The Netherlands

Started the holiday by being reminded to have all the essentials ready such as passport:

Anyway. Onto some food pictures. 

1. Mussels in Ghent at Chez Leontine

I've never understood why mussels are quite so expensive in Belgium. Around  20-25 euros per portion. When a huge bag costs £3 at home. These were nice but underwhelming. They came with some very crisp fries. 

2. Fries 

A) Bram Ladage , Rotterdam

These were my favourite. Crisp and salty. 

B) Vleminckx, Amsterdam 

These were other half's fave. I had curry sauce this time. 

C) Mannekin Pis, Utrecht

Also good, more chip shop like than fries. 

3. Poffertjes, Rotterdam

Little hot pancakes, doused with butter and icing sugar. A moreish snack.

4. Oliebollen, Amsterdam

Like a slightly denser, ?yeastier doughnut? 

5. Bond & Smoulders, Utrecht

Pear and Caramel Mousse

Hazelnut thingy

6. Pancake, Amsterdam

With 'kaas and speck'. And generous syrup. 

Not feeling too descriptive as I write this I'm afraid! To end, For now: 

Scary yet also impressive automaton music playing rabbit from Museum Speelklok 

Vegetable strudel

Had a cute squash from in law's allotment, some overripe plum tomatoes, red peppers and a sad looking aubergine. Decided to make a veggie strudel with the bits in the fridge. I had to buy some filo and got some lovely big sheets from a Turkish shop in Archway. 

Ingredients: 

Filo 3 large sheets

1 Aubergine, cubed

1 squash, peeled and cubed

10 baby plum tomatoes

2 onions, cut into quarters

2 red peppers, diced

Garlic cloves

About 75g butter, melted (can use oil instead)

Bit of finely grated Parmesan

100g cream cheese or ricotta

100-200g feta

All these quantities can be varied obviously depending on what you have. Can also use different veg eg courgette, sweet potato. 

Firstly, heat oven to 180C. Then dicing of veggies as above and scatter all except tomatoes in roasting tin with a splash of olive oil (2tbsp) and seasoning. Roast til soft for about 30 mins, adding tomatoes halfway. 

By now they'll be much smaller and mushy. If they are very wet you might want to drain some of the fluid. 

Now mix in the cream cheese with veggies. Get filo ready and a big baking sheet lined with parchment. 

Lay sheet on lined tin. Brush whole thing with melted butter. Sprinkle with grated Parmesan. Put second sheet on top. Repeat butter brushing and Parmesan sprinkling and then same for third sheet.

Now lie veg in middle of sheets. Crumble feta on top.

Fold pastry over top tightly. Use butter to seal the layers. Then try to turn it over so that the join is underneath. Brush all over with melted butter. Place in oven for 30 mins till golden brown. 

Enjoy. Hopefully. 

Cinnamon rolls

There's something very appealing and comforting about the smell of baked cinnamon, whether it be in an apple crumble, one of those sugary pretzels you can get at Westfield, or a rather tasty cinnamon roll.

On trips to the US, I have enjoyed the occasional "Cinnabon". The last one I had was in a mall in Asheville, NC. It was sweet and sticky but almost a little too sickly even for me.

The Cinnabon.

This weekend's rain and gloom seemed a perfect time to make cinnamon rolls. There are a few "Cinnabon" copy recipes online and I opted for one here by Joshua Kennon. My only variation was adding some soaked sultanas - fruit makes it healthy, right?

The dough is quite sticky but I resisted adding more flour. I left it to rise overnight so that we would be able to have them for Sunday brunch.

In the morning, I rolled out the puffy dough and spread it with butter and a then a butter/brown sugar/cinnamon mix as per directions, then sultanas. 

Then it was all rolled up and cut into rounds.

Spot the two random nub ends that I shoved in.

This is the baked product: I think I should have glazed the dough before cooking, never mind.

I added some lime juice to cut through the excessive sweetness of the cream cheese frosting. Liberally smeared this onto the warm rolls.

MESSY.

Finally - enjoyed with a coffee. These still work well the next day warmed for a few seconds in the microwave.

Red potato pizza pie

After discovering Mellow Mushroom on our Carolinas trip, I wanted to try to recreate the red potato pizza pie we had in Charleston. It was one of the best things we ate; a garlic base topped with roasted red potato, caramelised onion, bacon, sour cream and spicy ranch dressing.

RED POTATO PIZZA PIE.

