A pescetarian alternative for ragoût with meat Recently I have published the recipe for vol-au-vent with ragoût of chicken meat. That once was a classic Dutch first course for Christmas dinner. Here is an alternative for people who do not eat meat, but do eat fish. This ragoût can also be used as stuffing for…
ORIGIN
Anchovy sauce
This recipe is from a manuscript that is kept in the Royal Library in The hague. It dates from around 1780. A transcription is in progress. The original recipe *wel vervarschd (well rinsed) – desalted by putting in water which has been changed regularly Modern adaptation of the recipe Butter sauce with anchovies can accompany…
Surprise Eggs
Straight to the recipe A Dutch recipe from the eighteenth century This decorative dish consists of whole, emptied eggs shells that are stuffed with raw eggs with crayfish and mushrooms and heated until the stuffing has congealed. When the eggs have been peeled and placed on a dish, they will be a very attractive side…
Tulip bulb soup
Straight to the recipe A recipe from the Hunger Winter ’44/’45 For a long time I hesitated whether to publish this recipe. For some Dutch people this dish raises memories to a traumatic period in thier lives. The tulip bulb soup was served during the Amsterdam Symposium to Food in January 2015, which had the theme ‘Food,…
Red mustard the Roman way
Straight to the recipe This is not the first recipe for mustard on Coquinaria. The first mustard-recipe, from the fourteenth-century cookbook Le Ménagier de Paris, was published fifteen years ago. Mustard in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times is comparable to tomato ketchup or soy sauce in some restaurants: there is a bottle on…
Pickle Herring, the ‘forgotten fish’
It is time to change that! In February 2016 I organized a cookery course for the first time in nearly ten years, with members of the re-enactment group Het Woud der Verwachting (litt: ‘the forest of expectation’, after a historical novel by the Dutch author Hella Haasse). The menu was in concordance with the date of the course:…
Quince jelly
In the Dutch language quinces are called quince apple or or quince pear. According to the sixteenth-century recipe for quince pie, quince apples must cooked and quince pears baked. I am not sure why, the form of a quince makes no difference in the preparation. The recipe on this page is for quince jelly from…
Coulibiac with chicken, a recipe from Carême
Straight to the recipe Russian pastry from the classic French cuisine Coulibiac or coulbac is a traditional Russian pie that has been assimilated in to the classic French cuisine as early as the nineteenth century. The Russian name koulibiac has its origins in German: Kohlgeback (pastry with cabbage). Some versions of coulibiac do contain cabbage. The version with…
Sauce espagnole
Straigh to the recipe The first new historical recipe of 2018 concerns small chicken pies from nineteenth-century French cook Carême. The stuffing is seasoned with one spoonful of sauce espagnole. That will be easy, I thought, just look up what Carême has to say about this sauce and prepare it. But things were slightly more…
Traditional Dutch Banketletter
“Keep it simple: start with an I” The banketletter is one of the few traditional Dutch Christmas bakes, as most Dutch December bakes are actually done for the national children’s feast Sinterklaas on December 5th. Most people just buy it in the stores, and I must admit that it takes some work to make a…
Traditional Dutch herring salad
The Dutch are famous for eating ‘Dutch new’ or ‘matjes’ herring, which is essentially still raw. Tourists stare with fascinated abhorrence at those strange people who let the fish slide down their throats with extatic expressions on their face. But why would this be any less delicious than eating Japanese sashimi? And the herring is…
Ratafia
For Victorian trifle, but also excellent with tea or coffee Mrs Beeton uses two kinds of cookies with almonds in her recipe for trifle: macaroons and ratafias. Macaroons only contain sweet almonds, ratafia also contain a portion of bitter almonds. She provides recipes to make these at home in her Book of household management (recipes 1744 and 1745, on p.851…
Dutch bitterballen from leftover oxtail meat
With oxtail meat and stock and dried ceps For the family Christmas dinner in 2014 I had prepared an old-fashioned clear oxtail consommé as first course. I ended up with leftover stock and a lot of leftover meat from the oxtail. I froze part of the meat with 3 cups of the stock, and when two months later…
Dutch Bishop Wine
Although actually it’s English! The Dutch consider Bishop wine as a typically Dutch mulled wine for Sint Nicholas Eve. But it appears that its origins are not Dutch at all. According to the large Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal (Lexicon of the Dutch Language, published in installments from 1864 to 1998), bisschopswijn has English roots. The name indicates the…
Mint soufflé
Straight to the recipe The introduction to the recipe is on this page, about Antonin Carême and the history of soufflés, together with the recipe for strawberry soufflé. This recipe for mint soufflé is very long in its original version, so it got its own page. It is a soufflé à la française, which means it is…