Mushroom Salad

White Button Mushrooms and Cremini can be eaten raw, but we think they are tastier when fried or marinated, which is exactly what we do for this salad. A tasty accompaniment that will bring umami and depth to your dish. We combined the salad with carrots prepared in butter, lemon and lamb chops. The meat was fried in olive oil and seasoned with chopped thyme and black pepper. A delicious and light combination.

Wine Pairing

The salad comes with some acidity, but not too much. The main aspects in the dish are the sweetness and the velvety coating of the carrots, the aromatic lemon and thyme, the deepness of the salad and the richness of the lamb. We decided to open a bottle of Macon, a red wine from East-Central France. The region is well known for its white wines, Pouilly-Fuissé for instance. Most white wines in this region are made from Chardonnay grapes. This red wine is made from Gamay grapes. The wine has a beautiful ruby red colour, and it comes with aromas of black cherries and strawberries. A balanced wine with a touch of spiciness and nice tannins. Not too difficult and great with the various aspects of the dish. In general, we would suggest a red wine with fruit, freshness and character but not too complex. 

What You Need
  • 250 grams of Button Mushrooms or Cremini
  • Olive Oil
  • White Wine Vinegar
  • Parsley
  • Garlic Clove
  • Black Pepper
What You Do
  1. Clean the mushrooms with kitchen paper
  2. Slice the mushrooms, heat a heavy iron skillet and fry the mushrooms for a few minutes
  3. Leave to cool
  4. Combine excellent olive oil and white wine vinegar
  5. Chop some parsley
  6. Finely chop a garlic clove
  7. Combine the mushrooms, the dressing, the parsley and the garlic
  8. Add some black pepper
  9. Leave in your refrigerator for 24 hours. Feel free to stir a few times.
Mushroom Salad ©cadwu
Mushroom Salad ©cadwu

Baba Au Mandarine Napoléon

On April 27th, we celebrate the birthday of the King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands. The Dutch royal family is also known as ‘de Oranjes’, which is reflected in the use of the colour orange when referring to Dutch royalty. Actually, there is no link between the royal family and the colour. The ‘orange’ in their name refers to the French city of Orange, a Principality one of his ancestors inherited in 1544.

Over the years we prepared Orange Sabayon, Queen’s Soup, Orange and Almond Cake, Bouchée à la Reine, Orange Flan and Canard à l’Orange on this day. What better way to celebrate a birthday than baking a Baba, a flavourful and moist cake? Traditionally a Baba au Rhum (preferably with raisins or currents) is served with a syrup based on brown rum. Today we use a delicious Belgian liqueur: Mandarine Napoléon. It’s a unique mandarin liqueur, made from macerated Sicilian mandarins and cognac. It was originally created in 1892 by Napoleon’s physician. Rich, long, intense en delicious!

What You Need
  • 10 large Baba’s
    • 4 grams of dried Yeast
    • 100 ml Milk
    • 15 grams of Sugar
    • 200 grams All Purpose Flour
    • 2 Egg Yolks
    • 2 Eggs
    • 100 grams of Butter
    • 80 grams of chopped Candied Orange Peel
    • 2 grams of Salt
    • Butter to coat the moulds
    • Finely chopped Candied Orange Peel
  • Syrup
    • 500 ml of Water
    • 200 grams of Sugar
    • 200 ml Mandarine Napoléon
What You Do

The milk should be lukewarm and the butter melted but not hot. Start by combining milk, yeast and sugar. Mix well. Add the sieved flour and mix. Now it’s time to add the eggs and the egg yolks. Use kneading hooks to mix very, very well. This may take 10 minutes. The result should be an elastic, sticky dough. Add the butter, mix and then add the salt. The dough is now even stickier. Coat the moulds with butter. Add the dough to the moulds and let rise for approximately 2 hours. They should double in size. Preheat your oven to 200 °C or 400 °F and bake for 15 minutes depending on the size. Keep an eye on the baba’s, you may want to reduce the heat after 10 minutes.
In the meantime add water and sugar to a pan. Warm the mixture until nearly boiling. Stir and make sure the sugar is completely dissolved. Now add Mandarine Napoléon to taste. Leave to cool. Add an extra splash of Mandarine Napoléon to give the syrup an extra push. Allow the baba’s to cool somewhat, remove from the mould and let them soak in the syrup for a few hours, or longer. A day or two will be perfect, Sprinkle with finely chopped candied orange peel and serve at room temperature.

