Fingers Crossed (herring salad)

I had quite a good weekend planned. There was going to be dinner with friend L., who lives on a barge with a cool waterside terrace. There was going to be a jaunt in the park with two other friends, H. and R., both of whom I haven’t seen for far too long. There was going to be the purchase of funky hiking boots, F.H.B..

Alas.

First, dinner got cancelled. L’s sister is pregnant and her waters broke, so L. took a trip back home to become an aunt. An AUNT. V. exciting, but the baby isn’t due for another five weeks, so they are hoping it will stick around in the womb for a bit longer. Good thing I have enough time to keep my fingers crossed, what with not having dinner plans and all.

Then H. sent a text message to say we cannot get together because she has to stay indoors for seven days. Someone she spent time with came down with the New Flu and even though she feels fine, she won’t get the all-clear until it has been seven days since their last contact. That means seeing as few people as possible and hoping she hasn’t caught it. More fingercrossing to do for me.

Perhaps I should have paid attention to the signs and leave the boot buying for another day. But no, into town I went. After careful deliberation and much fitting, these were the shoes I picked:

Yup, they’re Ugly. No amount of superstition is going to make these babies a treat to look at. Luckily, they are also Comfortable. So that’s U.C.B. (ugly comfy boots), rather than F.H.B. And that’s okay. I picked them, I am responsible for buying them and I won’t ask for a miraculous shoe make-over. I have one other tiny additional request to fate, though. Will you please allow the U.C.B. to keep me safe when hiking in the Pyrenees two weeks from now?

And that’s enough with the finger-crossing and magic thinking. Time to count my blessings. Sure, I’ve seen two dates disappear into thin air, but at least I am not the one in the hospital, hoping her nephew or niece will stay inside for a little longer. Nor am I cut off from the world, keeping my germs to myself. No, I got to put on my U.C.B. and buy the ingredients for the salad you see up there. It’s got herring, it’s got beets. It has apples, and shallot and eggs and gherkins. It has a creamy dressing and it made me very happy to be right where I was.
Yes, it was quite a good weekend after all.

Herring salad with beets

Serves 1

1 ½ herrings (salty, not sour)
1 beetroot, approximately 150 gr
½ apple, not too sweet
2 gherkins
2 small, hard boiled eggs, yolks removed
1 shallot
1 tbsp mayonnaise
2 tbsp thick, creamy yogurt
½ tsp grated horseradish, optional

Chop the beetroot, the apple, the eggs and the gherkins into roughly evenly sized pieces. Finely mince the shallot and combine with the ingredients you just chopped. Mix the mayonnaise with the yogurt and add the horseradish, if using. Add the dressing to the beetroot mixture.

Cut the herring into small bite-sized pieces. Gently fold into the other ingredients. Serve with thick slices of toasted bread.

Traditionally, this kind of salad would have a few boiled potatoes. I don’t like them, so I left them out, but don’t let that stop you from adding them if you are so inclined.

Koek en zopie (Chocolate Chunk Cookies and Spiced Coffee)

There is this thing we do in the NL, where talk about "koek en zopie" a lot when temperatures drop below zero. It probably doesn't look like it, but is pronounced close to "cook and so pee". Which pronunciation, although you lose all meaning, accurately conveys the slight yuck-factor the words have for me. Saying them sends a shiver down my spine, and not a good kind.

Still, the koek en zopie rhetoric fascinates me. Few people seem to know exactly what it means. (Well, "koek" is easy enough; it means cookie or cake. But "zopie"? My hunch stops at something warm and liquid with a high alcohol content.) We associate it with warming our hands around a mug of hot chocolate, but then we buy split pea soup at a koek en zopie stall without batting an eyelash. Best of all, you can happily spend an hour discussing what koek en zopie is, get no nearer to the answer and come away with a legitimate craving for thick, sweet, hot drinks topped with great dollops of whipped cream.

There is a strong bond between koek en zopie and ice skating outside (as opposed to on an indoor rink), but we hardly get to do that anymore. Since I refuse to get out onto something as slippery as ice (ICE, people) with just thin metal blades strapped to my feet, the lack of cold over the past winters doesn't concern me. What does concern me, however, is that we might not keep the koek en zopie talk going for much longer. Even though that would relieve me of a shivery spine, it would also make me sad. So, for the internets and for generations to come, I will start my own koek en zopie tradition. Over the coming months, when I bake a cookie, I will dream up a hot drink to go with it. And when I come across a great hot drink, I will come up with a cookie to accompany it. And then I will write about the combo, and call it "Koek en Zopie". Voila, koek en zopie for the cyber-age.

