Home Made Ginger Syrup

Ginger Root
Photo thanks to Kattabelletje

First of all A Happy 2022 to you all!

As with my Thai Curry Paste queeste I am trying to create my own ginger syrup.

Ingredients

1 cup Ginger root cuttings
1 cup sugar
2 cups water
A sniff of cinnamon
1/2 lemon juice

I’ve put all in a stainless steel pan and cooked them quickly onto cooking point and then let them simmer for 1/2 hour. Thereafter I cooled it down in the pan. I strained the ginger pieces out of the syrup and put them into a fridge container for use in my future curries. The syrup I poored in a small 1/2 liter bottle for future mixing with soda which creates a nice Gingerale, but also is very useful for sweetening curries….

Inspiration from Colleen Graham at The Spruce Eats

The Result is Yummy!

Ginger Syrup and in Pieces

Prepare Your own Thai Curry Paste

Food is one of the subjects next to photography to continue with this blog.

Recently I got Thai Food infected by a very enthousiast niece who did an Internship in Bangkok for 6 months and loves Thai food. So I bought the Dutch translation of Thai Food and Cooking by Judy Bastyra and Becky Johnson.

A US reviewer wrote on Amazon:

This lovely book is artfully produced, with 2-3 attractive photographs per recipe, both of the food prep and the finished product.

This isn’t just a cookbook. It is a primer on Thai history, cooking techniques, ingredients, equipment, and more, with over 60 non-recipe pages.

The recipes are given both in metric and US measurements. For example: 900 ml / 1 1/2 pints / 3 3/4 cups vegetable stock.

The recipes are explained with clarity, so that even if one is unfamiliar with the dish, it’s easy to follow the instructions.

This book will help you produce beautiful, interesting, simple, delicious Thai meals.

I tried a recipe for a red Curry with shrimps and tempeh using a ready made red curry paste from an asian supermarket… Delicious and quickly prepared… Alas the book has no recipes to make your own paste. According to some people you should taste your own home made Thai curry paste. So I did some online research.

Just want to share the blog from Char, called Woks and Skillets, with 3 easy to make Thai Curry pasts:

  1. Thai Red Curry Paste
  2. Thai Yellow Curry Paste, and
  3. Thai Green Curry Paste

Enjoy!

Dutch Oven


The photo shows a Petromax Dutch oven.

Time to resume blogging here. Covid and other activities have been the cause of slow to non-posting. I want to share a rare phenomenon. Dutch Oven. Quite well know in the USA and in other countries, but not so well known in The Netherlands itself, the country where the Dutch live…

A Dutch oven

(not to be confused with masonry oven) is a thick-walled cooking pot with a tight-fitting lid.
Dutch ovens are usually made of seasoned cast iron; however, some Dutch ovens are instead made of cast aluminium, or ceramic.

Some metal varieties are enameled rather than being seasoned, and these are sometimes called French ovens. Dutch ovens have been used as cooking vessels for hundreds of years. They are called casserole dishes in English-speaking countries other than the United States (casserole means “pan” in French), and cocottes in French. They are similar to both the Japanese tetsunabe and the sač, a traditional Balkan cast-iron oven, and are related to the South African potjiekos, the Australian Bedourie oven and Spanish cazuela.

History
Early European history

During the 17th century, brass was the preferred metal for English cookware and domestic utensils, and the Dutch produced it at the lowest cost, which, however, was still expensive. In 1702, Abraham Darby was a partner in the Brass Works Company of Bristol, which made malt mills for breweries. Apparently in 1704, Darby visited the Netherlands, where he studied the Dutch methods of working brass, including the casting of brass pots. Darby learned that when making castings, the Dutch used molds made of sand, rather than the traditional loam and clay, and this innovation produced a finer finish on their brassware. In 1706 he started a new brass mill in the Baptist Mills section of Bristol.[5] There, Darby realized that he could sell more kitchen wares if he could replace brass with a cheaper metal, namely, cast iron. Initial experiments to cast iron in sand molds were unsuccessful, but with the aid of one of his workers, James Thomas, a Welshman, he succeeded in casting iron cookware.[7] In 1707 he obtained a patent for the process of casting iron in sand, which derived from the Dutch process. Thus, the term “Dutch oven” has endured for over 300 years, since at least 1710. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary and Researching Food History agree that several very different cooking devices were called “Dutch ovens” — a cast-iron pan with legs and a lid; a roughly rectangular box that was open on one side and that was used to roast meats, and a compartment in a brick hearth that was used for baking.

