Tickle our taste buds

Tasty tasting @ foodie event in The Hague

(as in: not the capital of the Netherlands)

It all added up! A great recipe for a mellow Sunday
1) Inspiring location: The “Kookfabriek”in The Hague. Aka the cooking factory, the place to be when it comes to workshops and tastings!
2) A hall filled with wine makers and there products: our favorite wine shop ( see our WBW#9) had invited a host of befriended wine makers. A great way to really find out all the details from a wine!
3) Nine kitchens manned by chefs and caterers: All the local “hot chefs” were present and were cooking up a storm by making a range of small dishes to taste.
We of course had the grueling task of tasting all that was on offer. Sushi, Iberian ham, Spanish Rose, Quince jelly etc etc it all adds up doesn’t it!

This is damn tasty! (Read more...)

Ready for some jelly!

Thanks a bundle Elise, for a great round-up for IMBB # 15, Has my blog jelled?

Always ready for some jelly,

With wobbly love, the KQ

This is damn tasty! (Read more...)

IMBB # 15 Sparkling cranberry jellies

With a slight risk of striking you as two alcoholica’s (“we don’t have a drinking problem, if we don’t drink we have a problem”), we present you a very easy, very simple recipe with jelly and…champagne. In fact, we tried this recipe a few weeks ago before our merry entrée in the world of foodblog-events. So just perceive this an odd coincidence...(No, really.)

Inspiration came from Good Food (april 2005, pg. 147), where these were served with orange langue-de-chat-biscuits. As we didn’t like the idea of crispy biscuits with the cool jelly, we served the jellies with a fresh fruit salad instead. We changed the recipe for the jellies a bit too. The original recipe used fresh cranberries as well, but as Santa isn’t scheduled for some time soon, these are hard to come by in the Netherlands at the moment. Because the lack of cranberries, which give out their own jelly when heated, we had to use more gelatin leaves.

The idea is to make beautiful cranberry champagne-jellies, of course in their proper glasses and all. We wouldn’t make this with the best champagne, leave that bottle for you and your love to drink as it is. Make it with cheaper champagne, cava or other sparkling wine instead, but try to incorporate some bubbly-stuff in there: that makes this dish so much more fun.

The recipe calls for:
• Bubbly of some sort
• 450 ml. cranberry juice
• 100 gr. Sugar
• 8 gelatin leaves
• Mint sprigs for decoration

First: Pour almost all the cranberryjuice in a saucepan, add sugar and bring to a boil. Turn heat down and let it simmer until all the sugar has dissolved.

Then: Soak the gelatine leaves in the cranberryjuice you kept apart. When soft, add the squishy leaves to the still hot juice. Stir until dissolved. Leave to cool completely.

Ah, champagne-time! Very slowly pour the bubbles in the cool cranberry mixture. Do not be tempted to pour in the champagne if the juice hasn’t cooled completely: the warmth will kill your bubbles. Also take care to stir gently to preserve as much bubbles as possible. Make about 900 ml.

When the bubbles calmed down, pour (slowly) in elegant glasses. We used proper champagne flutes, but classic wide champagne glasses or martini glasses look lovely too. Chill the glasses until the jelly has set. And don’t panic: it takes a while to set, as we found out.

Set they will....

Patience young Padawan...patience!

Don’t forget to decorate your creation: though mint sprigs are kind of tacky, it looked very pretty in the pink-reddish jelly. We also put some sliced strawberries in, which floated beautifully. The strawberries we took from the fruit salad we chopped up to serve alongside: just good quality strawberries, a mango, kiwi, whatever looks lush and fresh and tastes divine. Just serve the fruit as is, because why tinker with perfection?

As you dive into the jellies with a long handled spoon, you just can’t help to think of jewels: the jelly breaks down in lovely crumbly pieces of broken rubies. How elegant is that?

This is damn tasty! (Read more...)

Food Fetish: KQ Mo confesses

As a self declared foody I adore reading about food, talking about food and of course eating it. Friends and colleagues often get the impression that I bake my own bread, make my own stock, go to the market at 6 am for the fresh fish etc. But as much as I would like this image to be true, I must confess I’m not always such a gastronome. Like a model on a make up free day, I often stray of the culinary path and enjoy things a foody like me should maybe not enjoy as much. Forgive me for I have sinned…..