First up: Jess Thomson’s Cinnamon-Coconut Chocolate Chunk Cookies. I brought these into the office this Friday (sans coconut; I am not a fan) and they inspired quite a few comments. Of the “are you vegetarian?” type, because apparently that is what millet makes people think. But more, far more, of the “oh my, these are great” type. And they are.

These are wintery cookies, with a chewy bite, crunch from the millet, a cinnamon scent and big chunks of chocolate. They have enough character to stand up to an assertive drink, so for my first koek en zopie pairing, I would like to suggest you eat them with a small cup of strong coffee, scented with a few freshly ground cardamom seeds and a pinch of ground ginger. Spicy koek en zopie to warm you through and through.

My Almost First Potatoes

Potatoes are a staple in Dutch meals. When we talk about dinner, images of meat, veg and potatoes pop into our heads. Even if these days we are more likely to serve pasta and sauce or a quick stirfry for dinner. It is with some embarrassment, therefore, that I am here to tell you that I don’t know how to cook potatoes. Not altogether surprising, perhaps, given that I don’t eat the buggers, but still a little embarrassing.

I am happy to announce, though, that I took steps today to remedy the situation. I boiled my first potatoes. Well, not strictly speaking my first potatoes, but my first potatoes that were not meant to be mashed into bread dough. For obvious reasons I don’t know if they tasted good (all potatoes taste like a mealy mess-up to me), but my brother and his girlfriend approved. I am a proud woman.

Just for the record, my method: I peeled my mini-potatoes, washed them and put them in a pan with enough water to cover them about half-way. Added a pinch of salt and brought the water to a boil. Ten I let them boil for ten minutes, pricked them to test tenderness and presto: My Almost First Potatoes.

Red Wine Secret (Stewed Pears)

"I’ve got the key
I’ve got the secret
I’ve got the key
Yeah"*

I have a sneaking suspicion not many people have this issue, but something has been plaguing me. For the past couple of years I’ve tried to figure out how to get my stewed pears an appealing shade of red. My stewed pears tend to end up an off-putting brownish purple. Even though they usually taste fine, the experience just isn’t the same when you have to close your eyes to dare take a bite. (Also, sticking a fork in your upper lip for lack of looking at it hurts. Not that that ever happened to me.)

But no more khaki pears for me, because I’ve got the key (I’ve got the secret, ahahaaahahaaha). And, as these things go, it has been staring me in the face this entire time. I tried adding cranberry juice for color. I tried adding blackberry juice. But somehow, I never looked at someone’s wine stained lips and thought “hey, wouldn’t it be neat if my pears were that shade?”. Stupidly, because that is exactly the way to get them a gorgeous crimson: adding red wine. Thanks to my man’s mom, I now know. Yet again, emptying a bottle of burgundy has proven to be the answer.

Be sure to use stewing pears for this recipe and not regular pears: they would turn into mush if you cooked them this long. And mush is not attractive, not even wine-soaked mush.

*The Key the Secret, Urban Cookie Collective

Stewed pears

2 or 3 pears per person
Red wine (amount depending on how many pears you’re cooking; aim for a cooking liquid that is about 1/3 wine and 2/3 water)
1 cinnamon stick per 10 pears or so
100 gr of sugar per 10 pears or so

Peel pears and remove the star shaped brown "crown" at the bottom with the tip of a sharp knife, but leave the stalks attached. Place peeled pears in a saucepan with enough of a water/wine mixture to cover them. Add sugar and cinnamon sticks and bring to a boil. Lower heat as much as possible (you want a slight simmer, not a full-on boil) and stew pears for about an hour, or until tender. The pears can be stewed for much longer; they will become softer and more intensely red as time goes by. (My man’s mom stews them for at least six hours.)

Serve warm or cold, with a wintery main course, as a starter with some crumbled blue cheese and walnuts, as dessert with ice cream… The options are endless.

One Last Round (Apple Fritters)

I slept until 9.30 today, I spent about four hours reading a book and then another two cleaning up party debris. This all means that my Christmas break isn’t over yet* and it is perfectly acceptable for me to write about food I had over the holidays. I hope. Because that is exactly what I am going to do. If you hang on till the end, there’s a recipe for tasty apple fritters in it for you.

*It also means I’ve just told you party mess hangs around my house for days on end. Yeah. I am quick like that.

