Two Non-Recipes and a View

One of the nice things about the really warm weather, is that we've been having dinner on our cool, north-west facing balcony every night.



No I'm not freakishly tall. Well, I am tall, actually, but not that freakishly. I took this picture from our upstairs balcony.

On the table is doctored up Thai red curry with shrimp, based on a little packet from Asian Home Gourmet. I love their stuff (and wrote about them before, see here).




But the thing I enjoyed most about this dinner was the old fashioned cucumber salad we had as a side. In the summer, there is almost always a cucumber in my fridge - it gets chopped up and added to salads, or is shredded for tzaziki-style dips. But for some reason, I almost never prepare it the way my mother used to, and the way I ate it dozens, hundreds of times as a kid: grated and mixed with salt, vinegar, sugar and pepper. Making the dressing for this was one of the first jobs I was allowed to do in the kitchen, and I loved it, because there was no recipe and it was all about tasting - adding the various ingredients until it tasted right.



Because the cucumber is coarsely grated, the vinegary dressing really permeates it, and you get something like an instant pickle. After you've eaten the salad you're left with a lot of liquid, which you can discard, or you can drink it like I love to do - it tastes like an all-cucumber gazpacho, and is extremely refreshing.

So, here's the non-recipe for this old fashioned cucumber salad:
Coarsely grate cucumber. You can peel it or not peel it, whatever you like. Add vinegar (the cheap white stuff, nothing fancy!), salt, a bit of sugar, and pepper. Ideally, freshly ground white pepper, but I used black this time because it was all I had. Taste, adjust seasonings, and add more vinegar if you think it needs it. Keep tasting until you think it's right!

On a hot day, chill until ready to serve.

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The other non-recipe is for this delicious nectarine ice cream. I can't give the recipe because it was very much an "oh let's add a little bit of this and maybe a little bit of that" kind of affair. There was 250 ml of cream, an equal amount of buttermilk, 4 ripe juicy nectarines, a tablespoon of strong chestnut honey, 5 tablespoons of sugar (maybe more, maybe less), some lemon juice, a glug of bourbon, 3 or 4 or 5 tablespoons of Pineau de Charentes. See? I would never tell you to go make something as weird as that. But if you love making ice cream and like to play around with flavors, the nectarine/honey/Pineau combo is definitely something worth experimenting with.

Wat je wil koken als het warm is

Voor mij is dat simpel: ik wil koken wat ik wil eten. En dat is bijna nooit alleen maar sla, of een boterham. Al is het ´tropisch´of wat daar dan in Nederland voor door moet gaan: ik heb 'savonds graag iets warms op mijn bord.

Toegegeven, mijn tropische bord ziet er wel iets anders uit dan mijn herfstbord. Gisteren: deze rode kool tahin salade, een lauwwarme salade van flageoletboontjes, geroosterde tomaatjes, buffelmozzarella en basilicum. Maar dit koels en lichts werd aangevuld met iets warms en pittigs.

Ik hou ontzettend veel van de combinatie brood-warm vlees. Knapperig geroosterd brood, dat langzaam de jus van een sappig stukje vlees in zich opzuigt. Deze gebakken kip met paprika zou zeker ook heel lekker zijn met rijst of bulgur of couscous, maar probeer echt eens deze vlees met boterham combinatie, ook al klinkt het een beetje raar voor het avondeten.

Gebruik een goed scherp mes om de kip in dunne plakjes (geen reepjes dus) te snijden.
Als je het echt te warm of te onhandig vindt om de paprika zelf te roosteren, gebruik dan kant en klaar geroosterde paprika uit een pot.



Komijnkip met geroosterde paprika
voor 2 personen

1 rode paprika, in vieren, zaadlijsten verwijderd
200 gram kipfilet, in hele dunne plakjes gesneden
knoflookzout, gemalen komijn, chilivlokken, gemalen zwarte peper, bloem
olijfolie
20 gram boter
1 dl water of witte wijn
2 dikke stevige boterhammen, bij voorkeur van brood van gisteren

Verwarm de grill voor. Rooster de stukken paprika met het velletje naar boven onder grill tot ze zwart geblakerd zijn (ca 10 minuten). Doe ze in een kom en dek deze af met folie. Na een kwartiertje zijn ze afgekoeld en kun je de schilletjes makkelijk verwijderen. Snijd ze in reepjes.