Baba au Mandarine Napoléon
Baba au Mandarine Napoléon

Panna Cotta with Agar

A few days ago Suzanne’s Mom wrote about Piper McAloon. At 17 she became Pastry Chef at Foglia, an award-winning plant-based restaurant located in Bristol, Rhode Island. A truly inspiring story!
When asked what she is making right now, she mentioned Panna Cotta. At Foglia she makes a gluten-free version with agar. Which was something we wanted to do for a long time. We love Panna Cotta, but using gelatine (made from animals from the meat industry) is far from ideal. Agar is made from the cell walls of red algae. Popular throughout Asia and fortunately also available where we live.
We served our Panna Cotta with a coulis of red berries. Very tasty, but was it a real Panna Cotta? It didn’t seem as creamy as the version with gelatine. The texture was certainly different. The version with gelatine was smoother and firmer; more how we think panna cotta should feel in your mouth. We were happy with the result, but we’re not sure if we will use agar next time we’re preparing Panna Cotta. To be continued!

What You Need (for 4)
  • 500 ml fresh Cream
  • 1,5 grams of Agar (powder)
  • 1 Vanilla Bean
  • 30 grams of Sugar
What You Do
  1. Add the agar, the seeds of the vanilla bean and the sugar to the cream
  2. Mix very well, the agar must to be completely dissolved
  3. Bring to the boil on slow/medium heat
  4. Stir frequently
  5. Keep close to boiling for 1 or 2 minutes
  6. Continue stirring
  7. Transfer to a water bath with cold water
  8. Cool the liquid somewhat before filling the forms. This is where you need to be careful. Gelatine gels at a lower temperature than agar. You need to transfer the mixture when it’s relatively warm
  9. Use silicone molds; they work very well panna cotta
  10. Let cool and then store in the refrigerator
  11. Don’t forget to seal with cling foil, otherwise your panna cotta will absorb aromas from other food in the refrigerator. 
PS
  1. Cook the red berries in some water for perhaps 5 to 10 minutes
  2. Transfer to a sieve and use the back of a spoon to squeeze out the liquid
  3. Add sugar and lemon juice to taste
  4. Reduce the liquid somewhat
  5. Let cool
  6. Alternatively you could also start by blending the berries. This makes squeezing out the liquid easier plus you will get a richer taste and some bitterness.

Asparagus!

End of March, Mid April, depending on the weather, hurray!, it’s the beginning of the white asparagus season in the Netherlands (and many other countries). We simple love them!

One of the classic ways of serving white asparagus is with melted butter, boiled eggs, ham and parsley. Enjoying them this way, allows you to taste the slight bitterness and sweetness of the asparagus. The butter and egg bring a velvety feeling to your pallet, and the parsley and white pepper give a touch of sharpness to the dish. In this case we prefer a dry Muscat from the Alsace. A delicate, slightly sweet but dry taste, the smell of fresh fruit.

Combining white asparagus with scrambled eggs makes a lot of sense, especially if you add just a handful of shrimps. The salty, intense taste in balance with the very rich eggs and the asparagus is a very clever idea. The chives in the scrambled eggs lift the dish to a higher level. Enjoy with a Pinot Blanc from the Alsace.

Sauce Gribiche is made with capers, cornichons, and chives. The freshness works very well with the taste of the asparagus. A dish that requires a bit of work, but the result is delicious. Enjoy with a glass of Macon. The wine, made with 100% chardonnay grapes should bring gentle acidity, fruitiness and a floral aroma.

Another exciting combination was created by Johnny Acton and Nick Sandler and is included in their classic book Mushrooms (published by Kyle Books and still available via for instance Amazon and other channels). It’s about three seasonal products: asparagus, morels and wild garlic. To be enjoyed with a full-bodied white wine with a fine acidity.

