Kookjegek.nl » Voorgerecht

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

Alpe d’HuZes snert

Dennis — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 23:52:01 +0000

Every year I make split pea soup or what we call in the Netherlands ‘snert’. It’s always nice to share food with people so I decided to make 10 liter for my colleagues. But it also was for a reason. A good cause, Alpe d’HuZes. Recipe was inspired by Wikipedia.

To make snert is always a fun process. A lot of cutting ingredients but the creation of the soup itself is very easy. Especially if you have great ingredients. I had some nice meat from the butcher, like a great rookworst.

Also the transportation to my work was interesting. Normally you will let the soup cool down. And after a day it tastes even better. But I wanted to serve it hot and had no possibility for that at my work. So I transported the warm soup in a car. It actually also was the first snowy day this year, so you can imagine it was a bit slippery. Luckily no accidents.

But the end result was great. It was pretty thick considering the fact that it hadn’t cooled down yet.

All of this wasn’t just for my fun, it was also for a good cause. This year we are gonna join the Alpe d’HuZes again with a team, 21x vlammen.

Alpe d’HuZes is an Dutch event where people try to climb the Alpe d’Huez six times on a single day, for the Dutch Cancer Society. All the money they raise goes directly to research for a cure or prevention of the disease cancer. This year alone almost 2000 people will join and they will try to raise 10 million euros.

The snert was my way to contribute a little bit to that big cause. In return for my soup I asked attention for this event and donations.

And you can still support me by donating or read about my actions.

Ingredients (10 liter)

1 kg pork shoulder chop
400 grams bacon
1 celeriac
2 leeks
2 potatoes
4 onions
2 carrots
1 kg dried green split peas
beef fond
500 grams rookworst

Preparation

First thing you need to do is to clean and cut all the vegetables into pieces. After that cut the pork chop & bacon into pieces. I’m not using the bones of the pork chop for this soup because I already use fond.

Put the pork & bacon together with 2 liters of water in a large pan and boil it for about 5 minutes. After that you can add all the ingredients except the rookworst and slowly boil it for about 3 hours.

You can cut the rookworst and put it in the soup for the last 10 minutes.

Recipe source: Wikipedia

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

Cut the mustard

Dennis — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:17:50 +0000

I must admit, I’m a big fan of mustard. I try to use this ingredient a lot of times. This time I made a mustard soup, inspired by The Daily Spud.

Like I said, I always try to create a lot of dishes with mustard as ingredient. I even once tried to make my own mustard. Which reminds me, I have to make a new mustard soon.

Now back to the soup of the day, the mustard soup. I used some potatoes & leeks which gave it a fairly thick structure. I also added some bacon for a crispy taste. Together with some grilled bread with cheese and crÃ¨me fraÃ®che this soup clearly cut the mustard…

Ingredients (serves 4)

2 potatoes
2 leeks
beef fond
bacon
mustard

Preparation

Chop the leeks, bacon and potatoes in pieces. Add the bacon to a pan and fry it until crisp. In the meanwhile bring 1 liter water to the boil with the fond. Add the potatoes and leeks and simmer for about 30 minutes or until the potatoes are good.

Just like The Daily Spud I used an immersion blender to create the smooth texture. After that you can add the bacon and some tablespoons of mustard to your own taste. I used pretty mild mustard and added 3 tablespoons. I served the soup together with some grilled bread and some crÃ¨me fraÃ®che. So simple but yet such a great taste!

Recipe source: The Daily Spud

Tom kha kai

Dennis — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 07:16:05 +0000

Yesterday I saw this recipe of a Thai soup. This gave me an idea to try another classic Thai dish, Tom kha kai. A soup with coconut milk, galanga & chicken, inspired by Wikipedia.

The biggest challenge for this dish was to get some Thai ingredients. I didn’t have fresh galanga but powder. I heard those two can be a big difference in taste. So I definitely want to try this same recipe with fresh galanga.

This recipe is right up my alley. I like the spicy chili in combination with the fresh sour lemon & lemon grass. Great classic soup!

Ingredients (serves 4)

300 grams chicken drumstick
750 ml chicken stock
400 ml coconut milk
2 stalks lemon grass
2 tsp galanga powder
2 chili peppers
1 shallot
1 tomato
150 grams oyster mushrooms
1 lemon
2 tbsp fish sauce

Preparation

Fry the chicken drumsticks for about 10 minutes in a pan with some oil. Add the chicken stock & coconut milk. Bring it to a boil.

