Hollandaise sauce, for me, is the crème de la crème of all sauces.  What's better, in a culinary sense, than Eggs Benedict on a lazy, Saturday morning?  The melding of the runny yolk with the rich, buttery cream -- lovely!

Living in Europe, we actually don't see Eggs Benedict on menus very often.  Continental breakfasts tend to major on pastries, little slices of cheese and cured meat, and eggs in a cup.  That's fine.  Actually, it's better than fine most of the time.

When I get a craving for poached eggs and Hollandaise Sauce, however, there's not much I can do.  Voilà --  Hollandaise sauce que ce soit!  Or in my rough translation, Hollandaise sauce whatever.  This is my own invention so take it with a grain of salt (pun intended).

First, let's return to the history of Hollandaise Sauce.  According to The History of Sauces from the website What's Cooking America, what we know as Hollandaise sauce today was "brought to France by Huguenots.  It appears to have actually been a Flemish sauce or Dutch sauce thickened with eggs, like a savory custard, with a little butter beaten in to smooth the texture."

While mulling these things over and craving something like Eggs Benedict for breakfast one recent Saturday morning, I thought of a solution for simple homemade Hollandaise sauce.  Simple is the operative word.  Mayonnaise is emulsion of oil and egg yolk.  It is halfway towards what I want already.

What would happen if I mixed Mayonnaise and butter in equal proportions and softened the result to a creamy texture in the microwave for a few seconds?  I tried it.  It worked.  Hollandaise Sauce Whatever.

The rest was pretty basic.  Poach an egg (I used a commercial egg poaching implement), toast some nice Belgian wholewheat, sourdough bread (called Desem) and combine with my new sauce.  Oh!  And I added a touch of Tabasco green sauce.

It is not really Eggs Benedict because I didn't use ham.  I am going to add that to my next attempt.  Canadian bacon is in my mind.  Hmmm.

from Jud

Elisabeth helps grandma make gingerbread -- resulting in a wonderful gingerbread house.

 Every year we make gingerbread cookies and a gingerbread house for Christmas.  We've been doing this for as long as I can remember.  Our once small children, now grown up, seem to enjoy it as much today as they did years ago.  And our grandchildren are starting to share in the excitement as well.

I keep thinking of the song, "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" as I watch our family interact around the baking, making and taking-apart gingerbread houses.  That is our wish for you.  We hope that you had a blessed and merry Christmas -- and we also hope that you have a happy New Year!

Above: a cup of Dutch mustard soup at our home in Belgium. The Flemish like mustard soup as much as the Dutch. (Rhyme unintended.)

November 22nd Jan and I were in Delft, Holland for a little R&R. We were determined to have some mustard soup. Does that sound strange? Actually mustard soup is delicious. It is a winter staple in both Holland and Flanders.

We found what we were looking for at Restaurant Le Mariage. The front of this restaurant faces a canal (surprise!) and is adjacent to the smallest house in Delft.

The narrow house to the right of the restaurant as we see it in this photo is the smallest house in Delft. Yes, that narrow space between the other buildings (one window wide) is a house!

On to the soup. It was served with a dark rye bread and fresh, creamy butter.

Absolutely delicious. Especially on a cold day.

Today I decided to see if the recipe I found for mustard soup when we first moved to Belgium was as good as what we had a few weeks ago in Delft.

Here is a list of my ingredients:

1 liter water
2 cubes of chicken bouillon (European-size)
200 ml of Creme Fraiche (40% heavy cream)
2 tablespoons of whole grain mustard
125 grams of smeerkass (white spreadable cheese)
4 tablespoons of cornstarch
Salt and pepper to taste

Easy peasy. Boil the water, add the bouillon cubes, the cream, cheese and mustard. Stir briskly with a whisk to blend ingredients.

I would suggest holding 1/4 cup water back to mix with the corn starch cold. Then add that the the boiling mixture and stir briskly again with a whisk until thickend.

The mustard I used was from Kent, England and not very yellow or strong. Zaanse mustard is what the recipe calls for -- but I didn't have any on hand. I added an extra tablespoon of yellow mustard to give my soup more flavor and color -- something like Zaanse mustard.

Kind of. Oh! I also added a thimble or two of cheap Cognac. It does make a difference to the final taste. Subtle but important.

It's very similar to the soup we had in Delft. Now, I just need to figure out how to make the frothy stuff that was on top of the soup in Restaurant Le Mariage. Maybe some egg white? Beaten and added before serving?

​If you come to visit us, and if it is winter, and if you are adventurous and brave -- I'll make you some Zaansemosterdsoep for lunch. We'll have dark, rye bread with fresh, creamy butter.

​If all those contingencies converge, you'll love it.

​
from Jud

Yesterday I flew to Monterrey, Mexico.  Before I left Beligum I had a snack -- a cheese plate -- that was absolutely delicious.  From left to right the four cheeses pictured are: Passendale (Belgian), Brie (French), Tomme de Blanche (French) and Chimay (Belgian).  While France is known for its cheese, Belgium isn't.  "The more's the pity for that" as the old phrase goes.

Charles de Gaule said in a June 14, 1960 television interview -- Comment voulez-vous gouverner un pays qui a deux cebt quarante-six variétés de fromage?  Or, "How can you govern a country which has two hundered and forty-six varieties of cheese.   Probalby most people in the U.S. would be scratching their heads after hearing DeGaulle say that.  That is if they could watch French TV in 1960.

As far as cheese popularity goes, how governable a people may be and what that might mean today -- I did a little research while I enjoyed my cheese plate near the airport.  In 1960 when France had 246 different kinds of cheese, Belgium had about 51 different kinds of cheese.  

Given the difference the difference of the physical size of the two countries France produced 0.0004 kinds of cheese per square kilometer while Belgium produced (in this same time period) 0.0016 kinds of cheese per square kilometer.  The Belgiums were producing four times more cheese varities than the French per square kilometer.  

What would DeGaulle say about that if he only knew.  He probably did know.  He grew up in Northern France on the border of Belgium where many towns and villages still have Flemish names.  He probably conveniently forgot how difficult it was to govern Belgians -- at any time in their history.  DeGaulle was brave, but he wasn't brave enough to tackle that pesty, little country a few hundred kilometers from Paris that is known for its chocolate, lace, beer -- and oh, yes, -- cheese.

Back to cheese and politics -- becuase at this point I had to catch a plane.   The screen shot below is of cover page for an article on the inability of the Belgians to form a ferderal government for over 589 days.  What were they doing in the meantime?  Eating cheese.

from Jud