Straight to the recipe A recipe from the Hunger Winter ’44/’45 I have deliberated for a long time whether to publish this recipe. For some Dutch people this dish raises memories to a traumatic period in their lives. It was a means of survival during the infamous hunger winter of 1944/1945. More recently, tulip bulb…
Recipes for making stock and soup
There are many recipes for making stock, soup and processing leftover meat on coquinaria. On this page is a list of all recipes concerning these subjects.
Herb soup with potato dumplings
Straight to the recipe A delicate herald of Spring The text for this recipe is from a cookbook from the nineteenth century, but in fact the recipe is older. In Le cuisinier from Pierre de Lune (1656) there is a ‘potage the santé’ with sorrel, purslane, chervil and herbs, and no doubt there are other comparable recipes. Two…
Medieval pea soup
Very simple The recipe is taken from ms KANTL Gent 15, second part. Edition: W.L. Braekman, Een nieuw zuidnederlands kookboek uit de vijftiende eeuw. Scripta 17, Brussel, 1986, recipe nr 92 (edition p.53). About this manuscript. The erweijten (peas) in this recipe can mean either green peas or marrow fat (or field) peas. The liquid in which peas were…
Jacobin Sops
Straight to the recipe Take 200 capons … This is a recipe from the delightful cookbook Du fait de cuysine by Maître Chiquart. He was a cook in the service of Amadeus VIII (1383-1451, also known as the last Antipope Felix V from 1439 to 1449), count and first duke of Savoy. Amadeus was a regular guest at the…
Russian stock
Meat stock from the nineteenth century Soup is an important part of the Eastern-European kitchen. In the Gift for young housewives, a Russian cookery book that was first published in 1861, there is a recipe for basic bouillon that can be used for all kinds of soup. The recipes for the soups themselves contain variations…
Dutch pea soup
Snert, traditional winterfare Dutch cuisine has few internationally known highlights. Gouda cheese is one them, maatjesharing (young herring eaten slightly salted but essentially raw) is another. Snert or pea soup is also an icon of Dutch cuisine. As with all traditional recipes Dutch pea soup is made in many different ways. It is an ideal…
Jacobin sops for Good Friday
In the introduction to the recipe for Pomegranate Salad I mentioned the only day that the (catholic) French alle ate vegetarian. That is really something special, because ordering a vegetarian dish in an average French restaurant usually results in raised eyebrows and a rather plain meatless dish. The recipe on this page and the recipe…
Chicken stock
To the list with recipes for stock and soup Basic recipe – 3½ liter (3 UK quarts, 3.7 US quarts) Commercial chicken stock is often a rather pale liquid. The taste is salty and artificial. Just try making this chicken stock and taste how a simple chicken broth should REALLY taste. To begin with: chicken…
Fumet of lobster, crayfrish or shrimp
Bones are used for good meat stock, fish bones for fish stock, and to make crustacean stock, you use the carapaces, shells, claws and head of lobster, crayfish or shrimp. So, don’t you throw these away! There are some links in the recipe to the tips & tricks of broth making with descriptions of how to strain,…
Indonesian chicken stock
Indonesian cuisine does not have soups as a first course, although sometimes they appear on the menu through Chinese and Western influences. One of the dishes in which Indonesian broth is used is soto. That is a ‘full-bodied’ main-course soup, with the meat used for the stock, vegetables, and for example cooked eggs, peanuts, rice or…
Roman health food
A nourishing recipe from the first century AD Straight to the recipe Hadrian’s Wall is the iconic heritage monument of Roman presence in Britain. It still determines the border between England and Scotland. The remains of Romanpresence in the Netherlands are less obvious, but the Dutch are becoming more and more aware of this part of their…
Barley soup for a ball
Straight to the recipe Double take The Netherlands celebrated the bicentennial of their existence as a kingdom in 2013. But at the time that was actually 198 years ago, not 200. From 1813 to 1815 the Netherlands were the Souverijne Vorstendom der Verëenigde Nederlanden (the sovereign principality of the united Netherlands). We didn’t have a king, but a prince….
Dutch barley soup
Straight to the recipe This barley soup is not French haute cuisine as Carême’s recipe is. It is Dutch and was published in Aaltje, de volmaakte en zuinige keukenmeid (‘Aaltje, the perfect and thrifty cook’), a popular cookery book from the early nineteenth century (1803). In fact it was so popular that in 1887 a teacher of house economics, Odilia Corver, thought to…
Vegetarian stock for Lent
Recipes from the seventeenth century During Lent, between carnival and Easter, the catholic church (and after the Reformation several protestant churches as well) restricted the faithful to a meatless diet. During the Middle Ages all diary products were also banned during Lent, later the use of butter was permitted. Almonds were used instead of meat…
Soup with Sauerkraut? Delicious!
Straight to the recipe A Russian recipe from 1861 During my preparations for a presentation in October 2014 in the Hermitage Museum in Amsterdam for a talk in the accompanying program for the exhibition Dining with the Czars, I experimented with several Russian nineteen-century recipes. I have adapted one of those recipes, a soup, for this page. The…