Cookfolio

[photo credit: snorski ]

Oliebollen are a Dutch New Years Eve tradition and their origin dates back to Germanic tribes hundreds of years ago. My first memories of eating oliebollen was as a 6yr old in the Australian bush, my Oma & Opa (Granddad & Grandmother) made them on a camping trip! They were of course very different than anything anyone had ever had and it was one of those moments that my Opa always could recall every year.

When we moved to the Netherlands he used to cook them on New Years Eve and be proud to announce each year how many he had made and how fantastic they were. He did make a good oliebol and a nice appel version, although I prefer the basic classic oliebol.

And yes this is one of those recipes that if you would have know years back you would have never gone out and bought oliebollen ever again. Home made oliebollen are just better, nothing beats an oliebol fried in fresh oil. If your up to it check your pantry and whip up a batch for tonight!

Ingredients (makes about 15)
250gr flour
2tsp salt
1/2 egg
200 ml milk lukewarm
1 1/2 tsp dried yeast
50gr raisins (can be omitted)
sunflower oil
icing sugar

Method
Sift the flower and salt in a big bowl, make a well and add the egg, milk and yeast and stir. Beat the batter for a couple of minutes with a spoon until, once the batter starts falling off the spoon in pieces then it’s perfect. Rinse the raisins, pat dry and add to the batter. Cover the bowl with a tea towel and set aside for an hour to rise.

Heat oil to about 170 C. To make the oliebollen use 2 spoons dipped in oil to scoop out balls of the batter. Let the batter glide slowly into the oil and fry for about 5 minutes until golden brown. Don’t fry too many at the same time as the temperature will drop. Serve the oliebollen on a plate with poedersuiker (icing sugar )!

Here’s a photo of the chocolate balls we made this week.

Kaber Ellouz is one of our family’s favourite Tunisian delicacies! I have always been intrigued by it’s sweet goodness since the first day I tasted it. Until this week I never knew how easy it was to make these at home. So easy that it’s funny!

Several months ago me and a friend made them, but we made the mistake of grounding our own almonds. Don’t bother grounding your own almonds (unless there is a trick you know and I don’t), our grounded almonds were very oily and thus overpowering. At our local nut store I bought some ground almonds and the difference is like night and day.

So buying the right ground almonds is the secret to success. Once you have the ground almonds your on your way. One of the recipes called for orange flower water water the other for geranium water and hubby suggested using rosewater. Seeing as we had this in house we used the last.

I hope that you really enjoy making these and shared them with your friends and family.

Ingredients
250 gr ground almonds
125 gr icing sugar
4 tablespoons rosewater
red & green food colouring
fine caster sugar for rolling balls

Method
In a bowl mix together the ground almonds, icing sugar and rosewater. Once the ingredients are well mixed let the mixture rest for about half and hour. Separate the mixture into 3 parts, set aside one and colour the other parts pink and green by adding at first 1 drop and if needed 1 more drop.

Roll each part into a long strip and align them, if you prefer you can intertwine them before cutting off equal amounts. In your hands roll the almond mixture into balls and then roll lightly in caster sugar.

Vitamin water is about to become a hype in the Netherlands. Water company Sourcy has launched a vitamin water that is now carried by several supermarkets. Today we bought the ‘mango & guave’ multi vitamin water and once we we’re outside the test started.

My 10yr old daughter Amira’s first comment was ‘there was no taste’. I noticed that after drinking the vitamin water my mouth felt oily – strange! We did like it but it won’t be a favourite. I imagine that the water tastes better when it’s cold and it is a hot summer’s day.