It’s chaos everywhere; one person is running around with smoked eel trying to remove all the bones, the other is rummaging through the racks beneath the kitchen counter searching for an empty pot, someone else is peering over my shoulder to see if I maybe have the gelatin powder, while on the other side of the kitchen a few folks are stirring and chopping. (not necessarily in that order)

It’s really not that easy cooking with a large group of people. Did you know that? You would think that maybe all those hands would make the job lighter, but I’ve found sofar that it actually makes the job at hand harder. Trying to concentrate over measurements is virtually impossible if chaos is all around you.

Organized chaos

But then again I wouldn’t want to miss it for the world. It’s great fun and yes, we have more failures then I would care to mention here, but we laugh about it, eat it anyway and move on to the next dish. Our group is usually around 14-15 people which is a large enough group. Some have a lot of cooking experience, others have virtually none, but we all help eachother and in the end it is about sharing the experience, having a good laugh and a fun dinner at the end. Our cooking club is now over a year old already and still with the same folks except for one. No one ever really misses a session unless on holiday or away for work, but we’re all pretty faithful. It’s only once every two months to I guess that makes it a little easier to plan into any one diary plus the dates are fixed at the beginning of the year so we know where to keep the diary empty!

Cleaning eel

Last Friday was our first session in a different location. We had some disagreements with the owners of the previous place. Let’s just say that we were forced into doing things we didn’t want to do so that was end of story. Luckily we found a new place immediately as this is the same cooking location were Tom and I have done countless cooking courses over the last couple of years so we know the place. It’s a much older kitchen (and arguably it could be a little cleaner) but it’s a good location with a lot of atmosphere and in the middle of Amsterdam so close to the Albert Cuyp market.

Me having fun!

The menu this week was a smoked eel with fried herbs, shrimps with risotto, watercress coulis and crispy ham, escalope milanese with tomato and courgette and strawberry soup with vanilla icecream and caramel sauce. Not too complicated you would think, right?

Well, the starter went a bit wrong, so we had eel soup instead of the turned little pudding it was supposed to be. Actually that was the only real failure, the rest of the dishes were pretty much ok.

Shrimp risotto

But the highlight of the evening really was the delicious dessert of strawberry soup, homemade vanilla icecream and caramel sauce…. So for that I will share the recipe with you; well for the soup as the recipe for the icecream was changed at some point and I don’t want to give you false information!

Strawberry soup

Strawberry soup

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Serves	10
Dietary	Vegetarian
Meal type	Dessert
Misc	Serve Cold

Ingredients

• 1kg sweet strawberries
• lemon juice
• 1/3 dl water
• sugar (to taste)
• 1 pinch salt

Directions

Puree about 2/3 of the strawberries with a little bit of lemon juice and a pinch of salt. Add some sugar if needed. The rest of the strawberries you can use for decorations. Strain the strawberries through a sieve and put into a deep, cold plate. Garnish with the rest of the strawberries and ad a ball of icecream in the middle.

Note

Well ofcourse this recipe is so simple you can hardly call it a recipe but that doesn't make it any less tasty!

Don't mess with the chef!

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Outdoor kitchen in Ahun

I’m sure we all have similar experiences where you meet with a group of strangers and in the beginning you’re thinking; who are these people and they really do not seem to be nice… Then after a couple of days, you realize that they are not as bad as you thought they were and then finally you realize they are a wonderful group of people… I think the best example of that was when we went to Thailand 6 years ago; the first night we met with the entire group of 16 people and we went to bed that night thinking we would be having a rather horrible vacation as it was such a terrible group of people only to end up with the best vacation ever and the most fun group of people we had been with in a long while.

In fact; we are still seeing some of those people today…! So what is that?? Why is that? Is it because we tend to stick to the people we know rather then meet new faces? But then; I love meeting new people, so that just doesn’t seem right. But still it sort of happened in a small way the cooking week as well. In the beginning it was a little akward, but very quickly we ended up having a great time with a fun group of people.

