An Unexpected Meal For Two almost Thai’s Us Up In Knots…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

It often happens that one of our kids has a play date somewhere for a few hours but it’s fairly rare that both of them are out of the house at the same time.

If we arrange a babysitter it is because Himself and I have a special event to attend and so it’s even rarer  that we find ourselves without kids and no actual appointment to go to and a few free hours to ourselves.

Recently I took some annual leave and spent most of it organising kid stuff,  and helping out several family, friends and neighbours who required  sudden and urgent  help due to life throwing them some nasty and unexpected “curve balls” ( I use this phrase without knowing it’s exact meaning but I like the way it sounds). One suffered a cancer scare and needed an immediate operation to remove a very large tumour (luckily benign, but unluckily so large as to be interfering with other bits of anatomy and causing pain), Mother In Law had problems with her pace maker, another friend has visa issues, and we had house troubles when the electricity and computers (at different times) failed for no apparent reason.

We had fingers in pies all over the place, after-hours repair specialists in,  and extra kids all over the place, as we cooked extra meals, provided  taxi service  and baby sitting services. I’d put my back out and after my physio hammered on all the spots where it hurt, loosened up enough to walk like an 80 year old instead of a 120 year old.  (We went to see one of my Sister in Law’s in a performance and I was embarrassed to see that my 90 year old mother in law was walking faster than I was).

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

One weekend,  after a busy day  my sister in law phoned. They had been out  and about, were reasonably close to our place and her kids wanted our kids to visit and play, could they swing by our place and collect them for an evening  please?  The kids were already pleading for us to say yes and within half an hour we were suddenly and unexpectedly child free.

There were leftovers that  needing finishing in the fridge  but we looked at each other  and grinned: dinner out!!!  just the two of us, alone! … and preferably somewhere that didn’t  serve pizza or kid friendly food.

We instantly decided to head to the beach for dinner at one of the restaurants on the Promenade. We had tapas in mind.. or anything else that contained a ton of herbs, spices or shot of the exotic.  It was the first evening with decent weather for ages, we were still a good two kilometres from the beach when we got stuck in a traffic jam and it became clear that every man, woman and their dog had the same idea we did.

Twenty minutes later we had advanced so little down the street that I still had the same pretty building in view of my camera lens, albeit a photo in the rear view mirror instead of  from the front windscreen.  This was ridiculous.  Agreement saw us turning off into the nearest side street at the first opportunity and  high tailing it away from the hordes heading to the  beach as fast as we could.

Next came the problem of finding a restaurant … for some reason it appeared that every place we saw was Italian… we went towards the centre of town but they are digging roadworks all over the place and between my back and my foot I wasn’t  feeling like negotiating the detours and hiking to my dinner destination.

It was still very early in the evening and several places looked promising but a quick look at menu boards outside  left us less than inspired. We figured out we didn’t fancy Chinese food, or Greek or the Egyptian shawarma places.  More roadworks lead us all over the place. I’ve lived in this city for twenty years now and on this evening we drove down more streets that I’ve never been in before than I have in the last ten years in total.

We end up driving down the Laan van Meerdervoort (the longest street in the Hague) and see a restaurant by the Conradkade. More menu card reading… it’s packed outside and all the nice seats in the sunshine  have been taken by people smoking like chimneys and the menu sports mushrooms in almost every meal, a no-go for me since I’m allergic to the blighters.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

We are about to give up and go home to our fridge full of leftovers when Himself spies a menu board just around the corner. “ Thai Restaurant De Sampan”… hmm, sounds like just the ticket.  We go inside, it’s small and quiet so we take a seat by the window and wait to order.

Drinks are ordered and we patiently wait to be offered a menu.  Instead we receive a small plate of krupuk  (prawn crackers) and a spicy dipping sauce. Ok… we are hungry so we begin to nibble. I’m just about to ask about the whereabouts of the menu card when suddenly two bowls of soup are placed on our table.

Surprised, Himself  blurts out that “Sorry, we haven’t ordered soup and we were just waiting for the menu card please“.

