Winter Beef pie - a redaction of an 18th century recipe

This weekend was Valentines weekend, and I decided to spend the weekend doing the things I really love doing - sleeping, reading and cooking ( followed shortly after by eating, of course!). I'm doing really well with my resolution to take homemade food into the office - and it's definitely paying dividends in terms of savings. It's also more filling than our office sandwich and thin soup broth options - and as a result I don't snack as much on biscuits and other junk food because I'm hungy in the middle of the afternoon. 

I decided to try an 18th century recipe from an old recipe book I own - I've collected quite a few originals and many reprints of historic recipe books over the years. In general, these give a list of ingredients, approximate proportions and general cooking guidance - but are not as detailed as modern recipes. It's been a long time since I made a pie - and I had 500gr of stewing beef in the fridge to use .

So : 

500 gr stewing beef

1 tbspn black treacle

1/3rd cup cider vinegar

2 parsnips, peeled and diced

1 onion - chopped

3 mushrooms - halved

3 garlic cloves, peeled & chopped

1 bottle of dark beer

3 bay leaves

3 cloves

1 or 2 tspn cornflour

salt & pepper to taste

4 heaped teaspoons of crumbly stilton or similar blue cheese

olive oil

Pastry -

350g plain flour

112g lard

1 egg yolk

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 pint hot water

Soften the onions and garlic in the olive oil for a few minutes in a large pan. Add the beef, and the rest of the ingredients except for the cornflour and the parsnips, and simmer gently for forty minutes. Add the parsnips and simmer for a further 20 minutes.  Whilst the stew is simmering, make up the pastry. Make a well in the flour, sprinkle over the salt, and put in the egg yolk. Melt the lard in the hot water, then mix into the flour, stirring with a spoon until cool enough to handle. Put the dough on a floured surface and knead until soft & pliable. Place on a plate, cover with a bowl and leave to rest for 20 minutes in a warm place. Once rested, form the pie shape in a loose-bottomed tin which has been well greased. Heat the oven to circa 140 degrees.

Once the beef is soft and melting, strain the meat & vegetables away from the juices, and set to one side. Remove the cloves and the bay leaves if you spot them! Thicken the juices with the cornflour and boil rapidly to reduce.

Fill the pastry with the meat and vegetable mix, sprinkle over the stilton crumbles and pour over the juices. Form a lid with the remaining pastry, pierce a hole in the centre and decorate as desired. Brush with egg to develop a rich color. Put the pie in the oven and bake for approximately 30-45 minutes at 140 then turn up to 180 until the crust is golden and crispy. I think you might be able to cook at 180 throughout, for a shorter time, since the filling is completely cooked through before you start the baking process, however I haven't tested that yet - I used a raw pie approach initially. 

If you want to eat it as a pie, make sure you cool completely before slicing so that the juices set so that you can enjoy the cathedral beauty of the gems inside. Or have it straight out of the oven and soak the pastry with lots of lovely beef gravy from the inside. Either way, enjoy!

Quick recipes : Cupboard brunch muffins

When we are out working around the house, or running off to work early in the morning it's super useful to have a quick microwaveable snack that you can grab out of the freezer, and eat within 3 minutes. I'm really not a fan of fast food on the whole - so I try to find my own alternatives.  Muffins are super easy to make,  delicious freshly baked, and also freeze quite well!

I'm a big fan of the cupboard muffin - which has a little bit of everything and anything in it, and is perfect for using up little odds and ends in the fridge. Here's a basic recipe you can experiment from yourself :

2 cups of flour

1 cup of milk

1 beaten egg

salt & pepper

2.5 tsp baking powder

.5 cup of grated cheese (a fullfat hard cheese like a Beemster or a cheddar)  

8 slices of bacon, chopped up or equivalent amount of bacon bits.

1 cup mixed vegetables : leeks, broccoli, peppers, carrots

Cook the bacon and place off to the side to cool. Use the lovely bacon flavoured oil to gently fry and soften your mixed vegetables. Mix the egg & milk; mix the flour, salt & pepper & backing powder; then combine the liquids with the flour mix and stir. Add in all the remaining ingredients - I aim for a rich coating of the muffin mix over the contents. Pour into individual muffin tray, ( you can sprinkle a little extra grated cheese on top if you want) and put into a preheated oven at 375 degrees. Cook for 15-20 minutes or until a spike inserted in the muffin comes out clean.

