vealtartar, mixed salad and chicorysoup

I promised you I would give the recipes of our cooking club, didn’t I? Well here is the first part with the starters. Very simple recipes but very tasty. If I had to pick one then my favorite is the soup which was lovely and went really well with the scallops inside. I did like the veal but you have to make sure you cut the meat really really fine as otherwise it is too much like …. well, how shall I put this… like naked meat… That sounds a bit weird but I hope you know what I mean!!

Here are the recipes!

Chicorysoup with baked scallop

300 gr chicory

50 gr of butter

3 dl chickenfond

1,5 dl cream

pepper, salt

6 scallops

Clean the chicory and remove the bitter heart of the vegetable. Cut into small strips. Sprinkle with some lemonjuice to prevent discoloring.

Heat 25 gr of butter in a pan and saute the chicory. Deglaze with the fond and the cream. Put the mixture into a blender or handblender and blend until very smooth. Put the mixture back into the pan and add salt, pepper and extra butter to taste.

Heat some oil and very quickly fry the scallops lightbrown on both sides. Put the scallops into a small cup and put the soup over it and serve.

VEALTARTAR

400 gr escalope

1 sjalot very finely chopped

handful of chopped parsley

2 tbsp mayonaise

2 tbsp of ketchup

1 tbsp of sharp mustard (dijon or otherwise)

2 tbsp of worcester sauce

pinch of cayenne pepper

salt

capers

Cut the veal escalopes in very small cubes (and very small is very small but don’t puree it!)

Cut the sjalot very very fine as well. Mix all ingredients in a bowl and mix well together.

Well, how simple can it get, right? To present you can put some in a ring, press it and take the ring off.

We also had a little salad with the three amuse dishes we had but I didn’t think the salad was very special. It was nice but really not nice enough, so I will not be giving you that recipe…

We had a lovely white wine with this as well which is the one on the left!

The mains and dessert will be coming later too! Now I really need to go and check on some of you guys as I am sooooo behind in reading!

Related Posts:

• What crayfish and melons got to do with eachother…
• New cooking club!!
• Party food for any occasion
• Behind the scenes at a sweet photoshoot
• Bruschetta with arugulapesto – DHSPC #6

Menu for Kort Lontje January 2010

Last friday was the second time we were coming together with the cooking club Kort Lontje. Again the location was in Kookstudio K-O-K-S in Amsterdam and Mia was this time in charge of coming up with a menu and working that out together with Albert en Pieter. After the ‘heavy’ holidays the theme was ‘light’…. I got to say though that I absolutely loved the menu, but it was anything BUT light! So in that sense… the theme did not really work that well, but other than that it was a brilliant menu again.

This is what we made:

Palet of three amuses:

chicory with baked scallops

Mix salad with raspberry dressing

tartar of veal

Italian risotto with mushrooms and steamed filet of sole

Quail made into a little package (rolled roast) with sauerkraut and truffelpuree

Tartellette of poached pears, poached pearicecream, poached pear sauce

We again had some people do the starters, others the mains and the dessert, so we each had our separate tasks. I have to say that I made the risotto and that wasn’t the most exciting as I have done risotto many times at home, but ok, someone has to do it, right?

I will share the recipes for every dish with you in separate posts as it will be too long to do it otherwise! So more coming up!

Related Posts:

• Vealtartar and chicorysoup
• Cooking club Kort Lontje (short temper…

Kort Lontje results

Remember back in March when we started for the first time with the cooking course at the Kookstudio Amsterdam? Well, out of that fun group we created a cooking club and last night we came together for the first time to cook in a new location. You have to realize that it is not simple to find a place where you can cook with 9 people at the same time. Initially we had wanted to do that in the Kookstudio where we all met, but due to schedules that was not possible to do, but our dear friend Christine found a place we could use.

The name of our cooking club is “Kort Lontje” which is kind of a fun reminder of Rob, as that was one of the first things he said to us, that he had a bit of a short temper sometimes. Which is what kort lontje means….

Obviously the purpose of the group is to get together and cook something fun but also to relax and have a good meal together with friends. It’s therefore very different from our cooking workshops we did in the kookstudio, but I shouldn’t even be compairing those I guess….

The space we used is beautiful and light (and therefore better to take photos!!) and is in kookstudio K.O.K.S. in Amsterdam as well. It’s also a kitchen design shop so you can imagine that the kitchens where equipped with the latest materials, among which very impressive ovens! I forgot to take a photo of one oven in particular but will do so the next time.

As you can see from the photos at the top we had a lovely meal; we started with little shrimp croquettes on a  bed of rocket with lemon mayonaisse. Delicious! Then on to the course that Tom and I prepared which was Dorad with beurre blanc sauce with chives and a red onion compote (I love, love, love red onion compote! Sooo good (and simple to prepare too), then deer with a layer of chestnuts on top served with brussels sprouts and potato gratin and to finish we had tarte tatin with chestnut icecream and a – not so good – sauce of tarragon and something else…

On to the main course

All in all we had a great evening and we have already made a new appointment for the next time. Because we don’t want to only be cooking from recipes we have decided to work with a schedule where each one of us gets to pick a theme or a specific dish that we will be making for that particular evening. That person is then also responsible to create the menu together with Albert and Pieter, the owners and two lovely guys.

If you would like to try and make the red onion compote (and you should!) here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

5 red onions

50 gr butter

0,5 dl creme de cassis

0,5 dl raspberry vinegar

1 dl red wine

Cut the red onion into small pieces and saute them with the butter until they are transparant. Add the creme de cassis, the raspberry vinegar and the red wine and some salt and pepper to taste.

Leave to simmer for about 1 hour on a low heat.

It works really well with fish but also with some good meat or bloodsausages also nice!

Related Posts:

• Vealtartar and chicorysoup
• Onion-cheese quiche
• What crayfish and melons got to do with eachother…
• New cooking club!!
• Cooking club Kort Lontje