Happy Birtday!
Today April 27th we celebrate the King’s Birthday in the Netherlands. Hip hip hurrah! The Dutch Royal Family is known as the House of Orange-Nassau, hence the link to anything orange (Oranje in Dutch), including a drink (liqueur) called Oranje Bitter. It’s not many people’s favourite by the way, most people prefer another traditional drink: lots of beer.
There are many recipes for Oranje Bitter, most of them with lots of sugar and some undefined herbs. We prefer the more classic version produced by Van Wees and De Ooievaar. Their Oranje Bitter is made with Pomerans (Citrus Aurantium, the bitter orange) and Curacao peel. To compensate the bitterness some people add sugar, but the bitter as produced by Van Wees has a great balance between sweet and bitter. Plus a bitter should be bitter.
Our grandmother (or Beppe as we used to call her) wasn’t a big fan of Oranje Bitter, but she felt she had to serve it on the Queens Birthday. She combined one tradition with another tradition: Dutch Advocaat. This drink is similar to Eggnog, with three important differences: Advocaat is made with egg yolks only, no milk is added and advocaat is heated (62° Celsius to be exact). Basically Advocaat is a sabayon-like drink made with egg yolks, sugar, vanilla and a strong alcohol (brandewijn, gin, vodka or grappa), served in a nice glass with a small spoon. You could add whipped cream, but that’s only hiding the taste.
Beppe cooked her advocaat Au Bain Marie; we cook our Oranje Bitter advocaat using a microwave oven.
What You Need (Oranje Bitter Advocaat)
- 3 Egg Yolks
- 30 grams of Sugar
- 80 ml of Oranje Bitter
What You Need (Advocaat)
- 100 grams of Egg Yolks
- 75 grams of Sugar
- 5 grams of Vanilla Sugar
- 125 ml of Vodka
What You Do
Mix the egg yolks and the sugar well. Make sure is dissolved before gently adding the liquid. Transfer to the microwave and very gently heat the mixture. We used intervals of 10 seconds to start with and intervals of 5 seconds to finish. In total only 75 seconds on 30% power. Duration depends on the power of your microwave. Stir well (or whisk, but not too much) after every interval until it becomes thick. The consistency must be similar to a thick pastry cream (crème pâtissière). Cool quickly and store in the refrigerator.
PS Obviously you need fresh eggs when making advocaat, mayonnaise, sabayon, béarnaise et cetera. We don’t think eating fresh, organic eggs is a problem. Eating all kinds of additives, unclear syrops, modified milk ingredients, guar gum, monoglycerides et cetera, that’s a problem.
PS Use the egg whites to make madeleines.
Cook and Drink 