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…
fish
Fish Fumet
A good beef stock is made with meat bones, a good fish fumet (concentrated stock) needs fish bones. Ask the fishmonger to collect the bones when he is filleting, you’ll need about one kilogram. The bones have to be from lean fish like sole, halibut, plaice, flounder, etc., no bones from salmon or maquerel. By…
Cooking with clay
Wrapped fish, baked on a coal fire Archaeologists and archaeobotanists are experts in reconstructing cooking methods and ingredients that were possibly used during Prehistoric times. However, a ‘prehistoric cuisine’ does not exist. What was on the menu depended on the millennium, the time of the year, the location and available resources, and perhaps also on…
Fish curry from Mauritius
Straight to the recipe “You ate all the dodo’s!” I’ve heard that remark several times in the summer of 2006 during my vacation on Mauritius. It was said with a smile, by friendly people, but still … Yes, I am Dutch, and “we” Dutch people are responsible for the extinction of that peculiar flightless bird…
A medieval evergreen
Very, very healthy! In Asterix in Britain, the heroes Asterix and Obelix’ first meal on British soil is eaten in a pub called ‘The Jolly Boar’. Obelix is deeply disappointed, his favourite boar has not been roasted, but boiled. To make matters even worse, it is served in a green mint sauce. Boring. Had Obelix lived fourteen centuries later,…
Dashi
Recipes for Japanese stock Dashi is the basic stock of Japanese cuisine. It can be prepared in several manners, but mostly dashi is made with seaweed and dried bonito. Below there are several recipes for making dashi. When preparing noodlse, use Japanese noodle bouillon. The two main variations of dashi are ichiban dashi and niban…