Chicken with gravy, boiled potatoes and cauliflower in creamy cheese sauce

In earlier times, more than half of the Dutch population would be eating this meal on Sunday. When talking about predictability, the Dutch are such an easy read -- nasi goreng (Indonesian fried rice) on Wednesdays, boerenkool stampot (mashed potato with farmer's cabbage) when the first frost hits the ground, or barbeques on the predicted warm days in summer.

Over the years as life became more prosperous, as more people are able to go abroad for holidays, new eating patterns and habits have come to evolve. Fast foods, pizza houses, Chinese take-aways have cornered a sizeable portion of the population who now prefer to just sit in front of the televisions instead of slaving in the kitchen.

Hubby is still very much conservative and the typical Sunday meals he had growing up are his preferred comfy foods on Sundays. I actually don't mind and has actually learned to appreciate these meals the way he does.

Let me share you one of these comfy meals…chicken with gravy, boiled potatoes and cauliflower in creamy cheese sauce. I used cauliflower for veggie because it is in season.

Ingredients:

2 chicken legs

Potatoes

1 whole cauliflower

Butter

Salt

Pepper

100g Grated cheese

5 tbsps Corn starch

200ml Milk

Optional:

Mushrooms, sliced

Tomatoes, chopped 

Season the chicken with salt and pepper

 In a saucepan, add about 60g of butter. You don't need a lot of butter to cook the chicken as opposed to the usual way of deep frying chicken.

When the butter has turned slightly brown, place chicken and reduced the heat/fire to medium. Keep the lid on so that the chicken will cook in its own steam/moisture.

Turn when the other side has turned brown.  You can also turn the heat to low to ensure that the chicken does not burn before the innermost part is cooked.

Once the chicken is cooked, remove from the pan to be able to make the gravy from the butter used in frying.

To make the gravy, add a little bit more butter and then add the mushrooms.

Fry for a minute or two then add the tomatoes.  Add a small amount of water.  Check the taste if still not salty enough.  


You can add a bit more salt or Maggi seasoning and some ground pepper.  Let it boil and the the gravy has thickened, turn off the heat/fire.

Boiled Potatoes:


Peel the potatoes, place it in a pan filled with water to just about 2/3 of the level of the potatoes.


Boil for about 20 minutes or until the potatoes are cooked.

Cauliflower in creamy cheese sauce: 

• In a deep saucepan, boil the cauliflower.  Water should cover the entire cauliflower.  Add some salt as well.
• Boil for about 20 minutes (could be less) but turn the other way around halfway into the cooking period.
• Once cooked, remove from the pan.
• To make the creamy cheese sauce, you will need to heat up in a saucepan about 150ml milk.  Also mix about 5 tbsps corn starch with 50ml cold milk and when thoroughly mixed, add to the warm milk.  Add the grated cheese.  Continue stirring and when the cheese has melted, the sauce is done.  Pour the cheese sauce on top of the cauliflower and top that with grated nutmeg.

As we say in Dutch, "eet smakkelijk"!

Sunday walk at Doorn Castle

No matter how well-laid our plans are, there is that unseen hand which can stir us in a completely different direction. Such was the case of our lives when in the last week of July instead of having that weekend in The Hague exploring the rosarium (a place Siefko and I used to cycle to when we still live in The Hague because of its hundreds of types of roses which are in full bloom in summer) and showing Madurudam (Holland's miniature city) to Francesca, Siefko ended up going under the knife for appendectomy. The first few days were not so pleasant but towards the end of the week, he started feeling better again although restrained from carrying/lifting Francesca.

Nothing is much nicer than having our usual Sunday walk in the forest so I suggested that we go to Doorn and have our stroll on the castle grounds. Doorn Castle which used to belong to the family of Audrey Hepburn's Dutch mother before WWI has been the home and in its ground is the final resting place of Emperor Willem II, the last German emperor. The castle is still frequented by many German royalists, by the way.

We love it here in Doorn because the small forest is very nice especially in autumn and there are also quite some 4-legged creatures gracefully roaming around. 

The day which started somewhat gloomy brightened up a bit so we had a bit of a picnic and Francesca enjoyed a bit of a chase by her father. 

