Netherlands, Dutch Food and More

The day after the wedding, we went to "In den Bockenreyder" to get some real Dutch food. Pictured above is a "Ferme Ötsmijter". It's great to be in the Netherlands and finally be able to eat eggs and bacon again.



One of the other things that we hadn't had for many years: real Dutch Chinese food. Finally we could enjoy babi pangang with bami, tjap tjoy, koe low yok and nasi. Of course, we had "sambal 'bij".



This is not cake, this is vlaai. And it is not Dutch, it is from Limburg.



After eating vlaai, we went for a very nice hike through the rolling green hills of Limburg. Highly recommended!



Look at the muscles of this beautiful animal!



We ended our day in Limburg in Maastricht, where we finally settled for this Indonesian restaurant. Rijsttafel!

Home cooking... the real deal (almost)

Since Amanda has run out of restaurant ideas, we decided we should try to cook dinner for her. She may be going to Malaysia for work soon, so obviously we thought we'd make Indonesian food. First of all because Indonesia is just like Malaysia, and second because for lack of a decent Dutch cuisine, we have appropriated Indonesian cuisine as our heritage.

We spent Sunday trying to buy ingredients. It turns out that it is impossible to find lemongrass, lime leaves, coconut milk, shrimp paste, or even something as mundane as parsley, in Chinese supermarkets. In the end, we realized there was no way we could make Beef Rendang.

Instead, we settled for dadar hati ayam (chicken liver omelette), babi lombok kecap (pork with chillies in soy sauce), chuan chuan (mackerel with chillies and garlic), acar timun (cucumber and carrot pickle) and sambal goreng buncis (green beans with coconut milk -- not easy to make without coconut milk! (also not really that much of a success without coconut milk)).

We got home at 5:45 today and started cooking like crazy. At 7:45 it was done. It was not up to the level Frans achieved in Ithaca (not easy cooking with just two burners that were made for stir frying at high temperatures only), but we were happy nonetheless. We just hope Amanda liked it too...

Sunday Offal Day: Mini Rijsttafel

Who knew chicken livers could be part of a rijsttafel? We certainly didn't, but it worked out WONDERFULLY (as a certain Harvard Law scholar to whom we sold our bookcases today would say).

Dadar Hati Ayam


Dadar Hati Ayam, Babi Kecap and Acar Timun.

Also, Lonny Gerungan's recipe for Babi Kecap is really wonderful, wonderful.

Rijsttafel -- once more, with feeling

You can keep rijsttafel in the freezer for quite a while, and it will still taste pretty good!

Rijsttafel, Redux

We heated up some leftover buncis and rendang. Yum-o.

Rijsttafel, the never-ending story --- bonus track

Mmmm, kliekjes.

Rijsttafel, the never-ending story --- final edition

(not shown: nasi putih (white rice) and nasi kuning (yellow rice))

From the mailbag or Rijsttafel, part V

All natural enlargement. I love how I gained inches in just weeks, it was truly amazing:








We made krupuk.

Sunday Offal Day - early edition (again) and Rijsttafel, the never-ending story

We had Ghillie's awesome Moroccan chicken livers today. The lemon was not yet preserved, so we used fresh lemon zest instead --- I cannot wait for the real deal.


Also, we made one more dish for tomorrow: spekkoek. We will take a better picture tomorrow.


Plans for tomorrow: Atjar, shrimp, gado gado, sambal oelek, pisang goreng and of course nasi putih and nasi koening (because we are celebrating our anniversary). So many dishes, so chances are that some of them work out.

Rijsttafel, part III

For those of you worried by our lack of posts that there would not be enough to eat at the Rijsttafel: Worry no more, because we made mindboggling amounts of chicken satay today.

satay sauce

satay sauce (completed)

chicken

Our meal for today.

Rijsttafel, part II

Two more:
First of all some healthy green beans. The flavoring ingredients:


And the final product:


Also, some more protein: Babi lombok ketjap.

This is an Indo-Dutch ("Indisch") recipe, distinct from the Indonesian recipes so far (even though "rijsttafel" is also Indo-Dutch --- note that it may contain Indonesian (and even Chinese or Chinese inspired) recipes).

Rijsttafel, part I

We are following the advice of Frans's former Indonesian neighbor, and we have started cooking today for a rijsttafel that will hopefully take place next week.

We made eggs in a spicy tomato sauce (prep photos only):



And we made our favorite: Beef Rendang. As our cookbook author says, "the meat, coconut milk, and flavoring paste will [...] go on a fascinating journey":