Lower the heat. Slice the shallot, tomato & mushrooms. Add it to the pan together with the crushed lemon grass & galanga. After about 15 minutes you can remove the chicken drumsticks & stalks of lemon grass. Cut the meat from the drumsticks. Add some lemon juice & fish sauce to the soup for the taste.

Serve the soup with the pieces of chicken and and slice of leftover lemon.

Recipe source: Wikipedia

Thick broccoli-cherrysoup

Dennis — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:14:55 +0000

Felt like making a easy dish yesterday, soup is always perfect in these kind of situations. Broccoli was on sale in the supermarket and I browsed a bit through my own blogs until I came across the Olvarit post (dutch). This led to a sweet broccoli soup in this case with red cherries.

I tried to recreate the Olvarit babyfood into a soup. It was a broccoli puree with pieces of turkey breast. They also added applejuice for the sweetness. I saw on Foodpairing.be, one of my favourite sites, that they had a suggestion to pair broccoli together with blackberries or black currant. So why not red cherries, it was time to give this a shot!

Ingredients (serves 4)

700 grams broccoli
300 grams turkey breast
vegetable stock
50 grams butter
50 grams of flour
greek yoghurt
white bread

Preparation

Melt the butter in the pan. Donâ€™t overcook it by letting it turn brown. After a few minutes you can add flour to create a light roux. Add the broccoli, it doesn’t have to be finely chopped because the blender can do all the heavy work. Add the stock in small quantities to the roux while stirring, to ensure proper mixing. Softly boil for about 10 minutes.

In the meanwhile you can grill the turkey breast and the white bread. Finally stick the soup in a blender. Serve it together with the turkey & bread and some Greek yoghurt for some freshness

Recipe source: Kookjegek

Pittig gevulde Portobello

Dennis — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 19:06:45 +0000

Zo kort na kerst had ik even weinig behoefte om veel tijd in de keuken door te brengen. Voor een snelle maaltijd kwam ik wederom uit bij de gevulde portobello‘s. Deze keer gevuld met spinazie & pittige roerei, geÃ¯nspireerd door een recept van Allerhande & mijn eigen recept op Kookjegek.

Vooral het pittige roerei sprak me aan. Dat was eigenlijk de voornaamste reden dat ik dit gerecht maakte. De sambal & ketjap geven het roerei een prima smaak. Ik zou dit ook goed als lunch kunnen eten. Daarnaast misstaat de combinatie met spinazie zeker niet. Tenslotte geeft de grana padano het recept ook nog wat extra pit. Opnieuw was ik dan ook zeer te spreken over de uitkomst van dit portobello experiment.

IngrediÃ«nten (2 personen)

2 portobello’s
3 eieren
2 el crÃ¨me fraÃ®che
1 tl sambal oelek
1 tl tabasco
1 el ketjap manis
1 el witte wijnazijn
grana padano

Bereiding

Snij de stelen uit de portobello’s en hak ze fijn. Bak de stelen kort in een pan met de spinazie en voeg halverwege wat witte wijnazijn toe. Bak op het laatst nog even kort de portobello’s mee.

Maak ondertussen het roerei. Sinds tijden gebruik ik al de techniek met boter, beschreven door Gordon Ramsay. Dus eieren en boter direct in de pan en maar blijven roeren en goed de temperatuur in de gaten houden. Zodra het roerei aardig droog is meng ik de smaakmakers er doorheen. In dit geval dus de crÃ¨me fraÃ®che, sambal oelek, tabasco & ketjap manis.

Vul de portabello’s met het roerei en het spinaziemengsel. Bestrooi tenslotte met wat geraspte grana padano. Zet kort onder een voorverwarmde grill.

Receptbronnen: Allerhande & Kookjegek

Rosbief carpaccio

Dennis — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 21:00:05 +0000

Van het weekeinde familie over de vloer, uiteraard moest er ook gegeten worden. Het werd een carpaccio. Normaal gezien een fluitje van een cent om te maken. Ware het niet dat ik van plan was om de rosbief zelf te braden, geÃ¯nspireerd door een recept van Antony Worrall Thompson.

Een andere reden om een hele rosbief te braden was vanwege mijn nieuwste aanwinst, een snijnmachine. Een oud beestje van ruim 20 jaar oud van het merk Graef. Ik kon zo snel geen informatie er over vinden op internet. Maar hij is nog het best te vergelijken met de Graef Economic 136. Dit apparaat werkt nog perfect en ik ben er dan ook erg blij mee.

