Dining Dutch

[guajolote]

Isn't "udder guy" an oxymoron? 

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'guy' as in purveyor

what is that salty black licorice called? yuck

[Squeat Mungry]

Maggie, I would add my vote for a Rijstafel, as well. I lived in the Hague for two years, and I know that (at least back then -- I graduated High School there so it was a loooong time ago) when Dutch people think of a celebratory dinner they think Indonesian.

The only problem I can see with a full-on Rijstafel is that it's awfully labor-intensive. Will you have help? A typical Rijstafel is several courses with several dishes in most of the courses. I do have some recipes somewhere, but they are in Dutch. If you like, I can track them down and translate for you...

Cheers,

Squeat

Edited September 14, 2004 by Squeat Mungry (log)

[paulbrussel]

Some references of books:

Dutch cooking : the new kitchen / Manon Sikkel, Michiel Klønhammer ; [transl. from the Dutch: World Wide Translations (Steve Cranko) ; photogr.: Gerhard Witteveen ... et al.]

Dutch cooking today / [recipes: Clara ten Houte de Lange ... et al. ; ed.: Chantel Veer ; transl. from the Dutch: Lynn George ; photogr.: De Studio ; commissioning ed.: Inmerc]

Certainly the latter author, Clara ten Houte de Lange, is a good writer about food.

[guajolote]

another of my favorite drinks is dokkum coffee, which is coffee with a shot of Berenburg in it.

[paulbrussel]

The only problem I can see with a full-on Rijstafel is that it's awfully labor-intensive. Will you have help? A typical Rijstafel is several courses with several dishes in most of the courses. I do have some recipes somewhere, but they are in Dutch. If you like, I can track them down and translate for you...

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The question is, if you can call the Rijsttafel really Dutch cooking, since it comes from the former colony Indonesia (Dutch Indies), and there is no other relationship than that with the Netherlands at all.

Furthermore, the Dutch rijsttafel is mostly adapted to the Dutch taste.

And as was said, a rijsttafel easily consists of about 20 different dishes, some of which should be made days beforehand...

[spaghetttti]

Gosh, coming very late into this and I wish I'd known about this thread earlier. My parents entertain in their home frequently and on Sept. 30 will host 30 visiting Dutch dignitaries. My mother plans to have a rijstafel which means she'll have Indonesian dishes as well as Indo-Dutch. I'll be helping making the huzarensla, macaroni schotel, bitterballen and klappertaart.

Mom recently celebrated her 75th birthday, and this is some of what she served.

Though my parents have live-in help, they only make the one procession bringing out the dishes to the table.

If you need any recipes, I'll be more than happy to share what I can.

[Pan]

As I mentioned before, Rijstaffel was banquet food made for Dutch colonists by their Javanese cooks, not necessarily food Javanese (or other Indonesians) commonly made for one another, even for sumptuous banquets. As was the case with Britain and France, once the Netherlands lost its colonies, part of the population and heritage of the colonies came "home" to the mother country. So Paul, I don't really understand what you mean by minimizing (?) the connection of Rijstaffel with the Netherlands, especially as you understand that it's made to Dutch taste. By somewhat imperfect analogy, someone could make a claim that couscous and merguez have no connection with France other than coming from a former colony, for example. I don't see it. Perhaps we could agree that the cuisine of every country is affected by conquest, trade, and immigration.

[Edited in light of Yetty's post.]

Edited September 15, 2004 by Pan (log)

[ronnie_suburban]

Yetty, can you please give us some descriptions of those fabulous looking dishes?

=R=

[spaghetttti]

Yetty, can you please give us some descriptions of those fabulous looking dishes?

=R=

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You mean besides that goofy cake stuck right smack dab in the middle?

Ok, please bear with me, it'll be less than systematic!

In the 1st photo: to the right of the cake is a chicken dish called opor ayam, a rich curry which brings out the color of turmeric and the flavor/fragrance of lemongrass.

2nd photo: in the lava mortar: a fresh, belacan sambal - tomatoes, chillies, garlic/shallots, palm sugar, salt. tamarind and shrimp paste. Next to it is a stir fry of tofu, long (snake?) beans and three kinds of mushrooms.

3rd photo: top left is sambal goreng teri, fried anchovies (beheaded as in Laksa's blog ), and peanuts in a sambal base. (One of my favorites). Next is rendang a red beef curry. Slightly below that is karedok, a type of salad with shredded cabbage, beansprouts, string beans, basil leaves in a peanut sauce. Next is some more of the opor ayam and in the glass bowl is soto ayam a chicken soup heady with ginger and lemongrass.

In the last photo you'll see a dish I made: Sambal Goreng Ati (please recall The Heartland thread on Chicken Livers). Diced chicken livers are cooked in a red sambal with some coconut milk & lime leaves. I added fried diced potatoes and some so-un (beanthread noodles?) and topped the platter with golden fried shallots.

Whew, and in two weeks we'll do something like this again for my parents' guests!

