Food in children's books

The use of food in children’s literature seems to be a hot item. I must say I also find it very interesting and worth writing about. I am particularly fond of old fashioned English books and the descriptions of food eaten at various picnics you find in those. I love the descriptions of crumbly sweet scones with clotted cream and jam, small triangle sandwiches. gingerbread cookies and all those other treats.

The Village Voice blog put together a top 10 of the best food-themed children’s books. Now I must say that I don’t know half of those, but I do agree with certain worldwide favourites as Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham.

From my childhood I remember the food used in Alice in Wonderland (who does not love the teaparty at the Mad Hatter’s?) Furthermore I fondly remember the picnics in Enid Blyton’s Famous Five books and the Malory Towers books - I always wanted picnics like those!

And what about the unbirthday party in Alice in Wonderland, full of half cups of tea and buttered clocks. Somehow the Eat Me cookies never struck me as particularly interesting, I liked the Drink Me drink better as it had all those different tastes. Eat Me cookies are easier to make, though. (Heston Blumenthal proved that the Drink Me drink IS possible, however ;-)).

Now a children’s book recipe you CAN make and take with you on a picnic…

Hot Dogs
-From Roald Dahl’s Even more revolting recipes
Makes 8

Ingredients
1 packet of bread dough mix
8 sausages 
8 rashers of bacon (optional) 
Tomato ketchup 
Mustard 
1 egg yolk

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200°C/400°F/gas mark 6. Make bread dough according to packet instructions.

2. While the dough is rising, cook the sausages in the oven. If you are using the bacon, wrap it around the sausages before cooking. When they are light brown (about 15 mins) take them out and allow to cool.

3. When the dough has doubled in size, weigh out 8 70g pieces. Roll each piece of dough to a 12 cm wide circle. Place the sausage in the middle of the dough and spread with the mustard and ketchup. Carefully roll it up, keeping it quite tight, and fold the sides in so that there is no chance to escape. Do the same with the rest of the sausages. Place in the roasting tin. Brush with the egg yok and allow to rise again.

4. When they have doubled in size again (20-30 mins) place in oven and cook for about 20-25 mins or until golden. Allow to cool for 5 mins before eating - tge waiting is the difficult part of the recipe. Set an alarm clock and eat as soon as the bell goes.

Daging Semur

I bring a traditional Indonesian recipe today: Daging Semur. Beef slowly stewed in spiced kecap manis. A lovely dish and very easy to make - after you sliced the meat and chopped the onions, you just put it all in a Dutch oven and let it stew for 2 hours or more. After that you only boil some rice (and in my case some eggs) and your meal is ready!

Daging Semur

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Ingredients

• 750 grams of beef 
• 6 tablespoons sunfloweroil 
• 2 onions, finely sliced 
• 3 cloves of garlic, finely sliced
• 2 red chilli peppers, deseeded and sliced in rings 
• 1 tablespoon of Ketoembar, coriander powder 
• 1 teaspoon of djinten, cumin powder 
• 1 teaspoon grated nutmeg 
• 5 tablespoons kecap manis 
• 1 tablespoon tamarind paste 
• 150 ml chicken stock 

Method
1. Cut the meat in cubes or strips.
2. Heat the oil in a wok or Dutch oven and brown the meat in 3 minutes.
3. Take the meat out of the pan and gently fry the onion, garlic and red chilli pepper in the juices of the meat for 3 minutes.
4. Add the coriander powder, cumin powder and nutmeg and fry for a short time.
5. Return the meat to the pan and add the kecap manis and tamarind paste. Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil (taste and add salt if necessary).
6. Stew the meat on a very low heat for 1 hour or more.

A cupcake recipe

As an answer to my cupcake dilemma from last week, I noticed a cupcake recipe in the saturday magazine of our newspaper.

Gwen Thomas, an American woman living in Amsterdam, bakes cupcakes to order for us Dutch people who just don’t seem to grasp the concept of a cupcake (even though we do appreciate a good cupcake.

The article mentions that most Dutch people indeed seem to think that a cupcake is a decorated muffin. To prove us wrong Gwen shows the journalist interviewing her a picture from the book I’m just here for more food written by Alton Brown. This shows that cupcakes do not have a “hat” and that the airbubbles inside a cupcake are all the same size, while those in a muffin differ in size.

