Settling in.



KLM's little ceramic houses of Amsterdam, filled with genever (gin). 

This won't be the first time I bite my tongue to keep from ranting about the weather, but the inclement, roiling skies made it that much easier to focus on making our apartment a home. 

Being back in the city means a move away from the countrified ways we'd developed (and enjoyed) over the past three years.  Now we're shifting back into a more familiar city mode.  Sometimes this meant unpacking things that had been in storage for too long.

Other times it meant shopping.  I do not like looking for clothes, but browsing my way through home goods is another enchilada entirely.  This elliptical table below is from Ikea.

I love a bit of blending of styles, too.  Here's an inherited Artifort midcentury classic paired with a French antique find.  I found that carpet a few years ago, the colors are luscious and those soft, firm nubs feel heavenly underfoot.

These fish traveled 1300 kilometers in a Mini.  They were no doubt at least as relieved to be out of the car as we were.  They went from our kitchen in the French Cevennes to our kitchen here in Amsterdam.  The chickens weren't allowed to come...

I indulged myself in the kitchen: when we first moved from Amsterdam to France, I schlepped most of my kitchen supplies down there.  This go-round, they've mostly stayed behind in France.  I am loving the lines and heavy-duty bottom of this pot I got at HEMA, the Dutch version of Target.  (Check out this clever page from their online store.  Give it a second to kick in...)

Here is a tall, asymmetrical wooden pepper grinder I got from, you guessed it, Ikea.  Ten euros--and it grinds like a charm! 

My splurge was this spoon rest.  I needed a spoon rest.  I just didn't need an Alessi spoon rest.  But aren't those curves fine on this new Alessi spoon rest?

Essential in Amsterdam: a coatrack.  Faint echoes of the Dutch Piet Mondrian don't hurt.

We have all started to find our bearings.

And we know what to do when the sun finally decides to make one of its brief appearances.

 First we double-check.  (That's my neighbor's terrace, below.  In sun.)

 Then we make a dash for it.

We do crazy, lovely things like taking off our raincoats.  Even better, we have a picnic in the backyard.  My friend Azumi was the hostess this time.

The spread was absolutely Japanese, and absolutely delicious.  She claimed it was really very basic and simple to make.  That was when I asked for the chicken recipe.  Azumi was right.  But so am I:  this version of the Japanese standard will hit the spot, whether for a casual picnic or a satisfying weeknight dinner.   

Azumi's Picnic Chicken Teriyaki

Serves four.

700g chicken thighs, cut into bite-sized pieces

3 tablespoons shoyu (Japanese soy sauce)
3 tablespoons mirin (a sweet Japanese cooking wine)
1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil with lemon flavour, or sesame oil
1 shallot, minced

Combine all the ingredients in a sturdy plastic bag, rubbing the marinade thoroughly into the chicken.  Let chicken rest it in the fridge at least an hour.

Heat the pan with a bit of olive oil.  Pour all the ingredients into the pan. Cook the chicken over high heat, until nearly all the liquid has evaporated. Lower the heat and continue to cook until it until the sauced chicken is nicely browned.

Bacterially yours.

Yogurt is one of those things you generally consume without too much forethought. At least that's how it used to be in my house. The consumption involved was of an organic sort, but all those single-serving plastic, glass or paper containers added up after a while. In my recycling bins, it came down to wine bottles, milk and juice bottles--and yogurt containers.

Until I figured out just how easy it is to make your own. At its unadulterated best, yogurt is an excellent balance of easily assimilated proteins, carbs, and healthy fatty acids, such as CLA, only obtainable from dairy products, which can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, fight inflammation, increase resistance, your basic nutritional superhero stuff. Of course yogurt is also rich in the B vitamins, phosphorus, potassium...and its acidity helps to better assimilate the large amounts of calcium it contains.

The homemade sort has no unexpected thickeners, such as (lower-cost) pork-derived gelatin (yes, vegetarians, it is often so, certainly in the US) or pectin, no preservatives, artificial flavors or sweeteners. It does, however, have superior flavor and superb, creamy texture (similar to French-style yogurt), and is above all loaded with live yogurt cultures--the essential, good bacteria you need to maintain intestinal health and support your immune system. All this for a fraction of what you would pay for in a store.

