Autumn caviar and confit de canard

This early autumn I visited Nel Schellekens’ open day at the Keunenhuis once more. I tasted Papeda made by two ladies from Indonesia. Papeda is basically a starchy congee made from sago starch. They claimed they could not buy sago starch so they used potato starch instead. It is usually eaten with a turmeric fish broth and the ladies made a mackerel and cuttlefish broth to choose from. I asked if they used any rawit at all and they said no. “Too spicy for Dutch people” I was disappointed. I also didn’t taste any complex flavours. But as far as I can see you can buy all ingredients for Ikan Kuah Kuning in The Netherlands. They gave me half a raw lombok to nibble on. But soon my attention was focused on the Achterhoekse caviar.

Small agricultural farms are economically difficult to sustain in The Netherlands. So, a farmer in Laren started to farm eels in 1999. But the investments were too high and in 2013 they switched to farming Russian sturgeon and Siberian sturgeon. They sell both the fish meat and caviar. For € 9,00 I bought a small plate with potato salad, sturgeon filet and a spoon of caviar. Pretty nice. The next time I want to spoil myself I know I can buy a can of caviar made locally. They even sell ossetra and this will cost less than € 30 for a 20 gram can.

Siberian sturgeon

Orléans

A few days later my work brought me to Orléans in France. I had never been there before. In medieval France a city could thank its existence to a bridge over a dangerous river. Orléans is no exception. Jeanne d'Arc helped lift a siege during the Hundred Years' War and the city prospered afterwards, partly due to its proximity to Paris.

The Basilique Cathédrale Sainte-Croix d'Orléans is not that old. Even though there was a medieval cathedral on this location, construction of the current building started in 1601 and was only finished in 1829.

The first night we arrived too late for dinner in the city center, but the second night we visited Le Brin de Zinc on 62-64 Rue Sainte-Catherine. This is a small restaurant in bistro style. I ordered the confit de canard with a glass of red wine. I have to say. It was simple, but very, very tasty. We forgot to order crudités as we should have, but earlier we drank a half liter glass of ice cold beer. Beer as an entrée, who cares?

I once made confit de canard at home and it was quite expensive because I had to buy a lot of duck fat.

Aalbessen (red currant)

As long as I can remember we had bushes of Ribes rubrum in our back garden. Red currant is native to The Netherlands. For me there is only one way to eat them, in plain yoghurt. Never with added sugar. 100 grams of red currant is almost half the recommended %DV for vitamin C.

Gemberkoekjes

I don’t bake cookies often but this typical cookie deserves a mention. It’s a very basic cookie with candied ginger on top. It's typical of Amsterdam and likely of Jewish origin.

My upstairs neighbour is well into her nineties. She’s been my neighbour since 1993 when I moved in. She still bakes gemberkoekjes. A few months ago the smoke alarm went off and when I went upstairs, she was baking cookies and forgot the oven. Her kitchen was filled with smoke but the gemberkoekjes were fine. She gave me some cookies to take home. That moment I vowed to bake those cookies myself and keep baking them.

My neighbour Emmy Mechanicus is the embodiment of the history of my “Waterlooplein” neighbourhood, which was the Jewish quarter. Her mother immigrated from Germany in the 1920s and worked as a maid. Her father was Jewish, although not religious. According to the Mishnah she is not considered Jewish and that probably saved her and hew sister during the war. Her father spent some time in Westerbork but returned to Amsterdam and laid low during the war. The family survived.

Her brother is the well-known photographer Philip Mechanicus who passed away in 2005.

Unfinished time line. Emmy Mechanicus passed away on 2 May 2021 at the age of 97.

The recipe below (in Dutch) is by pâtissier Cees Holtkamp.

The food-writer and anthropologist Claudia Roden doesn’t mention “gemberkoekjes” in her The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand and Vilna to the Present Day (1996) but does give a recipe for Joodse Boterkoeke with 75 gram of candied ginger mixed into the dough as a variation.

From 3 November 1942 the Waterlooplein market was one of the four markets where only Jewish people could trade and buy.

INGREDIËNTEN EN BEREIDING

(voor 40 tot 50 koekjes)

200 g zachte boter
125 g witte basterdsuiker
1 eetl. vanillesuiker (zelfgemaakt of uit een zakje)
3 g zout
250 g Zeeuwse bloem (bevat minder glutenvormende eiwitten)
1 ei plus 1 dooier, losgeklopt
200 g gekonfijte gember, uitgelekt (het uitlekgewicht van een potje van 240 g is ongeveer 125 g)
50 g suiker

1. Meng boter, suiker en zout met de kneedhaken van een mixer. Voeg op het laatst de bloem toe tot je een los, kruimelig deeg krijgt. Kneed dat met de hand tot een samenhangend deeg. Teveel bloem en het deeg blijft kruimelig.