Bestrijk de boterhammen met wat olie en grill ze om en om een paar minuten tot ze mooi geroosterd zijn.

Bestrooi de plakjes kip aan weerszijden met knoflookzout, chilivlokken, gemalen komijn, peper en bloem. Verhit 1 eetlepel olie in een koekenpan en bak op hoog vuur de kip snel om en om goudbruin. Voeg de paprika toe en bak deze 1 minuut mee. Zet het vuur laag en doe de boter erbij en als deze gesmolten is het water/ de wijn. Als het goed is heb je nu een kip/paprika mengsel in een kleine hoeveelheid licht stroperige jus. Als het te droog is, nog wat water toevoegen.

Schep het kipmengsel op de boterhammen.

Paris memories

It's been over a week since I spent 3 days in Paris. I'm already preparing for another trip (I know - it´s crazy!) and blogging about that Paris weekend almost slipped under the radar. But a co-worker is going to Paris next week and she asked me for recommendations, so I browsed the photos I´d taken and looked at my notes, and decided there are a couple of things I want to share here.

Enjoy.


hotelroom view


Place de la Madeleine






happy after some Berthillon ice cream


shoe shopping in the Paris metro


dinner at Les Papilles






where do we go and how do we get there?




lunch at the Merci Canteen


enjoying Pierre Herme's Croissant Ispahan and canneles on the trainride home.

Merci Paris!

Coffee, Happiness

Remember when I was looking for coffee?



The good news is, I found it. I found great coffee, in a friendly place, where everybody who works there is passionate about the coffee they serve. Where they make you a filter coffee right there when you ask for it. You sit at your table and watch someone slowly, attentively, carefully pour water on a Melitta filter. Just for you. And before they do that, they ask you what kind of coffee you like. Earthy? with sweet undertones? a hint of apricot or chocolate? It´s all possible. And the coffee, when it arrives, is so good that it wakes you up and makes you smile. In the way only a really good cup of coffee can.



That´s the good news. The bad news is that this coffee place is only in Amsterdam temporarily. It´s an ´installation café´, from Stumptown Roasters, a coffee company from the US west coast. It´s still not exactly clear to me why they are here, and why they are only here for 3 months. All that I know is that I´m so happy to have found them and so sad they will be gone by August.

Amsterdammers, go get some great coffee while you can!


contentment all around..

Les Macarons de Ladurée

De Franse patisserie Ladurée bestaat sinds 1862. Daarmee is dit Parijse instituut 99 jaar ouder dan een andere Parijse meester banketbakker, Pierre Hermé (geboren in 1962). Wat zegt dat? Niet zoveel. Macaron trivia.

Vorig weekend was ik in Parijs. Op zondagochtend maakten mijn vriendin en ik de metroreis naar St Germain, om macarons en gebak in te slaan voor het thuisfront bij de winkel van Hermé op de Rue Bonaparte. Hermé is al een paar jaar mijn macaron ijkpunt: ik had wel macarons van andere Franse patissiers geproefd (hoewel ik niet zeker weet of Ladurée daar ook bij zat) maar Pierre stak simpelweg overal boven uit. De macaronmeester, vanwege de creatieve smaakcombinaties, de perfecte textuurbalans van koekje en vulling.



Maar wie echt culinair geinteresseerd is mag niet rigide zijn. En toen we, op weg van Hermé naar de metro, ineens langs een Ladurée filiaal kwamen, kon ik het niet laten daar ook een doosje te kopen. Voor de smaaktest.

En ik moet zeggen: het is moeilijk, heel moeilijk om een favoriet aan te wijzen. De Ladurée smaakjes zijn misschien iets 'gewoner'. Geen foie gras en truffel creaties. Voor zover ik heb kunnen vaststellen, ook geen vulling-in-de-vulling contructies. Maar: de caramel au beurre salé van L. was beter dan die van P.: een net iets minder romige vulling met een heftiger caramelsmaak. Een de oranjebloesem van L... was goddelijk. Maar de olijfolie en vanille van H... daar kan ik geen genoeg van krijgen.