Then all is revealed:  this place has no menu in the conventional sense. There is a set menu for a set price that changes every day of the week and every customer gets what’s on offer that day. The soup has mushrooms in it, we quickly explain my allergy problem and ask if  more than just the soup contains mushrooms. Luckily tonight’s menu doesn’t and they even have chicken soup without mushrooms that they bring instead.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

After the soup we are presented this the option of rice or noodles and choosing rice, receive four small bowls each that contain identical contents. Everything including the soup was spicy,  I can handle  a “reasonable” amount of heat and it was good for me most of the time. I got about three mouthfuls of chilli peppers during the meal that were distinctly  out of my comfort zone, but with an extra order of rice to help defuse the fire, I actually really enjoyed my meal.

Himself,  more seasoned when it comes to heat said only the odd mouthful was decently hot.  Dessert afterwards was very simple and refreshing: strawberries and whipped cream.

The service was very good (something not to be expected as standard in the Netherlands) and we enjoyed our relaxing meal for two very much.

I wouldn’t necessarily rate this as haute cuisine, it’s a small menu cooked decently, this is more of a place where you’d go when you want a break from cooking at home and want to  know you will enjoy  your meal, rather than a a place where you’d  plan a  really special event menu that will blow your socks off and probably has a price tag to blow your budget as well.

It’s a meal you can enjoy and leave happy rather than disappointed… true it’s Economy rather than First Class, but you definitely get your money’s worth and it’s Economy done very decently indeed.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

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(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Chocolate or Caramel, Chocolate or Caramel? … aw Let’s Combine the Two… Yum!

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

I did too much on my feet yesterday, resulting in a swollen foot,  terrible night’s sleep, a ton of pain killers and instructions from my physio to keep my foot elevated,  not walk on it for a day and put on ice-packs every hour.

In between counting down the hours until the next pain pill could be taken I slept  a lot and accomplished nothing, but at least this evening as I type the swelling and pain have done from reducing me to tears, to manageable.

From my archive stash of photos here is a chocolate caramel slice recipe I made a few months ago:  there is a similar  ”slice’  biscuit (a.k.a. bar cookie) that’s a staple of  New Zealand bakeries but they are unknown here in the Netherlands so I decided to have a bash at making it myself at home.

I hunted for a suitable recipe on the internet (actually in practice that meant looking at the nicest photo I could find that had a recipe attached and going “yum that’ll do” …) and set to work in the kitchen.

It’s an easy recipe that you put together in three simple stages: cook the biscuit base, add caramel mixture to the base and cook a little more, and then add the chocolate topping as the pièce de résistance on the top. The original recipe can be found here:    http://www.exclusivelyfood.com.au/2006/07/chocolate-caramel-slice-recipe.html

My efforts didn’t turn out as neat and tidy as the slice in the recipe photo but no one cared a jot because it tasted brilliant.  Maybe I should have left it to set overnight in the fridge:  but fat chance,  it was spied by my children who licked their chops in anticipation who repeated the phrase “is it ready yet?” so often that I ended up cutting slices of it to stuff in their little mouths to keep them quiet.

Needless to say their tactic worked well and it disappeared rather quickly. it’s a very sweet treat that combines chocolate and caramel and where it’s hard to have just one slice. Here are my step by step photographs to the recipe in the link above.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

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.. . photograph quick before little fingers reach into the frame to whisk it away!

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

De Opkikker: A Tasty Café Combination…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Since I’m still coughing and out of breath from the chest infection I got before Christmas,  life has been quiet… kids have had friends over to play during the school holidays but they’ve also been farmed out to friends houses for play dates as well and as soon as they exit the door I’m back in bed catching a nap.

Changes in temperature kick off the coughing wholesale and I’ve been so tired that going out has not been an option.

I’ve been sleeping a lot and sitting as quietly as possible whist inhaling vast amount of drugs designed to help me kick this into submission.

I’ve been looking at some of  last summers photos and discovered these in one of my photo folders.

