Last time my brother visited Holland for a week I asked him, multiple times, to bring some Spanish jamon (ham) for me. Ever since my time in Barcelona, where I learned to eat the really good jamon, I had missed the “real thing”… Sal has had to put up with me a couple of times when we visited a Spanish restaurant and I kept complaining there jamon wasn’t real jamon, but some weird thick Parma-ham of some kind… Very disappointing after getting used to the good stuff! :-) So was the present from my brother last time! Instead of giving in to my wishes (freshly cut and thin!!!! Very important to have it thin!!) he went to the Corte Ingles and bought the pre-packed jamon… The same stuff I can buy here in the supermarket!!!

As I expected the good stuff, I was very disappointed… so disappointed I wasn’t trying to hide it… I looked the gift horse far in the mouth and complained quite a lot! :-) I know the thought was sweet, and that I very much appreciated, BUT!!! my complaining did help a bit! Because this morning, when I got out of bed at 0630 to get ready to go to work, I passed the kitchen and there it was!!! A whole ham!!!! I knew my brother had come home last night, and I did ask him again to bring the good stuff, and pushed by his lovely girlfriend Ana, he they brought a whole ham!!! With cutting-board (jamonera) and knife and all! :-)

Last night he told the story and it turned out he was planning to bring it already even before I had asked for it! Very sweet!! And the ham is great!!! Even though it’s not jamon-season (as apparently that is around Christmas) it’s still a yummy one! And having to go through 6 kilo’s of jamon will keep the whole family busy! ;-)

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A wonderful dish! Simple, but so yummy! Fry up some mushrooms, red pepper and semi dried tomatoes, add some couscous and serve it with a piece of fish on it! Mmmmm… very nice! Introduced to me by Pip and/or Sal in Australia. Can’t remember who made it… I bet they both make a great one! ;-) But I do remember it was very nice!

So when I made it yesterday on Sal’s tip, it was indeed a great success! But we got very, very close to ordering take-away! The couscous had to be cooked for just a minute, and as my mum and dad don’t own a good strain, I thought to do it the old fashion way… just lit on the pan, open it a millimeter, and let the water run out… A good plan, a very poor performance…

Till about half way through the plan worked fine… the oven mits I was wearing were getting kinda wet, but I was hanging in there… then the lid slipped, and nothing else was heard but a great loud swear of yours truly… F#CK!!!!!!! The lid had slipped, the hot water burned my hands and more important, half of the couscous lay in the sink… ARGGGG!!! What now…

Well, there were not many options, so I went in to recover it and put it back in the pan! :-) Yes, maybe a bit disgusting, but it did help, in my defense, that the sink was clean at that point. Pfff… Thank god! So the couscous returned to the pan, got mixed up with the veggies, covered by the salmon, and just moments later: YUMMY! Definitely going to give this recipe another try, hopefully without mixing it up with the sink! :-)

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It was definitely a struggle, but I made! :-) We already knew it could be done, but now I also finally managed to finish the triple! Not that heroic, on probably the 10th attempt or so, with a smaller “soes” then normal and without eating all the chocolate sauce of my plate… so officially it might not even count as a successful attempt, but I still feel as proud as ever I got so far!

OK, you don’t feel very nice afterwards, as eating the last half to 1/3 of the soes is just on character. That has clearly nothing to do with “enjoying a lovely meal”… With jalousie I was looking at Bastiaan, stopping at 2/3 of the soes and leaving the rest as it was. He finished the triple last time, so he had nothing left to prove! :-) *HAHAHA*

Can’t wait to go back there again and feel the same! Been there, done that, so probably not going to push my stomach that far soon again! There is nothing left to prove! ;-)

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The last weekend before going back to Holland Sally and I stayed in a hotel on Manly Beach in Sydney. A lovely location and with the ferry from Manly just a short and nice “ride” to the city centre, ending at Circular Quay, right between the Harbour Bridge and the Opera house. Easy as anything.

On Friday evening we ended up having dinner at a grill restaurant (can’t remember the name… “Something” Grill…) at the waterside with a view on the Harbour Bridge on the left and the Opera house on the right. Lovely spot for a nice dinner. And a nice dinner it was! I finally got to try some Kangaroo and Crocodile! After trying a barramundi in Port Douglas (really, really nice fish!!) those to were left on the list to try and didn’t think I would do so before leaving but when the opportunity came by at the grill restaurant I had to make a stand! Kangaroo and Crocodile it would be! :-)

And I did not get disappointed at all! They were both jammie. The Kangaroo very nice and tender, the croc … well… like a weird tasted chicken… :-) but nice as well! Still enjoying the moment a guy appeared on the terrace we were sitting, with a little flute and started playing a birthday song for the table next to us. We just smiled and thought the guy belonged to the restaurant and was just being funny on request… little did we know! Moments later he appeared at our table playing some annoying song! Leaving us feeling quite uncomfortable, but luckily after he played a bit a waiter came and asked the man to please leave the restaurant terrace…