Kortom: Als ik volgende keer in Parijs ben en alleen een Ladurée tegenkom, zal het geen straf zijn om alleen daar macarons te kopen om mee naar huis te nemen. En intussen moet ik hoognodig een keer naar patisserie Tout in de Maasstraat in Amsterdam, waar ze allemaal nieuwe macaronsmaken aan de collectie hebben toegevoegd. Tomaten basilicum, chocolade lavendel!

A really good soup

I love soups that combine vegetables, beans and pasta, or vegetables and grains like barley or rice. Dennis doesn't, so this is something I will often make for myself when I eat alone. This week I had an unexpected craving for tarragon, picking up a nice bunch of it at the market, not even looking at the huge and fragrant bushes of basil or the dark green bundles of mint or the squeaky fresh bunches of parsley. Tarragon led to fennel, with its aniseedy flavor that matches tarragon so well, and then there were these bright yellow zucchini and these juicy green asparagus. It really is very easy to be inspired this time of year.

This is a simple soup, but it has a nice layering of flavors from the slow-cooked onions and fennel and the crunch of the barely cooked asparagus. The ovendried tomatoes provide little bursts of intensely sweet juicyness.



notes:

I like that the zucchini and beans become very soft and that the asparagus still has a little bite to it. If you want all vegetables to hold their shape, add beans, zucchini and asparagus all at once and cook together for about 7 minutes.

The yellow zucchini looked pretty in this soup (and was cheaper at the market this week than the green kind) but of curse you can use green zucchini instead.

Don't overdo the tarragon, it has a very strong flavor and if you use to much yout soup will taste strangely medicinal.

++++++++++++++++++++++++

Zucchini and asparagus soup with beans, fennel and tarragon
serves 2-3 as a main dish, 4-5 as a first course

250 grams small, sweet cherry or plumtomatoes, halved
200 grams cooked flageolet beans or small white beans
2 shallots, chopped
1 small fennelbulb, chopped
1 zucchini, cubed
200 grams green asparagus, cliced into coins
750 ml light chicken or vegetable stock
salt, pepper
butter, olive oil
fresh tarragon

Preheat the oven to 115 degrees. Put the tomatoes, cut side up, on a baking sheet and sprinkle with sugar. Bake them in the low oven for about 60-90 minutes, depending on their size and juiciness. You want to end up with slightly shrivelled and dried, but not completely leathery tomatoes that are bursting with concentrated sweet tomato flavor.

Menawhile: Heat a lump of butter and a tablespoon of oil in a soup pot. Cook the shallots and fennel over low to medium heat for about 15 minutes, until they are soft and slightly caramellized. Add the zucchini, the beans and the stock and bring the soup to a boil. Simmer for 15 minutes. Add the asparagus and simmer for another 5minutes. Add salt, pepper and chopped tarragon to taste. Stir in the tomatoes and serve in big bowls, with a swirl of good olive oil on top.

Flat, Round & Crispy

I've had a weird craving for things round, flat and crispy lately. First there was a 2-day adventure with chickpea flour - which I had bought weeks ago, on my quest for new and intersting grains and flours. Googling taught me that there aren't really that many things you can do with chickpea flour. Panisses (chickpea flour french fries, who could resist?) have to wait for another day, I started with something I had actually already eaten once, when someone made it for me in my own kitchen: Socca.


first socca

Most recipes drifting around on the web are pretty similar, although the pictures you can find can be surprisingly different - from thick, almost cake like socca to very thin, crisp pancakes.


second socca

On my first attempt, my socca came out more on the thick and cakey side, and while I enjoyed the flavor I thought I would prefer it to be crispier. So the next day for lunch I mixed up some batter. I added some ground cumin, per the advice of David Lebovitz. After experimenting with baking the thing in the oven, on the stove and under the grill, I ended up combining 2 methods: I heated a cast iron pan on the stove until it was really hot, cooked the socca in it for a minuten or so, and then finished it under a hot grill in the oven. This produced the socca I liked best: thin, brown and crispy.


third socca

The addition of cumin is genius, it gives the pancake a nice toasty and spicy fragrance that's hard to pin down but that's really well suited to the subtle chickpea flavor.

