More Foodz

Hutspot with sausage.



And the usual peppers.



Our stove broke down after this: only the plates on the right hand side are working. Let's see how long it takes before we can really cook again.

A Week in Foodz

Just being back from cold Japan in freezing Germany, meant a craving for good hearty food.



So this week started with Spätzle, Brussel sprouts and hutspot.



Of course we also had our chicken livers...



... and some Chinese food: fish with rice vinegar.



And after shopping in France, we had these amazing boudins.

Home cooked foodz are not a punishment.

Hutspot and Klapstuk

Leids Ontzet

Hutspot with beef rendang. (Thanks to this site for the suggestion.)

It has been cold...

... so it is time for hutspot.

Hutspot Bloody Hutspot

"Without Blood Sausage, It Just Wouldn’t Be Christmas"

Rural Weekend I

This Monday is a public holiday, in which we are supposed to clean the graves of our ancestors. This seemed a little challenging, so we opted to rent a car and go on a weekend trip to the rural areas of Beijing instead.

Here are the pictures of our first lunch. Being just outside Beijing means that we are still a bit of an attraction --- something Anke is thoroughly enjoying on this first photo.



The area we were going to is famous for its fish farms, so we choose a nice looking rainbow trout to be killed and barbecued for our pleasure. Here it is still moving...



... here it is not:



Everything barbecued in China seems to have exactly the same spices, therefore I present to you the Chinese barbecue spices in close up:



As side dishes we had eggplant



some really nice stuffed pancakes



and this hutspot with sauce.

Dutch food that should be going places

This is part of F's proposal for developing some Dutch cuisine that people from other countries may not mind eating: Huitspot (name courtesy of HTLGZ)



Traditionally, Dutch food is rather on the parsimonious side. For example, we have the expression "dairy on top of dairy is work of the devil", warning us against putting both butter and cheese on one sandwich. There is no expression about meatz upon meatz because having more than one kind of meat is just unfathomable to the frugal Dutchman. This recipe aims to change that.

Recipe:

- peel 10 kilos each of potatoes, carrots and onions, and cut into roughly equal sized chunks.
- put in humongous pot, add salt and just enough water to cover and boil for approximately 20 minutes.
- drain off the liquid - preserve some of the liquid in case the mash becomes to dry (although if you live in a place where the supermarket stocks cream (lucky bastard), then we recommend adding cream instead)
- mash everything together, taking care not to overmash - you are making huitspot, not baby food!
- add butter, salt and pepper to taste (i.e. definitely a lot of butter)

- cut some slices of bacon into small pieces and fry till they are crisp
- fry four pork belly slices (approximately 1 cm thick) until they are crisp
- boil a nice part of a cow (god knows which part, just a nice part) in a vegetable broth with a bouquet garni on low heat for approximately one hour
- if you have the fortune of living in a place where they sell good smoked sausages, then by all means buy some and boil them for however long your butcher tells you.

Do this all in such a way that everything is ready at the same time (I am not a cook book writer, you figure this out for yourself).

When serving the mash, make sure it makes a disgusting splash sound when landing on the plate. Sprinkle the bacon bits on top. Then pile all the other meats on top in a pleasing pattern.

Voila, food fit for a tiny nation of 16 million people!

Compare & Contrast

Very sorry for lating again, but I feel we must juxtapose our culinary adventures on Christmas Day with the culinary feast at the home of Poppamomma.

This was our starter course:



Our main course:



And what is Christmas without dessert:



One could only wish it were Christmas 365 days a year!

Sinterklaas!

But first some delicious Dutch food: hutspot with klapstuk!



Look at how A serves the hutspot with so much love (sadly I cannot come up with a translation for "hoe A het eten op het bord kwakt"):



And then finally the moment was there: Sint had arrived in Beijing, and he is here to stay!

Hutspot

Another episode of emulating the Ellen:

Hutspot! Look how wonderfully well the colors of our food go with our polka dotted plate! (This is one of those moments that people can rejoice in being colorblind.)

Also note the garnish: a wonderfully plump and juicy sausage. The taste was a bit different than what we hoped for, however.

Hutspot

We are preparing ourselves to go to the Netherlands.

Hutspot

It's winter, time for hutspot.