Bar snacks in coronavirus times: make your own cheese spring rolls
The very best bar snack in the world, if you ask me, was temporarily out of reach with the lockdown of the hospitality industry. I’m talking about kaastengels, and I can easily eat two portions per evening of drinks (okay, three). Sensible too, because drinking on an empty stomach is asking for trouble. So I made my own kaastengels – and I’m glad I can order them at the pub again.
Kaastengels vs kaasstengels
Listen up, dear snack friends: a kaastengel is different from a kaasstengel. Kaasstengel: those puff pastry things with grated cheese from the bakery. Kaastengels, pronounced kaas-tengels, are related to vlammetjes and kaassoufflés, a kind of mini spring roll filled with melted cheese.
How to make kaastengels
- Defrost the spring roll wrappers. The packaging will tell you how long this takes.
- Cut the cheese into French-fry-sized strips. I’m guessing: one centimetre by one centimetre, and about four centimetres long.
- Place a spring roll wrapper in front of you like a diamond. Put a piece of cheese on it. Fold the bottom flap up over the cheese. Fold the sides inward. Then roll up the kaastengel.
- Turn on the deep fryer. Don’t have one? Heat a layer of oil in a pan instead. Once the oil is hot, you can fry the kaastengels. Just as with bitterballen, don’t be greedy and don’t put too many in the pan at once. After about three minutes, the kaastengels are perfect. Let them drain briefly on a piece of kitchen paper and serve them with a bowl of sweet chilli sauce, as tradition dictates.
Experiment: failed
Ordinary kaastengels, I thought: that recipe could be improved. So I immediately tried putting the chilli sauce inside the kaastengel too. It seemed delicious to me, and innovative as well, and I would invent a brand-new snack during these coronavirus times, whose recipe I could sell for a fortune, so that before long I’d be giving TED Talks about how good things can come from a terrible situation.
But unfortunately, it exploded in the pan, and the kaastengels got black edges because I was fantasising about my impending wealth. So let me cautiously conclude that this innovative recipe still needs some improvement.
Also read:
- How to make a divine corona-proof cheese fondue
- Make takeaway classics at home
- Drinks in quarantine with all your friends: this is how you do it