I have taken pleasure in eating cold hotdogs from a can. I have gobbled down cooked rice with dare I say it: mayonnaise….I have dipped many a toasted cheese sandwich in BBQ sauce…..I have slurped lots of instant ramen soups full of dehydrated vegetables and MSG……I have enjoyed a few spoons of cold leftovers, strait from the fridge in my time…..I have dipped blocks of cheese in peanut butter….I know I won’t go strait to “foody heaven” but I’m consoled with the fact that I know I’m not the only one. I know there are more of you out there, I can feel it and after this confession I feel a sense of relief. My heart is filled with passion for cooking and the occasional “misstep” won’t override that. Feel the need to confess? Just send us an email:kitchenqueens@gmail.com

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Food Fetish: the KQ Tai edition

I have a profound love for jelly-puddings. The clear kind, the kind I whip up in a sec (just add boiling water to the powder…) and hardly gets the time to set properly. I drink coffee and tea. Cold. I want my toast to be golden: if there is even the slightest hint of brown, the piece is on a one way trip to the bin. I could live happily on the Iglo-French-style-stew from the freezer for a month or so. I actually kind of like a skin on my cooked milk. A sandwich with peanut butter gets topped with slices of fresh cucumber. Other sandwich toppings would be jam (and butter), chocolate paste (and butter) or butter (and sambal “pete”). I always eat more wasabi than is strictly necessary, just for the pain. I like to dip my home-made fries in a mayonnaise, ketchup en diced onions: all at once.

Please don’t hate me.

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Cookbooks galore

Spiceblog gave us the the courage to come clean with ourselves and finally admit that we are, yes indeed, cookbook addicts too.

Here we go with some pics of KQ Tai's collection...





Mind you: this is just small part, because cookbooks tend to wander around my house one way or the other. And don't get me started on the paper-mountain of magazines I have....I want to get them bundled someday!

1. Rationale behind what we're seeing? These books are piled up high on top of a cabin in my kitchen. To stack them in three piles has noting to do with aesthetics, but all with lack of space: this way I can cram more of them up there. But the color-combo's have everything to do with aesthetics: I'm quite anal about color-grouping cookbooks (or any other book of my huge collection at home, that is). This is just a little t(r)ick that I developed working in a second-hand bookstore during high school. I found that customers didn't leave a big mess after rummaging through the books when the books were organised by color. Seriously! And that made me one happy little girl, because I could spend more time reading in stead of cleaning. And it looks pretty too!...

2. Most recommended? At the moment I'm devouring the Baking Illustrated or a better title would be: All you ever wanted to know about baking but were afraid to ask. Hereby I dub this book the Baking Bible, because every_single_recipe is in there! Great reading and great illustrations too.

3. Cookbook that made you what you were? Ha, tough one. Probably my first cookbook was a pasta-bible of some sort, which triggered something deep inside of me. I would say Jamie's books helped me on my way a great deal too, but to be honest: I am genetically made to cook. With a Finnish mother and a Indonesian/Dutch/German/Portuguese father, I was born into one big meltingpot of great foodies. It was just gently simmering away to finally burst out!

4. Porniest cookbook? This would either have to be something by Nigella (finger licking and all) or maybe the photo's from the Baking Illustrated. The huge pics of the New York Cheese Cake (page 287) or the Devil's Food cake (page 286) are just plain porno. They want me to lick the book from cover to cover. Seriously.

5. Sophie's Choice cookbook? Not sure where to go with this one, because I haven't read the book! (or it should be somewhere in the piles non-foodie books scattered throughout my house, waiting to be read.)

6. If you were a cookbook, which cookbook would you be? Ha! Easy peasy! See question 3 for more info, but without a doubt I would have to be a fushion kind of, best of all worlds-ish meltingpot cookbook. There would probably be an abundance of coriander, cinnamon and cardamom in there. And also there would be at least one great recipe for a lime-pie and a section solely on chili’s. You probably have guessed that I enjoy reading Tessa Kiros' Falling cloudberries very much: she has a Finnish mother too (with the same name as my mother!).

