Category: food

The other day I got a quiche dish by Emile Henry. Emily Henry products are glazed earthenware for baking and cooking in the oven. They come in a range of bright colors with a white finish on the inside.

I find them really great for cooking in the oven. They are non-stick, easy to clean and do not mind ovens, microwaves, freezers or dishwashers. They have a nice, clean design and especially the red ones look great!

To try out the new dish, I made mushroom quiche. I put the recipe together from two recipes I found on Epicurious: Mushroom-Shallot Quiche and Madame Quiche’s Quiche au Fromage.

For quiche it’s important to get the right quantity of dough versus vegetables. Too much dough and the quiche gets dry and bland. Too little dough and it won’t get solid and becomes a mushy mess.

Here are my recommendations:

The pastry I buy directly from the deep-freeze department of the local store. It’s just easier.

For the dough, let’s start on the basis of three eggs, which will result in a quiche for 2 – 4 people. Then add 75ml of milk and 75ml of creme fraiche. So basically should have 25ml of milk and creme per egg. I find that quiche get a lot more flavor if you add the creme fraiche.

Then you want an even amount of vegetable (or other ingredients). So in my case I went for 225g. For this quiche I used 125g mushrooms and 100g cheddar cheese. I find cheddar cheese great for dishes made in the oven in combination with eggs. It adds a little sharp, spicy taste.

You will want to bake the quiche for about 40 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius. Then take it out of the oven and let it sit for about 5 minutes to solidify.

Simple, fun and tasty!

Here are the steps to follow:
1. Get deep-frozen pastry from store, let thaw for 1 hour
2. Put some oil in quiche dish, spread pastry to make bottom
3. Make dough – 1 egg, 25ml milk, 25ml creme fraiche per person
4. Prepare vegetables and cheese, 75g per person, stir fry mushrooms, grate cheese
5. Spread out vegetables in dish on top of pastry
6. Add cheese to dough and pour over vegetables
7. Cook for 40 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius
8. Let sit for 5 minutes

I love my global knives and use them a lot. Especially the GF-33 chef’s knife is in constant use and requires maintenance and sharpening.

The web site of Yoshikin, the manufacturer of global knifes, provides advice on maintenance. Sounds good in theory. But in reality it requires purchasing several ceramic sharpening whetstones; setting them up rather precariously on a wooden board as foundation, near the sink with water running for rinsing during sharpening; and finally meticulous sharpening technique to get the angle of the blade just right while sharpening.

Simply too difficult.

So instead I would bring my knife to the shop for sharpening about once every six months. This worked fine for me although I always thought it was expensive (EUR 10+), below expectations in sharpness and also meant not having my knife for at least a few days.

So I was quite happy when recently I discovered the minoSharp – a handy little tool specifcally made for sharpening global knives.

It has two ceramic whetstone wheels – a coarse and a medium one – mounted at exactly the right angle. You fill it with water which will rinse the whetstones wheels when they turn during sharpening. Simply draw the knife through the wheel seven or eight times and voila!

The minoSharp is super easy to use, less than 15cm large and also a good deal for about EUR 20!

I find starters the best every time I eat at an Indian restaurant. The bhaji, pakoras and samosas are often so good that I end up having too many of them and feeling somewhat full even before the main course. All the starters are delicious, but samosas – Indian, fried, triangular-shaped pastry with a spicy potato and veggie stuffing – are my favorite.

The other day I decided to try making my own samosas. At that time, I wasn’t really sure what I was getting myself into. But was pleasantly surprised to find out that samosas are actually quite easy to make. Most of the ingredients are easy to find and it took me less than an hour to make 8 super yummy samosas. The dough was made in minutes and the stuffing is very easy, consisting of only potatoes, veggies and spices. Folding and stuffing the samosas took a little trial and error, but proved quite doable. I definitely recommend trying it: they are super yummy and something you can impress your friends with!

One thing that helped greatly was watching a video of an expert doing it. I found two great ones on youtube, with expert Manjula – a lovely Indian lady with a cute accent – demonstrating all steps of making samosas. They are quite funny, but even more so instructive and spot on. I am including them below. The first video is 8:30 minutes and shows how to make the dough and the stuffing. Part 2 lasts 5:30 minutes. It starts with Manjula folding and stuffing the samosas and ends with the frying process.

I only made two changes, substituting corn starch for semolina flower (which I didn’t have in the house) and using broccoli rather than green peas (which I simply preferred).

The hard to understand ingredient is “garam masala”, a mix of spices that is used a lot in Indian dishes and good to have at home. Among many other spices it includes cumin, clovers, and cardamom. And I also made some tamarind sauce, by mixing tamarind paste with some water and sugar. You can get both garam masala and tamarind paste at your local toko or Indian / Asian store.

Oh, and in case things go wrong, here is a great place for Indian delivery. Just give Indian Express on Pieter Langedijkstraat, behind Overtoom, a quick call. And they will bring you some great samosas, bhaji and pakoras. And they will even be happy to bring a main course if you still feel like having one after all those super yummy starters.

marqt is a new type of supermarket that focuses on selling fresh and tasty food. It has gotten a lot of attention in the press and many of us have been eagerly awaiting the opening of the first store. From well-informed sources I have now heard that the first shop will open on Overtoom, near Leidseplein, in December.

The focus of traditional supermarkets like Albert Heijn is clearly on convenience (“new extended expiration date!”) and price (“price permanently reduced on another 3000 products”). And the recent trend towards biological food has been shamelessly exploited by above supermarkets and chains like De Natuurwinkel to offer food that is not much better but definitely more expensive.

I buy most of my groceries from the turkish store on the corner. Why? Because it’s *good* – good as in tasty; good as in fresh, savory ingredients that make all the difference in cooking; good as in flavors coming from fruits, vegetables, meat, spices and herbs rather than from some mass-produced ready-mix. In Amsterdam, every saturday morning, thousands of people flock to Noordermarkt for exactly the same reason. So I must not be the only one…

What is the secret behind *good* food? The Slow Food movement has seen substantial success in promoting *good* food. Slow Food was founded in 1989 to “counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world”. Slow Food members consider themselves “co-producers, not consumers”.

marqt’s concept is to focus on local products rather than mass production; to employ personnel that loves food and is knowlegeable about it rather than students in pursuit of extra cash; and to partner with the producers through revenue sharing.

I am sold and cannot give it a try as soon as the first marqt opens its doors to the lucky co-producers of Amsterdam!

For more info see:

• Article in De Telegraaf
• Portrait in Sprout Challenger 50
• Overview of marqt in the press