For Gwen it turned out to be difficult to make cupcakes according to Martha Stewards recipe without all the American ingredients, so she decided to experiment with Dutch ingredients and she changed her weighing method: instead of cups she started weighing with scales, just like we do ;-)

The recipe she shared with the newspaper was a recipe for Vanilla Cupcakes, made with her own vanilla extract (vanilla pods which have been floating in vodka since the 24th of may):

Gwen’s Vanilla Cupcakes

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(adapted from Martha Steward’s “Billy’s Vanilla, Vanilla Cupcakes”) 

Ingredients

• 98,5 grams of butter
• 6 grams of vanilla extract 
• 174 grams of sugar 
• 113 grams of milk 
• 186 grams of all purpose flour 
• one eighth teaspoon of salt 
• 10 grams of double acting baking powder 
• 2 egg whites 

For the frosting

• 85 grams of soft butter 
• 140 grams of powdered sugar 
• milk 
• 1 drop of vanilla extract 
• food colouring 

Method
1. Preheat oven to 175-180 degrees. Line cupcake pans with paper liners; set aside.
2. Mix the butter with an electric whisk, slowly add the sugar and keep whisking until the mixture goes white. Stir the vanilla in the milk.
3. Sieve the American flour, the salt and baking powder three times. Alternately add the flour mixture in three parts and the milk in two parts to the butter and mix well. With mixer on medium speed, add wet ingredients in 3 parts, scraping down sides of bowl before each addition; beat until ingredients are incorporated but do not overbeat.
4. Whisk the egg whites in a clean bowl until you get soft peaks, it does not need to stiffen up. Fold the egg whites through the batter.
5. Divide batter evenly among liners, filling about 2/3 full.
6. Bake, rotating pan halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 17 to 20 minutes.
7. For the frosting: mix the sugar in portions with the butter. Add the vanilla and food colouring, if desired. If necessary add some milk to make the frosting thinner. Once cupcakes have cooled, use a small offset spatula to frost tops of each cupcake.

Tandoori Chicken

Tandoori chicken is one of the best things you can do to chicken. The marinade is

spicy and tasty and it is a very versatile dish. You can shred the chicken and use the meat as a sandwich filling, you can eat it with rice or naan, 

or - like we did this weekend - as part of a lovely barbecue with homemade bread, a light potato salad and raita.

Preferably the chicken is of course cooked in a traditional tandoor oven, but a barbecue is just as good. It gives a lovely extra smoky flavour.

For the marinade I used Anjum Anand’s tandoori marinade. She makes Tandoori lamb wraps with it, but trust me: it works on chicken as well. I rubbed the marinade in the chicken the evening before to let it marinade overnight, so we just had to light the barbecue and throw the chicken on it the day after. I love that about summer.

Barbecued Tandoori Chicken

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For the marinade

• 150ml/5fl oz Greek-style yoghurt 
• half a small onion, roughly chopped 
• 1 garlic clove, peeled and chopped 
• 2.5cm/1 in piece fresh ginger, peeled and chopped 
• 2 tsp each garam masala and ground cumin 
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• half a tsp ground fennel seeds 
• one fourth of a tsp freshly ground black pepper 
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil 
• 2 tbsp fresh coriander leaves 
• half a tsp red chilli powder, or to taste 
• 2 tsp lemon juice 
• 1 tsp salt, or to taste 
• 2 chickens (with skin), butterflied

Method
1. Place all the marinade ingredients into a food processor and blend until smooth. Pour the marinade over the butterflied chicken and rub it in well (don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty, this is the best way to do it). Leave to marinate in the fridge for as long as possible, preferably overnight. Bring back to room temperature an hour before cooking. 
2. Preheat a barbecue or grill until very hot or preheat the oven to 240C/gas 9. 
3. Place the chicken on the hot barbecue or grill to cook on both sides until completely cooked - it takes about 15-20 minutes on each side, depending on the heat of your barbecue. Or place the pieces in a roasting tin in the oven and cook for 10 - 20 minutes, until cooked through.