Once the muffins are cool, you can bag them up in a ziplock bag and freeze for later use - if you can resist the yummy smells!

Spiced poached pears

We are at the end of the pear season, but a number of the farmhouses near by still have cooking pears for sale on their honesty stands. I can't resist a bargain ( apparently a very dutch trait!) and I snagged a bag full of pears on a recent trip out.I have to admit I thought they were eaters and had a bit of a shock when I took a big bite out of the first one! Nonetheless, when life gives you cookers - let's make delicious desserts!

I decided to try my hand at making poached pears with a spicy christmas twist to them - and promptly ran into the challenge of needing red wine for all the recipes. I don't tend to drink much wine, so I don't often have a spare opened bottle kicking around so I improvised.

Koggenland Poached Pears 

6-8 large cooking pears
4 heaped spoonfuls of white sugar
4 heaped spoonfuls of dark moscovado sugar
2 cinnamon sticks
6 cloves
1 inch knob of fresh ginger
1 spoonful of 'appelstroop'  - apple molasses ( use apple spread jam or molasses instead)

Peel, quarter and core the pears. Rinse quickly and then put into a pan on a gentle heat. Cover the pears with water, add the sugars, spices and 'appelstroop' and stir gently. Simmer very slowly for about 30-45 minutes, or until the pears are soft & gently colored.

I keep my pears in clip jars - if you plan to keep them for a long time you need to sterilize the jars by placing in boiling water in a saucepan for about 5 minutes. As they don't last too long around our house, I just pour in hot, cool with the lid clipped down to form a seal, and keep in the fridge. They are lovely warmed through and served with yoghurt or cream. W loves them for breakfast as topping for his porridge. Or you can serve them as a side dish with pork based main courses. However you eat your pears - I  hope you enjoy them and they bring back a whisper of summer!

Dutch pea soup - Rae's way.

Winter's here, and the temperature is dropping. We've had frost on the cars, and the constant rain and storms is a dead giveaway that we are well into the cold season. I love the comfort of a large bowl of steaming thick soup and the Dutch have their own national speciality that fits the bill perfectly. It's called 'snert' or 'erwtensoep' and is a thick pea soup that is absolutely perfect for winter weather. It also freezes very easily and is great for microwaving for lunch at the office - something that is incredibly useful for me, since I find I'm usually starving 5 minutes after the usual Dutch cheese sandwich.

So let's kick on to Rae's Dutch pea soup :

2 large onions, chopped coarsely
1 large leek
1 celeriac
3 potatoes
2 carrots
2 celery sticks
2 rosemary sprigs
1 smoked sausage
200g of bacon bits
2 fatty pork shoulder steaks, bone in ( or more if you want a more meaty soup)
500g of dried peas or split peas.
salt & pepper to taste


The traditional smoked sausage used in the Netherlands is 'Gelderse Rookwust' from the province of Gelderland. It's tied in a loop and is very smooth in texture. If you can't find a good quality smoked sausage you could replace it with frankenfurters or something similar.


It makes life so much easier in the kitchen if you do the majority of the preparation before you start cooking - at least enough that you have a sense of 'flow' rather than a start stop feeling. I start with the preparation of the vegetables : all peeled & coarsely chopped in chunks. The celeriac is a really important vegetable in this soup - it brings a depth of flavour that would be otherwise lacking  Then the meat needs to be diced and the onions chopped into chunks . Keep the bone pieces, they add flavour and can be picked out at the end.


I soften the onions in olive oil until they start to look a touch translucent, then in goes the chopped pork steaks and the bacon bits. Hold on to the sausage, don't add that just yet. Once you've tumbled the meat once or twice in the hot oil and onion mixture, add the peas,and bring it to the boil for a couple of minutes. Skim the top, then add the chopped vegetables and water to cover. I add 2 rosemary sprigs at this time to give just that extra little flavour. You can also add a stock cube if you are concerned that the flavour isn't rich enough. Bring it to the boil and turn it down to a beautiful slow simmer for about 1.5 - 2 hours until the vegetable and peas are melting into a beautiful soft mush. Check at half time and season to taste with the salt and pepper.

When the soup gets close to mushy and thick, keep a close eye on it - this is the time it's most likely to 'catch' and burn on the base of the pan. Add the sliced smoked sausage in the last half hour and stir in gently. Serve it with fresh bread chunks slathered with butter.