And little we knew indeed! Because when the guy left and we saw that there were people with camera’s, Sal figured out the guy was from a ABC TV show called “The chaser’s war on everything“, and was just recording a little bit for next weeks show… And yes! We made the show! *LOL* well… made it… click here to see our 7 seconds of fame! (7.9 MB, © ABC TV). And you have to look carefully, because I am hard to spot, but Sal is quite obviously looking away in disgust! ;-)

[Ok, I will help a bit… it’s us between 0:57 and 1:04!]

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On one of my last days in Canberra, we felt like eating out and while driving through “the strip” at the shops in downtown Dickson we passed an Ethiopian restaurant and both being hungry we thought: “Why not! :-)”. And so it happened. We walked in, found a table and were ready to be surprised! We both never tried Ethiopian food before, so a true surprised it would be.

And a surprise it was. A very pleasant surprise! As with most countries in the world I would have no idea what people in Ethiopia eat on a normal day. So I tossed the menu card aside quite quickly. No point in looking for something, when you don’t know what to look for. As always in restaurants with an exotic cuisine, it’s best to ask the waiter. He suggested the combination plate. A little of everything, always a brilliant way to discover an unknown cuisine. Good choice. “For 2 please! :-)”.

As I already gave away by telling you it was a pleasant surprise, yes, the food was great! Bit of an Indian meets Asian, Middle East and Southern Europe kinda mix. As you can tell, it’s hard to describe… Guess the best way to describe it is by telling what it is: Ethiopian. ;-)

Anyway, if you are in Canberra, and ready to try something new and exciting, give this place a visit! It’s great food at a very reasonable price! And when you do go there, try it with an Ethiopian beer like I did, good stuff! :-)

Fekerte’s Ethiopian cuisine
74/2 Cape street
Dickson, ACT 2602
Australia
Telephone: +61 (02) 6262 5799
Internet: No… or at least unfindable!

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Even before starting on the pea soup, Australia had already met another Dutch (??) tradition: apple pie! After a failed bake-off in Holland (Bastiaan had to withdraw from the competition) my apple pie submission was still received with great smiles and demanded a re-try Down Under.

And the re-try wasn’t just because it was nice, it was also to put the sultanas back in the apple pie! Sal’s good friend Robin (the Girl Wonder!) had for questionable reasons removed the sultanas from her apple pie… “A bloody shame!”, I hear you think. Indeed. So it was time to bake her one with sultanas and show her where the sultanas belong! :-)

It wasn’t that hard to find all the right ingredients, except for one, and unfortunately the most important one… the right apples. If you ask anyone in Holland what apple goes in an apple pie, the answer will be unanimous: “De goudrenet!!”. But although they offer quite a wide selection of apples in Australia, the “goldrenet” is not one of them… So I was forced to bake my apple pie in Australia with the sourish apple they got… the Granny Smith… Not half as sour as the goldrenet, but I had no other options…

I did add some more lemon juice to make it a bit more sour, but even so, you could still taste the difference from an apple pie with the right apples. But even so, the result wasn’t bad at all! Ok, pushed by the circumstances, I did try to serve the apple pie a bit to fast and hot, after just being out of the oven for 10 minutes, so the presentation was quite bad… but luckily the taste and smell were still enough to make the people smile! :-)

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Last “Dutch” winter I wrote about a great Dutch winter tradition: pea soup. Much earlier then expected I am eating it again! Never thought I would ever eat pea soup in July, but as I find myself now in “Australian” winter, the time was right to give Australia a taste of Dutch tradition! :-)

Although that did sound a bit easier then it actually turned out to be… My mamma was so sweet to email me the recipe, but finding all the right ingredients proved to be a little challenge, but thanks to Australian deli’s we were able to find almost all the ingredients! Even a Dutch smoked sausage, although not from Unox.