This feeds a crowd, as you can see :-) We served it with homemade bread which was drizzled with some olive oil, garlic and parsley and put under the grill, potato salad and a cucumber raita.

Cucumber raita

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Ingredients

• 250ml/8fl oz natural yoghurt 
• half a cucumber, grated or finely chopped
• large handful mint leaves, chopped
• large pinch salt 
• half -1 green chilli, de-seeded and finely chopped (optional) / we always use a bit of chilli powder instead. 

Method
1. Wrap the grated cucumber in a tea towel and squeeze out any excess water.
2. Mix together all the ingredients and serve chilled.

No-Mayo Potato Salad

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By Rachael Ray (serves 4)

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 pounds Idaho potatoes, cut into quarters lengthwise, then chopped into large chunks 
• 1/2 cup beef consomme or broth 
• 3 tablespoons capers 
• 1 red bell pepper, finely chopped 
• 2 stalks celery, finely chopped 
• 1/2 medium red onion, finely chopped 
• 1 lemon, zested and juiced 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar 
• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) 
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper 

Method
1. Place the potatoes in a medium pot. Fill with cold water and bring to a boil. Add aliberal amount of salt and cook the potatoes until they are tender, about 12-15 minutes. Once the potatoes are tender, drain and return them to the warm pot to dry them out.
2. Add the beef consomme, capers, red bell pepper, celery, onion, lemon zest and juice, red wine vinegar and EVOO. Season with salt and pepper. This dish tastes great either warm or cold.

Enjoy!

The Cupcake Dilemma

As a Dutch girl I never completely understood the difference between muffins and cupcakes.

When I was a child we would simply call whatever we were baking “little cakes” and happily decorated them with some icing and Smarties (M&Ms without peanuts). The icing was simple: just sugar and water mixed until smooth - I’d never heard of, seen nor had the buttercream variety until I saw them on American tv shows. I also believe that I always used the terms muffin and cupcake interchangeably…

Nowadays in the Netherlands we have muffins, usually those are bigger and mushroom shaped vanilla or chocolate cakes (or even marbled!). In my favourite coffee place (which closed down, unfortunately) they also sold muffins filled with nuts and oats and dried fruit, very yummy! Then we can buy a box with a cake mix to make small cakes which are called Fairy cakes or Princess cakes: delicate vanilla flavoured small cakes decorated with glittery candy and pink icing and all of a sudden these also popped up, everywhere, called cupcakes: 

If I understand it correctly, and please, do correct me if I’m wrong, cupcakes are these small, light cakes topped with (buttercream) frosting and muffins are bigger, more dense and often also contain nuts or chocolate chips or raisins and oats and don’t have frosting. 

The frosting is a whole other issue: I never ever made this type of spreadable frosting. I always made the sugar-mixed-with-water type which hardened as it cooled down. How do you make the buttercream frosting? It unnerves me, because I have the feeling it is pretty easy, but it’s somehow still a daunting prospect.

What is your (or THE) definition of a muffin and a cupcake?  Please share your favourite recipes for muffins and / or cupcakes and frosting with me! 

Untitled

Last night we had Lucy’s Tilapia taco’s, finally! (I posted we were going to make it last week). The fish came out lovely and moist, it was more a traditional steamed fish dish, but worked pretty well with all the taco accessories like tortillas, avocado, creme fraiche, hot taco sauce and tomato. A lovely and relatively light dinner, very suitable for a hot summer’s day!

Tilapia taco’s
by Lucy Knisley (modified by me to empty the fridge, at my own risk ;-)), serves 2

Ingredients

2 tilapia filets, thawed
1 red pepper
1 green pepper
1 red onion
1 spring onion
a good splash of balsamic vinegar
a splash of lime juice
a dash of olive oil
freshly ground black pepper
2 knobs of butter
2 pieces of parchment paper
 
Method
1. Preheat the over to 400 F/ 200 C Slice the peppers, onion and spring onion (I sliced the spring onion lengthwise and then cut it in a few pieces).
2. Put each fish fillet on a piece of parchment paper, cover with some pieces of bell pepper and onion. Grind some pepper over it, drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and add some lime juice. Put a knob of butter on each piece of fish and add a piece of lime.
3. Fold the pieces of parchment paper like a present, make sure they’re closed firmly, and turn the packages over so that the folding lines are on the underside.
4. Place the packages in the oven and let them bake for 30 minutes. Let them cool down a bit and serve with anything you like.