My physiotherapist is a mine of information about local places in the neighbourhood of her practice and after telling me about this discovery, Himself and I went out for a small lunch  one day after he’d picked me up from my physiotherapy session.

The place is called “de Opkikker” and is a combination premises in that it’s a café at the back and a gift shop at the front, an interesting concept that appears to be gaining in popularity in The Netherlands.

I order a hot chocolate and receive a mug of hot milk and the chocolate on the stick: you stick in the block of chocolate and it melts into the milk. yum! Himself goes for tea and soup, I opt for the tuna salad sandwich. None of the portions are particularly big and the selection on offer is somewhat limited but what there is is very tasty.  Good for those watching their waistlines.  I finish with a slice of cake… and after a relaxing hour we drive home.

These photos remind me that it would be nice to return here again once I’m well again, it will be a nice change after looking at the four walls of home constantly.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

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A Pot-Luck Dip into International Dining…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

We have foodie friends and every few months we meet up for an impromptu pot-luck style dinner.

At our most recent get-together last October our guests bought food from their home countries of Lithuania, Armenia, Canada, Netherlands and New Zealand.

Unfortunately our Lithuanian friends arrived almost an hour late so my pastries were heading towards cremated status and were a generous dark brown colour instead of the soft golden brown they usually should be.

There was a beef stroganoff dish that came in two versions: the larger pot with mushrooms as the recipe was intended, and a small one for me to try sans mushrooms since I’m allergic to them.

Our Canadian friends opted for a salmon dish and Himself who also opted for fish.

It’s really interesting to try other cuisines and if you know anyone from a different country or culture it’s well worth organising this kind of dinner because it’s a fun eye opener and gives you an insight into food you might otherwise never be brave enough to try.

We added olives, cucumber and a baguette to the table to complete our menu and had a fabulous meal!

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Himself and I… Just the Two of Us and …Catootje!

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

About a month ago, Himself picked me up after my physiotherapy session and said that since he’d just completed a large work project for a client and no new work had arrived in yet, how about we go somewhere for an early lunch?

We drove around and had a look at several places we knew’,  but walked into one to discover it was only open for a private function (and no, we didn’t belong to the Company they were expecting) and two were not open yet for lunchtime so we made a detour into a different neighbourhood.

In the Reinkenstraat we spied a little café called Catootje and Himself went inside to find out if they had a lunch menu just after 11.00 a.m. and they did.

It may look from my photo’s here that there are few customers but that’s not a true picture at all.

A lot of people were still dropping in for coffee and a chat with friends and many of these had young children with them.

Where possible I try and avoid putting photos of other people’s kids on the internet, since I value the privacy of my own children and try and extend that to other children as well.

Therefore I tried to take photos of table areas as soon as they emptied and before they filled up again, which they did very swiftly.

At this stage of the day it’s a constant stream of customers and once we are served we realise why this place is so popular. The food is excellent and the service is friendly too.

I forgot the names of what we had for our lunch main course, but  Himself had the pasta and salad in the first two food photo and I had the  chicken salad sandwich in the third one.  For dessert  I convinced Himself  to have a slice of the  Bailey’s Cheesecake because I wanted to try it but fancied  the Chocolate Brownie too.  Himself had coffee and I enjoyed a tea.

Our lunch date was relaxed and  the food was delicious,  so our summary of our visit was that we would be happy to recommend this place to friends and even happier to return here whenever an opportunity arises.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

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Ingredient Search: Shortening

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

In my quest to recreate a “proper” Kiwi-style meat pie in the Netherlands , I’ve come up against a few obstacles.

One of them was obtaining metal baking forms to get the classic pie shape. After searching high and low in the Netherlands (understandably) without success because there is no meat pie culture here,  I put it these baking forms my shopping list for our next trip to New Zealand and subsequently bought some in Christchurch New Zealand.

The other thing I was having trouble finding was shortening… a.k.a. lard.

Incorporating a small amount of shortening/lard into your shortcrust  pastry is what gives a flaky crisp bite to the crust rather than a soggy weak doughy mush… but finding shortening was turning out to be more of the hassle than I first thought.

