Archive for Recipes
Wentelteefjes (French toast the Dutch way)
This brings me straight back to memory-lane! It is a cheap and very sweet dish that the Dutch used to eat for lunch. My mother made it when we came home from school and we had a cup of milk to go with it. Watch your enamel!
Ingredients:
8 slices of day-old white bread
2 eggs
1 liter lukewarm milk
40 gram butter or margarine
2 tbsp icing sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
salt
Mix the milk with a pinch of salt, two level tablespoons sugar and the lightly beaten eggs. Remove the crust from the bread and soak the slices in the milk and egg mix. Butter a frying pan and fry the bread slices on both sides. Serve immediately and sprinkle with remaining icing sugar and cinnamon.
The first part of the word “wentelteefjes” is derived from a word meaning “soaked”, although the more commonly thought meaning of “wallow” is not far off. “Teefje” perhaps is an old word for a particular shape of pastry but also could refer to a female dog.
Boterletter (Almond Pastry Letter)
This particulair Dutch sweet delight is, just like marsepein, Dutch fudge and chocolate letters, only to be eaten at the end of November/ beginning of December around the celebration of Sinterklaas (St. Nicholas) at December 5th.
Ingredients:
450 grams / 1 lb frozen puff pastry (thawed out)
500 grams / 1 lb 2 oz. almond paste
1 egg
candied cherries
Heat the oven to 200�C/390�F. Put the sheets of puff pastry on top of each other and roll out to a square of 30×30 centimetres (12�x12�). Cut it in half and put them lengthwise together, wetting the ends to “glue” it, making it into a 15×60 (6inchx24inch) piece of dough.
Shape the almond paste by hand into a 55 centimetres (22�) roll. Put the roll on the pastry and fold the dough over and around it. Put the seam and the ends together, using a bit of water and shape the roll – seam down – on a greased baking sheet into an “S”.
Loosely beat the egg and brush it on top of the letter. Put the baking sheet in the middle of the oven and bake for about 25 minutes, until the top is golden brown. Decorate the top with a few candied cherries, with the seam and the sides.
To make your own (real) almond paste, use equal amounts of almond and sugar (250 grams or 9 oz.). Grind or grate the almonds, mix with the sugar and add one egg, a pinch of salt and a pinch of grated lemon peel. The paste can be made in advance and keeps well (if wrapped) in the fridge.
Kroketten (Croquettes)
Croquettes are very unhealthy but you have to eat them, if only once a year. The best thing is to buy them, as grease as possible. But if you want to be creative, try to make them yourself.
Ingredients:600 grams (1lb 5 oz) veal, beef, chicken, or turkey
salt and pepper
1 dl (1/2 cup) white wine
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 clove
2 bay leaves
piece of mace
2 sprigs parsley, finely chopped
lemon juice
3/4 tsp thyme
lemon peel
50 grams (2 oz) butter or margarine
40 grams (1.5 oz) flour
corn starch or gelatin
3 eggs
4 cups fine breadcrumbs
or Dutch rusks (beschuit)
oil to deep-fry
When opting for chicken or turkey meat, use leftovers, in other words cook the turkey or chicken a day ahead. When using veal or beef, start with fresh meat.
Season the veal or beef with salt and pepper. Melt 3 tablespoons of butter in a large frying pan. Put in the meat, add the wine, the onion, parsley, clove, thyme, mace, bay leaves, and lemon peel and 5 decilitre (2 cups) of water. Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat and let it simmer for 45 minutes to an hour. The meat should be tender.
Remove the meat and finely chop or cut into small pieces. Strain and keep the stock.
Melt 50 grams of butter in the frying pan, stir in the flour and keep stirring for a few minutes on low heat. Slowly and gradually add the stock and cook over moderate heat, stirring until the sauce is smooth and thick. Add more flour, or corn starch (maizena) or dissolved gelatin if necessary. Add 3 egg yolks (set the whites aside to use later).
Add the veal, beef, chicken or turkey, season more, if needed. Stir well. The mix should be thick and stiff by this time.