Maybe it is also the activity that bonds; cooking together is almost guaranteed a quick way to get to know people. Same as travelling really. I’ve been in situations where a group of strangers felt like people we had known for a long time, after something as little as one day. Ofcourse this all only works if you want it to work. There will always be those people that should not be travelling in a group. For the simple reason that they are anti social and don’t like to spend time with other people (it always baffles me why those people would chose to go on a grouptrip anyway? What are they thinking??)

Free style Gazpacho

While our cooking group last week was made up of quite a variety of people, I do think we all got along quite well and it was sort of sad to have to say goodby after such a relatively short time.  But hey we can always go back and cook some more next year!! All in all a fantastic week. So if you want to go and cook in France or be creative in France check out the website Kookstudio Amsterdam.

And I just had to finish with one last photo of Frits… (I wrote his name wrong the first time around… it’s not Fritz.. but Frits…!)

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Yesterday we visited the market in Bourganeuf, which – thankfully – had a little more produce then the previous two markets. We had quite a large group so making decisions is always a little bit harder when there are 8 people with opinions… lol… But Jan-Willem was to be the chef of the day, so he had the final say in what we were gonna buy. The idea was to check what produce was available and with a reasonable price, buy that produce and in the afternoon come up with a menu.

Busy cutting

We have a large white board where the ideas are written down and once we all agree that is what we are going to make; we create a mise en place list and tasks are being divided among whoever wants to help in the kitchen that particular day. Not everyone is cooking every day; there are other activities being offered, so there are also people who prefer to go painting some days and work in the kitchen another day. So that means that the kitchencrew varies. Which is fine but it can be a little messy and unorganized as not everyone has cooking experience, but it makes it fun at the same time.
We ended up with a menu that went something like this:
Antipasti the french way (we had rillette, baked terrine of duck, tomatoes with mozarella and basil and grilled veggies)
Salmon tartar with lemon mayonaise and a sort of pesto (I ended up making it with salad (initially the idea was to make rocketpesto, but we forgot to buy rocket)
With a piece of Conquer eel
Roasted chicken with home made french fries, fresh green peas steamed with sjallots and saladhearts
Clafoutis with strawberries and mango

The chicken was from a local farm so a really good one and ofcourse; who does not like good fries…
The group of people that had to be fed keeps growing as a few family members also arrived, so in total we had 16 people at the table.

I was not too impressed with the fish; really too much bones and not enough flesh. So as good as the shark was the day before, as bad as the eel was… O well, it can’t all be perfect right?

Steamed green peas with sjalots and saladhearts

Tonight there is going to be an additional 6 people that come for a table d’hote (basically it’s paying customers) which makes it kind of scary, but also fun to be cooking for “real” customers…. We’ll see how that turns out!! I’ll keep you posted!

Checking to see if the fish is fresh

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Fresh shark (yes, that is me and Mathijs)

I apologize for all the french people out here for not spelling the above  title correctly but it kind of sums up what we are doing here perfectly. I was planning on posting something here yesterday but…. unfortunately the internet connection was lost. The wifi was connected only the day before yesterday and we are sort of in the middle of nowhere (biggest places Gueret is 20 km from here and Limoges is I think about 80 km so not exactly close) so any regular connection is not existing. Rob had a special antenna placed so there is at least a better internet connection then via a telephone line, but it’s still a bit shaky.. But if you can read this; that means we had a connection plus it has its charms to be out in the country right?

Yesterday we had planned to go to the market in one of the little places around here but one of the markets was not there and the other was so small that we only bought some goatcheese and nothing else. So we ended up going to the Carrefour again.

We bought loads of fresh produce and then once back we had to come up with a menu to make.

Smoked shark with rocket and lemon mayonaise

The menu for yesterday was as follows:

Soup of roasted peppers with creme fraiche and basil

Smoked shark with rocket and lemon mayonaise

Beefstew with red cabbage, pear and mashed potatoes

Pannacotta with mango

Now I don’t know about you guys but I had never had shark before (called saumonette in french and apparently it is sold as sea-eel in some countries)

and I totally totally loved it.

