party.

Otherwise, anything with Gouda cheese would be appropriate!

Edited December 31, 2009 by Chufi (log)

[DeliciouslyLekker]

Biterballen!

[John DePaula]

I recently took a holiday in France and fortunately, one of my connections took me through Amsterdam on a KLM flight. It was just a short hop to Bordeaux, but on the airplane we were served a wonderful hearty rustic whole-grain bread. It was shaped like two small circular buns close together. One side had gouda cheese, and the other was spread with a sweet almond mixture (?). It was just wonderful and compared to the food I had to endure on Delta, it was like dining at a 3-star restaurant after being forced to eat at McDo for a month.

So now, I'm constantly thinking about the traditional breads of the Netherlands. Can anyone suggest a recipe or a good place to start looking? Thanks in advance.

Edited September 11, 2010 by John DePaula (log)

[John DePaula]

I recently took a holiday in France and fortunately, one of my connections took me through Amsterdam on a KLM flight. It was just a short hop to Bordeaux, but on the airplane we were served a wonderful hearty rustic whole-grain bread. It was shaped like two small circular buns close together. One side had gouda cheese, and the other was spread with a sweet almond mixture (?). It was just wonderful and compared to the food I had to endure on Delta, it was like dining at a 3-star restaurant after being forced to eat at McDo for a month.

So now, I'm constantly thinking about the traditional breads of the Netherlands. Can anyone suggest a recipe or a good place to start looking? Thanks in advance.

I found a picture of the item which was served. Not great but maybe someone will recognize it and know more details: KLM Snack

[Deus Mortus]

On request of Chufi, here are some recipe's for Balkenbrij:

The recipe!

Alright, I have scoured some of my older cookbooks and have a few recipe's for making balkenbrij yourself.

Now a small problem in here is the spices you use, traditionally you use “Rommelkruid” this is a blend of multiple spices that is different per region and I have not been able to find a good standard ratio, nor has anyone that makes good balkenbrij been willing to share their blend.

So I will just share what the ingredients most commonly found are and let you guys play around with the ratio's yourself:

Ground Liquorice

(Brown) Sugar

Nutmeg

Anise

Cinnamon

Cloves

Peppercorns

Mace

Ginger powder

Sandalwood

About the last one, I am not all that certain what they mean with that, I have never found anything edible claiming to be sandalwood only essential oils.

Now for the recipe's:

Gelderse Balkenbrij

Ingredients:

1.5L Broth

0.5L Blood (preferably pig's)

0,5 to 1Kg of ground up offal

Rommelkruid

A couple of bay leafs

Thyme

Salt

300g Buckwheat flour

Put all the ingredients except the flour in a pan and let it boil for a short time. Bring back to a simmer and slowly add the flour, all the while stirring, make sure to incorporate the flour completely and then pour it in a terrine. Put the terrine in the oven on a low setting (The recipe's don't state how high, but usually a low setting means something between 130 to 180 Celsius, in this case I would go for 180 Celsius) and keep it in there for 20 to 30 minutes, until there is no more raw offal in the mixture. Cool it off in the refrigerator for about a day. Slice off a piece about a cm thick and pan fry it in some butter. At this point you can also freeze it, either the entire block or individual slices, it will keep well for a couple of months to (in my experience) a year.

Hunter's Balkenbrij

3L Broth

300g ground up Game Liver

400g ground up Pork or Swine belly

100g ground up Game Meat

20g Rommelkruid

400g Buckwheat Flour

20g Salt

The prep is basically the same, you can use blood in this one as well, just use less broth and less flour.

Head's Balkenbrij

2Kg ground up Pig's Head

2L Broth

Salt

Allspice

Tabasco

Rommelkruid

400g Buckwheat Flour

Lard or other animal fats (I would think bacon drippings would be amazing in this)

Same prep as before and again you can use blood, but use less broth and less flour.

((A small side note, it isn't absolutely necessary to ground up the meat, some recipe's call you to keep boiling it until it falls apart or to ground up only a part of it so you have chunks, or to grind it up after boiling it in the stock. However most recipe's call for it ground up, so I stuck to that.))

[Deus Mortus]

I started going through the thread thinking it was only 6 pages or so, picking out some questions to answer, only to realize the damn things is 24 pages long.

Braised beef, Dutch style

Now add 2 bayleaves and 2 cloves. And here comes the most difficult part.. (for me at least..) don't add anything else. Not a splash of wine, not a sliver of onion or garlic, not a whiff of any other herb or spice. Nothing. Really.

The only point in the whole thread I heartily disagree, but that is mostly because I am used to the farmer's version, which is from the eastern side of the country. Here we add something very very important, we add some very very dark beer!

Hey Chufi:  still awaiting the answer to my question

on Dutch trading and where the spices went?

Milagai

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Hi Milagai

yes I have been thinking about that... And I have to say that I am no expert on the history of Dutch Cooking or on the history of the spice trade.. so what follows is simply my own assumption about this matter.

