as i explained to M. how i wasn’t too impressed with the Korean cuisine, she exclaimed she loved it! she had been to a restaurant in Nieuw-Vennep (of all places) and was crazy about the tastes…
strange. the two main proofs of the pudding was in the eating of kimchi (fermented vegetables with vinegared chilly paste and herbs) and the korean BBQ. now, the kimchi is not bad, but hardly a culinary phenomenon… also the BBQ: when we gourmet at the dinner table, we like to have a lot of different types of meat and other stuff, whereas here you have to choose whether you want beef or pork… again, not bad at all, but no Michelin-star just yet…
but then again, i have had this same experience with greek food; we went to Corfu and basically the main dishes were souvlaki and moussaka with some tzatziki… never the multitude of dishes i love at the restaurants in the Netherlands… maybe it is the same case with these Korean places!
so, docile as i am and loving the idea of going to a korean restaurant just before going to korea, we were gonna go to that specific restaurant, until we discovered that one was gone… hm… so we looked for a restaurant in 010 to go to and ended up at Azzia…
first thing that draws the attention is the asian feel and relaxed atmosphere… i love the benches to sit on next to each other, snuggling up nice and cosy…
the chef and host Tim Kan wanted us to understand it wasn’t fusion he was aiming for, he is trying to combine elements of multiple cuisines (thai, chinese, japanese, korean) into one (isn’t that fusion?)… anyway, i have to say, the result is amazing! indeed, the combinations are very tasty; we started with some superfresh dim-sum, after which we got a free intermediate dish (i would call it a spoom) of green tea/apple jelly with lemon marinade, damn that was both incredibly delicious!
as main courses we ordered japanese salmon with light soysauce and chinese crispy shrimp with fried garlic flakes… all of the dishes were so delightfully tasty and sophisticated, damn! as a dessert we had a kind of sesame seed covered doughball with belgian chocolate and ice cream; this was the least surprising and tasteful of the evening, but until then we had a blast! Tim can!
simple as that. i love pictures, so years ago, i started making them myself, studying styles and techniques.
i have been crazy about music since… well… ever, so once i had taught myself to play guitar and bassguitar, i wanted to be able to write music. i taught myself to play keyboards and started to write my own songs. now, of course in the beginning, they were not very good, but gradually other people started to appreciate them. so now i made some cd’s with my own music and some people across the world have them…
food? same thing all over again. a while ago, i grew into sushi (i believe you really have to grow into it…). consequently, i wanted to be able to prepare it myself.
the funny thing is, these things all start from the heart. i started doing sushi workshops for my network Societé d’Artagnan as we try to combine our passions, work and food in this case… however, David van der Kooij missed this session and called me a couple of weeks ago with the question whether i could make that up to him . he was doing a teambuilding workshop for CleanLease Fortex and was looking for something special at night. so that the managementteam wasn’t sitting around the table, but was being more interactive and having more fun as well…
however, where was i going to do something like this? in a bar or something was not quite the option classy enough for this type of thing. and all of a sudden it hit me: at Vincent’s store! a store? yes, because Vincent has one of the most classy, fancy, beautiful stores and he provides the best wooden floors i have ever seen. and his store is a reflection of that. and as Vincent is an entrepreneur with the most positive attitude (takes one to know one I guess…) he immediately said yes! however, small glitch, there was going to be a ladies night in the building where his store is… some ladies even might walk into the store (and how is that a problem?)…
so last wednesday, after having installed all of the stuff, preparing the most amazing table, with sushi-sets for everyone and recipe-sheets with pictures, sake and sapporo-beer for everyone to go around, the guys arrived…
the atmosphere was great! everyone was ready for great food and great drinks in a relaxed setting…
after everyone had a drink, and after the introductions, i started by showing how to make five different types of sushi, futomaki, uramaki, gunkan-maki, nigiri and temaki. and as everyone was getting hungry, when one was prepared it went around to taste…
i was very impressed how afterwards, all the guys immediately and without hesitation started preparing the sushi. and not just the easy ones, especially the uramaki was a big challenge! must be symbolic for this company to do and act and that was very inspiring to see!
and all the while, outside of the store an enormous amount of ladies walked up and down the stairs seeing about twelve guys preparing the most amazing food!!! they must have thought this was the main temptation of the ladies night!
a couple of the guys brought this into practice exchanging sushi for pink goodiebags or white wine with those ladies outside… aaah, they get the idea (;-) , although: how to explain that pink little bag?) !
seriously, the evening was amazing! after having prepared the sushi, we sat down, had some more drinks and everyone enjoyed their production, 4 complete serving dishes full!
the guys were picked up by their taxi and after Vincent, Martine, Gijs and i cleaned up, we had some well-deserved drinks…
so better make it interesting every once in a while. and as friends know you well, mine spoiled me with a dinner at Smaak! where else?
