Hi All!

Long time no see, you might have thought. Yes, true: I have been busy. Busy with a lot of things, but most of all with my book! Yey, you have read that right, I am going to work on quite a huge volume, so I will be found behind my computer and at the drawing board more and more these coming months. I’m really looking forward to that. I will post some exercises I’m doing now and then. Everything must be practiced of course. So you will be my guinea pigs, if you like!
I’m so lucky to have a boyfriend who is the wonderful photographer Oof Verschuren. He took the picture and I cooked this recipe as I am trying to lose some pounds (which is not working by the way, I don’t know how Pia can indulge herself on all that chocolate all the time and still stay so pretty and slim). Anyway, I was looking for something light, but also fit for Autumn and filling enough for a dinner, without being too heavy, with potatoes and so on. This is one of my all time favorites, my mum used to make it in Ireland, It’s quite old fashioned, but I think good things survive time and still stay on top! I combined the dish with Gremolata, a classic Italian ‘pinch of parsley’, which goes very well with the meat.
Hope it gets you cooking too.
have fun,

Yvette

Dear people,

In between a lot of things I was doing today, I got an e-mail from a very good friend telling me he has a new exhibition coming up. The mail-message also showed a lovely painting he made of the Irish countryside. Being born in Ireland, it kept my thoughts occupied all day long. So I decided to give you an Irish recipe for Brack, to get it of my mind. Brack is an Irish cake: I could eat the whole thing all by myself. Without any help.

I got this recipe from our old neighbors and I still make it now and then. Even in our restaurant it’s often on the menu.I made this one in the picture for Margriet Magazine. Louis Lemaire took the picture and Judith Beahner was the prop stylist.

Please try it!

love,
Yvette

Hello all!

Here I am again, hope you all are doing well, I am!

This was my lucky week, not only because it was lovely weather over here in Amsterdam, I also spent a great weekend in my apartment in Paris too!

I do that often of course, but I’m always hard at work over there. Now I got to enjoy Paris: in the sun on my bike, or picnicking under the Eiffel tower with a bunch of friends. Verrrry relaxed!

When I returned to Amsterdam I received superduper good news! I had a few presentations the week before and everything went really well! I’m walking on air at the moment, I can tell you that! So I decided to give you a festive recipe, something for celebrating summer and happy moments, like the ones I had this week.

Cheers!

love Yvette

{**Pia’s note: please click on the image for a bigger size, print it out, and pop it in your recipe folder! Thank you Yvette! }

Hi dear bloghouse readers,

Welcome in Pia’s kitchen: where I promised you last week I’d prepare another Rhubarb dish for you. I haven’t taken a picture of the rhubarb in our garden yet, but I made you a drawing instead…

And a recipe, of course, for a rhubarb compote: so yummy! Serve it chilled with hot custard; serve it hot with cinnamon ice cream; or at room-temperature with chilled HANGOP. This is a dutch desert that everyone should have eaten once in his life – I think – so I’ll give you the recipe for that too. ‘Hangop’ means ‘to hang up’, and thats exactly what you have to do with it. Anyway, I suggest strongly to try it out!
( psst: Pia and I are secretly working on a project where this would fit in perfectly, so now you know: still keep it as a surprise for the others…)

I just did a story about ‘local food in season’ for Elle Eten (Elle’s Dutch food magazine) and of course I included these recipes. They are my favorite food! Saskia van Osnabrugge took the picture and Annemiek Paarlberg did the styling, I did the food, but I guess you knew that already.

Good luck!

love,
Yvette

Rhubarb compote with Verrry Dutch: Hangop
for 8, preparation: 35 min (plus 1 night)

The sweet and sour compote works really well in combination with the fresh and creamy taste of hangop.

