Kookjegek.nl » Ei

Still twenty something

Dennis — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 20:08:45 +0000

A couple of months ago I celebrated my birthday. Not a big party but I had another thing to do. The last few years it was a habit to bring along home made birthday cakes to work. This year wasn’t an exception. I made a Spanish almond cake, inspired by Koken & Genieten

Of course this wasn’t the only cake I made. I also made a mushroom cheesecake with some sour cream on top. This one was pretty hilarious. Some people made the mistake in thinking it was a sweet cake. The confused the sour cream for icing. You should have seen the look on their faces, priceless!

The almond cake was pretty good. I roasted the almonds and added cranberries to the mix. This one turned out to be the party favorite!

Ingredients (serves 16)

150 grams flour
salt
100 grams butter
5 eggs
250 grams sugar
cinnamon
1 lemon
100 grams cranberries
250 grams almonds
icing sugar

Preparation

First you can make the cake dough. Mix the flour, salt and butter. And add one egg. You can also add some water if you think the mixture is to dry. If you have a nice dough you can leave it in the fridge to rest for about 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven on about 180 degrees. Grease a spring form pan with some butter and evenly spread the cake dough in the pan.

Now it is time to make the mixture. Roast the almonds in a pan. After they are roasted to your likings crush them in mortar or simply use a knife to slice them.

Mix the rest of the eggs together with the sugar until it’s a bit foamy. Add the almonds to this mixture. You can also bring in other flavors to the mix. I used cinnamon, lemon zest and cranberries.

Finally your pour in this eggs-sugar mixture into the springform pan. Bake the cake in the oven for about 35 minutes.

Recipe source: Koken & Genieten

Have a break

Dennis — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 12:48:26 +0000

Working outside the office has been really busy lately. But it also has it pros. You meet new people, see new places and of course I come across different food. For instance, fresh cherries. I used them for cakes inspired by Muffin tin mania.

At the company I was working a colleague suddenly had an interesting question during lunch break. If I would be interested in a kilogram of cherries. His wife worked at a cherry farm and was able to bring them along the same afternoon.

Of course I wanted those! I wasn’t disappointed when I tasted one of those cherries. A lot sweeter than the ones I had before from the supermarket. Back home I decided to use this sweetness and make some cakes.

The idea was to make simple cakes and add some other flavors to the mix. I found a great recipe on Muffin tin mania. But I also used sultana raisins, zante currants and some cinnamon. Not a lot of work, but really tasty sweet cakes.

I was so happy with the result that I decided to share them as a gift at let’s have a break festival. A new place to meet people & food…

Ingredients

40 grams almonds
150 grams butter
150 grams icing sugar
3 tsp cinnamon
3 eggs
150 grams self-rising flour
250 grams cherries
75 grams sultana raisins
50 grams zante currants

Preparation

First of all cut the almonds into small pieces and roast them in a dry pan until golden brown. Put them together with the butter and icing sugar in a food processor.

Add the eggs one by one while the butter mix is still in the processor. After that add the flour.

Pre heat the oven, 180 degrees Celcius. Grease a muffin tin with some left-over butter.

In the meanwhile you can start by preparing the filling of the cakes. I used cherries, sultana raisins and zante currants. So in my case it was removing the stones from the cherries and swelling the sultana raisins & zante currants in hot water.

Put as much of these ingredients to your likings in the muffin tin. Cover it with the butter-flour mix. After that you can put the muffin tin in the oven for about 25-30 minutes or until the cakes are golden brown.

I served the cakes with some left-over icing sugar.

Recipe source: Muffin tin mania

For the win! 2010

Dennis — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 12:58:43 +0000

I must admit, I’m not the biggest football fan as I used to be in my childhood. But the World cup is special event. So in honor of our Dutch national football team I created an orange nectarine-carrot gelato, inspired by Robert Gelato, Amy Johnson & David Lebovitz.

A recipe born from one simple twitter question. I asked @ijsgek, a local gelato shop owner, which flavour he would pair with nectarines. I knew he was the person to ask, because he is always looking for new flavour combinations. By the way, if you happen to be in the Netherlands, definitely go visit his shop in Utrecht. I can recommend his flavour of the week gelato, every week a new flavour pairing surprise.

The answer of course is also important. He suggested prosecco, a nice sparkling Italian wine, not a bad idea. First try was caramelizing the nectarines like Amy Johnson and adding the prosecco at the last few minutes. Already a great dessert. But I needed a bigger challenge, I wanted to make a gelato.