and as you know your friends well, you take them with you. simple.
so we were at Smaak yet once again and you’d almost say we’d get a little tired of it. i think we would.
if Ronald wasn’t such an amazing cook, who loves what he does and if Debbie wasn’t such an amazing host, who loves to make her guests have an amazing time, we would. but now, we can’t get tired of it, even if we’d try… which we don’t. try, i mean…
so we were with 9 ‘nj0ying people and we had a blast. as they have a grand tastery of appetizers and a grand tastery of desserts and as we saw the most amazing main courses, we asked for a tastery of those as well. and again, it doesn’t matter how, but they go crazy in the kitchen and prepare a fantastic combination of courses!
now, i like wines, but my friend Marco is crazy about them and picked a fantastic Pasaje de Barrancas from Argentina, a deep, firm wine amazing with the various pieces of great meat we ‘njoyed… last time i was there, Debbie surprised me with a lovely dessert wine and she served this one on the house, just for us! u gotta love her…
and look at this: what better way to re-celebrate your birthday?!
and then i thought, why not combine business with pleasure?
so i bought a crazy amount of chocolate (the purest, milk and white), other ingredients and a sillicone praline-mat and got busy…
first, i prepared a number of fillings, vanilla/custard filling with crunchy caramel, chocolate ganache with almond, marsipan/white chocolate and my special caramel fudge. after having melted the chocolate “in the bath of mary”, i swirled the chocolate around in the mould, until it stuck to all sides. after having let it cool in the freezer, i put in the fillings and coated it with chocolate again. back in the freezer! i did this with all three types of chocolate and finally decorated a little with some white and milk chocolate glaze…
i think the result is pretty funky, and better yet…
i promised.
i did…
to put these things in a post.
so here it is.
the sushi-post…
let me describe what i use, but remember, experiment as much as possible to find different things and tastes. i like my sushi, like i like my jazz: fused and funky. i like to make something new, imagine tastes and most importantly, try stuff. sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. but the sushi always gets better in the end!
so you asked me to put the stuff on here, i made a post with ingredients, some descriptions and end-results of course, as ultimately food is only as good as it tastes!
apart from this, i like to use cream cheese. mayonnaise is used for some types of sushi, but as i love the freshness and lightness of the sushi, i don’t like mayonnaise so much, as it makes the sushi too fatty to my taste. that’s why i use plain cream cheese…
in my opinion there’s nothing to making sushi. it’s all about the ingredients and the rice…
the best and freshest ingredients is the trick… so i love to buy the stuff before at the market (fishies and veggies) and in some great toko’s or
oriental supermarkets (usually in 010)… and when you have the ingredients, start with the rice (obviously ;-/ ).
you have to wash the rice as thoroughly as possible, until no starch comes from the rice anymore or when your hands turn blue from the water, one or the other…
seriously, when you stir the rice, the water should remain completely clean and transparent. loose the water and take new water in 1,5 to 1 division to the rice, so about 750 ml to 500 gr of rice.
then, i leave the rice for about 30 minutes in the cold water and after that, i put it to boil. when it boils, i turn down the fire almost completely and leave it to cook slowely for about 10 minutes until all of the water is gone. turn the fire off and leave the rice for about 10 minutes with the lid on the pan.
while cooking the rice i prepare the mixture that makes the rice so typically sushi-fresh afterwards with 175 ml of rice vinegar, 2 tablespoons of sugar and a little salt. heat the mixture until all of the sugar is absorbed by the vinegar… put the rice in a big shallow bowl to cool down, pour the mixture over the rice evenly and leave it to cool off with a towel over it for example. now, the rice should be really cooled down, before you use it for the sushi, as the nori will turn soft when it is too hot…
now we’re gonna cut and mix some stuff. first of all, i always love to buy salmon with the skin. cut the skin off, including that little whitish fatty layer. two reasons for this: you keep the leanest part of the salmon for the maki or nigiri and you use the skin to fry. this will become amazingly crunchy, which i love for the temaki’s (handrolls).
second, we’re gonna make a lovely mix for tuna tataki (tartare) to use in an uramaki (inside out roll) and to make some tuna tataki pyramids. cut the tuna (not all of it; we also love to use some for a lovely spicy tuna futo maki!), really small and mix it with some roasted sesame seeds, some cream cheese, a little salt and some wasabi paste… this is an amazingly fresh/spicy combination!
for the nigiri mainly, but i also love to use it as strips in a futomaki, i make tamago (omelet). mix 2 teaspoons of mirin or sake with 50 gr sugar, 2 teaspoons of light soy sauce with 4 eggs. take a (preferably) square frying pan, heat some vegetable oil and pour a first thin layer of the mixture in the pan on a low fire. when this layer is cooked at the bottom, take a spatula and fold the omelet to a third. pour more of the mixture in the pan and repeat the procedure until the mixture is gone and you have a thick brick-shaped omelet.