Set the mix aside to cool thoroughly. When ready, cut or separate the stiff, thick mix into rolls of about 5cm (2inch) thick and about 8cm (3inch) long.
On a chopping board spread out the crumbs or crumbed rusks. In a deep plate slightly beat the egg whites.
Roll the croquettes through the breadcrumbs, then through the egg whites and again through the crumbs. Make sure that the second crumbs coating is even and thick and no meat mix sticks out (this could make the croquettes burst when deep fried).
Deep fry the croquettes four or so at a time for about 4 minutes, until they are golden brown. Drain them on absorbent paper.
Serve hot, with French fries or multigrain bread or rice. Put them halved on bread. A good way to season is to slather on mustard.
Bruidstranen (Tears of the Bride)
This alcoholic drink is especially for weddings although it has a strange name: Tears of the Bride. The gold and silver leaves mean: the smell of roses and moonshine. It has a scent so fine, that it is comparable with the finest perfume. This drink is served at the wedding (or, as the rumour goes: when a woman is not amused with something her husband did, she poors him a glass to remind him of the weddingfauls). It can also be a gift from the married couple to their guests.
Hypocras – mulled wine
500 grams / 2lb 2oz. Sugar
2 lemons
2 tsp cinnamon
4 cloves
2 pieces of mace
6 white pepper corns
1 tsp coriander
5 oranges
1 tart apple such as �goudrenet�
� liter / 2 cups / 1 pint milk
2 litres / 2 qts red or white wine
Splice the loves lengthwise and crush the pepper corns. Squeeze the two lemons and keep the juice. Dice the unpeeled, non-cored apple. Peel the oranges and keep the peels.
Mix juice, spices, peels, milk and wine in a large container and set aside to steep for at least a day, preferably longer.
Soak a large piece of cheesecloth or a good quality tea towel to use as a sieve. Put that (perhaps supported by a metal sieve or clander) over a wide-mouthed container or bottle able eventually to hold 2.5 litres (a gallon), or use smaller containers and pour the contents through a funnel into a larger one.
The recipe in one form or another dates back to ancient Greek times. Originally, it also called for the inclusion of specks of gold or silver leaf, to mimic the sparkle of tears.
In Colonial America, the age-old drink became known as “mulled wine”.
Ontbijtkoek (Dutch spice cake)
This is something we like to eat with our breaka. We eat it with butter on one side or thin slices on our sandwich. It tasts sweet and contains hardly any fat. It’s not expensive to buy and isn’t a lot of work if you prefer to make it yourself.
Ingredients:
2 cups self rising flour, ½ cup dark brown sugar (demerara sugar), 1/3 cup molasses or treacle, 1 cup milk, 1 tsp. each ground cloves, cinnamon and ginger, ½ tsp. grated nutmeg, pinch of salt.
Preparations:
Combine all the ingredients to a smooth paste. Butter a oblong 8″ x 3″ cake tin, fill with dough and bake about one hour in a slow oven (300° F.). When cooked, allow to cool and keep in a tin or in the bread-bin for 24 hour before serving. This cake keep moist when put in the bread-bin with the bread. The Dutch serve it with their “elevenses”, buttered or on a slice of bread for breakfast.
Boerenkool met worst en spek (Kale hotchpotch with sausage and bacon)
You love it or you hate it.
1 kilogram kale
2 kilograms potatoes
1 smoked sausage
250 grams Canadian bacon or cured side of pork
75 grams butter
100 ml milk
salt and pepper
Strip the kale from the stalks and finely chop and use only the dark-green leafs. Peel, wash and halve the potatoes. Boil the potatoes until tender. Meanwhile, pour about 2 inches of water in a second pan, add some salt and bring to a boil. Add the kale, turn down the heat and and let it simmer and shrink. Put the smoked sausage and the bacon or pork on top of the kale. If preferred, the pork can be braised or baked beforehand.
When both the kale and potatoes are done, drain the vegetables. Add the butter and milk to the potatoes and mash them. Mix in the kale and add salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.