I'll admit I was unable to pass up a deal (under 10 euros!) that coincided with my then-fresh ambition, so I got a yogurt maker. But a friend of mine simply puts baby food jars or other containers into a larger container, fills the larger container with boiling water just up to the lids, and slides this container into her oven. She then simply turns on the pilot light, and leaves the milk to gently cool and ferment overnight. That's it. And hers is delicious. My weak defense for a yogurt maker is that the 150 ml jars are better sized with nice sturdy lids, while baby food jars are usually just too small--and well, there was that deal. (Sigh. I try to reduce and simplify...)
At any rate, you can find as many recipes out there as there are opinions. The recipe I've developed is sort of a hybrid of Western techniques and Vietnamese yogurt, or sữa chua. Pronounced “su-aw chu-ah,” it means sour milk, but the Vietnamese also "vietnamized" the French colonizers' word for yogurt, yaourt, into da ua, pronounced “yah u-ah.” What differentiates Vietnamese yogurt from the Western sort with which we are generally more familiar, is that condensed milk is an essential component.

On my shortlist of must-have pantry ingredients, condensed milk always has a place. It is an unctuous, exceedingly accomodating cooking aid that among other things, adds depth to cakes, hot chocolate, and ice cream. And of course it is what becomes dulce de leche, or milk caramel, after a couple of hours on the stove. When flying through the supermarket, please be sure not to confuse this little can with similarly canned evaporated, un-sweetened milk, which while also useful is not interchangeable.

For the probiotic cultures either use a fresh-as-possible single serving of live-culture yogurt (check the label, they will proudly state its presence) or two 8 gram packets of freeze-dried, powdered culture. I get my packets at the organic supermarket; they are a blend of Streptococcus thermophilus and Lacto bacillus bulgaricus. You may well find the packets in the refrigerated section of a well-stocked supermarket that carries a mix or organic and conventional goods. The advantage with the packets is that they take little space and can be kept quite a while. Whatever you go with, the cultures contained will affect the end result. Try different cultures. The more types of probiotic bacteria involved, the faster the yogurt will set. Some ferment faster than others (and the earlier fermenting-ones often also produce an innocent, yellowish liquidy whey, which you just stir back into the yogurt. So depending on the approach and cultures, it will take anywhere from four to eight hours waiting for your yogurt to set. If you leave it a really long time, say because you forgot it, it will alter from tangy, to sometimes unacceptably sour.

Because I use UHT (Ultra High Temperature) flash-pasteurized milk, there is no need to heat/sterilize the milk beforehand, which is good for maintaining the the optimum vitamin content. And it means one step less.

Dare to experiment: if you prefer a thicker, Greek style yogurt (nearly a cream cheese), you can try either adding 5 tablespoons of dried, powdered milk when you are blending in the yogurt or powdered culture, or you can drain the fully set yogurt through a very fine strainer or coffee filter. Please note that if you want plain, unsweetened yogurt, simply add the 5 tablespoons of dried milk, organic if possible when adding the cultures, and omit the condensed milk and vanilla.

I can assure you that despite the long-winded preliminary explanation you have just endured, cooking an egg is more complicated than this particular yogurt recipe; after all, in all its variations it has successfully been made around the world, far less scientifically, for thousands of years.

Yaourt Vanillé Gourmand & Santé Maison/Healthy Homemade Vanilla Yogurt

Makes 7 150-ml servings, which can be kept technically about two weeks, though I've never managed to keep them that long.

2 eight gram packets of refrigerated, powdered live cultures
OR 1 serving of plain yogurt with live cultures (bifidus)
4 tablespoons condensed milk
1 tablespoon pure double-strength vanilla extract (I swear by Penzeys)
1 liter organic UHT milk (whole or half-fat, cow, goat or sheep)

Make sure all implements and the glass containers are well-cleaned and dried.

Thoroughly combine the powdered culture OR yogurt with the condensed milk and vanilla extract with a whisk. Add a few tablespoons of milk, thoroughly combine until uniform. Mix in the rest of the milk. Pour into glass containers. Leave to ferment 4-8 hours, in a yogurt maker or in a (boiling) hot bain-marie in the oven (leaving only the pilot light on).

Enjoy as is, or with additions of fruit or granola, at any time of the day. As you might guess from the dimly lit image below, it also makes for a delicious midnight treat.