First I asked in the supermarket… big mistake. I was directed to a block of  ”bakboter ” which I know is a sort of cooking butter that I know my aunts like to fry meat in. I really didn’t think sounded right for my pastry at all but the lady pulled over a colleague and they both  insisted that this is what shortening was in the Netherlands.  I took some home and made pastry with it on more than one occasion… the pastry survived and was edible but it was light-years away from my Kiwi meat pies in taste.

Knowing that my pastry still wasn’t right my next step was to contact a butcher… and confirmed that what I needed wasn’t bakboter, but  ”reuzel” (translates literally as pig or beef fat, lard, shortening).

I now have reuzel sourced from several butchers… if you want to get hold of some, be warned that some butchers no longer stock it because demand is so low these days.

Some would order it for me, one butcher said he only stocks a packet or two at a time and we got the last packet.  Another butcher had two packets and we took both. In all instances the reuzel  was frozen, so be prepared to buy it when you can get  back home in time to get it  into your freezer before it thaws.

One packet cost about Euro 2,50 for 250 grams, the other two at roughly the same weight (pictured in blocks) was a bit cheaper.

Ok, it’s fat, but shortening is also fat (just with a more politically correct name) and yes I have made several test-runs of pastry with shortening in it. The taste was a lot like the classic Kiwi meat pie that I’ve been missing from home.

Bearing in mind that making the pies is labour intensive and is nowhere on any health-food list,  I won’t be making them very often, but when I do I want them to taste like the real thing  and not some lacklustre  imposter, so I figure that the use of a little bit of shortening can be excused now and again.

So if you want to make  savoury pie with a crisp and flaky shortcrust pastry,  get friendly with your local butcher and find yourself some reuzel .

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

My recipe called or half shortening and half margarine…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Little Balls … of Magic !!!

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

When Tilly Bud, a.k.a. “the Laughing Housewife” made a post about a Maltesers cake http://thelaughinghousewife.wordpress.com/2012/10/05/another-best-gift-ever I had to confess that although we had made a short trip to the UK this summer, I had totally forgotten to buy some to try whilst we were visiting .

This was due to total information overload in the supermarket, surrounded by too many products that I didn’t recognise at all and being busy restraining my kids who wanted to buy the entire Salt and Vinegar Crisps section because a few months ago this flavour was introduced into Dutch supermarkets and they are besotted.

Tilly clearly had a little muse on my comment and then contacted me privately a little while later to ask if she could send me some Maltesers to try.

Last week a little package arrived in the post from the UK and Kiwi Daughter’s eyes almost popped out of her head on stalks when she realised that there were sweets inside… and after which she hovered as close to the package as possible, ready to swoop as soon as the plastic cellophane was removed. There is a lovely little card too, but you don’t get to see inside because our real names are there (and you know I’m mega cautious about identifying information about our family on the internet.)

Since we had a busy weekend with visitors, sporting events and play-date appointments, I made her stew  wait until last evening when after a quieter meal together we could draw breath and open these to share.

I did open one of the boxes on Saturday afternoon in order to take a photo, and tasted a few of the little balls…  to be honest Tilly, my first impression was rather so-so.

I’ll explain: there is a thin rim of chocolate covering a little ball of sort of honeycomb caramel. It’s similar to a chocolate bar I know from New Zealand called a “Crunchie Bar”  but those have a far denser honeycomb mixture in the middle. The little balls were kind of very mellow, less strongly flavoured and less sweet versions of the Crunchie Bar so I wasn’t sure that I liked them at first.

I put the box aside, and last night bought it out to help persuade the kids to finish their vegetables. We shared the contents of  the box after dinner and the kids virtually inhaled theirs. I sat sorting photographs on the laptop and ate a few slowly as I worked and a transformation happened:  I got used to the idea that these tasted different to the Crunchie bars and started to enjoy them for what they were…

…I found myself  clicking the mouse over photographs with one hand and absent mindedly reaching out to the little bowl that held my share with the other, until I  feel around the bowl and then looked up in surprise; there are no more Maltesers in the bowl. What?  Already???? Surely not!

