Cookbook

People have often asked me to share recipes for various meals and snacks I’ve served over time, so I’ve started writing down my recipes. This section of my blog covers these recipes in my own personal cookbook. If you want to stay up to date with the latest additions, subscribe to the RSS feed.

Applesauce

A sweet, thick sauce made of apple.

Basque-burned Cheesecake

The easiest cheesecake you’ve ever made. Baked quickly and at a high temperature without regard for looking pretty.

Bechamel

A thick, creamy sauce, usually as a base for another thick and savory sauce.

Buttercake

A rich snack from the glorious Netherlands.

Cantonese Style Fried Chicken

Savory Cantonese inspired fried chicken. Goes well with steamed white rice, and any kind of sweet and spicy vegetables.

Chinese 5 spice mix

The common Chinese spice mix, used in a large variety of Chinese style dishes.

Dutch Stew

A hearthy and veggie-heavy stew, best served when the weather outside is cold and wet.

Halal Pea Soup

A halal version of a famous Dutch winter meal, pea soup.

Jordanese Meatball

A slowly stewed meatball.

Kruidnoten

A Dutch snack for Sinterklaas, but very tasty at any time of the year.

Mayonnaise

A simple sauce to go well with everything, though most popular with french fries.

Mushroom Sauce

A savory sauce to be served warm with your dish. Works very well for steaks.

Oliebollen

An old-school new-year’s treat from the Netherlands, but its delicious all year through.

Pancakes

Thin, Dutch pancakes with bacon. To be eaten with the gift of the Dutch Gods, known as Stroop.

Rice

A delicious, steamed white rice, to go with any meal as desired.

You might think rice is quite basic, and that there are not many variations to it, but you would be wrong. Plain white rice is often considered quite boring, but by steaming it together with herbs, spices, or stock, you can create quite delicious forms of rice that are great on their own.

Sriracha Sauce

A very spicy variant of the world’s most popular hot sauce.

Stewed Beef Salad

A small, hearty salad. Served cold, usually as a side-dish, but also works great as a little snack.

If you use home-made mayonnaise, you can cook the egg whites in a scrambled fasion, and add it to the salad as well. This won’t affect the flavour too much, but will make it a more filling snack, and you won’t have to make meringue again.

Stewed Pears

A sweet dish, commonly served with gamey-meat or stewed meat.

Originally made by my grandmother, this recipe is my attempt to get as close as possible to this little treat.

Szechuan BBQ rub

A medium-spicy BBQ rub for shaokao, or Chinese barbecue.

Vlammetjes

These slightly spicy little snacks are a staple of my youth. They’re still being sold, but making them yourself you can adjust the level of spicy to your liking! I know mine are quite a bit spicier than the ones rolling out of the factory, at least!

While the recipe instructs you to use a frying pan, it is possible to bake these off using an airfryer as well, but it will greatly reduce the color, and to reach the same level of crispiness you will need more time to cook them.

Addtionally, these snacks freeze pretty well in my experience, so you can make a large bunch and save some for an easy snack later in your life.

Waffles

Sweet and fluffy waffles. Great as a snack or as a side-dish to a larger meal.

These waffles can be served with ice cream and/or fruit to create a simple but delicious snack or dessert. The instructions for the baking itself are rather simplistic, but it appears that waffle irons differ wildly in size and settings even in my own country, let alone in other countries. For this reason, you may need to experiment a little with your waffle iron of choice.

Xinjiang BBQ rub

A slightly spicy Chinese streetfood BBQ rub. In my experience, this works well for chicken or lamb skewers.