2. Laat het deeg ongeveer 1 uur ingepakt in plastic folie in de koelkast rusten.

3. Rol het deeg uit tot een vierkante plak van 21 bij 21 centimeter en 5 millimeter dik. Bestrijk de bovenkant met het losgeklopte ei. Verdeel daarna de gember er in een dikke laag overheen. Bestrooi met suiker.

4. Leg het deeg nog even in de koelkast om op te stijven (dat snijdt gemakkelijker). Snijd de koek daarna met een natgemaakt mes (anders blijft de gember aan het mes kleven) in vierkantjes van 3 bij 3 centimeter.

5. Verwarm de oven voor op 170 graden (zonder luchtcirculatie 15 graden hoger). Leg de koekjes op een met bakpapier beklede bakplaat. Bak ze in ongeveer 10-15 minuten goudbruin.

Hazenpeper

Hazenpeper is made of two words: haas (English: hare) and peper (English: pepper). Peper refers to peperkoek, which is a spiced cake with the following ingredients: rye, cloves, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. Side note: peperkoek is nowadays called ontbijtkoek.

But peperkoek is just a minor ingredient, hazenpeper is a hunter’s stew made from hare, vegetables and red wine.

First you have the marinate the hare for 24 to 48 hours. Traditionally hazenpeper is made of the front legs (voorlopers) of the hare.

The marinate
Dice: onion, carrot, celery; add crushed garlic, cloves, freshly ground black pepper, juniper berries, bay leaf, fresh thyme, fresh tarragon, fresh chervil, 2 tables spoons of apple vinegar and add enough red wine to cover the meat. Marinate for at least 24 hours.

The next day
Separate the meat from the marinate and run the marinate through a sieve. Keep the wine separate from the vegetables and herbs. Dry the meat with kitchen paper and rub the meat with salt and black pepper.

Fry the meat in hot butter until brown. Take the meat out of the frying pan and add cubed streaky bacon. Fry until crispy. Add the vegetables and fry for a couple of minutes. Add some brandy/cognac, give it a quick stir and add the marinate to the pan and some stock (fond) made of game. Put the fried meat back into the pan and simmer until the meat falls off the bone. Take the meat out and pluck the meat from the bones.

Puree or mash the remaining sauce, but not too fine. Just don’t use an electric blender. Add two slices of peperkoek, a tablespoon of jam and put the meat back in the pan without the bones. If you have any, at this point you would add some hare’s blood and liver to bind the sauce. In a separate pan fry silverskin onions and mushrooms in butter, add these in last. If you don’t use blood you can dust some flower over the mushrooms and butter to bind the sauce. If you can’t get silverskin onion, you can use the pickled version (wash some of the sour taste off). Simmer for another half hour until the peperkoek has dissolved. Let it rest for another 24 hours before serving.

Snert

You will need:

500 gram split peas.
A piece of pork hock or ham hock [Dutch: hamschijf], about 500 gram, or two pig's trotters. Note: hamschijf is neither smoked nor cured.
100 gram streaky bacon [Dutch: zuurkoolspek], salted but not smoked, preferrably with rind.
One smoked sausage [Dutch: rookworst].
2 large onions, chopped.
1 large carrot.
2 leeks.
1 celeriac [Dutch: knolselderie].
2 potatoes.
1 bunch of fresh leaf celery.
Black pepper and salt according to taste.
2 litres of water to start with.

Serve with Rye bread ('pumpernickel') and slices of 'katenspek' (lightly streaked pork, first boiled and then smoked black).

How to make split pea soup

Start the day before. Wash the split peas, add 2 litres of water and bring to a boil adding the meat, excluding the 'rookworst'. Remove the thick layer of foam, which will form. Discard the water. Add clean water and bring to a boil again.

Cut the celeriac, onion and potato in small cubes; the carrot in 'half moons'. Cut the leeks 'cross wise', like a feather stick. Add all vegetables (but not the leaf celery) and simmer for 1,5 tot 3 hours.

Remove the meat and cut in small pieces and remove the bones. Pork hock contains an amazing amount of fatty skin. Perfect for an hungry 19th century farmer, maybe not so great for a 21st century city dweller. Discard some of the fat. Return the boiled meat to the pot.

Add the 'rookworst' and a handful of chopped leaf celery. Season with salt and pepper and leave overnight.