Appelflap (Apple folds)
'Appelflappen' is
one of the deep fried treats traditionally served at New Year's Eve. Appelflappen are highly preferred by those who don't like
to stuff themselves with the greasy 'Oliebollen'
(Dutch dough buns), the truly traditional deep fried treat for new year's Eve (later).
Ingredients (12
pieces)
250 grams flour
firm butter
a pinch of salt
For the filling : 4 to 5 apples, approximately 4 tablespoons of sugar, 30 gr.
currents, 30 gr. raisins, some cinnamon. For brushing :
1 egg yoke or a mix of milk and sugar.
Preparation
Prepare or buy (short crust) pastry. Roll the pastry not too thinly and cut out
large circles (6 in/15cm). Prepare the filling by cutting dice out of the
pealed apples and mix them with the sugar, cinnamon, well drained previously
washed currants and raisins. Do NOT prepare the filling in advance as the sugar
will melt making the pastry too damp. Heap some filling on each circle of
pastry and fold the edges over it, gluing the edges down with water.Brush each apple fold with the egg yoke, which has
been slightly beaten in a table spoon of water or use the mix of milk and
sugar. Put the folds on a buttered baking tray and bake them in the middle of a
hot oven in approx. 10 minutes until golden brown and well cooked. Eat them not too long afterwards as the crust will
soon become limp because of the moist filling.
Boterkoek (Butter cake)
Butter cake. Now this is the kind of cake that really
likes settle down in the susceptible areas of the human body as it mainly
consists of butter. Still, when prepared in the proper way, it's is a very
nice, and satisfying kind of cake/cookie.
Ingredients
For the dough : 2 cups of flour, 1 cup of butter (do not use margarine), 1 cup
(caster) sugar, 1 small egg, pinch of salt.
For the filling : 2 cups
blanched almonds, quarter cup sugar, 1 small egg, grated peel of half a lemon.
Preparation
Knead all the ingredients for the dough into a firm ball. Divide the dough in
two and press one half into a buttered pie pan of
Grind the blanched almonds,
mix with sugar, beaten egg and lemon peel and grind once more. Place this
almond paste on top of the dough layer and press the other half on top of both.
Bake in moderate (350 degree Fahrenheit = 175 degrees Centigrade) oven until
golden brown and done, about one hour. Remove from the pan and cool on wire
rack. Cut in wedges or diamonds
Oliebollen (Dutch
dough balls)
Oliebollen (Dutch Dough Balls, or so) are the traditional
treat served at New Year's Eve. At New Year's Eve friends or family gather to
celebrate the coming of the new year by playing games, watching television and
or getting loaded (when one is younger). One can be certain to find a huge
bowl/tray filled with oliebollen. One caution: since
they are very greasy don't eat to many of them, for
they don't mix with beer (yeast) and can very well make you very sick.
Ingredients
500 grams of flour
3 ½ decilitre milk
some salt
if preferred also 2 apples oil
or baking fat for deep frying.
Preparation
Put the flower in a bowl, make in the center a
depression and pour the yeast, which has been dissolved with a bit of lukewarm
milk, into the hole. Add the remaining milk and stir. Stir the washed currants
and raisins (and, sliced into small dice, apples) through the mix. Beat the
mass to a smooth and airy mix and leave it, covered with a damp cloth (e.g. tea
towel) to rise in a warm place (i.e. on top of a bowl with warm water) for
about three quarters of an hour to one hour. Use two table spoons or an ice
scoop to shape balls and slide them into the hot oil or fat. The temperature of
the oil should be such that it is only just giving off vapor.
Deep fry the oliebollen quickly until brown and
thoroughly done. They should be soft and not oil soaked inside. Remove them
from the oil with a skimmer or similar tool, leave for a short while to leak on
absorbent paper and serve them with powder sugar.
Ontbijtkoek
Literally this would translate with breakfast
biscuit or cook. Yet it is neither used strictly at breakfast nor it's a biscuit. It resembles much more a heavy kind of cake
and the taste can differ by the ingredients used.
Ingredients
2 cups of self raising flour
1/2 (half) cup dark brown sugar (demerara sugar)
1/3 (one third) cup molasses or treacle
1 cup of milk
1 tsp. each of ground cloves cinnamon and ginger
1/2 (half) tsp. grated nutmeg
pinch of salt
Preparation
Combine all the ingredients to a smooth paste. Butter an oblong 8" x
3" cake tin, fill with dough and bake for about one hour in a slow oven
(300 degrees F). When cooked, allow to cool and keep in a tin or in the
bread-bin for 24 hours before serving.