It is true that the Netherlands played a major role in the spice trade in the 17th and 18th centuries.. and recipes from those days show the use of mace, nutmeg, cloves, sugar and cinnamon in both sweet and savoury dishes. The spices were expensive though so it was only a certain part of society that could benefit from this. They used it as a way to express their wealth.

The use of these spices in sweet dishes is still common (as you will see somewhere in the near future when I will start baking the December sweets, most of them are flavoured with a mixture of cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom and pepper). There is, to this day, a modest use of spices in savoury dishes. For instance the famous Frisian cheese that is studded with cloves. Cloves and nutmeg are often used in meat dishes and with game. But it is all very subtle.

I hope this answers your question. It is a very interesting topic, but it would require much more research on my part to give a full 'history of the spices in Dutch Cuisine'

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Thanks!

question deriving from yr answer above:

Is there some section of Dutch society (e.g. richer, with a mercantile history)

that have evolved dishes with greater use of spices?

Thanks again, in advance

Milagai

I have recently been looking through some old dutch cookbooks and you are completely correct, richer people did add spices, a whole lot of them, to bloody everything, I tried recreating some of those dishes, but they are absolutely horrible. They only served to show people how rich you were, so the cooks put as many spices in the dishes as they could, which as you can imagine resulted in some dishes that were abominable.

Yet there is one thing where it did get used by people interested in the taste, desserts, as you have seen by the speculaas, stoofpeertjes and others. When people got their hands on a bit of spice, they used it in a dessert that would keep for a while, so they could keep eating small bits of it for a few weeks.

Final dish of the day...

Pik in 't potje, which translates roughly (very roughly) into "picking from the pan" or "steal it from the pan".

This is a recipe from Zeeland, one of the southern, coastal provinces of The Netherlands.

Imagine a very big pot of this, on the table, with the extended family around it.. no plates just everyone eating from the same pan.. Ofcourse everybody would go for the best bits, the eggs, first.. hence the name

Well actually the name has a different meaning, which is also how it originated, anyone here who speaks dutch can imagine what I'm talking about. The story is actually quite amusing, but as I have not yet read all the forum rules, I am not all that sure if I'm allowed to post it, because if the story was a movie, it wouldn't be rated pg-13...

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.

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Spain? How random.

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Especially since the 'real' bishop St Nicolas was a bishop in Myra, Turkey, in the 4th century.

Well that is actually quickly explained, when the feast started getting traction in Holland, we weren't all that friendly with the turks. We however had just started importing citrus fruits from Spain for the rich, so that's how that happened.

[loki]

"EGGABUTTER" sic

Thanks for all the info. I was looking for Balkenbrij recipes - and found them! I am also looking for something called eggabutter, at least that's what a friend calls it. No one in his family remember exactly what it was called or how it was spelled. Half their family came to the Midwest from the Netherlands and became dairy farmers. This dish was a farmers breakfast served as a 'second' large breakfast after early chores such as milking were completed. My friend does not know exactly how it was made (his grandmother made it, but mother from the other side of the family no longer does, and did not like it. His dad had no idea as he is not much of a cook.). It consists of side pork (slices of pork belly), and it was fried and then served in a gravy, possibly with eggs, alongside bread. From his description, the pork belly may have been cooked in liquid for awhile to achieve the consistency he remembers.

Any ideas?

[CeeCee]

Eggabutter did not ring a bell, but I could find a Nether-Saxon eierbotter. Apparently eierbotter was used on sandwhiches instead of butter and other trimmings, but also at dinner time when there was no meat available or they wanted to use up the eggs that were slightly damaged and thus couldn't be sold.

Another source mentions that it was also eaten around 16.00 while working out in the fields, the so called 'vespertijd'.

This recipe was found on www.marline.nl from the book "Pot Deure Mekare" Oude Achterhoekse recepten published by Gherre.

Ingredients:

- 2 eggs

- 100 gram fatty and salted diced bacon

- 300 ml milk

- 40 gram flour

- pepper and salt

- optional: finely chopped onion

Fry the diced bacon (with the onion if used), until the fat comes out and the bits crunch up.

Beat the eggs with a bit of melk, add the flour and stir well. Stir in the rest of the milk until smooth, along with salt&pepper. Now put it in the pan with the bacon and keep stirring until it thickens and the flour is properly cooked. Then leave it for a bit so it can set a bit. Serve warm on rye bread. Some people add a bit of sugar or fresh chives.

A reaction on the recipe was from a lady who remembered her mother using buckwheat flour in this recipe.

Just to be sure you get the right stuff for reproducing this recipe:

- These are Dutch spekjes (bacon) http://www.janvanbroekhoven.nl/blog/wp-content/uploads/06-spekjes-bakken.jpg

- This is the rye bread used in that area: http://www.bakkerijvandermost.nl/afbeeldingen/groot/dscn6426-400.jpg

The more regular available rye bread is a bit darker than this version. Please note that in The Netherlands the rye bread is generally sliced very thinly.

Haven't found the dish Loki's friend described yet, but I will keep my eyes out for it. In the meantime I hope the above is helpful anyway...