It was a day full of surprises, there was also a flea market just across the road from the castle entrance. Though we are not inclined to buy other people's junk, it was simply nice to roam around and later have junk foods instead ;-)

the bust of Kaiser Wilhelm II

one section of the garden

the final resting place of Kaiser Wilhelm II

the rosarium

deers

Buttered fish with coriander, nuts and spring onions

The Dutch are quite freaky with food. Fish, meat and poultry should as much as possible be hardly recognizable from their original state -- no heads, tails, bones and fins. To Pinoys like me who grew up savoring fish with skin, head, tails and all, I find it not so nice to eat the almost white mass that is fish fillet after removing all the parts where all the flavors come from. Fish at supermarkets will be in fillet form and that's a given. When I really want to eat fish in Pinoy fashion, I go to the open market but have to ask the fish vendor that cleaning the fish for me is just removing the scales and gills but the head and skin have to remain intact.

Anyway, let me share here with you a fish recipe using the flavorless fillet. This one's a winner as the amazing flavors from coriander, spring onions, butter and nuts sensationally come out and redeem the lost value of any fish fillet.

On this dish, you will need the following:

Fish fillet

Salt and pepper

Coriander leaves

Spring onions

Nuts (hazelnuts or peanuts)

Butter

This dish tastes sensational and all you need is steamed rice and a slice of lemon to squeeze over the fish.

I normally get the frozen fish fillet from the grocery. I let that thaw at room temperature but when I am in a hurry such as in this instance, I just let the microwave speed up the job for me. Next to that, I season the fillet on both sides with salt and pepper.

Then I chop finely a handful of coriander leaves (cilantro). I used to hate this herb because when I first had my encounter with it on a curry dish, I guess I put too much that its dominating flavor was such that the dish tasted like bleach. Now that I know how this herb works for my dishes, I've learned how to tame it and actually make the dishes sensational.

Spring onions or "dahon ng sibuyas" as we call it in the Philippines is also wonderful to use. Just cut it in very thin rings.

Nuts seem to also do wonders on this dish. Toast a handful or two of hazelnuts or peanuts and then pound it.

Let butter softened at room temperature, add all the ingredients (coriander, nuts, spring onions) to it and then coat the fish fillet on both sides.

Place the coated fish in an oven-proof dish and baked at 220 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes or until the fish is cooked and the top is brown. Another option if you have a combi oven/magnetron is to use the grill.

Laing anyone????

It's kind of funny how this lowly Bicol dish is making in-road as an identity-maker in my adoptive country.  Many years back, when I was just finding my way here, I never thought that this dish will give me my unique identity as a Filipino and my ethnicity as a true Bicolana. 

I used to make this dish for comfort.  Being thousands and thousands of miles away from home and with weather that can be so depressing at times, laing and Bicol Express warm the heart and the tummy.  However, when family from hubby's side, friends and colleagues came to taste these dishes, it also became their comfort food.  When we go to potluck parties or when we have parties at home, the expectation runs high that Bicol express and if they are extremely lucky, laing will be on the menu.

The dish is easy to make, at least to me. I use very few ingredients, preferring to keep it simple so that the taste of individual ingredients remain pure and distinguishable.  For spices, I use only crushed garlic, onions and chillies.  I heard that others also add ginger and lemon grass.

Basically, laing is just one ingredient more than Bicol Express.  I used a lot of pork here because the irony of it, a kilo of pork at Eur 5.00 is cheaper than a kilo of fresh laing leaves at Eur 7.00.  Weird, isn't it?  Laing leaves almost cost nothing in the Philippines but it is worth its weight in gold here so to speak. 

Took me about 3 weeks to dry these laing leaves on a clothesline at home.  I used to place them on top of the radiator/heater before but our heaters do not go off till autumn when the temperature inside the house has dropped considerably. 

Other ingredients are the coconut cream, coconut milk and the salted tiny shrimps (balaw in Bicol or alamang in Tagalog).  I'm happy that I don't need to manually grate the coconut to extract the milk, the coconut cream in tetra packs from Thailand are just amazing.  I season the laing with the salted tiny shrimps from South Korea which I can buy from a Korean shop at Gelderlandplein in Amsterdam.

I first let the pork boil and simmer in a little water to tenderize the meat.  When the water evaporates and the oil from the meat comes out, I add the garlic and onions to sautee for a few minutes. 

Coconut milk and cream are then added.  Let it simmer for a while.

Because I am using mostly coconut cream, the consistency is already thick and creamy so I don't need to wait a while to add the laing leaves.  Just as soon as the coconut cream simmers, the dried laing leaves can be added.  I also add the salted tiny shrimps at this time.

When the laing is almost done, that's the time to add the chillies.  I don't add them early on lest they get overcooked. 

The whole process requires a great deal of patience.  True Bicol style of laing means that the coconut cream should be reduced to the oily state.  There is also an explanation to this -- longer shelf life.

The smell of the dish now dominates the kitchen. 

I can just imagine how friends will devour this dish ahead of the other stuffs at the Pinoy party where we are going.