This cake keeps moist when put in the bread-bin with
the bread. The Dutch serve it with their tea time, buttered or on a slice of
bread for breakfast.
Pancakes
Dutch pancakes are as big as a dinner plate
and in the old days even bigger (12"/30cm). Nowadays you may find such big
pancakes on the menu of a restaurant, but at home we make them the dinner plate
size. They are either eaten as a savory (with smoked
sausage or bacon and cheese) or as a sweet (plain with golden (or maple) syrup
or with apples, or sugar). In
Pancakes are best when made with yeast and they should be served piping hot.
Use two skillets when available. Keep the pancakes hot on steam, or covered in
the oven. Cold pancakes are not so nice to eat, but many Dutch people do keep
leftovers in the fridge as a snack. The following recipe is a luxury one, for
special occasions, as many eggs are used during preparation (instead of yeast).
Ingredients
For one large pancake:
1 cup flour
salt
2 large eggs or 3 medium (fills ½ cup when beaten)
1 cup milk
at least ¼ cup butter or margarine
(multiply the above recipe with the number of pancakes you
wish to make).
Preparation
Put the flour and salt in a bowl, make a well in the middle and add the beaten
eggs. Mix to a smooth batter. Add the rest of the milk. Melt half the butter in
a heavy skillet. Pour the batter into it. Turn these pancakes frequently, each
time adding some butter. They should then become golden brown and crisp at the
sides.
Gewone Pannenkoeken (Regular Pancakes). This recipe makes 4 big
pancakes.
Ingredients
4 cups of flour (or 4 cups of proprietary pancake mix if available)
salt
1
cake yeast (
4 cups lukewarm milk
butter or margarine
Preparation
Put the flour and the salt in a bowl. Make a depression in the center. Add the diluted (with a little milk) yeast. Add 2
cups of milk and mix to a smooth batter. Add the rest of the milk. Leave to
rise for three quarters of an hour. Heat enough butter in a heavy skillet. Pour
in part of the butter and fry the pancake on both sides. You can toss the
pancake in the air for turning, if you like. Try outs with someone standing by
to catch them is advisable if this is your first attempt !
:-) Otherwise use a spatula. Keep them hot in the warming drawer and serve with
sugar or molasses, golden syrup or treacle.
Pepernoten (ginger-nuts)
This treat is connected with very old Dutch
folklore: Sinterklaasfeest
Long ago there was a bishop from
Dutch colonists took this folklore with them when they settled in the
St. Nicholas celebrates his birthday at december 6th, and each year he
will come to the
Ingredients
150 g self raising flour
75 g castor sugar (the brown variety, if possible)
90 g butter
2 tbsp milk
3 tsp speculaaskruiden
Officially this is a mixture of cinnamon, nutmeg cloves pimento mace ground
ginger and cardamom, but leaving out some of the more exotic spices will not be
disastrous. (Personally I think it is)
Preparation
Mix ingredients into a dough that can be easily managed (add a little more milk
if too crumbly, a little more flour if too wet). Form into balls the size of a
small marble, Put them on a greased baking tray in the
middle of a pre-heated oven (150'C) for about 15-20 minutes.
TIP:
If you keep the pepernoten in a tin together with a
piece of bread, they won't get too hard.
Speculaas (a kind of cookie)
Although speculaas
is commonly associated with the Sinterklaas
festivities, it can be bought year round, and is eaten as a cookie to go with
tea, or even as sandwich covering. A special kind of bearded man-shaped speculaas doll is baked as a present for somebody turning
50. It stands for meeting with 'Abraham' (the arch father). The female
version is called a 'Sarah'.
Ingredients
4 cups flour
1 cup butter
1.5 cups brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
(the following are added according to preference)
1 pinch cloves
1 pinch nutmeg
1 pinch ginger
1 pinch black pepper
milk
blanched almonds
Preparation
Preheat the oven to
Taai Taai
This is a kind of ginger-bread. The literal translation of its name would be
tough tough, referring to the substance and
difficulty to get them down your throat.