The trick of letting the soup “sit” overnight with the lid half on the pan worked wonderful and my joy was so great when the next morning the big wooden spoon stood up proudly straight in the pan! Yet my disappointment was so much bigger when I tried to heat up a bit at lunch time and it became a very thin soup… that was not good! Pea soup needs to be thick… Again, my sweet mamma saved the day by telling me to add more split peas… so I did and so it became a success after all! And just as important: People seemed to like it! :-)

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The triple. We never thought it was possible… We tried. We failed. We tried again. We failed again. But since Saturday evening we know it can be done!! Sally came all the way from Down Under, to dust of Julius Caesar’ famous “Veni, vidi, vici”; She came, saw and conquered like only Julius was able to do in his good days. Hope I am allowed to say Julius… even though I didn’t shoot marbles with him! ;-)

The triple is for us the ultimate meal at the Resident, and contains the following:

Bastiaan and I tried to follow in Sally’s determined lead (I even finished the Spare Ribs in record time!!) but yet again stranded halfway through the Soes… I guess we just miss that Australian determination to make it to the end… And making it even more impressive was the fact that Sally ate more then half of her salad along the way! Where we got the evil eye from the waitress for only eating one slice of cucumber and not touching the rest of the salad! :-)

For all of you sportfans out there who now feel comfortable, and think about giving it a try, be careful!! Although it has been proven it can be done, that doesn’t mean it’s easy! Even Sally was struggling through the last bites of the soes and didn’t feel her best after dinner… But again, nothing but respect for this Ozzie Ace! After that performance I even guess she had the right to call me a pathetic wuss for not finishing my soes! ;-)

A proud Ozzie chick!

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The day after the volcano trip was set for a wine-tasting experience. Magnus’ girlfriend Marta had made a reservation for us at the Torres wineries, the biggest wine producer in Catalunya. It was just a short drive south of Barcelona, through lot’s of wineries to the small town of Vilafranca del Penedés. Just outside of that town, in the middle of many vineyards is the Torres visiting centre.

When we arrived at the visiting centre it turned out we were a bit late but that turned out ok, as now we got a pretty girl to guide the 3 of us. The private tour started with a little 15 minute movie about the history of Torres family, their wines and some general stuff about wine making. After the movie we went into a strange tunnel where they had some high-tech smelling machine. They projected the different times for the wine on the wall and the machine sorted out the correct smell. So spring would show an image of a winery in blossom and the machine would spray out some blossom odour, so it was like we could smell the blossoms. Nice thing, but the projecting of the images on the wall was so bad, it was hard to follow the show…

After the indoor part, we went out and in a little van that drove us around the winery, with the girl explaining what things were and what they were for. We visited the fabric, where the big grape processing tanks are and the cellars where the wine was riping in the oak barrels.

The tour ended inside where we were actually going to taste some wines. We didn’t get further then the basic spinning of the wine in the glass, smelling it (trying to guess what we were smelling) and after rolling it a bit around in our mouth, drinking it. Strange or not, but the rosé we got to taste (Torres De Casta) was really nice! After that one, we tried 3 different glasses (the first glass of rosé was for free, the 3 extra glasses 10 euro in total) and were spinning and smelling like we did it for a living! :-)

Even though I still don’t know much about wine, it was great fun to have a day like this. Just very relaxing, having fun and drinking good wine! Lovely! :-)

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Clove. Or in Dutch: kruidnagel, in Swedish: kryddnejlika and Danish: kryddernellike. It appeared in my recipe for stewed cinnamon pears. Clove. A word that makes me think of the Dutch Golden Age, back in the 17th century. Holland ruled the world and spices were brought back to Holland to sell with great profit. Clove. Worth a fortune back then, but do we still use this?? And how does it taste? And where do you actually get it?

Well, the last answer should be easy: the spices section in the supermarket. I wish it was. I think I stood there frozen for about 5 minutes. First the quick scan: clove, clove, clove… no clove. Then the bit slower scan: clove… clove… clove… Arggg!! Still no clove. Where is this stupid clove! Ok, one by one… Damn there is a lot of spices… The other people shopping must have thought I was hypnotized by the spices. Last one… no clove. Oi… Did it miss it? Well, I am not going through them one by one again! Screw the clove!! ;-)

Lack of time… yes, seriously… prevented me from searching in more shops for the clove. The pears had to stew for at least 3 and a half hours, so it was all (without the clove) or nothing if I wanted to eat the stewed pears that evening. And to be honest, I don’t think it mattered that much. Or I would be surprised if it did. As the stewed cinnamon pears, made without clove, turned into a lovely desert! Served with some ice-cream and some sauce the pears where stewed in; Jammie! Maybe even more “Jammie” with the cloves next time! :-)

Stewed cinnamon pears with ice-cream

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As winter is approaching… well… approaching… with the 20 degrees from last week the weather was as good as during the summer, so it seems and feels like winter should actually be far away, even though the calendar keeps telling a different story… Well, either way, it’s getting time again for a Dutch winter tradition: pea soup.