Caponata

This very tasty dish originates from Sicily and is a mixture of chopped and fried vegetables. Eggplant (Aubergine), Tomatoes, Celery, rRed Onion and Green Olives are the main ingredients. The vegetables are prepared and served in an agrodolce sauce, so sweet and sour. Although we’re not keen on using sugar in a salad, in this case the combination of sugar and vinegar is perfect.
Perhaps the ingredients make you think of Ratatouille. Caponata and Ratatouille are very different dishes. Capanota is about fried vegetables, about crunchy celery, about sweet and sour.

Food and Wine Pairing

We served our Caponata with a roulade of pork with sage, rosemary, pancetta, black olives and black garlic. A dish we enjoyed with a glass of Barbera del Monferrato 2022, produced by Livio Pavese. In general, we suggest a full-bodied red wine with perhaps a touch of oak. Some acidity to balance the caponata and dark fruit (plums, blueberries).

The next day we served the Caponata with a roulade of chicken with pancetta, Parmesan Cheese and sage. A dish we enjoyed with a glass of Spätburgunder from the Pfalz area in Germany. In general, we suggest a medium bodied red wine with aromas of red fruit. Medium tannins and balanced acidity. Its taste dry, aromatic, fruity, juicy with a touch of strawberry.

You could also add some canned tuna (in olive oil) and serve the Caponata with crusted bread as a starter, perhaps accompanied with charcuterie and a glass of Crémant or Prosecco.

What you Need (recipe for 4)
  • 2 Aubergines
  • 400 grams excellent ripe Tomatoes
  • 10 Green Olives
  • Capers
  • 30 grams Tomato Puree
  • 4 cloves of Garlic
  • 4 small Red Onions
  • 3 stalks Celery
  • Tablespoon of Caster Sugar
  • Tablespoon of White Wine Vinegar
  • Black Pepper.
What You Do

Best to prepare Caponata one day ahead.

  1. Wash the vegetables.
  2. Slice the eggplant lengthwise in 8 and then in chunks. Drizzle with salt and mix. Put the chunks in a sieve and let rest above a bowl for one or two hours.
  3. Coarsely chop the onion.
  4. Quarter the tomatoes. Remove the internal hard bits and the pits and put these aside. Slice the outer part of the tomato lengthwise in three.
  5. Roughly cut the remainder of the tomatoes, add to a sieve and use the back of a spoon to capture the juices.
  6. Coarsely chop the garlic.
  7. Halve the olives.
  8. Use a knife to peel the back of the celery stalks, or ribs. Slice.
  9. Combine the tomato puree, black pepper, the caster sugar, the vinegar and the tomato juice.
  10. Set your oven to 140 °C or 285 °F.
  11. Discard the liquid of the eggplants, wash of the salt, dry with kitchen paper and fry the chunks in a generous amount of olive oil until golden.
  12. Transfer to a baking tray in your oven.
  13. Fry the onions and the celery until somewhat translucent. Add these to the baking tray.
  14. Now add the olives, the capers, the garlic, the tomato mixture and the tomatoes. Mix. Perhaps add a splash of water.
  15. Cover the baking tray with aluminium foil.
  16. After 20 minutes it’s time to mix the vegetables. Check if you need to add extra water.
  17. After another 20 minutes, remove and discard the foil, mix and increase the temperature to 160 °C or320 °F.
  18. Now you need to keep an eye on the mixture. It may take 10 to 20 minutes for the liquid to somewhat evaporate, but you don’t want the dish to become dry.
  19. When ready, let cool and transfer to the refrigerator.