Ingredients
250 grams of honey
1 tablespoon any seed
two and a quarter decilitre of water
one to one and a half of decilitre buttermilk
1 table-spoon of fine corn flour
1 small packet of baking powder
and some cooking oil, butter, milk
Preparation
Put the honey/treacle/ani seed and water in a pan to
the boil whilst stirring. In the meantime mix the patent flour, rye flour and
the cookie herbs. Rub the contents in the pan which has been left to cool off
first, through a sieve into the mix of the flour and herbs. Mix thoroughly
together. Leave the contents in a pan (covered with a cloth) for a least a week
in cool place. After a week : Mix the fine corn flour and baking powder and
sieve this into the pan containing the week earlier prepared ingredients. Add the buttermilk and thoroughly
stir the final mix.
You will now need some kind of mould to pour the mix
into to produce the figure- shaped Taai Taai cookies. In The Netherlands these moulds can be
bought. They are usually cut into a wooden plank. Each plank containing about 6
figures. Similar moulds would do. Oil the moulds and fill them with (part of)
the mix. Remove excess from the mould with a knife to make a clean, flat
surface. Empty contents of the mould onto a flat, buttered,
baking (oven) tray and brush with some milk. Bake in pre-heated oven of
220 degrees (centigrade) for about 30 minutes to a nice dark golden brown. Let
them cool off and keep for at least another week before consuming them.
Tip :
If you are using small moulds, keep about one and a half cm distance between
each cookie.
Vlaai
In fact it should be Limburg vlaai (Limburg pie) as it is mostly associated with the
Ingredients
For the dough : a sweet bread dough (or fine bread dough) baked in a
For the filling :
any fruit, dried fruit, sugar.
Preparation
Goudse kaasbolletjes (little
cheeseballs from
The
Ingredients
1 eggyolk
50 ml. milk
75 gram butter, melted
100 grams grated mature Gouda
salt, pepper
a bit of milk to glaze
some extra cheese for sprinkling (optional)
preheat the oven to
Preparation
Mix all the ingredients for the dough together. You should have a fairly firm,
but sticky dough.
Roll the dough into marble-sized balls and place on a lined baking sheet. Brush with a little milk.
Bake for about
10 minutes, than take from the oven and sprinkle with a little extra grated
cheese (optional, but it does make them look better) bake for 10 more minutes
or until golden brown. They should be quite dry and crispy,
a good way to get that is to leave them in the oven for another 10 minutes or
so after you've turned off the oven, to dry them out a bit.
They will also become
crispier upon cooling.
Kletskoppen ,
lacy almond cookies.
Kletskop
means someone who talks a lot. No idea why a cookie would get that name!!
Ingredients
150 grams soft brown sugar
75 grams flour
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
50 grams almonds, chopped
about 1/2 tablespoon water.
Preheat oven to
Preparation
Mix everything together to a smooth
dough. Take little lumps of dough, roll them into a ball, flatten them and
place on a lined baking sheet. place them well appart because these cookies will spread (at least, they
are supposed to). Bake for about 10-15 minutes, watch them closely. They should
spread to lacy thin cookies, but be careful they don't burn.
Take them from the oven and leave for a minute to harden up a bit, then remove
with a spatula to a rack and let cool completely.
Snert
Green pea
soup. Another
fine inimitable example of Dutch cuisine. traditionally it is eaten in
winter time, when the weather is cold and wet, and one can always find a snert vendor at any skating track, for skating and snert are to the Dutch very compliant.
Snert consists of mashed green peas
that has to simmer for considerable time, added to it are bacon and
smoked sausage. Some say that the best snert is
yesterday's, the soup gets so thick when it cools that it can almost be cut
next day. That is one of the reasons it is made in such big quantities.
Ingredients
2 cups split green peas
1 cup bacon squares
4 Frankfurters
4 table spoons salt
1 celeriac (the root of a celery plant)
1 bunch of celery green
2 leeks (throw away the green parts)
2 large onions (sliced into rings)
to make things yuchy one could
also add 1 pig's marrow bone.
Preparation
Wash the peas, soak them for 12 hours and boil gently in the water they were
soaked in for at least two hours. Cook in this liquid the marrow bone and the
bacon for at least one hour. Add the sliced potatoes, salt diced celeriac, cut
up leeks and celery green and cook until everything is done and the soup is
smooth and thick. Add the Frank- furters for the last
10 minutes. The longer the soup simmers the better the taste. Three hours is
the usual time in
Stamppot (Hotch Potch)
A quick, down
to earth meal. Usually stamppot consists of mashed potatoes mixed with varying
ingredients like carrots and onions (hutspot),
raw endive or curly kail. Hotch
Potch is served with fried bacon (cubes) and smoked
sausage. That the Dutch are obsessed with delta works and 'stealing land
from the sea', is illustrated by the habit that they like to dig a hole in
the middle of the blob of hotch
potch on their plates, and fill it with gravy.