Today, still early November, was the first try! And what a successful try! Helped by the somewhat sad, cold and rainy weather the setting was quite good for a pea soup lunch. Served the old school way with rye bread and some smoked bacon! Just briljant!! :-)

I guess what makes it so good is also the fact I never eat this until winter time. And even then it’s quite rare. So not eating it much makes it kinda special. Well, at least to me! ;-)

Oh, and for you out there who wonder what is in it, it’s made out of: split green peas, ham on a bone (bone is removed later), celeriac, leek, soup veggies, some more stuff (unfortunately I don’t know the recipe by heart…) and one of the most important ingredients: the Unox smoked sausage! And never be shy when adding the Unox sausage! An extra one doesn’t hurt anyone! ;-)

Traditional Dutch pea soup

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“Brøndbys pølsemand, er Lyngbys gamle pølsemand og de har Danmarks bedste pølser!”

Something you always wanted to know right? For you who don’t read or understand Danish, it states that: Brøndbys sausage man, is the old Lyngby sausage man and he has the best sausages in Denmark.
I learned something new in Danish. Besides quite a variety of random swears, the ability to say “shut up” in many ways, and to make comments about a girls pretty eyes or butt, I can say something new! :-)

Amazing story actually. The Lyngby football team had some financial problems in the 2001/2002 season and was put down to a lower division. But Lyngby was not only known for their football, but also for their sausages! Their legendary sausages were known to be the best in the country! So after Lyngby went to the lower divisions, Brøndby saw their chance and bought Lyngbys sausage man! No idea how much they paid… but I guess Denmarks best sausage man couldn’t have been cheap! :-)

Lovely football transfer! Still fail to see when I will find myself in a situation to actually use the sentence, but well… you never know when it will come in handy! ;-)

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Not sure if this Dutch expression translates directly to English… but well, it sounds good so why not! And indeed “on my toothflesh” I have reached the end of the week. My mamma is quite loyal to following a diet for the last couple of weeks. A diet that runs from Monday to Friday and a “free-for-all” weekend. Last Monday I decided to join her for this week. Mainly to see how far I would get and if I could hold on for a whole week. And if the side-effect was loosing some weight, I couldn’t be to sad about that either! ;-)

The diet is quite simple. Keep it easy on the bread. Some bread replaced by crackers. Fruit. Lot’s of fruit. Lot’s of veggies in the evening and keeping it easy on the potato’s. And water. Of course. So nothing major, quite a simple “diet”.

Well, Monday was quite easy. Highly motivated and possibly still benefiting from the big dinner on Sunday evening I cruised through the day. Tuesday was already a struggle. The lack of food was getting to me. Less bread and more fruit and veggies didn’t seem to fill me up for a very long time… Wednesday was a nightmare… the lack of food was getting to me… seriously. The empty feeling combined with small headaches every now and they were just far from pleasant… My mamma pulled me through with the wise words: your body just needs to get used to it… Well, if that was the fact, it better get used to it fast, as this was fun for nobody… And it actually did. Thursday was quite ok. Or at least much easier then the day before. Plus the thought of the weekend getting closer helped a lot there as well. Even more when I negotiated sushi into the diet on Thursday evening! I had no clue if it could fit in the diet, but my mamma got convinced from terms as “healthy”, “not fat” and “just veggies and fresh fish”.

So today was sushi day. I never tried to make sushi myself. When I was working in Stockholm, I often went for sushi and always thought it should be quite easy to make it yourself… well… it’s not rocket science, but it takes time. Or let me rephrase: it takes me quite some time. Making the sticky rice went surprisingly well, but actually building the sushi pieces and roles was quite time consuming. Plus I am not a true hero yet in making nice and round roles… But either way, the result with some soy sauce and wasabi was lovely!

Lovely sushi!

So all in all I struggled through the week and barely made it, or made it “on the toothflesh” as we would say. Although after the sushi dinner from tonight it will be just cruising to the finish line! Or does the weekend officially start Friday afternoon? ;-)

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Ever since I bought the grill pan on my trip to Denmark and Sweden this summer, I only got to cook with it twice… once in Denmark an hour after I bought it, and a couple of days after I got back to see if it would work in Holland as well. It did. And today it worked again! Not that amazing, but the result was very satisfying! I filled the chicken boob with pineapple and cheese and with the slightly marinated (ketjap, sweet chili sauce, little sambal) chicken it worked out briljant! Served with rice and some grilled veggies, a meal to remember! ;-)

Oh, just one little tip (or hint to remind myself when making this meal next time), try to keep the chicken boob as thin as possible… I kept it to thick, so it took forever to get the whole chicken “done”…

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And fresh not just for the salmon but fresh for the dish in general as well! Very fresh! So quite lovely on a warm summer day as today. I must say it was a bit of a gamble making this, as I searched for nice recipes with salmon, but couldn’t find any that pleased me enough to actually make it… So I kinda gathered some bits here and there from different recipes and made it into something I thought would taste well. And it did. There is still room for improvement on this one though. I went a bit to wild on the lemon skin, so next time I definitely need less of that and less cream as well. But for a first time it wasn’t bad at all! :-)

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