so now that the rice and the extras are done, we’re ready for the creative stuff!
let’s first make some futomaki (thick roll), a roll with nori on the outside and a thick layer of rice and filling of choice. first, put down a layer of nori on the sushi bamboo mat. then, wet your hands and grab some rice and spread it out over the nori not making the layer thicker than about 5 mm (to my taste), leaving about 1,5 cm open at the top of the nori. now put the filling you like at about 1/3 rd of the nori at the bottom (feel free to experiment with putting parts of the filling at different parts of the nori, this gives a great visual effect!)… in this case i used a strip of tamago, salmon and avocado and some sesame seeds over it… but i love tuna with cucumber, some cream cheese and tabasco, mmmmm… roll the maki from the bottom to a nice roll. finally, cut the roll in 8 pieces.
second, let’s make an uramaki (inside out roll), a roll with nori on the inside and rice on the outside. before you start, rip a piece of plastic wrap, big enough for covering the nori, which we’ll use later. put the rice on a sheet of nori like above, but don’t leave any space open. now put a line of fisheggs, sesame seeds (i used wasabi flavoured ones here) or any combination of them on the rice. then put the plastic wrap over the rice, put one hand on it and put one hand under the bamboo mat and turn it around. put the bamboo mat under the plastic wrap so that the nori is upwards facing. put the filling you want on the nori. i love the tuna tataki for this… then roll the maki, while making sure the plastic wrap is pulled out of the roll. again cut the roll in 8 pieces.
next are the hot rolls. this is a kind of different type. take two sheets of filo dough and put them on the bamboo mat. just put the filling of your choice on the dough. use fatty types of fish as this roll will be fried in vegetable oil and a leaner type will loose it’s flavour. i love red gurnard or salmon with crabsticks, cream cheese and cucumber (in this case). roll the dough and cut them into 8 pieces. then heat a big amount of vegetable oil in a wok and deep fry the pieces until they’re golden brown.
for the nigiri and the gunkan-maki (battleship roll) you make a layer of rice on a cutting board, for the former of about 1 cm thick in a rectangular shape, for the latter also about 1 cm thick in a small (<2,5 cm in diameter) oval shape. for the nigiri, put a piece of tamago or (my favourite) unagi (smoked eel) on it. cut a strip of nori of about 1 cm to wrap around the piece. for the gunkan-maki fold a piece of nori around the oval shape creating a kind of cup. in the cup you can put the ingredients you like; i used some cream cheese, put some mahi mahi on it, a small strip of anchovy paste, crabstick and some salmon eggs on top…
lastly, i made the temaki (handroll). for this, cut the nori in half (or 2/3 rd if you want a bigger temaki). put some rice only on the top half of the nori. then put the ingredients from the left top corner diagonally to the right bottom corner of the rice. i absolutely adore the temaki with fried crispy salmon skin, some cream cheese, cucumber and tabasco, finishing it with a tempura shrimp on top, hmmmmmm… the tempura shrimp by the way, is made with a special tempura paste and fried in vegetable oil…
yeah, I know, it’s almost christmas again, i’m a little late, but i just didn’t take the time to put the visuals of our family christmas dinner on here…
it is always great to be together with my family. and that may sound a little pretentious, but it is a fact. mainly, because in my family nothing is obligatory, everything’s allowed. be yourself, enjoy, talk, share, drink and most importantly, eat. sometimes i think somewhere in my family there must be some mediterranean or latin blood. it really doesn’t matter when you drop in, the remark usually is: “i don’t have too much in the fridge, but i will whip up something” and the result is usually an amazing dinner, where you are “full all day” (to quote ms Jill Scott – Experience 826)…
so even though the house of my parents is anything but small, we always sit at the dinner table on about 20 m2 and the grlz have the freedom to do anything they want with regards to playing, drawing, painting and other manual crafts… the dinner table is the playing ground of the older people and usually the loveliest, heaviest, political, spiritual discussions are dealt with, especially as we all like to talk. basically.
so at christmas time no one goes home, stays over and thus is loose.
our hostess and me did the cooking and it was so much fun again! this was the menu:
amuse were spicy northsea shrimp in a mango mayonaise
terrine of smoked salmon filled with wild lettuce and goat cheese
home made suppa di pomodori of homegrown pomodori
crisp cray fish in a gorgonzola/pear dip
spoom of lemon sorbet with pink champagne jelly
slowly oven baked filet mignon with sugar snaps, wine smuthered pears and wild mushrooms
chocolate tiramisu pie
espressi and latte machiato for my gorgeous sister-in-law
obviously, it took us a while to recover from this feast. but with some more espressi and great cognac, whiskey and 43 we managed.