I’ve changed my mind Tilly, First impressions can be deceiving… these little delights are highly  addictive, so I now understand your complete and utter fascination with them.  Family Kiwidutch owe you a very large Thank You for your kindness and generosity and total insight into the  ”Magic of Maltesers“… Yum!!!!!

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Oil My Palm, With Palm Oil….

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Since we apparently satisfied the Malaysian police that we were law abiding citizens, (goodness knows how we got away with that one!) the coach was permitted to  continue on it’s way.

Soon we are passing plantation after plantation of oil palms, hardly surprising considering  that Malaysia is on of the world biggest producers of palm oil.

When my parents lived in the Solomon Islands, the growth of palm oil plantations was a contentious issue since it meant that the local flat land that had been historically used for subsistence agriculture (village or individual ”gardens”) was being taken over at an unsustainable rate.

New “gardens” were being made on the very steep sides of the hills, but clearing the dense jungle to do so was  difficult, access was limited and in a place of high tropical rainfall these gardens were being swiftly eroded and produced less yield.

I don’t know if people in Malaysia have prospered from the production of palm oil or not, probably the are multi-nationals have but if the villagers who historical had plots of land to use as a family resource did or not?…. who knows?

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Since as a foodie, palm oil is not high on my wish-list of ingredients since it’s so high in saturated fat and as a crop I can still hear my parents ranting about the destruction of Guadalcanal in the Solomon’s,  I find that I have rather switched myself off to any knowledge of palm oil so a little research is required:

Wikipedia tells me:

Elaeis (from Greek, meaning “oil”) is a genus of palms containing two species, called oil palms.

They are used in commercial agriculture in the production of palm oil. The African oil palm Elaeis guineensis (the species name guineensis referring to its country of origin) is the principal source of palm oil, it is native to west and southwest Africa, occurring between Angola and Gambia.

The American oil palm Elaeis oleifera (from English oliferous, meaning “oil-producing”) is native to tropical Central and South America, and is used locally for oil production.

Since palm oil contains more saturated fats than oils made from canola, corn, linseed, soybeans, safflower, and sunflowers, it can withstand extreme deep-frying heat and resists oxidation. It contains no trans fat, and its use in food has increased as food-labelling laws have changed to specify trans fat content. 

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Oil from Elaeis guineensis is also used as biofuel. Human use of oil palms may date back about 5,000 years in coastal west Africa; Palm oil was also discovered in the late 1800s by archaeologists, in a tomb at Abydos dating back to 3,000 BCE. It is thought that Arab traders brought the oil palm to Egypt.

Elaeis guinneensis is now extensively cultivated in tropical countries outside Africa, particularly Malaysia and Indonesia which together produce most of the world supply.

Palm oil plantations are under increasing scrutiny for social and environmental harm, particularly because rainforests with high biodiversity are destroyed, greenhouse gas output is increased, and because people are displaced by unscrupulous palm-oil enterprises.

Description Mature palms are single-stemmed, and grow to 20 m tall. The leaves are pinnate, and reach between 3-5 m long. The flowers are produced in dense clusters; each individual flower is small, with three sepals and three petals.

The palm fruit is reddish, about the size of a large plum, and grows in large bunches. Each fruit is made up of an oily, fleshy outer layer (the pericarp), with a single seed (the palm kernel), also rich in oil.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaeis

I did find a very interesting  website about Palm oil : http://www.palmoilaction.org.au/shopping-guide.html which is good for people on both sides of the debate.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

If you would like to identify palm oil in your food so that you can avoid it then there are easy instructions on how to lead a food label to identify palm oil.

If you don’t mind palm oil in your food there is also a list of products on the website (albeit items more familiar to Australian and New Zealand consumers since the site is Australian)  that contain palm oil sourced from sustainable plantations so that you can at least make an ethical choice if you are worried about the environmental impact of it’s  use.

