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eG Foodblog: Chufi - Shopping and cooking in Amsterdam


Chufi

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Hi everybody!

Breakfast on this sunny Saturday morning is a small bowl of milk & granola:

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When I am not Chufi, I am Klary, and I live with my husband and 2 rats in Amsterdam. I work parttime and when people ask what I do on the days I don't work, my answer is: I'm always busy with food :biggrin:

I'll be taking you on a tour around my favorite shops and foodplaces this week. Ofcourse I'll get some cooking and eating done as well!

I hope my english will hold up. If you don't understand me, please say so and I'll try to explain!

off to the shops now, see you later

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Looking forward to sharing a week of food with you.

Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

...I just let people know about something I made for supper that they might enjoy, too. That's all it is. (Nigel Slater)

"Cooking is about doing the best with what you have . . . and succeeding." John Thorne

Our 2012 (Kerry Beal and me) Blog

My 2004 eG Blog

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I excited about an Amsterdam foodblog - I love that I can travel vicariously through overseas bloggers :biggrin:

Will we get to see any pictures of the rats?

Cutting the lemon/the knife/leaves a little cathedral:/alcoves unguessed by the eye/that open acidulous glass/to the light; topazes/riding the droplets,/altars,/aromatic facades. - Ode to a Lemon, Pablo Neruda

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Well, it's hours later and I returned from a very succesful shoppingtrip that took me all over Amsterdam.

But before I did any shopping, I did what I do almost every day that I'm off work: I went for a walk in the Vondelpark, and had a coffee in Het Blauwe Theehuis (the blue teahouse) afterwards. This is the Teahouse:

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In summer, this place is always buzzing with people and the terrace gets very crowded. In the winter they put heating devices on the terrace so you can still sit outside - especially on a lovely day like today:

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Then I go and pick up my friend Suzanne to go to the market together. She's having breakfast when I arrive and she serves me a cup of tea and half a minneola (and a whiff of Dune):

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This is the Noordermarkt, held every saturday on a church square in the middle of Amsterdam. It's a farmersmarket with lots of organic stuff.

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The mushroom guy (I buy some portobello and a bag of dried shii takes)

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The cheese stall: (I buy a dutch blue cheese and an organic, unpasteurized emmentaler).

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I also get some nice sourdough bread and jerusalem artichokes (which are hard to find over here except at organic shops & markets)

Time for a chat, the paper and another coffee. I'm also hungry so I have a grilled ham&cheese sandwich, and a glass of organic applejuice.

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Then we go to a shop where you can buy grains, pasta, pulses etc. in bulk, which is quite unusual over here. I love the way this shop looks, it's like a candystore! I get dried flageolet beans, cranberry beans and red rice.

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Across town, I stop at another market (my regular one, the Albert Cuyp market) to get some cheap herbs and vegetables:

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and my last stop is Casa Molero, a shop that specializes in 'Productos Ibericos'. They have a huge variety of sausages, hams, and all other kinds of spanish and portuguese foods. I buy a couple of chorizo sausages, the soft kind that you have to cook before you can eat them, both dulce and picante

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actually, my final stop is at the supermarket to get groceries like milk, pasta etc.. but that's not very interesting.

This was a fun morning of shopping. I have to admit it was not exactly budgetfriendly, which is why I don't go to the farmers market every week :wink: . As much as I would like to buy only organic food, It's just too expensive. However, things like the pulses, the dried mushrooms etc. will last a long time. The cheese was definitely the luxury item of the day!

Now, I have to go and clean up the mess that was left behind after the winetasting party we had last night. Maybe when everything is cleaned up, I'll give you a tour of my kitchen!

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Will we get to see any pictures of the rats?

well, I understand that the blog has to be strictly food-related, but maybe I'll sneak in a picture of them when they are sharing my breakfast one day :wink:

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I love being a virtual gourmand! My son was in Amsterdam backpacking lin 2003 but he didn't think to take pictures of food! :angry: I am looking forward to another wonderful blog!

Dejah

www.hillmanweb.com

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back to report on dinner. When I asked Dennis (the husband) what he would like for dinner he said: meat.

Now we don't eat a lot of meat.. in fact meat scares me a bit. I roast a chicken, I make a meatloaf, I fry some bacon - but large pieces of meat to roast or even panfry, make me nervous. :unsure: Anyway... I did buy two nice pieces of fillet steak and here are the other things that would end up in tonights dinner: some left over mushroom pate, some leftover gravy, an aubergine, a portobello, a scrap of parmesan, a couple of jerusalem artichokes, some herbs, some cream:

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I always listen to music when I cook and in the background you see Emmylou Harris' cd Spyboy, todays soundtrack.