For the rhubarb compote:

1 ½ kg rhubarb, well cleaned and cut in pieces of about 1 cm
750 g sugar, or more to taste
2 cinnamon sticks
8 cardamom pods
2 vanilla sticks, halved and seeds scraped out
3 clementines or 2 oranges

For the hangop:

1 liter yoghurt
1 liter cream
the seeds from 1 vanilla pod
the grated peel of 1 lemon
100g icing sugar
(30 min plus 1 night period)

FOR THE COMPOTE:
Fill a large baking tin with the rhubarb, sugar, cinnamon, cardamom and vanilla pods and seeds, mix well. Half the clementines, squeeze them over the rhubarb and tuck the peel in too. Cover with aluminum foil. Bake for about 30 minutes in a preheated oven at 180 ° C. Turn the rhubarbmix over so now and then. When cooked, take out of the oven and leave to cool completely overnight. This also marinates your compote, but you can eat it right away if you cant wait.

FOR THE HANGOP:
Meanwhile, spread a clean tea-towel out over a sieve. Put the sieve on top of a bucket or big bowl. Pour the yogurt in it and cover with a sheet of plastic film. Put the whole thing away in the basement or in another cool place in your house for a night or even longer.
The following day: beat the cream with the vanilla, the lemon-zest and sugar. Mix the yoghurt from your sieve (it will be stiff, like fresh cheese!) carefully with the whipped cream.

TO SERVE:
Remove the spices from the compote. Fill eight glasses halfway with the compote and spoon a big dollop of hangop on top. Serve immediately: you will be thrilled!

HI dearest (blog)house readers,

As I am a great fan of rhubarb and it’s in the shops right now, I’m giving you a simple recipe for little tartlets with rhubarb and ricotta.

I have another nice recipe for rhubarb coming up, but still have to translate it in English, so I will post that one in a few days.

There are so many things that you can do with this vegetable, I can’t even start to sum them up. I am so lucky to work in a beautiful vegetable garden and of course we are growing our own rhubarb in it! I’ll take a picture of it and post it with the next recipe. Here is a picture of the garden, I took it a few weeks ago. Isn’t it lovely?

So,inspired as I am to grow the things I like to cook, I will let you know if something new will sprout out of the soil and into my head: be prepared! Pia, we have a lot of work to do here!!

I wrote the recipe all over the next picture – we worked on this recipe a while ago for a Dutch magazine called Margriet Magazine. Eric van Lokven was responsible for taking the photograph.

I hope you enjoy making this recipe!

Yvette

Yey!
Finally it’s really turning into spring over here in Amsterdam!

So maybe I’m too enthusiastic, but I immediately want to eat yummy salads. At our restaurant we just put our version of Fattoush on the menu. I have no picture of that salad yet, but when I do have one, I’ll make sure you will all get the recipe, because it’s my favorite salad at this moment.

This one was my favorite one before that and its the simplest salad ever: the ingredients do the trick for you. Your only job is is to arrange them well on a plate. If you have to win someone over, fix this salad and I’m sure you’ll get what you want!

We shot this picture for Maria last year and it is still one of my personal favorites. Pia, our hostess with the mostess, was in charge of the styling of course and Jeroen van de Spek took the picture (click here to see all the pics from the shoot).

Sexy Summer Salad

1 melon: Cavaillon melon, Galia etc.

for the syrup:
0.5 liters of white wine
100 grams sugar
4 star anise
the seeds from 1 vanilla pod (keep the pod too)
the peel of 1 lemon

Rosemary Oil:
The leaves of 3 twigs of rosemary
150 ml light olive oil
juice of half a lemon
pepper and salt

for the salad:
1 head of raddichio
4 sprigs of red or green basil
8 thin slices of Parma ham
2 buffalo mozzarella cheeses
50 grams of beautiful young salad leaves: mizuna, rocket, mustard leaf

Use a melon scoop to create nice little melon-balls. Spread them out on a deep plate.
Heat the white wine in a saucepan and add the sugar, spices and the lemon-peel. Simmer for 20 minutes on very low heat. Pour over the melon. Let completely cool down.
Make the rosemary oil: Whizz the rosemary with the lemon juice in a food processor. Pour in all the olive oil, while whizzing, taste the dressing for salt and pepper.
Arrange the radicchio leaves on four plates. Tear the mozzarella into small pieces and divide them together with with the Parma-ham, melon balls and the young leaves over the plates. Drop some syrup over it. Sprinkle with torn Basilicum and finish off with the rosemary oil, serve immediately with crisp bread.