One thing is for sure, after travelling for hours in the coach and seeing one palm oil plantation after another, it’s clear to see that this is now a mega-sized global business that’s rather literally got it’s finger in to an awful lot of pies…

….and doughnuts,cakes, sweets, crisps, chocolate, cosmetics, soaps, laundry detergents and  even bio-fuel!

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

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Feeling, Tasting and Seeing Harmony…

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You are turning another page in my retrospective diary of our travels to New Zealand earlier this year.

We are now on our way back home  to the Netherlands but have a long stopover of almost a week in Singapore to visit with a fellow Foodie and good friend that I first met on the internet who I’ll call here by her internet nickname “Velvetine”.

Together we have made a side trip from Singapore and have taken a three hour bus trip to Melaka, Malaysia where we have  been visiting the Cheng Hoon Teng temple but now after waiting a while for one straggler in our group who was busy seeking her fortune with “lucky sticks”, we all spill out onto the street to start a walking tour and see the city centre.

The street we are on is  officially called  Jalan Tokong Besi  but it’s also known as “Harmony Street”  because on it and standing in harmony are the places of worship of the three main religions of Malaysia.

These consist of the Cheng Hoon Teng Temple that we have just visited, which was buit in 1645, and is the oldest chinese Temple in Malaysia. Just a short distance down the street is the Kampung Keling Mosque tht was built in 1868 and looks like no other mosque I have ever seen before.

It’s a tall tower of a building some six stories high, very square in shape and has a sight pagoda look to it, actually I asked the guide if it was a Japanese building and when she told me it was a mosque I was quite surprised. It’s a stunning piece of architecture, with pure simplicity that draws your eye straight up the tower to the top.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

The last of the trio is the Sri Payyatha Vinayagar Moorthi Temple which, built in the late 1700′s is the  oldest Hindu temple in Malaysia but which sadly I didn’t manage to grab a photograph of.

I find it amazing that two of these building are the oldest of their type in all of Malaysia and that they are situated in the very same street… brilliant!

Don’t you just wish at all religions could so peacefully co-exist in their own “harmony streets” everywhere in the world as they do here?

Of course I’m captivated too by the street scenes all around us… there is so much to see.

The decorations for the upcoming Chinese New  Year,  street vendors, a freezer full of ice-cream  grabs the full attention of my children, and  for my lens too since these ice-creams are  egg-shaped and come in rounded clear plastic containers.

Then there was the table of durian sweets… but the one I really wished we could have had time to stop and try, a local speciality that our guide pointed out and explained: chicken rice balls, which consists of rice cooked in chicken stock and molded into balls. We are told that come evening time there will be a long queue outside this establishment for these rice balls,  touted as one of the best in Melaka are very popular with locals and tourists alike.

Darn, I wish we could have stayed longer… I want to try it all (ok, maybe not quite so fast on the durian… but those chicken rice balls were definitely calling me). Let’s take a look…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

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Savouries and Goodies to Take Home…

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Himself and the kids have been very patient out the front of the bakery as they wait for me to complete my tour…

I watch as other savouries: sausage rolls, pasties and the like are sorted out the back and then make my way to the front counter to buy some goodies to take back with us.

Celia has a surprise for me… a gift box with four raspberry buns and some apricot pies!  Wow,  talk about “the icing on the cake”!  To say I’m delighted with our  unexpected gift is an understatement.  Fantastic!  Thank You so much Celia!!!

I’m also clutching the address of the place where I can buy pie forms to bring back to The Netherlands…  this visit has exceeded my expectations on so many levels  that it’s made my day.

The only shock has been walking back to the van parked just a short distance down the street and seeing so many gaps where buildings used to be. Before I got into the car I looked around, closed my eyes for a moment and tried to remember what  used to be in the gaps, with some I succeed but with others I draw a blank. It’s good to see other businesses here open though… and  people, the whole area is busy with people.

No matter what life (or Mother Nature) throws at you,  the owners and staff of Sydenham Bakery and all the other local businesses here  prove that they are resilient and with support from locals they are willing to pick up the pieces and get back to normal as much as possible.

One thing I’m certain about too… once fortified by a pie and a raspberry bun, you feel like you can take on the world.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)