The socca recipe itself is really simple: a cup of chickpea flour, slightly more than a cup of cold water, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, a good pinch of salt, a small pinch of ground cumin, a really good grinding of black pepper. Fresh herbs are optional, as is the dusting of ground Parmigiano on the finished pancake. I did enjoy some crunchy fleur de sel and an extra drizzle of oil on mine.




More experiments with flat, round and crispy: I made this delayed fermentation pizza dough for the first time and really liked it. I made it on Monday, and baked pizzas with it on Wednesday and Thursday. I have to say the Thursday version was the best and the most flavorful. I do think the recipe needs a bit more salt though.
I did not really succeed in 'stretching' the dough on my knuckles, I could not get it uniformally thin enough so I went back to the trusted old rolling pin method which works just fine for me.

It was a great pizza, with beef mixed with fresh thyme and garlic, grilled eggplant, caramellized red onions and buffalo mozzarella.

Now, I have to go and pack my bag for Paris. 3 days of pastries, wine and girl-talk as I head to the Beautiful City with one of my best friends. See you all in a couple of days, au revoir!

Aardappelen en Vlees

Ik had zin in chips.

En ik had zin in biefstuk.

Dus at ik eerst een zak chips, en daarna een biefstuk.

En omdat ik al een hele zak chips op had, at ik bij mijn biefstuk geen aardappels met jus, puree met boter, friet met mayo, aardappelgratin of gebakken aardappels. Maar sla, en een dressing van Chinese zwarte azijn, gember, knoflook, en een klein beetje chili olie. Vlees zonder olie gegrild op loeihete grill plaat. Door de sla ook nog een bakje oesterzwammen, in reepjes, zonder olie gebakken in hete pan.



Ik heb Sonja of Dokter Frank niet nodig.

Meatless Week: Wrap it up

After cheating deliciously for 1 night, it was back to meatless eating for another 3 nights. One dinner that was just ok, one wonderful Asian style feast, and one night of lovely leftovers. Not bad!



On Thursday I made these green pea fritters. Very simple: green peas, thawed, mashed with an egg, some flour, lots of fresh mint, a little Parmigiano. Oh and there were supposed to be a couple of tablespoons of ricotta in there, but Dennis had eaten all the ricotta for lunch. So I blame it on the case of the missing ricotta, that these fritters were a bit heavy and stodgy (but tasty). Served with one of my favorites, with mushrooms and fried halloumi.



On Friday we had some friends over for an impromptu after work dinner. I made a huge bowl of spicy noodles (noodles tossed in a sauce made with sesame paste, black vinegar, peanutbutter, sesame oil, chili oil, Sechuan pepper and soy sauce), nestled on a bed of pan fried napa cabbage and mushrooms. Roasted 2 heads of broccoli, and dressed those with soy sauce, black vinegar, ginger and garlic. Marinated some tempeh and mushrooms in sweet thick soy sauce and sambal badjak, and served this, fried, in little lettuce cups with lots of fresh coriander. Blueberry pancakes with pecan ice cream for dessert. An extremely delicious and very satisfying dinner where no one missed the meat at all.





We had the left over noodles for dinner the next night, pan fried and topped with a fried egg. And more roasted vegetables: green asparagus this time, doused in Chinese black vinegar and chili oil.





This might be my new favorite dressing for roasted vegetables: the spicy, almost smoky punch of the chili oil, the sweet and sour darkness of the black vinegar.

The verdict: If I had a week of uniterrupted home cooking ahead of me, I could easily do meatless week again. But, going out to dinner or having dinner with friends presents difficulties for the part-time vegetarian. In restaurants, I will often order a vegetarian dish if it appeals to me, but to be honest, most of the time the meat options are just much more tempting. (Not to mention the fact that many restaurants don't even have vegetarian dishes on the menu. When it says "ask your waiter for vegetarian options" you know that you won't be served anything really exciting).