at around 4:30 in the morning. at the kitchen table.
booking this beautiful, yet simple hotel for it’s locational characteristics already was a smart move. Hotel-chalet La Balme is an amazing little hotel with fantastically friendly people and a great atmosphere, but again, to be honest, rooms are simple and small. however, now we have figured out what the second basic asset is about this hotel, the restaurant. from all around the region, people come to the restaurant to enjoy some sophisticated cuisine! and rightfully so!
where we didn’t think the restaurants were all that bad (go to L’Avalanche for example), they generally have traditional regional cooking; which is perfect if you plan on going hiking for 6 days straight without any hot food and you want to hoard in advance! but la balme has an amazing cuisine, where we both had the salmon tartare (in the mountains, I know! but so fresh!), bro had the entrecote and I had the risotto the Saint-Jacques au Beaufort des Arves (amazing risotto with scallops)… bro took the chocolate and I the souffle au genepi (a kind of parfait type dessert with fruits)… we had a blast!
and the best thing obviously, is that you don’t have to drive home!!! )
4th day, sun again! it is almost starting to become annoying, but not just yet! on sundaynight we go back to L’Avalanche restaurant and have something small. monday, our last day, as expected it is clouded with snow,
which is not a luxury, as some parts are becoming pretty icy. we go up the mountains and have a blast on the off-slopes, where the snow is A-MA-ZING! I also particularly like the view from up above, when you look at those blankets of clouds…
getting back to the hotel at the end of the day, we grab our things, get some final things and regretfully move back home, as I have to get back to work on tuesday again (having landed a major project just before we left!!!)… we have a great trip and drive back in about 9,5 hours…
We’ll probably get back next year, but bring everyone then… until next time…
I know it’s a little late. And no, it is not because it took me a while to recover…
although it was a beautiful week of friendship, family, expectations and a lot… a lot of food and drink (actually, it did take me a while to recover)…
I worked until the afternoon of 24th and started preparing for an undoubtedly amazing friends-xmas that we try to maintain a tradition. As always, everyone prepares and brigns a little something, that surprisingly creates an abundance of food… (how can that happen?!)
The kidz almost immediately started having fun and we gathered around the cooking island Sylvia and Paul have in their kitchen. With their characteristic clairvoyance, Sylvia and Paul had gathered an immense quantity of Prosecco, which all of us courageously challenged and overcame. All of those cute little blue bottles bit the dust eventually…
And we ate! Oh, how we ate, we had salmon wraps with cream cheese, crostinis with chicken curry, a salmon terrine with goat cheese and avocado, a spoom of champagne-jelly and ice-cream, lamb-racks with sesame seeds, small bowls with beef stew, scallopina filled with gorgonzola and sundriedtomato/pesto paste rolled in prosciutto crudo and as a dessert we had oven-baked pear with honey and oatmeal and ice-cream… and the point is, obviously everyone tries to make sure they make enough for all, so there is enough for all… more than enough.
Finally, even though my idea of a white christmas still is 100 cm of snow outside, because of which you have no choice but to stay inside and drink gluhwein, we came pretty damn close… Leaving in the middle of the night, walking home through the snow, throwing a couple of snowballs and totally missing christmas morning …
just last week, when I had my NMU-students over for some typical dutch dinner (no, not at 5 o’clock, but yes stews!), I love their questions about Holland. It forces you to think about dutch culture and tradition, our do’s and dont’s, our peculiarities, in short about yourself .
I always like to invite the (foreign) students of the DMS and the NMU at my place. I studied abroad myself and obviously it was hard work, but hard work can be done anywhere! The beauty is, that you are in a different country with different people. That is what made it amazing for me… So I want to enhance the experience, so to speak…
And yes, I know I have been bragging about my sushi lately, but this time I thought it would be much nicer to prepare them something dutch. So I made a couple of stews, one with potatoes and raw endive and the other one with cow cabbage (cooked) both with and without bacon bits… Meatwise, we had meatballs, smuthered meat and smoked sausage…
So as we had dinner, we talked about all of those dutch things, obviously I don’t escape the question “So what’s the deal with drugs in this country?” and I succeeded in avoiding the answer, that I actually don’t have a clue myself (which is more of a theoretical instead of a practical one)… Why do we eat these kind of stews traditionally? We talked about the positive and less positive things about Holland and I love all of these discussions…
Today, just going for some groceries, I saw something very dutch (at least I recognise as such)… We even have a proverb for this: “sweeping your own little street clean”… Funny to see it so very literally…
and loving the idea of going to a korean restaurant just before going to korea, we were gonna go to that specific restaurant, until we discovered that one was gone… hm… so we looked for a restaurant in 010 to go to and ended up at Azzia…