Ottolenghi’s SIMPLE

In 2017 during the Amsterdam Symposium on the History of Food, Yotam Ottolenghi was awarded the prestigious Johannes Van Dam prize, in recognition of his contribution to the culinary tradition. The prize is named after Dutch culinary author and critic Johannes van Dam who was not only known for his reviews of restaurants but also for his massive collection of books on food and drinks. The jury, chaired by Professor Louise O. Fresco, mentioned his passion for vegetables and his talent to bring colour and flavours to his food. She also mentioned his influence on what we eat in general and how he made bold, tasty Mediterranean ingredients and food popular and accessible through his books.
Yotam Ottolenghi is a well-known and very successful chef, patron, restaurateur and cookbook author. If someone says, “This is a recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi”, the suggestion is that the food will be exciting, colourful, vegetable focused, delicious and absolutely modern.
During one of the breaks, we leaved through his books. Great pictures, nice design, well written recipes and the food delectable. Perhaps we should buy one of his books?
For some reason we didn’t.

When Bernadette suggested to review SIMPLE, as part of her excellent series of cookbook reviews, we borrowed a copy and decided to make two recipes: Tofu and French beans with chraimeh sauce and Quick okra with sweet and sour dressing. The Tofu-dish is labelled with S, meaning it’s Short on Time. The Okra one is labelled with S and I, meaning it has 10 or less Ingredients and is Short on Time.

Tofu

The tofu dish is a combination of French beans, flour, tofu, sunflower oil, dill, black pepper, salt and coriander. The chraimeh sauce is made with garlic cloves, sweet paprika, caraway seeds, ground cumin, ground cinnamon, green chilli, sunflower oil, tomato paste, caster sugar and lime juice. The result is tasty and flavourful, although, honestly, we think it would be better to leave out the tofu. Then you would have a very nice side dish. The chraimeh sauce will probably combine very well with fish. The recipe for this dish was published in the Guardian.

Okra

We love okra, so we were keen to make the salad. It’s a combination of okra, olive oil, garlic cloves, red chilli, sweet chilli sauce, maple syrup, lime juice, sesame oil, coriander leaf and salted roasted peanuts. We didn’t add peanuts. The salad was very nice and balanced with lots of flavours. One to remember. This recipe was also published in the Guardian.

The Book

We enjoyed both dishes, but we haven’t bought SIMPLE for a number of practical reasons. For instance, the vast majority of the recipes requires you to preheat your oven to 180 °C or 200 °C. Not something you’d like to do on a regular basis if you cook for 2 persons as we do most days. Another practical point is the size of his books: they simply don’t fit in our bookcase. Fortunately he has published many recipes on his website and there are 60 videos available via his YouTube channel.

Should SIMPLE be on your shelf? Probably yes if you’re looking for very tasty dishes, clear instructions, inspirational combinations and beautiful pictures. But we could also imagine that you’re happy reading his weekly recipes in the Guardian! SIMPLE is available via your local bookstore or via the well known channels for 20 US$ or 26 Euro.

Wild Garlic

From February to June, you can find Wild Garlic (Ramson(s) Daslook, Bear Leek, Ail des Ours, Bärlauch). It’s a shade-loving plant with beautiful white flowers that you can forage for in the woods or grow in your garden or on your balcony. If you decide to pick wild garlic, be careful not to pick its lookalike: the poisonous Lily of the Valley. Check if it’s wild garlic by grinding your fingers on the leaf. If you smell garlic and onion, you should be fine. If in doubt, don’t use it.
Wild garlic is much loved in Germany, Austria, France and other parts of Europe. The leaves and the flowers are edible (and so are the bulbs, but we haven’t tried these yet). Some sources mention that you should only eat the leaves before the plant starts flowering. But then you can’t combine the leaves and the tasty flowers in your dish, so we suggest ignoring that idea. The flowers are a touch sweet because of the honey. We suggest tasting the leaves and the flowers well before using. Adjust the quantities accordingly.
The taste is a bit like a combination of onion and garlic, but much greener, longer lasting and with a touch of bitterness at the end.  Works very well as a pesto, but equally nice with potatoes or gnocchi. You can also add the leaves and the flowers to a salad, but we feel the taste benefits from some warmth. Be very careful when cooking wild garlic because the flavour deteriorates quickly and at its best becomes unpleasant and onion-like. However, it’s possible to prepare a very tasty wild garlic soup.

We use wild garlic in four dishes. One is Farfalle with a wild garlic-based pesto, the second is a soup and the third is with white asparagus with morels and is published in the excellent book Mushrooms by Johnny Acton and Nick Sandler.

