Hello my lords, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Nick Saraf's Foodlog.
You might have rightly guessed from my T-shirt..
..that our European journey has taken us to good of Netherlands.
Fondly known as Holland.
Ah! Good old Netherlands! Famous for its tall people and flat, flat, flat land!
And of course! Its distinct cuisine which has a little bit of fish, a little bit of meat, potatoes..
..sometimes no flavor and sometimes a big burst of flavors.
But, there is one particular Dutch dish that really crowns the cuisine of Netherlands.
And that is, the Dutch Pancakes.
A very traditional and a typical breakfast for the Dutch people.
Not to be confused with people from Denmark as most people do!
So all over Amsterdam there are beautiful pancake houses that I have been to!
And there is one particular pancake that I had for breakfast in Amsterdam once..
..which I am going to recreate today!
And that was, An Apple and Bacon Pancake
A beautiful mix of sweet and savory flavors.
And with that a traditional Dutch hot chocolate.
Really, you haven't had hot chocolate until you have had a Dutch hot chocolate.
We use these green granny smith apples that are nice and sour and not too sweet.
They are regularly used in cooking and are sometimes known as cooking apples in many places.
So the first thing we are going to do is we are going to peel, core and slice this apple..
..into slices like this.
So now, we fry up some bacon bits.
You put a frying pan on a medium to high flame.
Put up the bacon bits, let the fat melt off the bacon and cook it.
Make sure you don't cook your bacon completely but just wait till all the fat melts..
..and it's about 3/4 cooked because we are going to put it in the pancake when it's being cooked on the pan..
So it will cook completely then.
You don't want your bacon to be overcooked and burnt.
When these bacon bits are cooked through your liking, take them off on some absorbent paper and spread them out.
I am going to fry these apples in the bacon fat instead of butter, just the same!
So, on a low flame, fry the apples.
Just like the bacon, don't cook your apple too much because you are going to add it to your pancake again.
That's more than done.
With the bacon and apples out of the way it's time to make our basic batter for a Dutch pancake.
The first thing we do is, break open 2 eggs.
We add about 2 tbsp of caster sugar..
..and whisk all of it until combined.
In this we add about 1 tbsp of butter or maybe 1 and a half and whisk that in.
Make sure your butter is either soft or melted when you add it for the best results.
Cold butter is not going to mix in so well.
Now to this, add about 250 grams of sifted flour.
Then you add about 1 tsp of baking powder, this is wholly optional.
And just a pinch of salt.
Not too much because the bacon and the apples have some amount of salt content.
So you don't want to over salt it.
Now as this forms a paste add about 500 ml of milk.
If you want it to be lighter and more liquidy, you can always add more milk.
But don't add too much milk or it's not going to cook very well.
When your batter is fully combined, on a medium flame put out some butter..
..and cover the whole pan with it.
Turn the flame down to low and pour not too much of the pancake batter and spread it throughout the pan..
..so that a thin pancake is formed but as not as thin as a crepe either!
God! The Dutch really had issues, didn't they?
When this is on a very low flame we can sprinkle the bacon..
..or as some dots too but a whole strip of bacon in there.
Apple slices...
Now when it's done, most difficult part is flipping it without breaking it.
And there we go.
Let's put this on.
There we go.
Back it up a bit.
And here we go!
Ah, that looks beautiful.
And now to make some good popular Dutch hot chocolate.
For this I have quite a good amount of dark chocolate which I am going to melt in this double boiler.
So when the chocolate is nice and liquidy we add in equal amount of milk.
And keep on stirring the milk and the chocolate together till all of it's nice and combined.
This of course doesn't need any sugar because the chocolate is quite sweet already.
But if you do wish to add some sugar to it, then I suggest you get your diabetes checked before hand.
And to enhance the taste, add just a pinch of salt.
Let it dissolve.
And take it off the heat, into a glass.
Dutch hot chocolate cannot be complete without a nice swirl of whipped cream on top.
So, I have with me a bowl I had kept in the freezer for sometime.
The best result is if you whip the cream in the coldest of bowls or preferably over an ice part.
Here I have little quantity of whipping cream.
Nothing less than 33% of fat!
Now why is that you are going to get anything?
Just you know... Liquid cream you can pour on something.
We take a balloon whisk and we whip.
When it reaches stiff peak...
There you go! Nice and stiff.
I am going to put it in a piping bag.
Then, pipe some nice cream on top of this hot chocolate.
And of course, just to go with Dutch tradition..
..sprinkling of cinnamon on top of this whipped cream, that's the trick!
So what most people love doing is, they wait for the cream to collapse..
..and then mix it into their hot chocolate to get even a creamier texture of hot chocolate.
So, generally in pancake houses or Dutch homes, with pancake, this syrup is served called Stroop..
..which is made out of sugar beans which is thick and dark but much like maple syrup.
So since we are not really in...
We don't have Stroop.
So, I will be using our beloved maple syrup and give a nice sprinkling and pour a good bit on this pancake.
And my lords, ladies and gentlemen, before I get lost in this beautiful beautiful creation..
I have this one thing to say 'Eet smakelijk!'