4 top recipes from the editorial team that we make every week
It starts with a recipe from a cookbook or the newspaper. Maybe from Nigella, Jamie or simply your mother. And you tweak it a little each time, until you can put it together with your eyes closed. One of those always-good recipes, super easy and suitable for pretty much everyone sitting down at the kitchen table. A round at the editorial office produced the following top tips.
Conquer the world, start with your soup
Delilah’s lentil soup will soon conquer the world, starting in a small kitchen in Hoorn. Because you can throw this soup together in no time and it’s delicious. And if your pantry looks anything like mine – minus the mess, roller skates and jars whose labels have fallen off – you’ll already have all the ingredients at home, or something similar.
Delilah’s lentil soup:
- 350 grams dried red lentils
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 onion
- 3 tsp garam masala or ras-el-hanout
- Stock cube
- Greek yoghurt and fresh green herbs
How to make it:
- Rinse the lentils in a sieve.
- Sauté the chopped garlic and finely chopped onion.
- Add the spices, stir in the lentils and pour in a litre of water. Add the stock cube.
- Cook the lentils until they break down, about 25 minutes, then season the soup with salt and pepper.
- Serve the soup topped with some Greek yoghurt and finely chopped green herbs.
Shopping is half the work
Wieke lets the ingredients do the work. Once you have the groceries at home, her sheet-pan tart is already half done.
Wieke’s sheet-pan tart
- Roll of ready-made pastry
- Crème fraîche
- Lemon
- Grated cheese
- Green asparagus
- Bimi
- Peas
How to make it:
- Mix the grated cheese, lemon juice and zest into the crème fraîche.
- Preheat the oven, roll out the pastry and spread the crème fraîche over it.
- Top with the blanched bimi, peas or green asparagus.
- Bake in the oven until the base is golden brown and cooked through.
- Sprinkle with some rocket or Parmesan cheese.
If you don’t have crème fraîche, ricotta works very well too, as does mascarpone. And when Wieke is feeling adventurous, she adds goat’s cheese to the tart. So you have some idea what to expect when you eat at her place and see feta on your sheet-pan tart.
Is it a lot of work? Yes, but it’s delicious
Sharon turns every working day into a weekend party, because when she really can’t face anything anymore, she makes… risotto. She doesn’t find it intimidating, but very zen: ‘The kind of dish that comes to glorious fruition right before your eyes, with patient stirring – oh, if only I had that much patience in the rest of my life. I don’t pay much attention to all the rules around making risotto, by the way; I just go by feel. What I really like is when the end result is lovely and moshy on the one hand, while still being a little chewy on the other.’
Sharon’s risotto
- Olive oil
- 1 white onion
- 1 courgette
- A few large pieces of Parmesan cheese
- A splash of Jonnie Boer funghi trifolati spice mix
- Risotto rice
- Stock cube
- Butter
How to make it:
- Put the olive oil, onion, half the courgette, Parmesan and spices in the container of a stick blender and chop finely – but it shouldn’t become mushy. Sauté it.
- Dice the other half of the courgette and add it to the pan. Then add the risotto rice.
- Add water with the stock cube dissolved in it (chicken or vegetable stock, depending on what I can find fastest in the unsolvable mess of my spice cupboard). And then: stir, stir, add water, stir, stir, add water. Because I make it so often, I now know exactly when it’s time to add plenty of large pieces of salted butter (don’t be stingy here, butter makes everything better). Stir, stir, add extra Parmesan, stir, add dry white wine, stir and then: at exactly the right moment, turn down the heat and keep stirring for just a little longer: perfection. Risotto: every time just as blissful as it is heartwarming. A glass of white wine alongside, love.
Dream up something with burrata
If burrata appears somewhere on a menu, I order it. It doesn’t matter what else is on offer. Delicious. At the market in our neighbourhood there’s a cheesemonger who sells burrata that he claims is ‘the best in the Netherlands’. How can you resist that? But then the calorie bomb is sitting in your fridge, and what are you supposed to do with it? Make pesto pasta.
Sabina’s pesto pasta with burrata and crumbs
- 1 basil plant
- Olive oil
- Pine nuts
- Parmesan cheese
- Salt
- Pasta, for example rigatoni (the pesto nestles nicely into it)
- Toasted bread or croutons
- 2 cloves garlic
- Handful of hazelnuts
How to make it:
- Make pesto by blending the basil, toasted pine nuts, Parmesan, a pinch of salt and olive oil together (yes, yes, I know you’re actually supposed to make pesto in a mortar, but it’s a quick recipe, right?)
- Also chop – using the stick blender, for example – a crumb mixture of the bread croutons, garlic and hazelnuts.
- Cook the pasta, toss the fresh pesto through the cooked pasta and serve it with the ball of burrata on top, covered with a handful of toasted breadcrumbs, chopped hazelnuts and garlic.