I always make far far too much ( these quantities will serve a large family, and have leftovers) and then I cool it in freezer boxes for taking to work or for a quick easy dinner.

Eet smakelijk! as the Dutch would say. Bon Appetit!

Kale chips - savoury heaven

I've always had a passion for savoury, far more than sweet flavours. Here in the Netherlands, I find I really miss English junk food - salt & vinegar or roast beef flavoured crisps are just so much more addictive than caramel waffles or chocolate. And neither paprika flavour or plain salted crisps hold a candle to the rich flavours I miss. And whilst junk food isn't too healthy , it is quite addictive.

Kale chips are my answer to that craving - and they are just awesomely tasty! They are also incredibly easy to make.

Grab yourself some kale next time you are out shopping for food. I tend to use packets of ready sliced and washed because it's quick and easy - but it's simple enough to slice the kale leaves into fine shreds. I'm looking forwards to next year when the vegetable garden is growing well, and I can pop out and grab my kale fresh from the garden. You then need to coat the leaves with a film of olive oil. This is simultaneously the easiest and hardest part. You don't want to drown the leaves in oil, but do want to ensure that they are thoroughly coated. So, add a small slug of oil to the leaves in a bowl, and get in there with clean hands and massage the oil all over them. It's great for ensuring they are evenly coated and also gives you silky smooth moisturized hands as an added bonus.

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degree centigrade whilst you spread the leaves out thinly on a shallow baking tray. Sprinkle over with salt and pop into the oven to crisp up. I struggle to get the timing perfect when I measure by the clock - somewhere between 10 -15 minutes. I find it best to keep a close eye on it, and ensure to whip them out as they start to go crispy, and just the first tips go dark.

I love using kale chips as flavouring and toppings on dinner dishes. They are wonderful sprinkled on thai green curry, or macaroni cheese. They are wonderful to roll cheese fondu dipped bread chunks in for that extra little zing on your fondue bite. Give them a try and tell me what you serve them with !

Crumble 'n' cream

This summer has been all about trying to reduce some of the rampant weeds that have taken over the house garden. We've been digging and weeding and cutting and trimming .....and cussing politely lots as we suck prickled fingers or chew on stung forearms.

I took a call pretty early that we wouldn't clear the brambles near the main shed - I could see we had quite enough to do with the rest of the property. This was a source of wild food as soon as autumn came around - our first crop of  own fruit in North Holland.

Blackberries are quite pippy, but they have beautiful rich flavours that are just divine baked in a crumble served with a nice dollop of cream. In fact, a fruit crumble is my go-to recipe for resolving any fruit glut, when the freeze just can't take anymore.

Crumbles come in two parts : the topping and the filling.

Let's start with the topping - the classic 'mix' calls for 1 part flour to 1 part fat and 1 part  sugar by weight. The drier and 'crumbier' you want your topping to be, the more fat/sugar you should add until it is almost equal parts in weight. If you love the crispy biscuity topping style  but want to keep the calories down, increase the fat, and not as much of the sugar.  I personally try and always use butter for the fat, unless I have friends over who can't take milk/lactose products - I find that margarine and other such products produce much less crispy results.

You can also mix the plain flour with other ingredients to give it texture and flavour - replace some with a replacement amount of almond meal or oats to give a nuttier or crunchy top. A touch of cinnamon or ginger in the topping to match with a flavoured filling gives a little zing.

For the fillings you can use combinations of most berries and orchard fruits - household favourites are apple, plum, blackberry, and rhubarb. Spread into the base of the baking tin, sprinkle with sugar or sweetener of choice ( honey, agave syrup, maple syrup) and spice up as desired ( cinnamon, ginger, cloves). Here in the Netherlands, I use speculaas spice - a lovely premixed winter cookie flavouring.   I rarely pre-cook the fruit unless they are particularly hard or particularly acid  as my circle like quite sharp, solid fillings - rhubarb and hard cooking apples are the only two that get a quick zap in a pan with water and sugar beforehand.

When you fill the baking dish with your filling, be aware that the softer the fruit you use in the filling, the more crumble topping you will need as the base of the crumble (crumble DMZ!) will absorb liquids and become a sweet flavoured doughy textured mass. So make sure you make lots of topping - and don't worry if you have too much as you can easily freeze it and use it straight out of the freezer later on.