So, the round-up:

Christmas Day 1

Egg nog (quite tasty- might try my hand at making this next year)

Fried quail with raspberry sauce
Duck breast with apple-potato mash, salad and Molly’s braised Belgian endive
Stuffed miniature pineapples with nutty ice cream, mango and pineapple

Edible gift: Brown butter brown sugar cookies (burned and inedible)

Christmas Day 2

Spiced rice-beef meatballs and mini chicken b’stilla
Chicken salad, mackerel roll-ups, chili-cheese cookies and feta filo-fingers

Smoked salmon parcels stuffed with shrimp and avocado
Turkey (brined a la Nigella), green beans with caramelized pecans, cranberry sauce, mushroom sauce, potato gratin
Chocolate-raspberry pavlova

Chocolate mint bark

Edible gifts: easy chocolate fudge (without nuts), vanilla hot chocolate mix

New Year’s Eve

Nibbles provided by friends

Pate with cranberry sauce
Slow-roasted leg of lamb with garlic and ratatouille, meat balls in tomato sauce, Caesar’s salad, grilled zucchini with mint oil and pine nuts, lentil salad, baked roseval potato slices, bread and herb butter
Chocolate-raspberry pavlova and apple crisp

Currant “donuts” (oliebollen) and apple fritters

1 January

Fish platters with potato salad (North Sea shrimp, smoked eel, pickled mussels, anchovies)
“Deviled” eggs (sour cream and sour cream/ smoked salmon)
Smoked salmon pinwheels
Raw herring with minced onions
Bread

Oliebollen and apple fritters


Oliebollen and apple fritters are a New Year’s must-eat. It’s probably something to do with ringing in the new year with rich, sweet things. (And a suspected 300 calories per bite) But for me it is not about that: it is about memories. Ever since I can remember, my father and, when he was old enough, my brother would go to my paternal grandparents’ house on 31 December and come back with big bowls of oliebollen. My mom and I would then take a batch of the freshly baked oliebollen to my maternal grandparents’ house and get a big platter of apple fritters in return.

The oliebollen were never a favorite of mine. They are quite tasty hot and crispy, straight from the sizzling oil. When they’ve sat around for a couple of hours, though, they become a bit soft and their inner blandness comes out. Nothing a good shake of powdered sugar can’t hide, but nothing fantastic, either. Apple fritters are a different story. They are good just out of the pan, but even better when they have had a bit of time to relax. You get a nice, soft layer of batter and a tangy-sweet bite of apple inside. Lovely.

In my mind, the apple fritters are inextricably linked to my mom’s dad, who used to make them for us. It is impossible to bite into one and not remember the way I felt on our 31 December drive to my grandparents’ house. I would be excited- my favorite meal of the year was only hours away. I would feel like a provider, entrusted with important task of bringing home the sweets (yes, I was just riding shotgun to my mom, but how is that relevant?). And, if I am completely honest, I would be a little anxious too. Would we get enough fritters to last us through the night? We always did.

My grandfather died a few years ago and now I am in charge of making the apple fritters. I make them because it would not be New Year’s Eve without them. But more than that, I make them as a tribute. To my grandfather, who gave me so many wonderful 31st of Decembers.

Apple Fritters, 2008 version

This year’s apple fritter recipe was adapted from this website. I liked the cinnamon taste, but the milk based batter gives them a cakey consistency I am not crazy about. Next year, I am going back to beer as my liquid of choice.

Makes 80- 100 fritters

¾ cup of castor sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
20 tart apples
600 gr self-raising flour
600 ml of milk
4 eggs
¼ cup of vanilla sugar
pinch of salt
oil for frying
powdered sugar for sprinkling

Mix the castor sugar with the cinnamon. Peel apples, core them and slice into four or five slices per apple. Layer the apples in a bowl, sprinkling a good amount of the sugar-cinnamon mixture between each layer. Leave for a few hours to macerate.

When you are ready for frying, heat the oil to 180 degrees Celsius in a deep fat fryer. Mix the self-raising flour with the milk, beating out as many lumps as you can (but don’t worry if a few remain). Mix in the vanilla sugar and the salt, and then the eggs.

Set up your work station: Put the bowl with the apples, the bowl with your batter and plenty of paper towels next to your fryer. Grab a fork and dip the apple rings into the batter and then put them in the oil. You can fry more than one slice at a time, but make sure the temperature of your oil doesn’t drop too much. If it does, wait for it to heat back up before putting in more apple slices.

After two or three minutes, the apple slices will have golden brown bottoms. Flip them and give them another three minutes until golden all over. Line a plate with paper towels and transfer your apple fritters to the plate when they are done. Repeat until all apple slices have been used, building a nice stack of apple fritters with paper towels between the layers to absorb excess oil.

Fritters can be served hot or cold, and are best sprinkled with powdered sugar before eating. They keep for at least a day at room temperature, probably two.