It should be obvious what this is:

Tators! The food us Dutchies grow tall and strong from. I’ve been to Japan, rice certainly isn’t it. They’re laced with strips of bacon.

BUNNY WABBIT with Terragon sauce. I never liked to eat rabbit the traditional way my father cooks it, but this is definitely nice. I guess I got over my childhood trauma.

They have been defeated by the sheer amount of it. I had to quit cooking and leave some for the 2nd day of christmas!

PICTURES AND WACKY COMMENTARY:

L’Aperitif! Haven’t got a clue, it was booze.

Cold potato soup

I forgot what it’s called, but it’s now “handsome clump of meat”! Just kidding. It’s a carpaccio roll. Now you know why I can’t cook for high grade restaurants. I had some filling left over, so I was like “I ain’t throwing this out, just toss it on the plate”. Presentation: fail. xD.

For some reason, I think there’s an easier name for this fish than: European plaice, but I don’t know it. lol. “Schol”, that’s what we call it.

FIGS FIGS FIGS. Parmasan, balsamico. I LIKE FIGS.

Grapefruit & shrimp salad. Had some shrimp left over. Can’t have that. Let’s just chuck them all hanging from the side. I arranged them in a circle at first, but then I thought: “This looks like a bowl of octopus that just puked all over itself.” Let’s NOT.

This one was interesting. It’s like… something caramelized in balsamico and sugar. Pancetta ham and cranberry paté inside. It was noms.

In absence of good soup bowls I …. just used the pasta plates. hahaha. “Supersize it”. It’s ehh… Celeriac (Knolselderij) soup. This is also what killed it. xD. Nobody could eat anymore after that.

Though we still closed with ice cream. Advocaat icecream in edible trays. BTW, wiki page has recipe of “Snowball” I must try. Sounds disgusting! “Eggnog and lemonade” – who thought that one up?

And of course, we *still* wash that down with more alcohol aka “damage to the diencephelon” by one of the best dessert wines around:

I DON’T GET WHY I SHOULD BUY AN INGREDIENT AND THEN USE ONLY HALF OF IT. Hence, I oversize portions. Wouldn’t want to throw something away now would we? Tomorrow, round two! Eat you landlubbers, it’s recession time!

This is actually two dishes, or somewhat the base of it. Still managed to study about 2,5 hours but I notice these ‘drill seances’ take my utmost discipline. I really don’t care a lot screwing up a couple of exams but, the prospect of getting the discipline again is horrible. This is the problem with breaking known speedlimits! Must.Has.Discipline. Self-Punishment: read 3 chapters.

There’s Scottish, Norwegian and Atlantic. This time, I have no facts for you. Just know that Norwegian is the most expensive, Scottish tastes the strongest and fishiest, and Atlantic is somewhere in the middle; probably a bit more fatty than Norwegian. I hate the cheapest the most, but I never really payed attention to the exact minute difference between Norwegian and Atlantic. This small question has been bothering me.

So right now I have Atlantic, now next time, we’ll try the Norwegian. It better be Vikingly good. I’ll report on the difference.

It was meant to be a first course… but yea, I always make too much.

There’s also pictures of the filling. So here’s my preferred filling:

• Minced pork (you’ll have to get that from the butcher or Germany)
• Salt (add enough, too little is going to make it flat)
• Pepper
• A bit of sugar
• Shiitake mushrooms
• Chinese cabbage
• Spring onion (in absence of nira)
• 1 big onion (if you it without the onion, it doesn’t work as well)
• Soy sauce
• Sesame oil
• Potato starch
• Ginger (lots of it)
• Garlic

Sorry I didn’t write down any amounts… I usually just do something that looks right.

Asparagus come from my dad’s garden. One time he made asparagus himself, but it could not be eaten. He didn’t peel them well enough so they were rock hard and stringy. The thing with peeling asparagus is: you need to continue until you can easily push your nail in.

The eggs are from our own chickens. The yokes look totally different from normal eggs, they’re much more yellow. After you eat those, you’ll never want eggs from the store again.

I also have decided one other thing: Swiss people have too much time on their hands. I had to boil tators, let it cool, mash them, make a dough with flower and eggs including the mash, boil the little dumplings, put them into the oven with Gruyere cheese. (…) You people have too much time on your hands.

I was also not amused with my sauce. It was alright when I set it down onto the table and then one minute later the entire thing split! RRRRRRRRRRRR goddamn. I need to practise that one some more.

It contains thick bacon strips, because I don’t believe they sell as in cooking with dog: big chunks. Perhaps the butcher, I dunno. Then in absence of “I don’t know what that was” in cooking with dog, I substituted it with Shitake mushrooms. There’s spinach, soft boiled egg (no seasoning) and spring onion (because I’ve never seen a Welsh onion). So there you have it. Ramen any Japollander in the countryside can make, provided you have Dashi. Sankyuu~ friend.

The ramen? You don’t find that around these parts very easily. So I used “wok noodles” as seen over at my friend’s house. I figured, if I dip them in water and losen them up it at least LOOKS like actual ramen. That it did!

The smell around the house is just *Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm*. I was running around the house going: “DAD SMELL IT”.

Penalty Box zegt:
TT_TT
YOU ARE MAKING THIS FOR ME AT SOME POINT, RIGHT?
Feles zegt:
HAI I AM
Penalty Box zegt:
8)
Feles zegt:
TAKES 5 HOURS BUT I WILL
Penalty Box zegt:
LUFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFf.