American history

American Dutch ovens changed over time during the colonial era. These changes included a shallower pot, legs to hold the oven above the coals, and a lid flange to keep the coals on the lid and out of the food. Paul Revere is credited with the design of the flat lid with a ridge for holding coals as well as the addition of legs to the pots.[citation needed]

Colonists and settlers valued cast-iron cookware because of its versatility and durability. Cooks used them to boil, bake, stew, fry, and roast. The ovens were so valuable that wills in the 18th and 19th centuries frequently spelled out the desired inheritor. For example, Mary Ball Washington (mother of President George Washington) specified in her will, dated 20 May 1788, that one-half of her “iron kitchen furniture” should go to her grandson, Fielding Lewis, and the other half to Betty Carter, a granddaughter. This bequest included several Dutch ovens.

Westward-bound settlers took Dutch ovens with them. A Dutch oven was among the gear Lewis and Clark carried when they explored the great American Northwest between 1804 and 1806. Mormon pioneers who settled the American West also took along their Dutch ovens. In fact, a statue raised to honor the Mormon handcart companies who entered Utah’s Salt Lake Valley in the 1850s proudly displays a Dutch oven hanging from the front of the handcart. The Dutch oven is also the official state cooking pot of Texas, Utah, and Arkansas.

Mountain men exploring the American frontier used Dutch ovens into the late 19th century. Chuckwagons accompanying western cattle drives also carried Dutch ovens from the mid-19th century into the early 20th century.

Dutch history

A Dutch oven, or braadpan, as it is used in the Netherlands today

In the Netherlands, a Dutch oven is called a braadpan, which literally translates to roasting pan. Another name for it is sudderpan, which literally translates to “simmerpan” or “simmering pot”. The design most used today is a black (with blue inside) enameled steel pan that is suitable for gas and induction heating. The model was introduced in 1891 by BK, a well-known Dutch manufacturer of cookware. Cheaper and lighter in weight than cast iron, it proved to be a revolution in the kitchen.[18] A braadpan is mainly used for frying meat only, but it can also be used for making traditional stews, such as hachée. Cast-iron models exist, but are used less frequently.

Source Wikipedia

With the traditional enamelled Steel pans the use of cas iron pans dwindled, however we have enamel coated cast Iron braadpannen as well. Also Creuset a French cast iron pan producer has acquired quite some marketshare in braadpannen in The Netherlands.

A typical Dutch brand is Dru:

Dru itself still exists but now produces gas stoves and fires for homes.

Perfect Poached Eggs

Yummy Eggs

Poached eggs with Sauce Hollandaise

and

I have to admit: I’m not good at poaching eggs.

Not long ago a friend of mine posted a photo of a perfectly poached egg on a toast on her FB Timeline and she explained some basics to me.

Today I had a bit of time and looked online for some info on the subject. I found this clear video footage by Jamie with some tricks and maybe his best trick is to pack the egg in some foil while cooking.

And see while drafting this post, a post about a Breakfast Blog pops up…..

I’ve tried it on two eggs today and I succeeded and without the foil trick. It is not difficult at all, you just need to practice. The second video also helps to understand the process a bit better and the third is for the microwave addicts.

Fresh eggs, not a lot of water in the pan, stirring is not very necessary and no vinegar to help the egg white coagulate. With a low water level a lid is helpful when the yolk sticks out of the water. Next step: Learning to make a nice Sauce Hollandaise. Yummie.

I add two links as a reminder: Eggs Benedict accoring to Simply Recipies and and easy pease written story about egg poaching.

Markthal Rotterdam: a huge Foodhall

Markthal Rotterdam

Lacking an opportunity to quickly go to the Markthal Rotterdam and make some picks for the blog, I share this nice video of the Dutchified blog.