Appeltaart

I have seriously neglected my blogging for sometime, but as today saw another South Lancashire Clandestine Cake Club meeting I thought I'd blog the cake I made for the meeting.
The recipe is from the very first cookbook I ever owned. It was given to me by my mum when I left home aged 18. It is called basis kookboek, which I think even non-linguists will recognise to be basic cookbook.
The recipe I choose is called Appeltaart aka Dutch Applecake.
You will need an approx 22 cm springform to bake this in.

Ingredients:

200 gr plain flour
225 gr unsalted butter (straight from the fridge)
140 gr caster sugar
pinch of salt
grated zest of 1 lemon
2 sachets of vanilla sugar

For the filling
500 gr granny smith apples
the juice of the lemon
80 gr currants, raisins or sultanas (or a mixture)
50 gr caster sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon custard powder
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 egg
2 tablespoons of milk

Preparation
Preheat the oven to 170C/gas 4
Sift the flour into a bowl and mix in the sugar, salt, vanilla sugar & lemon zest.
Cube the butter and rub it in the flour mixture. Once the butter is evenly distributed, knead it all into a soft and supple dough. Wrap in cling film and leave in the fridge for about half an hour.
Butter your springform
Peel and thinly slice the apples and sprinkle with the lemon juice to prevent it from colouring.
Roll out the dough between two sheets of cling film (keeping a little seperate for the lattice top) and if time put back in the fridge for another 20 to 30 minutes.
Mix the dried fruit, sugar, cinnamon, custard powder and fennel seeds with the slices of apple.
Line the baking tin with the rolled out dough and spoon in the apple mixture.
Beat the egg and mix with 1 tbsp of the milk, pour over the apples.
Roll out the rest of the dough and cut into thin strips. Top the apple cake with the strips and brush it all with the other tbsp of milk.
Bake in the middle of the oven for about 1 hour - 1hour 10 minutes

Dutch Pea Soup

With winter fast approaching I decided it was time to make a big pot of "erwtensoep" or "snert" as it sometimes also is called. This is a very traditional Dutch winter dish. And here is my version of it - a combination of some guidelines I found on the internet and of what I can remember when this was made at home.
This soup is sure to warm you up on a cold winters day.

Ingredients:
500 gr dried split peas
2 liters of water
a ham shank
a pig's trotter
spare ribs (I like to get some pork belly & cut away the bones saving the pork belly for some other time)
2 carrots, roughly chopped
2 potatoes, peeled and sliced
4 or 5 onions, roughly chopped
a leek, sliced
a celeriac, peeled and cut & cubed
a smoked sausage, sliced

Preparation:

Soak the peas in the water overnight
The next morning, drain the peas but reserve the water.

Add the ham shank, pig's trotter & spare ribs to the reserved water and bring to the boil. Skim off the foam (not absolutely necessary as the end product will not be a clear soup, but I do think it give a better soup), cover and leave to simmer for about 2 hours.

The soaked peas and simmering stock

After two hours, remove the meat & add the peas.
.
When cool remove the excess fat from the meat & take the meat of the bones. Cut or shred into bitesize chunks.

Veggies ready to go into the soup

After the peas have been cooking for one hour, add all the vegetables & cook for another two hours or so adding the shredded meat towards the end of the cooking time (if you prefer you could puree the soup before adding the meat, but I like my soup with chunky bites)

After two or three hours the soup should have thickened up so much that your spoon will stand up in it

Check the soup for seasoning (remember as said by the great Thomas Keller on Saturday Kitchen: salt will enhance the flavour that is already there, pepper will add a flavour to it)

Finally add the sliced smoked sausage and let it warm in the soup before serving either with the tradtional rye bread topped with grilled streaky bacon or just some fresh crusty bread

This quantity will serve a large family or friends group but also freezes well for upto 3 to 4 months, giving you an easy comfort dish on cold winter nights.