Oh please come eat over at my house, before my pants don’t fit no more!

By exception, I made a very Dutch dinner. Meat, veg, tators. I only like the national pride and joy when I make it. The tators are dumped in a paprika sauce, you eat it with Greek yoghurt with spring onions and dille. Then there’s the zucchini with onion rings and thyme. To top it all off: ham with mushroom cream sauce. That ham was about 700 maybe 800 grams and I ate nearly ALL of it because my dad couldn’t eat that much. OH DAMN.

See how it sparkles? It’s smiling at you. XD. *burp*

I wish I made more of it. On the other hand; I was feeling slightly guilty for the two donuts I ate. Two giant balls of grease and sugar. I feel the hyper!

Edit: I made the remaining half of the ravioli today. Nom nom nom.

The filling was almost correct, but I think I need to put in more ginger and add salt. We don’t have anything fancy like the proper sauce to go with it, so it’s a mix of Soy Sauce, Rice vinegar and Sesame oil. That’s a lot saltier than what I had in Japan, so I held back the salt in the meat mixture. Guess that was wrong. I think, since we don’t have Nira readily available I can add more garlic and even though I thought spring onions could even out the need for an onion – I’m gonna include an onion. That concludes: THE SCIENCE OF GYOZA WITH VERY LIMITED MEANS.

I think my dough should be a lot more dry though. It said “consistency of an earlobe”. Hmm. It appears my earlobes are softer than usual. I have the feeling the dough should be more dry.

Even Asian toko’s near here don’t carry the round dough thingies, only the square ones. It is possible to make your own dough, but I don’t know about that adventure. Even if the toko’s did carry Japanese items regularly, it’s not exactly in my neighbourhood. I’d have to drive 50km to the nearest one.

Same goes for something as simple as “panko” (bread crumb). Sold in packages, but kind of labour intensive around these parts. Let alone the proper oil to fry Tonkatsu in. It’s pretty simple: we have sunflower oil, olive oil, oil messed up with herbs and that’s about it. They can keep their schnitzels, I’m spoiled now. I only eat tonkatsu.

I’d rather live in Japan and gorge myself and order a Gouda now and then from the NL.

Anyways, I’m going to attempt making Gyoza again. *rolls up sleeves* One day I’ll perfect this dish. And… WHY DON’T CHINESE RESTAURANTS FRIGGIN SERVE THIS ASIF THEY KNOW WHAT THEY’RE DOING? I ain’t never touching that again either. The Japanese ripped off the Chinese for this dumpling type dish anyways.

While I put my videos on random, came across this clip from SMAP bistro (guest: yamapi). Here’s an example of what most people here find hard to stomach:

Don’t ask me what it is, but if it blubbers around like that – chances are it isn’t going to be a hit with pale-face.

Starter: bread stars with roasted paprika & ham:

Soup: Paprika soup I tasted at my friend’s house before. Bochan, you should remember this one:

Main course: Tournedos in red wine sauce with cantarelles. #*$& This is good meat I tell you. Expensive, very expensive. That expensive I was worried I might screw it up. My mom and dad didn’t think the main course over… It meant I had to watch and control 4 pans on the fire and something in the oven. It waz hell. Luckily it still worked. *blows in fist* “With the slightest little effort of my ghost like charm”.

Only, while I was cooking this, half of the kitchen roll caught fire. lol. I ripped the piece off that was burning and my mom was like: “Git it into the sink! Git it into the sink!”. Meanwhile I took out some burned paper that fell into a pan first. Nerves of steel I got. roflmao. Don’t worry, we lived.

The side dishes: Haricot verts + green asparagus meets tomato. I just love green asparagus.

Tators Jamie Oliver style:

For the last, I friggin’ cheated. These are bought:

Meanwhile I’m singing of course. I drink before cooking, while cooking and after cooking. The best thing in the entire universe is opening up a muscat wine and sniffing it. It’s the most beautiful smell in the entire world. If I could smell it day and night I wouldn’t mind. Quite frankly I would like my non-existent boyfriend to smell like a bottle of muscat wine. That sounds weird, doesn’t it? Just open up one, you’ll know what I mean!

:smile:

How often he’d complain that “rice is dry and bleh” and “I don’t get these Asian people, who wants to eat rice!” and “How do they eat that with sticks?!”. The last one is a commonly asked question around these parts with the less globally aware. They start thinking with all their might how on earth it’s possible to pick up a bunch of rice with sticks. Since the web changed many things, there are less uneducated souls. Around 5-10 years ago it would be an entirely different thing though. Many people contemplating about the problem of picking up a rice grain with chopsticks. While I will probably never see my dad eat something with chopsticks, I’m so proud of him being able to eat rice and like it.

I will probably never learn how to cook Asian dishes properly, since the ingredients remain to be a problem. I mean, come on, japollander cuisine?

Here’s another dish I’m really fond of. It might look a little weird:

It’s secret is in the stock. It tastes really good. You pour the boiling stock over raw salmon and some shrimp. Mighty good eatin’!

Unfortunately the other tin is broken (the even bigger one) t_t. So now I must make do with this way too deep one. I bet I will have gained 2 kilograms by next week. No wonder I have strange eating habits like peeling my bread buns. I didn’t become a picky eater for nothing. Actually that shouldn’t even be called picky. I eat stuff no one from around here would even dare to think about. So I guess it’s more of a “I like the good life” kind of thing. Translation: “if it isn’t good enough for the princess, she doesn’t eat”.