I used David Lebovitz, author of the perfect scope, vanilla ice cream recipe also as a base for this recipe. Again I caramelized the nectarines but also added some carrots. Together with the prosecco and cardamom the gelato got a nice flavour pairing.

I’m really happy with the end result. Let’s hope I can say the same about the football match against Brazil today in the quarter final, for the win!

Ingredients

5 nectarines
5 carrots
100 grams brown sugar
bottle of prosecco
cardamom
butter
4 eggs
200 grams sugar
200 grams crème fraiche
250 ml milk

Preparation

First of all clean the nectarines & carrots. Remove the skin, the stone and cut the nectarines into quarters. Peel the carrot and cut them into small pieces. Put the nectarines and carrots in a bowl and add the brown sugar.

Heat a pan with butter and caramelize the nectarines & carrots in about 12 minutes. Add the prosecco in the last few minutes. Let the mixture cool down a bit and put it a food processor.

In the meanwhile you can go on with the preparations for the gelato. Create a custard base by warming milk in a pan. Get the yolks from the 4 eggs and whisk them together with the ‘plain’ sugar. After that add the warm milk and also whisk this together. Put the egg mixture back into the pain and slowly heat it until the custard thickens.

When it’s ready you can add the nectarine mixture from the food processor. Fold this together with some cream, I used crème fraiche. And I added some cardamom to give the taste a twist.

After that I froze it in a plastic container. For about every half an hour I took it from the freezer to break the frozen sections. This in order from preventing the mixture of turning into granita instead of ice cream. Of course if you have an ice machine this can more convenient!

As you can see in the picture I served a few scopes of gelato together with some left-over caramelized nectarines and nectarine syrup.

Recipe source: Roberto Gelato, She wears many hats & David Lebovitz

Hyperactive presentation

Dennis — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 17:10:56 +0000

In the beginning of the year I borrowed a cookbook from a friend. It is a cookbook from a famous dutch chef named Pierre Wind. In honor of his work I created a salmon salad. The salad was inspired by recipes from Sprouted Kitchen & De wondere wereld van de Keukenkoning.

Pierre Wind is known for hyperactive way of presenting himself. But besides that I am a really big fan of his cooking ideas. He always tries new flavours and ways of presenting food.

The target audience of the borrowed book are children. It has some really nice recipes in it and really tries to activate the reader to try and learn from new flavours. One of the recipes was about making fish fries. The instant fries are really common in the Netherlands but of course Pierre wanted to show how you could make them yourselves and of course to give them a twist. This gave me an idea to make fish sticks, another common instant food product overhere.

So I had my goal for today, making fresh fish sticks. While checking my Google reader feeds I came across a blogpost from Sara from Sprouted Kitchen. She had posted a really tasty recipe for a walnut crusted Salmon filet. This gave my an idea to make walnut crusted salmon fish sticks. I decided to serve them as a part of a refreshing salad and also incorporated peas.

The making of the sticks was a bit of an experiment. First I had some fun with pastry bags, I wanted to turn the mousse into small sticks. I hadn’t used pastry bags in quite a while and I had the feeling they were a bit fragile. My feeling got confirmed, I actually broke a couple of those inexpensive plastic bags. Salmon mousse all over the kitchen table. The freezing part went well but after that I had to fry them in sunflower oil. After a failed first batch I got the hang of the frying time.

Despite the effort I was really positive about the flavor. The crunchy fish paired well together with the peas and also the avocado. But from the avocado I expected that because I found that pairing on Foodpairing site.

Ingredients (serves 2)

150 grams salmon filet
2 eggs
1 scallion
walnut
bread crumbs
flour
1 avocado
75 grams rocket
100 grams green peas
1 lemon

Preparation

Remove the skin of the salmon filet. Put it together with 1 egg white and scallion in a food processor. Add some other flavours or seasoning to your taste. This will turn into a nice paste. I put this in a pastry bag and made thin sticks on a plate. I put this plate in a freezer. Make sure you can put the plate u use in a freezer. After at least a couple of hours the salmon mousse has turned into sticks.

Fill a bowl with some flour. Mix one egg white together with a tablespoon of water in a second bowl. Fill a third bowl with a mix of bread crumbs and crushed walnuts. Dip every fish stick first in the flour, then into egg whites, then into mixture of the bread crumbs and walnuts. I fried the sticks in a pan with some sunflower oil.

In the end I served them with some fresh rocket, avocado, warm green peas and finished it with lemon juice.