Usually this type of meal is eaten during the Winter
months.
Ingredients
1 or 2 slices of lean bacon
4 large onions,
4 table spoons fat
butter or margarine
pepper
Preparation
Wash the meat, boil in 2 cups of water and salt for about 2 hours. Scrub and
mince the carrots. Peel, wash and slice onions and add them to the meat
together with peeled and cut potatoes and carrots. Boil until done (about 30
minutes). Remove meat from pan. Mash all the vegetables and add fat, butter or
margarine and pepper. If too thick add some milk (but a spoon must stand up in
it). Serve with the sliced meat. The lot should be covered with rich, fat
gravy. The dish is eaten as
a main meal dish.
Dutch Kroketten (Croquettes)
Another way to prepare Dutch Meat Croquettes other
than with fresh breadcrumbs or potato. Equally delicious! If you
make these into little crumbed balls (called bitterballen),
you can eat them, dipped in mustard, as an appetiser with pre-dinner drinks.
4-6
servings
Ingredients
600g fresh veal or beef (or use left-over chicken or turkey, 1lb 5oz)
salt and pepper
75g butter (2 1/2 oz)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
½ cup white wine
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 clove
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg or mace
2 sprigs parsley, finely chopped
¾ teaspoon thyme
2 cups water (or chicken stock)
3 eggs, separated into yolks and whites
4 cups fine breadcrumbs
or crushed dutch rusks (beschuit)
vegetable oil, to deep-fry
Preparation
If using left-over chicken or turkey, chop it finely and set aside.
Continue with the recipe from Step 3, using stock to make the sauce rather than
water, and add the chicken or turkey to the sauce at Step 6.
If using veal or beef, season with salt and pepper to taste.
Place a large pan over medium-high heat and melt 2 tablespoons of
butter. Add the veal or beef, wine, onion, clove, bay leaves, nutmeg or mace,
parsley, thyme, lemon zest or juice and water. (Use chicken stock if you have
chosen to use chicken or turkey.) Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer
for 45 minutes to an hour. By this time the meat should be tender (or if using
poultry, the stock will be bursting with flavor).
Strain the stock and reserve, along with the meat. Finely chop or cut
the meat into into small pieces.
Melt the remaining butter in the pan, stir in the flour and keep stirring for a few minutes on low heat. Don't let it brown. 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 to thicken the sauce if necessary. Cool slightly and add the 3 egg yolks and mix well (reserve the whites for later).
Add the veal, beef, chicken or turkey, mix well and season to taste. The mixture should be thick and stiff by this time.
Set the mixture aside to cool thoroughly. When ready, cut or separate the stiff, thick mixture into rolls about 1.5" thick and about 3" long.
Spread the crumbs on a clean, dry chopping board. Slightly beat the eggwhites in a deep plate until just incorporated. Roll the croquettes through the breadcrumbs, then through the egg whites and again through the crumbs. (Make sure that the second coating of crumbs is even and thick and no meat mix sticks out, otherwise the croquettes may burst when being deep fried).
Deep fry the croquettes in batches of four or five for about 4 minutes, or until they are golden brown. Drain on absorbent paper.
Serve hot, with French fries or fresh chunks of
bread. The best way to season is to slather with mustard, as the Dutch do!
Asparagus With
Ham and Eggs
This is the traditional way to eat asparagus in The Netherlands and
probably in
This makes 2 pretty large servings.
Ingredients
1lb asparagus
4slices ham (approx
4ounces butter, melted
Preparation
Break off tough ends of the asparagus and cook
until tender, drain.
Meanwhile chop the ham and egg finely.
Put asparagus on a serving plate and garnish
with the chopped ham and eggs.
Serve with the melted butter in a jug on the
side.
Hague Bluff
"The citizens of
Ingredients
3 tablespoons raspberry flavored syrup
½ cup sugar
1 egg white
Preparation
Put raspberry syrup, sugar and the unbeaten white of egg in a deep bowl
or in an electric-mixer.
Beat by hand 10 minutes or more, the idea being that the longer one beats,
the more one gets.
Serve with a wafer or a lady finger.
In
But you can choose raspberry syrup as a substitute.
