French Restaurant Week, 1-14 July

Deriving from Restaurant Week – which now takes place twice a year across the Netherlands, having proven resoundingly popular amongst members of the public – today marks the start of French Restaurant Week. As the prefix indicates, the endeavour involves French restaurants, one hundred of whom are offering a three-course gourmet menu, plus apéritif, for the fixed price of €30 per person.

The hundred French restaurants throughout the Netherlands who will take part include the top fifty French restaurants in the country as determined by DiningCity, the event’s organisers. Fifteen of the participating restaurants are in Amsterdam: Antoine, VandeMarkt, A La Ferme, and Bouf are among those who feature.

French Restaurant Week in fact runs for two weeks, until 14 July. Tables can be sought and booked at: http://www.franserestaurantweek.nl/lang/en/cities/nederland/restaurants

White Asparagus, with Salmon and New Potatoes

The asparagus cultivated, bought, eaten and enjoyed in much of continental northern Europe – particularly across France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany – is typically white rather than green. It is a seasonal vegetable, appearing from mid-April until late June; prized for its subtle flavour and marking the arrival of spring.

Many recipes for white asparagus suggest that its delicate flavours are best served by simple steaming; others call for simmering in water, with butter and a firm squeeze of lemon. The following recipe asks that you do neither of these onerous things. Instead, in this recipe you will first roast then briefly and gently brown your white asparagus; and serve it with salmon and pan-roasted new potatoes.

Serves two; double the ingredients to serve four; and progress in the same mathematical manner for all additional parties. The total cooking time is about thirty-five minutes.

Ingredients

• 5 white asparagus spears
• 2 salmon fillets
• 350g new potatoes
• Fresh dill
• Butter
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Salt
• Pepper

Method

• Heat your oven to 200C.
• Boil and salt some water in a pot or large saucepan.
• White asparagus tends to possess a woody exterior which must be peeled. So peel the asparagus spears carefully, chop off the coarse bottoms, and slice in half lengthways.
• Put the asparagus into a roasting tray, with a little olive oil, and roast for around twenty minutes.
• Add the new potatoes, unpeeled, to the boiling salted water. Boil these for the same twenty minutes.
• Drain the water from the potatoes, and put them back into the pot on a medium-high heat, with some butter.
• Chop the fresh dill, and throw this in with the potatoes. Add salt and pepper, and roast the potatoes in the butter for several minutes.
• Melt some butter in a hot pan, add salt and pepper, and throw in the asparagus. Coat the asparagus, browning for just a couple of minutes.
• Season the salmon fillets, and cook in a pan with a little oil, three or four minutes on each side.

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Frozz: Fresh Frozen Yoghurt in Amsterdam

Frozz is the name of a frozen yoghurt company established in the Netherlands by two sisters in 2010. The yoghurt Frozz sells is natural and fresh, delivered weekly from local farms; and it is enthusiastically advertised as containing fewer than 100 calories per regular-sized tub. The company has flourished since its emergence, now boasting five stores in and about Amsterdam (three in the centre, one in nearby Amstelveen, and another set to open at Schiphol airport), plus stores in Utrecht, Breda, Dordrecht, and Maastricht. Frozz also operates pop-up shops at numerous events and festivals, including, for instance, at Amsterdam’s Fashion Week, and at last weekend’s Rolling Kitchens food festival.

Frozz offers their fresh frozen yoghurt in tubs of three sizes, to which you may add toppings of fruit, nuts, and chocolate. The standard natural yoghurt option has recently been supplemented by a seasonal passion fruit-flavoured variant.

My partner dislikes frozen yoghurt, and can bear only several spoonfuls within a brief period of time before tiring. I do like it however; and so here are a couple of photographs taken recently after a visit to the Leidsestraat store, featuring frozen natural yoghurt in a regular tub, topped with blueberries, hazelnuts and white chocolate:

Rolling Kitchens Food Festival, 9-12 May

Rolling Kitchens (‘Rollende Keukens’) is an annual food festival which has taken place for the past few years in Amsterdam’s Westergasfabriek. The festival plays host to a vast array of food trucks, serving wood-fired pizza, barbecue, seafood, Mexican food, Asian cuisine, and more local Dutch and Belgian dishes, pastries and waffles.

The 2013 edition – the sixth edition of the festival – takes place across the Westergasfabriek and adjacent Westerpark starting today, and running until Sunday evening. Accompanying all the food, live music is performed each day across two stages; kitchens open at 1 pm, with the music beginning around 2 pm and continuing through until 11 pm.

Entry to the festival is free. Its website, with images and a full music line-up, is at: http://www.rollendekeukens.nl/

Greenwoods: English Tea Rooms in Amsterdam

Greenwoods is an English tea room and restaurant with two locations in the centre of Amsterdam: one at Keizersgracht 465, the other at Singel 103. As those who are familiar with tea rooms may have come to expect from the form, both locations specialise in breakfasts and teas. There are full English breakfasts; Eggs Benedict, Florentine or Royale; breakfasts with smoked salmon; yoghurt and muesli; and a global assortment of teas, with Darjeeling, Jasmine, Sencha and Lapsang Souchong alongside fresh mint and peppermint, Earl Grey, and what is described as an ‘English mélange’.

Both serve a selection of classic sandwiches, plus varieties containing ‘Granny’s meatballs’ and organic lamb; high teas with jammed and buttered scones; and a concise range of cakes. Keizersgracht 465 also boasts snacks, and a dinner menu comprising traditional English mains like fish and chips, steak and ale pie, and bangers and mash. The team rooms are cosy and compact, both featuring outdoor seating areas which look upon their respective canals; and they open daily at 9.30 am.