The cheese we use on our potato-wild-garlic-mash is Vacherin Fribourgeois. It originates from the region around the Swiss city Fribourg. It’s a semi-hard, creamy cheese made with raw cow milk. It matures for some 10 weeks in a damp cellar. Its taste is aromatic, floral, full-bodied and lasting, with a touch of sweetness, bitterness and umami. Ideal to combine with gnocchi or an omelette. Unfortunately, it’s not a widely available cheese. We bought it at one of our favourite cheese shops. You could replace it with Gruyère or perhaps Emmenthaler.

We combined out potato-wild-garlic-mash with a nice steak, but you could also serve it with an excellent organic sausage, perhaps one with sage?

Wine Pairing

The combination of the rich and flavourful mash and the red meat suggests a red wine with sufficient acidity, structure and tannins. We decided to enjoy a glass of Le Jardin de Queyron Pindefleurs 2018, Saint-Emilion, made from 78% merlot, 20% cabernet franc and 2% Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. It’s an elegant wine with aromas of dark fruit, liquorice and toast. The wine was a perfect balance with the various flavours in the dish.

What You Need
  • Floury (Starchy) Potatoes
  • Milk or Cream
  • Butter
  • Pinch of Salt
  • Cheese
  • Wild Garlic
What You Do
  1. Bring a pan of water with a pinch of salt to the boil
  2. Add the potatoes and cook until tender
  3. Transfer to a colander and drain
  4. Return to the pan (on low heat) and allow to dry
  5. Mash the potatoes using a fork or a potato masher
  6. Add hot milk, or cream and (melted) butter
  7. A few minutes before you serve the mash, coarsely chop the leaves and grate the cheese
  8. Quickly add the cheese, mix, taste, adjust, perhaps some more, perhaps some black pepper and then add the chopped leaves
  9. A few seconds later the mash is ready
PS

Watch this video (in English) about a communal garden in a park in Amsterdam, featuring Lynn and her beloved daslook.

Small Artichokes (Carciofo Violetto)

The season of artichokes depends on the variety and where you are based. In Italy it’s from mid-winter until early spring, in other countries from March to June, or September and October.
An artichoke should feel heavy, look fresh and the leaves should be closed. If the leaves are wide open, the artichoke is older and it could be dry with lots of choke (the hairs) and dry inner leaves.
The artichokes we use in this recipe are special. Not only are they vibrant purple, they are also small with hardly any choke. In Italy they are called Carciofo Violetto. Tasty as you would expect from an artichoke and easy to eat because the texture of the leaves is not stringy.

Wine Pairing

It’s not straightforward to pair artichokes with wine. According to various researchers this is due to cynarin, a chemical especially found in the leaves of the artichoke. When the wine and the cynarin meet in your mouth, the natural sweetness of the wine is enhanced, making it taste too sweet. Pair artichokes with a bone-dry, crisp, unoaked white wine with clear, present acidity. For instance, Sauvignon Blanc, Grüner Veltliner or Albariño.
The Carciofo Violetto artichoke in combination with the olive oil, Parmesan cheese and browned garlic (bitter, nutty) is less demanding when it comes to wine. We enjoyed it with a nice glass of Côtes de Provence rosé.

What You Need
  • Small purple Artichokes
  • Olive Oil
  • 2 Cloves of Garlic
  • Parmesan Cheese
What You Do
  1. Preheat your oven to 180 °C or 355 °F
  2. Cook the artichokes for 5 minutes in boiling water.
  3. Allow to cool and remove the outer leaves. Be generous, it’s better to remove too many!
  4. Halve the artichokes and place them in a shallow oven dish
  5. Drizzle with olive oil
  6. Transfer to the oven for 5 minutes
  7. In the meantime, grate Parmesan cheese, chop the garlic and mix
  8. Spread the mixture on top of the artichokes
  9. Wait for the cheese and the garlic to colour, perhaps 5 minutes
  10. Serve immediately.
PS

Other recipes with artichokes you may like:

Marmalade

We love a cup of (Russian) Earl Grey or Lady Grey. Black teas flavoured with oil of bergamot (Citrus Bergamia), which gives the tea a lovely citrusy flavour.
You could imagine how happy we were when we saw fresh bergamots on the market. Yellow, the size of an orange and very fragrant. Great to use for a tarte au citron, for a curd or for marmalade.
The juice of the bergamot is fairly similar to lemon juice. Bitter, pungent, perhaps a bit more tart. The rind is fragrant, has a powerful aroma and a (bitter) taste. Bergamot oil is made of the rind and often added to perfumes and cosmetics.