[ronnie_suburban]

Awesome! Not only do they look fantastic, but they sound even better. I may have to hit you up for a recipe or 2.

=R=

[helenjp]

OK, I asked my sister...who was DELIBERATELY OBSTRUCTIVE, in the way that only siblings know how to be.

She guffawed at the idea of fine cooking for Dutch birthday parties, and maintained that she has been at birthday parties which featured cheese sandwiches in the central role. When she calmed down, she suggested crisps and beer, or conversely, if the birthday boy is under 30, beer and chips. That set her off again, but we finally progressed to...

"A cream cake or selection of cream cakes always plays a central role at a Dutch birthday party". Home entertaining is always "Coffee in the morning, tea in the afternoon" -- so much so that people don't ask the time if invited for coffee, they know it must be for 10:30am!

As far as Frisian specialties go, my brother in law and his Frisian great-uncle and aunt got as far as "some differences in the spices used for meatballs (bitterballen), cookies, spice loaves, etc", but were unable to be specific.

Sounds as if he might prefer something more eclectic?

Some recipes from the closely related Ost-Friesland region at...

http://www.ostfriesen-info.de/mab/rezept2.htm

Or just browse around at...

http://www.i-friesland.com/

[helenjp]

Forgot to say...it doesn't go too well with other foods (unless you're Dutch, maybe), but most Dutch people are passionate about "drop" - a salty licorice candy. You can likely buy it at European delicatessens.

[Abra]

I've got to say that I am thrilled by this thread! Just today I was hired to do a 40th birthday party on Oct. 9 for a Dutch woman. The guests will be American, but her husband and I are planning to make the food theme as Dutch as possible, and the first thing I did was to drop over here to scope it out. And voila, or however you say voila in Dutch. However, I asked specifically about rijstafel during the interview, and he nixed the idea. Plain, straightforward Dutch is what she'd like. I'm going now to check out all of the links above, but if someone has a recipe for a typical Dutch cream cake, I would be eternally grateful. There will be about 40 guests.

edit to add: here's a site with all sorts of cool Dutch groceries and stuff to order online Holland's Best

Edited September 24, 2004 by Abra (log)

[John von Pey]

Just found this topic, and like it. The way you think about our kitchen

As an addition to coffee, most people like the "Limburgse vlaai", as can be found on Dutch recipies. A personal favourite of mine is the "aple with flies variety" (small pieces of apple mixed with raisins)

I'll check back on this topic this evening, for some more comments (and maybe tips).

John

p.s. o yeah, "erwtensoep" and "snert" are the same thing. And if you want to make "bitterballen", use the recipy for "kroket", but make balls of the stew instead of rolls.

[John von Pey]

Okay, as promised, some more information about Dutch food. But I adress this message espe-cially to Abra, for the Dutch birthdayparty. And since this is going to be a large message, I prepared it in Word, so if there are strange things in the text, blame it on that or my dictionary :-)

Birthdaypartys have a great variety in food offered. About the minimum is a cup of coffee and a cookie, and it goes up to a large BBQ or buffet. If the food is in buffet style (of “just” so-mething else hot) the evening starts around 19.00 – 20.00 with coffee and “vlaai” (fruitpie) or cookies. After one or two rounds of coffee, the soda’s and beer pop up. Around 22.00 – 23.00 some hot food is brought out (snacks) or the buffet is opened. After this, the first people start to leave. Others will stay till, well, uhm, till they go :-)

A buffet mostly consists of Russian salad, hot meat (2 kinds), hot sauces (2 kinds, one of the popular sauces is mushroom/cream), fruitsalad, salads (coleslaw, carrot, you name it),

bread (several varieties possible). This can be extended with a variety of cheeses, fish (if they like that on a buffet, mostly raw herring or eel), shrimps etc. The hot meat and sauces can also be switched for stew. Or a big piece of meat that is carved at the buffet. And fresh fruit is also a possibility. The hot items are presented in a chafingdish.

A typical Dutch (winter) meal is “wortelstamppot”. This is mashed potatoes mixed with car-rots (before the mashing). A recipy for this can be found at this site. The stamppot can be served with gravy, but I like it more with “hachee” (savory beef and onion stew, recipy at this site) This serves as a complete meal.

A variety of this is mashed potatoes with applesauce (called “hete bliksem”, hot thunder. Mix the applesauce with the mashed potatoes). This name explains itself, since the temperature of this recipy can be very high. The “hete bliksem” is served with black pudding.

Mostly there is soup before and a desert afterwards. I assume you have enough soup-recipies, but stay away from the “snert” or the other pea-soups. That is a bad combination (too heavy, and too much unions :-)) But the vermicellisoup on the site of “hollandsepot” sounds usable.

Desert: plain yoghurt, or with fruit.

Desert 2: custard or chocolate custard pudding, rather thin and served cold.

I hope this information is usable for you, but if you want to know more, let me know.

Edited September 30, 2004 by John von Pey (log)

[John von Pey]

On this site is a nice recipy for Russian Salad "Dutch style": Russian salad. Ofcause the potatoes and carrots are cooked before used. I usually add a chopped sour apple too.