And friends? As an optional vegetarian, can I ask them to prepare a meatfree meal for me? Should I just not say anything and eat whatever they have that has no meat? I don't know.

I'll continue to eat meat when I feel like it, not much, and nothing but free range / organic meat as far as I can help it (that means, when I'm responsible for buying it). I'm not ready (yet) for a life without bacon, meatballs and roast chicken. But this week did make me more conscious of how easy it is to rely on meat for flavor and protein and satisfying dinners, and how cooking with vegetables, grains, pulses and a bit of dairy is a huge creativity challenge.

Bye Bye Marius (for now)

So, this is Meatless Week. But as I already mentioned, I was forced (or I should say, I allowed myself ) to cheat for just one dinner.

I know, this sort of defeats the purpose of going meatfree for a week. I'm actually thinking of adding another week, just to challenge myself a bit more. But for now, lets focus on the how and why of yesterdays meal.

When I learned that one of my favorite Amsterdam restaurants, Marius, was going to close for a couple of months, and that this week was my last chance to eat there before the closure, I knew that that was an opportunity I had to seize.



Those of you who read my blog on a regular basis know I don't do restaurant reviews. At least not the type of review many bloggers and critics pretend to write: balanced, unbiased reports with advice on why you should or should not eat somewhere. When I write about a restaurant it is because I love it, because I had a good experience there, and yes, everyone who reads it should acknowledge that my opinion will be influenced by the wonderful conversation I had, or the way the waitress smiled at me when taking my order, or the prospect of after dinner plans. So consider this, not a review, just a biased, personal write up about a place I happen to love.


The food at Marius is a very special kind of food. Dennis and I were talking last night about how hard it would be to find similar food in any restaurant in Amsterdam. The word I came up with as I tried to describe its characteristics: inevitable. The food Kees Elfring cooks (because the chef's name is not Marius - the restaurant takes its name from Marcel Pagnol's work, just like Alice Waters' much heralded Chez Panisse in Berkely California, where Elfring worked for a couple of years in the eighties) is never contrived, complicated or cerebral. That does not mean it's simple or easy - there's always a lot going on on your plate. But everything he cooks feels and tastes as if it comes from true inspiration and passion. Like it is simply, inevitably, the only thing he felt like cooking that day, and he cooked it for you.



This is how he works - there's a 4 course market menu that's different everyday, although return visitors will see Elfring's favorite ingredients making a regular appearance. Besides that menu, he serves 'specials' that hardly ever change: bouillabaisse, vitello tonnato, chocolate cake.



There are no foams here, no essences of anything. Ingredients aren't stacked in towers but neither are they spaced far apart on huge plates. The flavors and textures are bold enough to keep you interested thoughout the meal, but not weird, confusing, or clashing. These aren't the kind of specific flavors you will remember tomorrow. What you will remember is the overall feel of the meal. It's superior comfort food, home cooking like you would want to find in many homes (but hardly ever do).



I guess what I keep trying to say that at this little restaurant, everything just seems to make perfect sense. From the food and wine to the attentive service, the checkered tablecloths and the chef who comes out to talk to the guests whenever he has a moment, it all works together to make you feel completely at ease, pampered and at home. When we were there, I spotted some tourists, 2 guys discussing their recent dinners at Noma and Alinea, and a couple with a toddler in a stroller. Everyone seemed to be equally comfortable, enjoying their food and wine.

So goodbye Marius, see you in the fall. I can't wait to see what you come up with - I'm sure it will be wonderful.



See here for the report on my first visit to Marius, written on eGullet by my friend Mark.

My sweetheart went to Zürich and brought me...

Luxemburgerli.

Wiki says they're 'lighter and more airy' than macarons. I don't know.. to me, they taste like macarons, and like very very good ones, too.



The biscuit has that wonderful combination of being shatteringly crisp on the outside and tender, soft and almost chewy on the inside. Quite a feat for such a small biscuit! The fillings are thick and creamy and intensely flavored, not too sweet. I'd say that these macarons which are not macarons, are some of the best non-Hermé macarons I´ve tasted!