You can also conserve the melon in this syrup. Pour this 2 x this quantity of syrup over the balls of at least 2 melons in a clean pot (2 liters) and cook it in boiling water for about 10 min.
It will keep for about a month!

Enjoy!

love Yvette x

HI everyone again!

I was so busy cooking, that it took me some time to fix the next recipes for you! But here they are: shot with the help of our stylish hostess: Pia! her very own self.

It was for MARIA magazine, a story about spring, tasting the new Rosé and some good food to go with that.

It’s slowly turning into spring here in Holland, but at the time of the shoot it was still freezing cold. We shot these pictures in my mothers garden, she has a very green one, which we could really use for this story. Pia added some plants and flowers to reach that real springy feeling. It turned out great!
I love little bites and nibbles, slowly sipping wine and chatting with good friends all at the same time. These recipes help you on you way for these occasions. Just add some good olives, some nice charcuterie and cheese and your off!

Have a good one!

Yvette

PS: the blue and white dishes in the picture with the little tarts are my Great Grandmother’s toys!
PPS: the pictures were shot by Jeroen van der Spek

Savoury tarts with smoked chicken, dill and goat cheese…

Preparation in advance: 20 minutes plus 30 minutes for resting and 20 minutes baking time
For about 8 tarts (or 1 large cake)

For the dough:
300 grams flour
150 grams butter + some extra for greasing
Salt to taste
A few drops of ice cold water

For the filling:
1 double smoked chicken breast
150 g goat cheese
3 eggs
200 ml cream
4 el chopped dill
Pepper and salt to taste

You will need 8 individual cake tins

Knead the ingredients for the dough quickly to form a smooth ball. Add some drops of water if it’s a little too dry. Leave in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes to rest.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
Cut the chicken into small cubes, cut the cheese into 8 slices. Beat the eggs with the cream and sprinkle with salt & pepper. Divide the dough into 8 equal pieces. Grease 8 cake tins with some butter and roll the dough balls out onto a floured worktop. Push the pastry in the tins and cut the rims neatly with a sharp knife. Divide the chicken dices and goat cheese over them, pour the cream mixture on it and sprinkle with the dill.
Bake them in ± 20 minutes till golden. Serve hot or cold with a crisp glass of Rosé.

{Pia’s note: French Boy and I had these gorgeous little tarts for dinner after the shoot and they were DELICIOUS! Yvette, I still have two of your tart tins! I must get them back to you.}

Grilled Haloumi crackers with broad bean & mint dip…

preparation in advance: 10 minutes, preparation: 15 minutes

for the crackers:

250 grams Haloumi (This is a hard Cyprian cheese, you can replace it by old Dutch goat cheese, if you can’t find easily)
300 grams self raising flour
±6 el chopped green herbs
±200 ml boiling water

Extra olive oil and a few ‘not chopped’ herb-leaves for the garnish

for the broad bean & mint dip:

500 grams of broad beans
2 garlic
3 tb spoons chopped fresh mint leaves
4 tb spoons ground Parmesan or Pecorino cheese
±100 ml olive oil
Pepper and salt to taste

Rasp the Haloumi. Mix in your food processor or by hand with the flour and herbs. Whilst kneading, pour in as much boiling water as needed to get to a soft beautiful, non sticky dough. Let it rest for at least 30 minutes.

Clean the beans. Boil them for 5 minutes in salted water and pour them into a sieve. Rinse under cold water and peel the grey skin off, so they look lovely and bright green. Chop them in a food processor with the other ingredients to a coarse pesto.
Heat the grill to the highest position possible. Divide the dough into 12 pieces and roll between your hands to balls. Roll them one by one into very thin elongated forms on a floured surface. Sprinkle with olive oil, garnish with the herbs and lay them carefully down on greased baking tins. Grill in 2-3 minutes till golden brown, turn them over and grill them 2 minutes on the other side. Serve hot with the broad bean-dip!