I like to have a drink as well as music, here's what I had:

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it's a strange kind of german jenever, it was a gift. It's very strong (35 %) and has a strong taste of juniper. We keep the bottle in the freezer as well as the little glasses we drink it from.

Beside it is the platter of griddled aubergine and portobello. with a garlic/lemon/oliveoil/marjoram dressing.

End results:

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The filletsteaks were nice but not as meltingly tender as I wanted them to be. The sauce (made with the mushroompate and a bit of marsala) was fantastic. There was also a gratin of jerusalem artichoke.. mmm I love jerusalem artichoke. I could have made a dinner just out of that gratin.

While everything elkse was cooking, I remembered that I had some mussles in my fridge that were probably going to die soon unless I killed them. So I killed them, in a pan with some white wine, a chopped tomato and some leeks:

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I took them out of the shells, stored them in the cooking liquor. These are going to be part of tomorrows dinner in a yet undetermined way.

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Your English must be quite good, all this time I thought you were an expat!  :smile:

aww thank you very much!

I have to say that since I became seriously interested in food, the focus soon shifted to the english language. Translated cookbooks are simply not as good (funny things happen to the ingredients. For instance, they will translate 'butternut squash' as 'pompoen' which means 'pumpkin' which is ofcourse not the same!)

So most of my cookbooks are in english, the websites about food I visit are in english. I think my creative thinking about food is done in english.... sometimes I talk to myself in english, while I'm cooking! :blink:

This does worry me sometimes (especially when I sometimes even dream in english!)

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WOW! This is looking really good. I, too, had mussels that would die if I didn't kill them so I had some last night as an appetizer - cooked much as you did and then today I cooked the rest and served them cold for lunch with a ravigote sauce - very yummy.

I envy you your access to markets - here in the suburbs we are not so lucky and I rarely have the chance to head into the big city. I know this is going to be one very interesting blog. Thanks for taking it on.

Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

...I just let people know about something I made for supper that they might enjoy, too. That's all it is. (Nigel Slater)

"Cooking is about doing the best with what you have . . . and succeeding." John Thorne

Our 2012 (Kerry Beal and me) Blog

My 2004 eG Blog

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I'm really looking forward to this, my sister and I visited Amsterdam a couple of years ago, I fell in love and try to sneak back often (though am foiled by dogs/husband/responsibility)

Will we get a definitive recipe for real chips? :wub: the ones we ate off street stall in Amsterdam were the best ever I think....

Spam in my pantry at home.

Think of expiration, better read the label now.

Spam breakfast, dinner or lunch.

Think about how it's been pre-cooked, wonder if I'll just eat it cold.

wierd al ~ spam

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Wow, everything looks very tasty so far. I have always wanted to try Jerusalem Artichokes, but they are impossible to find over here at all.

So, living in Amsterdam, will there be a blogged visit to one of those 'special' cafes?

He don't mix meat and dairy,

He don't eat humble pie,

So sing a miserere

And hang the bastard high!

- Richard Wilbur and John LaTouche from Candide

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This is really exciting. Thank you for doing this, Chufi. I have spent a fair amount of time there, mostly in The Hague but some time in Amsterdam. The one food "thing" that blows me away is the fried potatoes with the various flavors of mayonnaise. I don't know how all of those little places do it but the only place I have had fries to match them was in Ireland. And the mayonnaise is so good. It is somehow lighter than what we get here. If you have a chance, please get a shot of one of these places and the range of mayo flavors to pick from. There was a kiosk not far from my hotel on the beach in Scheveningen that had the most wonderful concoction with some Indonesian spices. Here, when I ask for mayo with my fries, dining companions go "ewww" and waitstaff look blank. They don't know.

Uh . . . If you could get a mayonnaise recipe, it wouldn't hurt my feelings. :biggrin:

Linda LaRose aka "fifi"

"Having spent most of my life searching for truth in the excitement of science, I am now in search of the perfectly seared foie gras without any sweet glop." Linda LaRose

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You are all so kind! :wub:

I will try to answer some of the questions later but first things first.. sunday breakfast:

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we like to eat a light breakfast. Today I made a mango/banana/oatmeal smoothie. Dennis likes to mix his with granola, I have mine just as it is.

The rats get some too:

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yes they're cute and they know it!

Now I'm at my desk having some coffee from my favorite mug. My mum had this made for me when I was born, 35 years ago, so it is a miracle that it's still in one piece (I use it daily):

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So, living in Amsterdam, will there be a blogged visit to one of those 'special' cafes?

hehe I'm afraid not. :laugh: I have never been to one and have no plans in that direction! Not all Amsterdammers go there you know..

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