Pop into a pre-heated oven at 180C/350F and cook for 30 minutes or until bubbling and crispy. If you have little volcanic explosions through the crumble, you either cooked it too long or your crumb was spread unevenly and too thinly. Never mind, they taste divine anyway!

Lastly devour with cream, or custard or evaporated milk. Be careful if it's just come out the oven - the sugar stays hot quite a while!

Dutch babies

I'm not turning maternal on you, I promise - but I do like making Dutch babies! They are really a misnomer, as the name is derived from the American Pennsylvania Dutch or 'Deutsch' as they should really be - it's a German 'pfannkuchen' recipe that has had some tender loving care in America. It's perfect for breakfast or brunch - and feeds an army of hungry workers in the middle of the day with little preparation & effort. 

In England, we've long had a passion for Toad-in-the-hole and Yorkshire puddings as evening meals or accompaniment with Sunday roast dinners. This is another dish in the same vein - a rich pancake batter which is oven baked in very hot fat at a high heat to puff up into lovely fluffy clouds of crispy deliciousness. The big difference to a Yorkshire pudding - where you add all the toppings in afterwards (onion gravy, sausages) - is the inclusion of the flavour ingredients as part of the batter in the cooking. I take quite an experimental approach to it and add what I have in the fridge but for the less enthusiastic here's some tips : 

Savoury babies :

• cubes of feta or halloumi
• bacon or pancetta strips
• pepperoni slices

Sweet babies :

• apple slices
• cherry pieces
• sugar & lemon

To make the basic Dutch Baby you want :

1/3 cup of all-purpose flour

1/2 cup of milk

2 beaten eggs

salt & pepper to taste ( nutmeg or cinnamon if sweet) 

Mix all the above ingredients into a smooth batter. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees , and prepare a metal tin with small cubes of butter or other fat, sufficient to create a thin layer of oil in the base. Heat the tin in the oven until the fat is lovely & smoking hot. Bring out, and fill with the batter and additional ingredients.  Cook in the oven for 15-20 minutes until the pancake is puffy, goldenbrown and set through. Don't open the oven whilst it's cooking because it will collapse and you will lose all the lovely airspaces that form the crispy edges. 

If you are feeling experimental you can go as far as mix'n'matching in the same time so you have both main and dessert in the oven at the same time  - as in the picture below. You have to be very quick with laying out the ingredients, as you can't mix them into the batter beforehand and you want to make sure the oil/fat layer doesn't lose all it's heat whilst you put the contents in. 

Happy Baby making  & Baby eating. My, that sounds so wrong - and yet so right!

Back to......

So, yesterday, I went back to the daily grind. It's good to be using my brain again in a different way, and it's fantastic to have predictable cashflows again. I'm suffering some minor teething issues getting paperwork and kit sorted but mostly that's coz it's a new company in NL and lots and lots and lots needs to get done all at once. Here's to an exciting positive year.

Sadly, this does mean I won't get so much time crafting or online gaming anymore - but tbh, that's not the end of the world. I won't be giving up cooking though - I've really enjoyed my new forays into it and have recently been experimenting with 'deconstructed' cooking - mainly crumbles of various sorts. Must lay hands on some whole oats, because I can see acres of potential here - and even crumbles made with ground almonds or semolina.

On another area of food experimentation  - I finally got around to trying out some tweaks on my traditional lasagne. Yes, I know, the book chefs have been doing it for ages, but good ol' lasagne is such a mainstay dish it's hard to move away from the classic. The most successful suggestion was made by a norwegian friend - add layers of fresh spinach to it between the mince and bechamel layers : awesome result and much recommended. I've finally found a *good* dutch cheese for making it with - old gouda gives a fab taste, without too much grease, unlike a lot of the younger dutch cheeses.

With Hannukah just gone by, it seemed like a great idea to get the fryer out and some latkes on the table .....here's the recipe on epicurious which I based my end result on :

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Latkes-with-Lots-of-Sauces-51116000

A few lessons learned :
 - not all kitchen paper holds together with the onion squeezing, so muslin is a better idea
- be damn sure to mix and spread around the garlic in the potato mixture, because a wholly garlic latke is a bit of a shock!
- taking a shortcut and buying a ready made dutch apple sauce can be fraught with pitfalls : I ended up buying something that was more like an apple syrup/jam rather than the apple chunky sauce I envisaged. Actually turned out to be a superb mix after all!