It was first rubbed in seasalt and left to rest for about 30 minutes, cut into portions and patted dry with kitchen towel. Then it was put into the big green egg with Jack Daniels wood for smoking…

Absolutely delicious; the lemon mayonaise it simple. Fresh mayonaise, with some lemon zest and about the juice of half a lemon and you’re good to go. The french mayonaise is quite good, so you can use that as a base or simply make fresh mayonaise from scratch.

The beefstew was maybe my favorite…. We used a large piece of beef (I think it was 2 kilo in total but then we are with 12 people) and first removed the tendons where necessary. The beef (at roomtemperature) was then marinated for about 30 minutes at least in red wine. Briefly sauteed in various portions (if you put all the beef in a pan at the same time, you end up cooking it, instead of frying it. That is not what you want!) and then we put it in the oven with all the marinate. The beef was seasoned with salt and pepper during the sautee part. We added some whole cloves of garlic (including the skin), onion and a little later in the process some mushrooms and crispy bacon bits. In total it simmered in the oven for about 2 hours (in a crockpot) but just check when the beef is done, as you do not want to overcook it.
I seriously think it was the best stew I have ever had and combined with the red cabbage and mashed potatoes it was a delicious meal.

The pannacotta was just big enough. The previous day we had made two cakes (one lemon and one chocolate ) and while delicious it was a bit tooo much after a rather heavy meal! So the pannacotta was a better portion and delicious as well. As a base for the pannacotta I used this recipe and then just substitued the cranberries for the mango. The sugar got reduced to 90 gr (for 3 portions of the recipe) and I mashed some of the leftover mangoes into the cream before pouring into their forms.

Beef stew

After such a meal it was time for some of us (…) to stretch their legs in a battle of tabletennis. And did I already show you our gorgeous sleeping room, which is in an old cowstable and one of the best things is that – while it is pitch dark inside with no windows – it is fabulously cool!! Totally love that… plus… we have no mosquitos!!

Our stable room!

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Views from Ahun

I told you right, that I would be very soon off to France to enjoy a week of cooking..? It’s been busy up till now and I had wanted to complete the Daring Bakers too as I totally love the recipe but with everything going on these days it’s hard to complete anything. So it does come at a fairly good time that we can relax here in France.

We’ve already done loads of cooking with Rob from Kookstudio Amsterdam and he and his wife have started a cooking/creative venture here in France too. They are situated in a very small town called Ahun, which is about 950 km drive from where Tom and I live. The area is absolutely beautiful and you wouldn’t believe how quiet it is here (ok, except for the occassional cow… They bought this place about 5 years ago when it was complete rundown and have managed to make a couple of gorgeous rooms, an outdoor kitchen and still give it the feeling of an authentic french place (with lots of brocante that is used throughout the in- and exterior.)

Painting by the river

Apart from cooking you can also learn how to sculpt with stone and get painting lessons from an authentic artist. I am really not into sculpting or painting, but if you are into it; the area is beautiful and apparently the painting lessons are real fun or so I’ve been told.

We’ve arrived here on saturday while most of the group arrived on sunday, but it gave me the time to take photos of a few of the rooms before they were occupied… We’re actually sleeping in the former cowstable.. They’ve really managed to make it look like a very cosy bedroom!

There is lots of other stuff planned for the rest of the week, so I am sure you will be hearing more of me in the days to come. Wifi was installed here today, (yes, hot of the press!)

Today is a day when there is no market in the area, so we went to the carefour for groceries and based on the ingredients we found we have come up with dinner for tonight which you will hear about tomorrow.

Outdoors kitchen area

That is the whole idea anyway during the entire week; to try and create a meal based on the ingredients we will find at the local markets. I think probably we will take turns in being the one deciding on the menu and if all goes well, we will actually also be getting a live rooster and duck to…. eh… prepare… if you know what I mean. I am not sure yet, if I will be able to go through the motions with that although I have done it before, but well, it’s different with live animals! All in all, it’s gonna be a fun week and I will be posting more. For now it’s time to go back and check on dinner for tonight. It’s sort of unnerving if you have to suddenly cook from scratch for 12 people! (ok, with loads of help, but still….)

O and that gorgeous red cat is Fritz….. Isn’t he cute??

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