Het gerecht smaakte prima. De rosbief was erg lekker, vooral door de marinade. Ik blijf toch echt een mosterdliefhebber. De roomkaasdressing leek op stopverf qua structuur maar smaakte goed. Denk alleen wel dat het gerecht als geheel teveel ingrediÃ«nten bevatte. Volgende keer zal ik de bieten en de croutons weg laten.

IngrediÃ«nten (2 personen)

200 gram rosbief
2 el mosterd
1 tl tijm
1 tl basilicum
1 teentje knoflook
1 tl paprikapoeder
1 snufje cayennepeper
50 gram rucola
50 gram voorgekookte rode bieten
20 gram pijnboompitten
1 witte boterham
1 el crÃ¨me fraÃ®che
2 el roomkaas
olijfolie

Bereiding

Maak een marinade van de verschillende kruiden en mosterd. Smeer de rosbief hiermee in. Schroei de rosbief even kort in een pan dicht. Doe de rosbief daarna in een ovenschaal ongeveer 25 – 30 minuten in een voorverwarmde oven van 200 graden. Ik vond dit lang genoeg, bij was het stuk rosbief (400 gram) rare van binnen. Laat de rosbief afkoelen of vries hem zelfs in. Het laatste maakte het gemakkelijker om dunne plakken te snijden met een snijmachine.

Maak daarna de croutons. Snij een witte boterham in repen en besprenkel deze met olijfolie. Bak deze in een pan op matig vuur krokant. De roomkaasdressing heb ik gemaakt door de roomkaas te mengen met de crÃ¨me fraÃ®che en wat olijfolie. Serveer de carpaccio naar wens met andere ingrediÃ«nten. In mijn geval dus de croutons, geroosterde pijnboompitten, stukjes biet, rucola & de roomkaasdressing.

Receptbron: Antony Worrall Thompson

TGRWT #11 Banana chutney

Dennis — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 21:02:43 +0000

Considering the fact that I only noticed the newest round of TGRWT just a few days ago I had to come up with a dish quickly. During this round the combination was banana & cloves. I made a banana chutney with yoghurt & chicken inspired by a recipe from Lee Cox from masterchef & Allerhande.

When I came across the recipe of Lee Cox I new I wanted to make a chutney. In his recipe he used allspice and I replaced it by the cloves. I also used red onions because they are a bit sweeter. I liked the sweetness of the banana & red onion together with the distinct flavor of the clove. Although I used a tablespoon, which in my opinion is a lot, it worked for me as a combination. Together with the yoghurt it was a great starter. I can imagine with some rice you can also turn this into a main course.

Ingredients (serves 2)

3 bananas
1 red onion
1 tbsp clovespowder
25 ml white wine vinegar
greek yoghurt
200 gram chickenfilet

Preparation

Fry the diced onion in a pan with some olive oil. After a few minutes add the slices of banana and fry it all until the banana is collapsed. Now it’s time to add some extra flavor. I also used the vinegar and of course the cloves. I used whole cloves and grounded it into powder with my mortar.

After that I fried some chicken and served it together with the chutney and some greek yoghurt.

Recipesource: Lee Cox & Allerhande.

Bietensoep

Dennis — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 09:31:57 +0000

Afgelopen maandag wilde ik zo voor dÃ© wedstrijd een snelle maar toch gezonde maaltijd. Er waren nog wat bieten over van een groentenverf experiment. Dus uiteindelijk verwerkt in een soep, altijd makkelijk, geÃ¯nspireerd door een recept van Allerhande.

Het originele recept van Allerhande heb ik eerst geprobeerd. De soep had een goede smaak ondanks het ontbreken van de gorgonzola. Maar uiteraard wilde ik er een eigen draai aan geven. Bij poging twee heb ik ook appel, wortel & balsamico azijn gebruikt. Hierdoor smaakte de soep zowel iets zuurder als zoeter en was hij ook wat steviger. Uitgebakken spekjes lijken me ook wel wat, maar dat probeer ik volgende keer.

IngrediÃ«nten (2 personen)

250 gram gekookte rode bieten
1 rode ui
1 wortel
halve jonagold appel
2 aardappels
600 ml kippenbouillon
balsamico azijn
dille
yoghurt

Bereiding

Schil de aardappels en snij deze samen met de wortel in stukken. Fruit de ui in wat olie aan. Blus af met wat balsamico azijn. Voeg de bieten, wortel, appel en aardappelen samen met de bouillon toe. Ruim een kwartier zachtjes laten koken en daarna pureren met een staafmixer of in een keukenmachine. Garneren met wat yoghurt en dille.

Receptbron: Allerhande