Pickle days

I love moroccan cooking and one of the primary flavours for me is the use of  salt-pickled lemons. Whilst they are source-able (at a ridiculously high price) in the UK ( Waitrose, Tescos, Sainsburys) , here in Holland they just don't seem to exist - even in Feijenoord, which is the moroccan ghetto of Rotterdam.

So........pickling time :

• Organic unwaxed lemons
• Salt
• Water
• A pickling jar

Chop up lemons into big pieces, insert in jar, top with LOTS of salt ( sufficient that it forms a layer on the base of the jar, even after the water is added and shaken up), fill with water and place in a conspicuous place to remind you to shake it up each day.....

A few weeks down the line, I look forwards to lots of lovely nom nom nom!

Cookie cravings

I haz cookie cravings. Lots of cookie cravings - and as there is no such thing as 24/7 supermarkets here, I just had to satisfy them myself.

Whilst I swiped the base recipe from an online site, I had to make some variations on ingredients - given the limited resources in my larder.  So :

200g butter
90g dark brown sugar
90g granulated sugar
1 egg
225g self raising flour
175g mix of chocolate chunks, cranberries and pecans

Cream the sugar butter and egg together, mix in the flour and remaining ingredients, and spoon the mix onto a well greased baking sheet in large blobs. Heat oven to 190 degrees and cook for 12-15 minutes. They will be very gooey when they come out but harden up as they cool. If you don't thoroughly cream the butter/sugar/egg mix, you get a crunchy texture to the biscuit from the sugar crystals.......

Remove from oven, acquire a glass of chocolate port, and enjoy.

My Keralan chicken curry

Yesterday, I had a great success improvising a Keralan-style chicken curry  from my store cupboard.  If you like mild curries, I recommend you have a go!

Ingredients :

1 thumb sized fresh ginger piece
4 cloves of garlic
6 green cardamoms
1 stick of cinnamon
10 methi grains (fenugreek)
7 curry leaves
1 tsp tumeric
1sp garam masala
1 pinch cumin seeds
4 tomatos, diced
2 chicken breasts
1 onion, diced
1/2 tin of coconut milk
salt to taste


Heat some oil in a pan, add cardamoms, cinnamon, cinnamon, and methi ( fenugreek) to the oil and cook for a couple of minutes to flavour the oil. Add onion, cook till softened. Grind or crush ginger and garlic to a paste, add to oil, cook for a couple more minutes - don't 'burn' the garlic so keep it on a low heat. Add chicken and all the remaining ingredients and simmer gently until chicken is cooked and flavours are developed. Add salt to taste.

Voila! Ultra simple and very quick to make, served with a flavoured cardamom rice with toasted cashew nuts.

Supermarket sweep..............

I've always considered myself to have a very diverse repertoire of cooking, but now I'm faced with a really bizarre dichotomy. Dutch supermarkets have an awesome selection of Indonesian/Surinaam ingredients - 2/3rds of which I have no idea at all what to do with - and an amazing dearth of some of the most basic ingredients in the world, like bicarbonate of soda, strong flour, golden and maple syrup.

As a result, I'm having to learn a whole new genre of recipes (awesome!) and innovate madly to replace some of the basics of baking and dessert making (scary!). Watch this space............

Autumn Soup days - Pumpkin/Coconut soup

With autumn closing in and the days getting increasingly dark and damp, I'm getting real cravings for warm hot soups. I was going to have left over chilli last night, but just couldn't resist jumping up in the 3 minutes between two activities and throwing together some soup.

Amounts are approximate but it's hard to go wrong as long as you taste as you go :

1/2 a small squash/pumpkin
1 large sweet potato
Stock ( vegetable or chicken, your choice, I used chicken)
1 medium sized knob of fresh ginger
1 small carton ( about half a tin) of coconut milk
2 limes, juiced
salt/pepper to taste
1 chili ( optional)
lots of chopped coriander

Peel and chunk the pumpkin, sweet potato and ginger (chili if desired). Pop in pan with stock and salt/pepper, and simmer til tender. Blend til smooth, add coconut milk, coriander, and lime juice and heat til warm again. Voila - delicious served with a lovely fresh hunk of bread.