My partner and I visited the Keizersgracht Greenwoods a few days ago, and sustained an experience which was perfectly pleasant. My partner had two scrambled eggs, smoked salmon with dill, and brown toast; whereas I had the Eggs Benedict (two poached eggs with ham on toasted English muffins). I forewent the Hollandaise sauce meant to accompany the dish – an acceptable liberty even in the area of the world after which the sauce is named. We shared a hot chocolate, full of real milk chocolate and topped with plenty of cream.

A curiosity exists in that Greenwoods is ranked as one of Amsterdam’s very best restaurants – standing presently at number 7 out of a total 1,905. Perhaps this belies a relative lack of obvious breakfast alternatives in Amsterdam; perhaps it indicates something about the biases of TripAdvisor; or perhaps it simply shows that Greenwoods fills a need comfortably, capably and efficiently, in two busy parts of the city. I wouldn’t say that you absolutely have to go to Greenwoods; but if you are hungry and it is morning time, do not fear taking whatever brief detour leads you to one of their doors. Greenwoods goes about its business well.

http://www.greenwoods.eu/

Cannoli at Noordermarkt Farmers’ Market

Cannoli are very sweet pastry desserts which originated in Sicily. They comprise pastry dough rolled into a tube and fried, and filled typically with ricotta and some sort of flavouring. Orange is traditional; other flavourings may include vanilla, lemon, and cinammon; and cannoli are sometimes filled also with chocolate, pieces of fruit, and nuts.

The Noordermarkt Farmers’ Market, each Saturday in Amsterdam, sells wonderful cannoli, with pieces of orange peel. They’re one of my favourite things to eat in the city.

Kantjil & de Tijger To Go

Kantjil & de Tijger, an Indonesian restaurant on the Spuistraat – and which I briefly reviewed here – offers a ‘To Go’ menu. It’s a simple menu, divided into three parts. Base dishes include steamed white rice; fried rice; or fried noodles. Vegetable dishes comprise stir fried eggs, cabbage, carrot and paprika; green beans in black bean sauce; stir fried pak choi and tofu; and steamed vegetables and peanut sauce. Meat dishes on offer are stir fried chicken with saté sauce; beef in coconut sauce; and chicken in spicy sambal sauce.

The idea is that you choose a base dish and one or two additions; and take away a medium or large container of your chosen food at the relevant price. Kantjil & de Tijger is in such a convenient location, in the centre of the city alongside several of the major tram lines; and I stopped in recently on my way home, where I then took the following photographs.

Food Film Festival: What Was Bought

An Easter bread, with pistachios, currants, orange, and an almond crust; wrapped in a yellow ribbon; and baked by Vlaamsch Broodhuys, a sourdough bakery based in Vlaardingen and with a variety of outlets across Amsterdam and throughout the Netherlands. The yellow ribbon is festive, and indicates that this bread is coming home, having done its time.

Two cheese straws, seeded, also by Vlaamsch Broodhuys. The kindly gentleman who sold us the bread gave us these for free.

Extra virgin olive oil, produced by Calypso, from Thrace in Greece.

Pancetta, lavender sausage and rosemary sausage, by Brandt & Levie, the Dutch sausage makers. The affable gentleman who sold us these readily enabled us in trying both types of sausage, plus a black pepper variation; I liked the flavour of the lavender best, and would characterise it as subtle, whereas my partner preferred the rosemary.

And an Opinel knife, branded by Brandt & Levie, for cutting the meats into readily edible slices.

In chorus.

Food Film Festival Market and Food Trucks

My partner and I visited the Food Film Festival at Studio/K earlier today, and I took a few photographs out in the bitter cold of the market on the Timorplein, with its stalls supplying organic produce; selling cookery books, breads and other baked goods, charcuterie, oils, jams and juices, cider and wine, and other food paraphernalia; and serving soups and a variety of broodjes, including the ‘Berliner Bratwurst’ pictured above.

The market stalls and food trucks are scheduled to remain open until 9 pm this evening; and there are still a handful of films to show, a workshop for making kroketten, and the festival’s keynote speech, to be delivered at 8.30 pm by food author and New York Times columnist Mark Bittman.

Food Film Festival, 22-24 March

Amsterdam’s Food Film Festival begins today. The three-day festival is centred upon Studio/K, the cultural venue – comprising a cinema, restaurant and club – to the east of the city, towards the Eastern Docklands, situated on the Timorplein square.

The festival is a comprehensive celebration of food, with an emphasis on the Slow Food movement and sustainable food production. It features a vast array of films across Studio/K’s two screens and the Kriterion cinema towards the Amstel: forty films in total will be shown over the three days, including shorts and feature-length productions. More, a range of workshops will instruct in everything from bread and sausage making, to alcohol tasting, to Korean and vegetarian cuisine; and a couple of seminars, for both amateurs and professionals, will be hosted by Nordic Food Lab, the food research institution established by René Redzepi of Noma. The majority of the tickets for the weekend’s workshops have sold out; but tickets remain available for the full programme of films.

A further range of events – comprising discussions, interviews with directors, food tours of the city, and a keynote speech by Mark Bittman of the New York Times – are free to enter and do not require reservation. Studio/K’s restaurant will serve a special menu throughout the festival; the Timorplein will bear a range of market stalls and food trucks; there will be a range of activities for children; and parties in the Studio/K club extending well into Friday and Saturday nights.

The festival’s website is at: http://www.foodfilmfestival.nl/en/