Recipe sources: Sprouted Kitchen & De wondere wereld van de Keukenkoning

I loaf Christmas

Dennis — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 13:27:44 +0000

Just like making Snert, I have another tradition at the end of every year. I tend to make a bread loaf with fruit, it’s called a Kerststol. Recipe was inspired by Het Nieuwe Kookboek.

Last year I already made one with Easter, the dutch recipe can be found overhere. But this time I tried something different. I took a little bit more time for the first rise and used some other fruits. Also the shape was different because this time I used a bread loaf pan.

The result was better compared to last time, I think it had better texture and also better taste.

Ingredients (1 bread)

350 grams flour
7 grams of active dried yeast
25 grams brown sugar
60 grams butter
2 eggs
1,5 dl milk
5 grams salt
100 grams raisins
100 grams white raisins
150 grams zante currant
125 grams almonds
125 grams sugar

Preparation

First thing you need to do is put the almonds, 1 egg and sugar in a food processor. You will get a firm almond past which will be a filling for your bread. Roll the paste in some cling foil. Put this in a refrigerator for at least a couple of hours. You will need the paste for the second rise of your loaf.

Next step is making the bread loaf. First prepare the dough. Mix the flour together with the salt & brown sugar in a bowl. At the yeast, milk, melted butte and the other egg to the mix. Knead the bread till you get a dough with some nice texture. I always check it by putting a small hole in the dough with my thumb. If it is elastic enough the hole will dissapear. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put it away at a warm place. Let it rise for a couple of hours.

After the first rise you can knead it a bit and put it in a bread loaf pan. Also add the fruit and almond paste. Cover it with plastic wrap again for a second rise. Again this was in my case quite a while, certainly a copule of hours. After that I baked the bread in an oven of 220 degrees celcius for about 20 minutes.

Recipe source: Het Nieuwe Kookboek

Blue inspiration

Dennis — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 22:43:53 +0000

Lately I’ve been getting some inspiration from my colleagues at work. Discussing food and sharing thoughts. One of them gave me copy of a menu from a famous Dutch restaurant Ron Blaauw. It inspired me to make a baba au whiskey.

My colleague was very enthousiastic about the menu. One of the dishes was a baba. I had never heard of that cake, so it inspired me to make some. After some googling I found out that a classic baba is made with a rhum syrup. I decided to make it with orange juice & whiskey.

Not a bad choice because the taste was awesome. I liked the sponginess of this cake, it easily absorbed the syrup.

Ingredients (12 babas)

400 grams flour
300 grams sugar
2 eggs
5 cl milk
50 grams butter
5 grams baking powder
6 oranges
Jameson whiskey

Preparation

Grease a muffin tin with some butter. Create the batter for the babas by whisking 200 grams of sugar together with the eggs. If it’s creamy add the milk, melted butter & sifted flour. If you have a nice mixture you can add the baking powder. Fill the muffin tin with the batter and bake the baba’s for about 30 minutes in a 180 degrees celcius oven.

In the meanwhile you can create the orange-whiskey syrup. This is pretty easy, just put the juice of 2 oranges in a frying pan together with the rest of the sugar and whiskey and cook it until the sugar is dissolved. You will get a nice viscous liquid.

Pour this syrup over your babas. The best thing is to let them rest for a while. Give them time to absorb the syrup. I tried to speed this process up a bit by cutting the baba into smaller pieces.

I served the baba au whiskey with some fresh orange and some whipped cream & chocolate whipped cream.

Recipe source: Wikipedia

Wales meets France

Dennis — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:41:10 +0000

Had to make some food for a couple of days at the beginning of this week. A quiche is always a good dish for these kind of days. Made a leek quiche, inspired by my last Kookjegek quiche recipe.

What I like about this recipe is it’s simplicity, especially the preparation. When I saw the leeks at the grocery store I instantly knew what to make and which ingredients I needed to get. The taste is also simple but good enough for your average day. A day where Wales meets France.

Ingredients (serves 4)

2 leeks
500 grams ham
6 sheets of puff pastry
3 eggs
250 ml whipping cream
200 grams old gouda cheese
100 grams gouda cheese
butter
olive oil

Preparation

Grease a ovenproof dish with some butter. Cover the dish with the sheets of puff pastry. Chop up the leeks and dice the ham. Put the ham and leeks in a frying pan with some olive oil. Heat it until the leeks have shrunk a bit. In the meanwhile you can grate the cheese. Create a mixture of the egg, whipping cream and the grated cheese.