[s'kat]

Here is an internet mail-order source for some very authentic-tasting stroopwaffels.

[Abra]

Thanks so much for the additional suggestions! Because all of the food must be finger food, definitely eaten without knives and mostly without forks, I'm thinking of a menu like this:

Huzarensla and/or Kaas-en-vleesalade, served in little phyllo pasrty cups

Crab-Stuffed Deviled Eggs

Kaaszebras

Assorted Dutch cheeses, cubed, with good mustards

Saucijzen Brodjes

Something with shrimp and/or scallops - suggestions welcomed

Canapes on tiny toasts - not sure yet what sort

Dutch Apple Tartlets

Amandel Koekjes

Something really chocolatey

Walnut Cake wth Mocha Cream and Apricot Jam

And I definitely need a few other dishes, and would love to get more ideas. The party is on Saturday so I have to get the menu nailed down today or tomorrow.

[John von Pey]

Sorry, I've been busy, but I hope you can do something with these suggestions:

- apple turnover (according to my dictionary): puff-pastry squares, some finely cut apples in the middle (you can add some raisins, cinnamon and/of lemon juice). Fold it into triangles, put some sugar and cinnamon on top, and bake.

Instead of apples you can also use jam (cherry or strawberry are favourite): "jampunten"

This is basicly the same as the "saucijzenbroodjes", only for them you use minced meat instead of apples.

- eggsalad is also very popular. Cut some eggs, add mayonaise and kerry, some finely chopped parsley and ready.

- I have also served filled cucumber. What? yes, filled cucumber. Cut the cucumber in pieces of about 4-5 cm. Scoop out the pieces, and fill them with whatever (try the eggsalad)

- plain stuffed eggs (mix the yolks with kerrypowder, mayonaise and fill the eggs with the mixture)

- For the "huzarensalade" you can use the recipy of Russian salad from a message above.

- stuffed tomatoes (in this case, cherrytomatoes)

Good luck!

Edited October 6, 2004 by John von Pey (log)

[scheer]

Isn't "udder guy" an oxymoron?  

←

'guy' as in purveyor

what is that salty black licorice called? yuck

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Zoute drop, only for the die hards!

[Leo Starrenburg]

here's another interesting name, frickedillen.

these are deep fried sausages made from udder and pigsnout. i do not have an udder guy yet,  unfortunately.

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Frikandellen aren't exactly made from minced sirloin steak I'll grant you that, the recipe of a local factory is:

45% chickenmeat

20% porkmeat

5% horsemeat

15% water

10% breadcrumbs

5% (?)meatstock

Meat beeing a bit of a disnomer because the meat ingredients arrive as a somewhat pinkish coloured pulp. Fat is about 20% in the end product. The fat is usually a bit more because most frikandellen are served 'speciaal':

Speciaal means a lengthwise slit made before deepfrying which is filled with a nephew of mayo: frietsaus, currysaus and chopped onions. A side of fries, again with frietsaus, completes a meal that is the Dutch equivalent of a burger and fries.

The word frikandel is derived from frikadel but stands on it's own nowadays. The frikadel without the n is still available in The Netherlands, but you have to go to an Indonisian toko or restaurant to get one. Totally different and imho much better tasting.

cheers, Leo.

[BonVivant]

there's much less chicken scrapped meat than that! read a report a while ago i can't remember all the ingredients listed but i do remember udder and chin are also in this horrendous snack. i will refrain from telling you more details if you like frikadel [or anything with scrapped meats]

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the only tasty stroopwafels is those you get from the market where they make the stuff before your eyes.

[Leo Starrenburg]

Udder and chin, or in Dutch: "uierboord en kopvlees".

Personally I don't find anything wrong with it, as the beast has been slaughterd why not use every bit of it instead of throwing it away ? Yes , the frikandellen as I showed in the picture are horrendous but the basic ingredients are ok in my view.

The udder/uierboord was cooked on it's own and served on a sandwich this century, used to be poor mans' food but has turned into a delicasie in the last decade. Chin/kopvlees is used to make 'zure zult' and 'balkenbrij' and is really good meat, cheek of calf 'kalfswang' is served in Michelin star restaurants. But at least there you can see what you are eating, the pinkish pulp is something different.

I've seen the production lines in various factories and I do admit that I had recollections of a SienceFiction movie where everything was recycled. I place my trust in the controlling agencies

cheers, Leo

Edited November 16, 2005 by Leo Starrenburg (log)

[Hector]

I would like a recipe for boiled pighead, as you do it in the Netherlands.

I don't know how common this is in the Netherlands, I just saw some chef guy make it on a Dutch tv-show and it looked really cool. Would be interesting to know.

[BonVivant]

that would be zult. very common where i am down here in the south. a mate of mine whose father was a butcher. i recently ask him to ask his father how zult is made but he doesn't remember much...he's 85 years old now. mind you, not everyone wants to eat zult i will very soon.

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'jij bent een zultkoop'