I'd seen Dan Lepard's pizza pie recipe in the Guardian recently so decided to use that as the dough recipe. Interestingly he suggested using baking tins to stop the pizza spreading out and presumably to make that a lovely big puffy crust.  

Cornmeal mush, starter, flour.

Dough a-proving.

I got some bargain red potatoes from a farm in Ongar at Walthamstow market (£1.30 for 5kg). I sliced these to pound coin thickness and roasted them with a sprinkling of olive oil and salt for 15 minutes at 180C. I caramelised a couple of sliced onions and fried off two diced bacon slices. Lastly I grated some cheddar and tore up a ball of mozzarella. 

Pies about to go in oven.

I prepared Dan's dough as per recipe. I rolled out two bases which I put in two 20cm sandwich tins. One crushed garlic clove was sprinkled on the bases, followed by the potato slices, onions, mozzarella, cheddar and bacon bits. The pizzas went in the oven at 180C for 20 minutes, then I covered them with foil and put them in for a further 25 minutes. 

Before serving, I drizzled them with sour cream and a made up spicy ranch type dressing (mayo, Tabasco, paprika). 

Verdict: rather delicious topping but too much bread to topping. I think the pizza dough would be more suited to a tomato based sauce like Dan uses. But I'll definitely make the topping again - probably just using a more conventional base next time!

Like most pizzas - still tasty the day after with some random cherry tomatoes and Brie to have with the giant crust. 

 

Reminds me I need to do a Carolinas/Georgia food report - only 4 months late!

Mellow mushroom pizza

Summary

Right. Plan to rejuvenate this blog. I'm not good enough at writing to be a proper food blogger. However, I think it would be nice for me to document my food related activities. I wish I'd kept this up! Not too late now.

Since I last posted, I've had the pleasure of eating lots of nice food. I'll summarise the highlights in no particular order. Firstly, eating out.

1) Berlin
We had several amazing "fast" food experiences here. We had other more "refined" experiences, spatzles and schnitzels and so on. But these fast foods were very memorable.

a) Kebab Mustafa Gemusekebab.
I have never been a kebab fan and in fact the first time I went to a kebab shop was at university, though I realise now that the typical East End kebab shop is probably not the best example. Mustafa's had very long queues so we were drawn to it. It was amazing, the best kebab I have ever had and one of the tastiest things I have ever eaten. Perfectly grilled chicken, salad, feta, dressing.

b) Currywurst Curry 36

Currywurst. Is what it is! Another perfect post beer snack.

 c) Chilli Cheese Fries Burgermeister
Housed in a former public toilet, amidst a busy junction, the atmosphere is certainly unique. We walked here in the rain and it was worth it. My burger photos are fuzzy, but it a juicy, dirty delight. And these chilli cheese fries were probably the best I've ever had.

2) Monkey fingers, Meatmission





Continuing the dirty fried food theme, one of the tastiest things I've had this year are monkey fingers at Meatmission. Tender chicken pieces, battered and covered in sour hot pepper sauce, with a blue cheese dip. Incredibly moreish. Excuse poor photo but it is very dark in there!

3) Ox cheek doughnut, Duck and Waffle



Sweet and salty combos are all the rage: this meaty doughnut is pretty special.

4) Porklife, Tim Anderson and Tom Whitaker
This was actually nearly two years ago, but I found the photos and it's worth a mention. We love pork. We love beer, what was there not to like about this menu and matched beers? A great evening.

 

Ribs & Belly

5) Foraging, Hunter Gather Cook
I had been searching for wild food / foraging / butchery courses online for Mr. P. A variety of different things came up but HGC caught my eye as something with a bit of everything and also very reasonably priced. Last summer we went on one of their day courses and it was absolutely fantastic. There were about 12 of us, all cheery folk. It started with learning how to butcher a rabbit. We then stewed up the legs and the saddles were later panfried and served with sorrel - thoroughly delicious. After this, we collectivedly learned how to butcheri a deer - we all got stuck in to take the various bits off. The haunch got cooked in an underground oven, the fillet was carpaccio'd (?) and we minced some of it for burgers for lunch. The afternoon involved a foraging walk led by Nick, topped off by some "wild" cocktails. I could dedicate a whole entry to this day, plus we went on another day of Mushrooms, perhaps if I have the energy I will do one another time. Here are some pictures anyway. Highly recommended courses and the team are extremely knowledgeable and fun.

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This is only a small sample of things I should have written about. Next entry will be things we have cooked.