Spread the leeks & ham around the pastry shell. Pour the egg mixture over the ingredients in the pastry shell. Bake the quiche for about 30 minutes in a oven of 200 degrees or until golden brown.

Recipe source: Kookjegek

Leftover marmalade pudding

Dennis — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 10:55:53 +0000

One of the fun parts of living together with students is that you frequently get new inspiration. Yesterday for example I got offered some leftover orange marmalade. I decided to make a pudding, inspired by Foodpairing & Allerhande.

Orange juice flavour with chocolate is for me always a winning combination. So that’s why I decided to make a pudding. I also had some good experiences in the past by adding whisky & ginger.

I thought the result would maybe be a bit overwhelming with al those strong flavours. But the result turned out to be pretty good. Of course my roommate also got a piece of the pudding. She was pretty enthousiastic.

Ingredients (serves 6)

4 eggs
200 grams dark chocolate
150 grams brown sugar
100 grams flour
200 ml orange marmalade
3 tbsp Glen Grant single malt Scottish whisky
ginger
butter

Preparation

Grease a ovenproof dish with some butter. Pre-heat the oven on 180 degrees celcius.

In the meanwhile split the eggs, whites form the yolks. Warm the chocolate au bain marie. Put the chocolate together with the egg yolks, sugar, flour & marmalade and mix it. Add grated ginger & whisky to your own taste. I used the Scottish single malt whisky Glen Grant.

Whip up the egg whites and fold it into the chocolate-marmalade mixture. Put the total mixture in the overproof dish. Put this dish in a bigger dish filled with some water. Bake the pudding for about 45 minutes in a oven of 180 degrees celcius. Check if it is done by putting a wooden skewer in the middle of the pudding. If it comes out clean it will be ready.

Recipe sources: Foodpairing & Allerhande

New York style quiche

Dennis — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 19:28:09 +0000

Last few weeks I was in New York. I have been to a lot of nice food places, one of them was a tapas restaurant called Boqueria. Inspired by their Coles de Bruselas y Chorizo dish I made a quiche, also inspired by a previous Kookjegek recipe.

It was a nice restaurant on Spring street New York. But I dedicate more attention on that in a central New York post, which will be posted later on. Like I said, I tried one of their dishes called Coles de Bruselas y Chorizo. It was a simple dish which combined chorizo & brussel sprouts. I like the flavor and decided to give it a spin. Why not combine it with some nice cheese in a quiche?

It turned out very good. Even better than expected. The cheese adds a nice touch to the chorizo and I always like Brussel sprouts if prepared well. Definitely a dish to repeat.

Ingredients (serves 4)

500 grams Brussel sprouts
150 grams Chorizo
6 sheets of puff pastry
3 eggs
250 ml whipping cream
200 grams old gouda cheese
100 grams gouda cheese
butter

Preparation

Grease a ovenproof dish with some butter. Cover the dish with the sheets of puff pastry. Clean the sprouts by removing the hard stem ends and rinse in water. After that you can blanch them in boiling water. In the meanwhile you can grate the cheese and cut the chorizo in pieces. Create a mixture of the egg, whipping cream and the grated cheese.

Spread the sprouts & chorizo around the pastry shell. Pour the egg mixture over the ingredients in the pastry shell. Bake the quiche for about 30 minutes in a oven of 200 degrees or until golden brown.

Recipe sources: Boqueria & Kookjegek

Cherry scones

Dennis — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 20:08:07 +0000

This weekend I got some dessert cravings. Decided to make some scones, filled with red cherries, inspired by a recipe from BBC Food.

I found a basic recipe on BBC Food, which by the way is a nice resource for inspiration. I decided to make them a bit sweeter and used cherries as a filling. Together with some jam and cream they tasted great.

But there are still some things which can be improved. I think the texture can be a bit better. Next time I’m gonna use more milk.

Ingredients (10 scones)

450 grams self-raising flower
1 tbsp baking powder
100 grams butter
1 egg
5 tbsp milk
100 grams cherries

Preparation

Put the flower, baking powder & butter in a food processor and mix it until you get kind of a crumble. Whisk the egg and add it to the mixture together with the milk & cherries. Knead the mixture until you have a dough of your likings.

Cut the dough into 10 even pieces and bake them in a oven of 200 degrees celcius for about 15 minutes. I served them with crÃ¨me fraÃ®che & blackberry jam.

Recipe source: BBC Food