Enjoy!

Grilling weather

It’s toasting hot outside, the perfect weather for a barbecue. Unfortunately we don’t own a barbecue neither do we have the space for using one, I am sure many people have the same problem. Fear no more: a grill pan will do the trick just fine!

A recent trip to Ikea left us with a very nice recipe book full of ideas to use your grilling pan to the max: “I grill with you - 20 delicious recipes”. The recipes are varied and quite interesting, I must admit. They either have a picture or are illustrated with extremely cute drawings:

It also contains our signature dish, one we’ve been trying to recreate and perfectionize after eating it in a Japanese resaurant: Usuyaki, beef rolls filled with spring onion and garlic, fried and glazed with a teriyaki sauce. We make this dish often, and the recipe in the Ikea cookbook is quite good. 

Usuyaki - fried beef rolls filled with spring onion
makes 24

Ingredients
3 beef steaks
6 spring onions, sliced in 24 parts (slice each spring onion in 4 parts)
2 cloves of garlic, chopped (optional, we always add it, Ikea doesn’t)
Olive oil 
teriyaki sauce (see below)

Method
1. We’ve tried to recreate it before, but slicing the beef that thin turned out to be really difficult. Now we bought already thin roastbeef steaks which we put in the freezer to firm up, then we sliced each steak in 8 thin slices.
2. Fill each slice of steak with a piece of spring onion drizzle some garlic over the spring onion and roll it firmly and put in a stick to keep it from falling apart.
3. Lightly brush the beef rolls with some olive oil before grilling. You only need to grill these for a good 20 seconds on each side. Serve with the Teriyaki sauce.

Tips / varieties:
1. In the lovely The Manga Cookbook (which - perhaps surprisingly - is a VERY good Japanese basic cookbook) you’ll find a recipe for Nikumaki which uses bacon of some other piece of thinly sliced pork as a wrapper and carrot and haricots verts as filling.
2. These are also great filled with small green asparagus.
(print recipe)

Teriyaki sauce (also from The Manga Cookbook)

Ingredients
1 cup of soy sauce 
1 cup of sugar 
1 cup of mirin
1 cup of cooking sake

Method
Mix it all together in a saucepan, bring to the boil and let simmer for 7 minutes or until the sauce starts to thicken.
Note on measurements: My sister in law Maire gave me a lovely set of cups for measurements in cups (logically), I used the 1/2 cup size for this recipe as we were only making it for the two of us. This proved to be more than enough for both the Usuyaki and another recipe we made (Teriyaki meatballs). We also used it to drizzle over our tuna sashimi which we had for our starter. Which brings me to a general note: the teriyaki sauce did not seem to thicken when I first made it, but it does thicken slightly more and tastes even better the day after, so make it beforehand!

(print recipe) 

This was not the recipe I wanted to share from the Ikea cookbook, but as it makes a wonderful light dish or starter I wanted to share it anyway. 

Now, onwards to the real summery recipe from the Ikea grilling cookbook!

Chicken from Tuscany
Serves 4

Ingredients
4 chicken breasts
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon of mixed Italian herbs (basic recipe you can make and store in an airtight container uses 1 teaspoon of each: dried oregano, basil, rosemary, thyme and sage)
olive oil
125 grams of small mozzarella balls
6-8 sun dried tomatoes, soaked and chopped
some mint leaves
8 black olive, stone removed and cut in half
2 spring onions, sliced diagonally
freshly ground black pepper

Method
1. Rub the chicken breasts with pepper, salt and the mixed italian herbs. Brush some olive oil on them.
2. Heat the grillpan until very hot. Put the chicken in and cook for 15 minutes until done, make sure they get nice grilling stripes.
3. Meanwhile: put the mozzarella in a bowl with the chopped sun dried tomatoes. Chop the mint leaves and add those as well together with the olives and spring onions. Sprinkle some olive oil on the salad and mix well. Season with some freshly ground black pepper. 
4. Serve the salad with the grilled chicken breasts.  

(print recipe)

Nice, light and summery.