As I had my tea I watched the snow fall on the city, slowly but heavily. I think it snowed about 4 inches as I perused my cookbook to see what I want to make today. Unfortunately, I indoctrinated the book to life with me as I spilled an entire cup of tea all over it. Oh well...I will blame it on the snow.
Decrypting the cookbook is a horribly long yet entertaining process. I do not have the slightest hint on how dutch works and even with a 'langenscheidt' trying to identify what the hell that one ingredient is takes like 15 min. For example, here are the first few steps in making 'hutsepot', which i think stands for stew:
1. Snijd de groenten in grote stukken. Zo koken ze niet los en blijven ze heel in de hutsepot.
2. Stoof de groenten 5 a 6 minuten aan in een grote pan.
3. Kruid met peper en zout en voeg tijm en laurier toe.
4. Voeg het water toe en laat even opkoken.
5. Leg het spek op de groenten en laat alles 45 minuten stoven onder deksel. Als je geen deksel op de pan zet, verdampt het water en kan de hutsepot aanbranden.
etc etc etc
Difficult huh? All I got out of the above was that i need a big pot, simmer the crap for 5/6 min, add spices, boil, and cook for 45 min. I think that is pretty much the gist of it all anyway. That however took like an hour to translate. Or at least it felt like it. Watching BBC doesn't help though.
Once my host got back from school we went to pick up all of the ingredients for 'hutsepot' and 'uiensoep'. Some of them we couldn't translate so we wandered around the store trying to figure out what 'raapjes' and 'preistengels' were. I don't remember which is which but one is leek and the other um...radish was it?
While we were out we took a brief walk around the snow covered town. Apparently it doesn't snow this early here, the weather i think is supposed to be like Seattle in nature so this was an unexpected treat. It showed, as the city was filled with young and old enjoying the snow via snowball fights, ice skating, or trying to warm up at one of the outside alcohol and/or food stands. Dear lord I love those. I almost got another waffle but decided not to.
The Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal was stunning. It really is the biggest old building I have ever seen and the snow makes it look so majestic its unbelievable. Pictures do it no justice. It apparently used to be the biggest church structure in europe. But I think Russia took that title somewhat later.
Once I got back to the apt I decided to make myself a worst for lunch, following Huysentruyt's recipe in the book. It requires lard...lots of lard. I used about 5 tablespoons of butter instead. I then cooked the sausage over medium heat for about 10 minutes and voila! My first meat product in a hella long time! As I cut into it the buttery juices spilled out upon my plate. I would of been disgusted but it was one of the tastiest things I have ever eaten. Oh boy, I could feel myself getting fatter as I ate it.
Later that night I made the hutsepot. It went really well. It pretty much is a vegetable stew, like the one I make back at home, but with bacon. Yes bacon. You just throw a bunch of bacon into the pot with all of the vegetables. Its light on spices but heavy on the bacon. I personally found it lacking it flavor (that most likely is because my host forbade me from putting the other two onions in) but in general I found it satisfying. I think if I made it again I would add some white wine, I find that white wine in stews adds a very good flavor for some reason. Oh I forgot to mention, once the stew is cooked, you are supposed to add cooked sausage, or worsten. Yes...more buttery fatty goodness. I am so going to come back to the states a stone heavier...
After we gorged ourselves on stew and sausage (and I had a quick power nap), we ventured out into the snow-globey wonderland to meet my hosts english friend at a bar called Popi. Here I had my first taste of belgium beer. Well belgium beer that wasn't stella, which is like bud here. Oh so good though. Anyway I had a DeKoninck, the locally produced beer and a....oh dam...I cannot remember anymore. Regardless the un-named beer and the DeKoninck were wonderful. The DeKoninck in particular was a darkish beer but it wasn't bitter. It was very flavorful and smooth, aka amazing. I will try to remember some more details later.
In addition, after listening to my complaints that my host doesn't have an oven (horrible huh), my new friend decided to give us the keys to his flat for christmas week while he is visiting family in England. Yay! Now I can actually cook deserts and quiche and some kind of meat product for christmas dinner! Yay! Oh my...I just realized that this will be the first holiday dinner where I am going to be in charge...I hope I don't fuck up.
dam....long post
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