We also used the bergamot juice to make a kimizu-like sauce, served with fried fish. The result was okayish but certainly not our best idea!

What You Need
  • (organic) Citrus Fruit (Oranges, Mandarins, Lemons, Bergamots or a mix of these)
  • Sugar
  • Water
What You Do

Weigh and wash the fruit. Cut into quarters and slice the quarters into thin slices. Transfer to a pan. Add some water, bring to a boil and cook on low heat for 15-30 minutes until the peel is translucent. Now add sugar (we use a ratio fruit to sugar of 2:1, but feel free to add more sugar). Cook on medium heat until the marmalade starts to thicken. This may take 15-30 minutes depending on the fruit. Transfer to clean jars, let cool and enjoy a few days later!

Chicken with Morels

A few weeks ago we bought the first fresh morels of the season. They looked beautiful but unfortunately, they were very bland. Not the typical pancake, buttery taste, not the intriguing aroma. Pity, but worth a try.
This week we bought some great looking dried morels at our favourite epicerie. Dried morels are as tasty as fresh morels, which makes them very different from all other mushrooms. Dried cèpes are such a disappointment. We bought 15 grams and talked about preparing veal with morels and madeira. Monsieur Max, who runs the epicerie, mentioned he preferred to combine them with chicken. Great idea, we said, let’s do that.

The dish relies on the quality of the chicken, the morels and the white wine. Ideally this is Vin Jaune, a wine produced in the Jura in the far east of France and made from Savagnin grapes. This wine is often compared to Fino Sherry, but we think it has more character and length. It also not fortified, so no alcohol was added.
We served the chicken and morels with fried oca. A combination that worked very well, because the oca brought freshness to the dish. Perhaps its oxalic acid?

Wine Pairing

We opened a bottle of Arbois Savagnin 2018. This complex, white wine is made from the same Savagnin grape and is also produced in the Jura. It comes with aromas that will make you think of nuts, curry and even umami. When tasting it, you may think the wine is off, given it is slightly oxidized. In this case it’s a good thing. Enjoy the savoury, nutty taste of the wine in combination with the various flavours in the dish.

What You Need
  • 3 organic Chicken Thighs
  • Butter 
  • 1 Shallot 
  • 15 grams dried Morels
  • 50 ml Arbois Wine
  • 50 ml Double Cream
  • 1 Egg Yolk
What You Do

Check if the morels are clean. If not, use a brush to clean them or rinse with water. Soak the morels in fairly warm water for at least 30 minutes, depending on the quality. In the meantime, finely slice the shallot lengthways. Pat the chicken thighs dry and halve. Fry the thighs in butter until golden brown, perhaps 4 minutes. Set aside and cover with aluminium foil. Fry the shallot in the remaining butter on low heat for a few minutes. Drain the morels, pat dry with kitchen paper and halve lengthways. Keep the soaking water. Add the morels and combine. Leave on low heat for a few minutes. Add the wine and leave to reduce by half. Add some morel juice and reduce. Add cream and allow to warm through and through. Allow to simmer for a few minutes, add the chicken. Leave on low heat until the chicken is done, perhaps 15 minutes. Now it’s time to taste the sauce and see if you have enough. Happy? Beat one egg yolk. Slowly add the mixture from the pan to the egg yolk (this is called ‘marrying the sauce’). Then transfer the mixture to the pan. Warm carefully, otherwise it will split. To serve, place the chicken pieces on a warm plate with some morels on top. Cover with the rich, aromatic sauce.