Meatless Week, Day 3 & 4: Something on your plate

We spent Monday afternoon at a friend's house, celebrating her birthday. When we left at 6:30, we had eaten a lot (lemon meringue pie, chocolate cake, madeleines, hummus, cucumber sandwiches, cheese straws and olives) but were left with the yearning for something to be eaten from a plate, sitting down, at the table. It wasn't until I stopped by the grocery store to get 'something' for dinner, that I realized that there's nothing like an afternoon of drinking cold white wine on a sunny balcony to make you crave...

... bacon.

My normal standby for an evening like this would be pasta carbonara: fast, easy, delicious and satisfying. But since that was out, I could not think of anything else. We wound up eating an utterly boring salad with avocado, tomatoes and some old cornbread that I toasted in the oven. I'll spare you the pictures.

Tonight, something better and a some musings about the vegetarian dinner plate.

I always feel that one of the biggest pitfalls of the vegetarian dinner is the fact that it's so easy to wind up with a one pot meal, a dish that consists of lots of little things chopped up and tossed together. Pilafs, pasta dishes, composed salads and soups - no matter how delicious, they can be boring to eat, mouthfull after mouthfull of the same thing - especially when you're used to a steak or a chicken leg or a meatball on your plate. You want something sizeable, something to cut into, something to take little bites out of.

It does't have anything to do with flavor, just with the psychological effect of how satisfying it is to have that Piece of Something. The piece does not have to be meat. It can be a wedge of quiche or frittata, a slice of lasagna, a lentil burger.

So I tried something like that today. I passed my favorite Turkish supermarket this afternoon and bought a packet of yufka, pastry sheets similar to but a bit thicker than phyllo. And made these eggplant cheese borek.

They're based on a dish I learned to make from a Kurdish co-worker a couple of years ago. That version has nothing but eggplant, ground lamb, onion, garlic, salt and pepper in the filling. Lacking the meat, I experimented a bit with cheeses, herbs and seasonings. I love the flavor of allspice with eggplant, and the mint gives it a slightly Greek feel. You could easily substitute parsley or coriander for the mint, and use some red pepper flakes in the filling, or ground coriander seed (which is also a great match with eggplant). The egg and yoghurt topping makes the crust lovely golden brown and delightfully balanced between crispy and chewy. Do try this!



Eggplant and cheese borek
makes 4, serves 2-3 as a main course

1 eggplant
about 200 grams yufka sheets
1 onion, minced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 teaspoon ground allspice
2 tablespoons ricotta
3 tablespoons grated cheese (anything from Parmesan to semi-aged Gouda will do)
2 tablespoons fresh mint, chopped
1 egg
6 tablespoons yoghurt
1 tablespoon cream
1 tablespoon cold water
salt, pepper, olive oil

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Prick the eggplant all over with a fork, wrap it in foil and roast it until it´s soft 8about 40 minutes). take from the oven, let cool a bit and peel.
Fry the onion and garlic in olive oil until soft. Add the allspice, salt and pepper, and the chopped up eggplant. Fry it all together for a couple of minutes. Then let cool a bit, and mix in ricotta, cheese and mint.

Separate the egg. Mix the white with 3 tablespoons of yoghurt, the cream and water. Mix the yolk with the rest of the yoghurt.

Grease a baking dish.

Lay out your yufka sheets. Your goal is to end up with 4 large discs of an approximately 10 inch diameter. Depending on your brand of yufka, you need to cut your sheets or put the smaller pieces yours was already cut in, together. Brush the sheets with the egg white - yoghurt mixture. This will help to glue the pieces of yufka together.

Divide the filling in 4 portions. Put a portion of filling on each 10 inch yufka circle, fold in the sides and roll it up so you end up with a thick sausage like pastry. Put the pastries (borek) in the baking dish.

When all 4 pastries are in the dish, pour the egg yolk-yoghurt mixture over the pastries and bake the whole thing for 30 minutes at 200 C.

Serve with a green salad (I served mine with a salad of roasted green beans in a tahini dressing)