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 sort of is piled like it, and looks like it … but it isn’t! AND I LIKE TO EAT IT. I’m half a German anyways, always have been from where I’ve been livin’.

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.

My mom and dad nearly throw up at the smell of it. roflmao. It’s always like that if it comes out the container. All the gasses stay trapped in there until you open it. It’s quite overwhelming haha. Then when you take some out, five minutes later the smell is gone. Only a mild sour smell remains. My dad freaked out. “You’re not going to eat that are you?”. “OMG, you can’t be serious. Open up a window. It smells so bad.”

Then he says: “Yeah yeah, you’ve proven your manhood again. Now don’t complain to me if you get sick”.

Obviously this food is not made for white people. I mean, I’m sure many will eat it without knowing what it is and neatly served on a platter when it doesn’t stink as much anymore. But it’ll take some more courage getting it out of the package when the fumes can reach your nose. Hence, odorless kimchi might actually catch on. When I went to clean my bowl out he said: “Have some mercy on the garbage man”. rofl. He’s right, that would be aweful if you’re a garbage man.

Reminds me of that one time in Japan in the hotel when a kid asked his mum why I wasn’t eating any nattou. She looked at him firmly and said: “They don’t eat that”. You’d be surprised what I can eat and what I actually ate so far. Fish with little eyes, unknown fish cheek, something with tentacles, cod roe, sea urchin, crab’s brain (I think). The only thing I really hate is sea urchin. Yellow/orange mush that tastes like a ladybug’s poop smells like. No thanks! But for the rest I’m quite an adventurous eater.

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.

I don’t want to hear anyone around here telling me “My gawd, how can the Japanese eat so much raw fish”. You haven’t watched this show. We can do worse.