7. If your cookbook were extrememly valuable, so valuable you might hide it with other valuables, where would that place be? What a crazy question: why hide your books? That way you can't use them!!! But to answer the question, there are only two books I would consider hiding. Number one would be an old Indonesian cookbook from my father: tattered and slowly falling apart, but with clippings and notes put in there. The other would be my cooking-diary, which I have started just a few months ago. I scribble little don't forgets, recipes I tried and tested (and off course tinkered with), I stick wine labels in there, I try to describe things I've eaten outdoors etc. etc. I illustrate some of the stories I've written down and that way I hope to create a lovely self-made cookbook. But where to hide them?....Probably in a safe at the bank or, if I am in romantic kind of mood, maybe I will burry them somewhere on the beach in a treasure chest instead, leaving them to be found by someone in 50 years time to inspire that person to raise the heat in the kitchen as well!

Love, KQ Tai

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Food Fetish

Everybody’s got their all time fave’ food. Food you would definitely eat as you’re last supper. Food you serve happily to friends to share your gastrorgasm. To be short: food you just love to eat. But as good as it may be, this food is probably a bit boring too. And frankly, we’re more interested in the darker side of human desires…

We’re not talking crisp roast chicken here, which almost everybody loves to eat. We’re talking about food you hate to love. We’re getting down and dirty with food fetishes or Things You Wish Nobody Sees You Eat. -Ever-. But you do so anyway.

Of course, nobody wishes to share their foodfetishes just like that. That’s why the KitchenQueens set a good example and get past the point of embarrassment and total humiliation. Check back next week when we will share our darkest food desires. In the mean while ponder about food you hate to love and maybe you will find the courage to post a (no doubt highly amusing) story here too. Anonymity not guaranteed!!!

Feeling in touch with our dark side(dishes),
the Kitchen Queens

This is damn tasty! (Read more...)

WBW # 9: Pour us more pink please!

We’re straying a bit from the pink “rosé” theme, but thinking pink, pink bubbles popped up in our heads. Or we just needed an excuse to pop open a fine bottle of rosé champagne. Off we went and bought ourselves a bottle of Billecart-Salmon Brut Rosé Champagne. This bottle retails for about 50 EUR, but hey, we had the start off our food-blog with a bang. Or a loud *pop* in our case.

The bottle in question was purchased at our favourite wine-store in Amsterdam: “De Gouden Ton” (which translates as The Golden Barrel). This shop is run by a friendly staff of amazing wine-freaks, always ready with great advice and packed with know-how. The shop is well stocked and we always end up buying loads more than we came for. The Gouden Ton particularly specializes in finding the more artisan wine producers: if you want to make an amazing wine discovery off the beaten path, this is the place to be! So, this is enough of our lyrical praising of De Gouden Ton, back to our pink-tasting business.

The colour of this champagne is a lovely pale peachy pink, or dare we say salmon-pink? Think Granny’s Boudoir, definitely not hot neon pink. The bubbles are very delicate and fine, indicating that this champagne is the real deal. No fierce bubbles resembling those found in a jacuzzi but fine, feminine bubbles that titillate your tongue. Just by sight we instantly fell in love.

The nose is very delicate: not too floral. Things coming to our minds were: fresh yeasty bread hot from the oven, fruit falling from trees on a warm autumn day. As we take our first sip, the tickling bubbles hit our mouths immediately. The fine fizz freshens the mouth, followed by a crisp and clean sensation. As a finale we are left with a slight sweet, fruity note.

To conclude this tasting: we strongly recommend drinking this champagne on a daily basis to ensure happiness for the rest of your life. This was our humble opinion after drinking a whole bottle of this stuff in less than an hour. More realistically, this advice does seem a tad exaggerated and to be honest a bit expensive. So, drink this champagne now and then as a festive aperitif or even with a light dish of fish: salmon perhaps? ;)

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A paler shade of pink

The KitchenQueens are in great anticipation of their first foodblogevent ever: Wine Blogging Wednesday.We thought pink, bought pink , tasted (tasted some more), wrote and now, we are ready to share our deepest thoughts on our wine of choice.

Tasting a rosé wine is quite hard labour, but someone had to do it…so check back in three days, when we publish our findings!

Love, the KQ.

This is damn tasty! (Read more...)