8/28/2014
The Dutch Snackbar Story by Ena Scheestra
The other very popular snack in the Netherlands is the frikandel. It is a long, skinless, dark-coloured meat sausage that is deep-fried and eaten hot. It is made from waste meat (pork and chicken, sometimes horse), binding agents and herbs. Frikandellen are often served ‘speciaal’, just as the sauce option mentioned above. The mexicano, carrero and pikanto are spicy variations on the frikandel, made in another shape. A berenhap (literally bear snap) is a sliced meatball skewered on a stick with thick slices of onion in between, and then deep-fried. The meatball is not really like how you would make it at home, but more like frikandel meat. Kaassoufflé literally means cheese soufflé, so logically you would expect a souffleed snack with cheese, but this is not the case. A kaassoufflé consists of cheese (often this is partially gouda and partially fake cheese) wrapped in dough and then coated in dry breadcrumbs. They are usually rectangular or halfmoon shaped and are deep-fried, just like all the snacks. This makes the cheese in the middle very hot, liquid and prone to accumulate in one side of the kaassoufflé, so eating with care is advised to prevent mouth-burns. This is (as far as I know) the only truly vegetarian snack option, unless you get the variant which also contains cooked ham. It is usually eaten on its own, but some people eat it with sweet chili sauce, mustard or joppiesauce. Then the less commonly eaten (but still widely available) snacks. The kipcorn, kipknots, kipnuggets and sitostick/kikastick are all chicken-based deep-fried snacks, but have different shapes. People usually eat them with sweet chilli sauce, because the processed chicken meat is quite bland. Both the zeestick (seastick) and the fishcorn are fish-based. The eierbal (eggball) is basically a scotch egg, but instead of using meat to surround the hard boiled egg, ragout is used. It is a regional specialty in the northern and eastern part of the Netherlands. The bamischijf and nasischijf contain bami goreng and nasi goreng, are breaded and then deep-fried, which give them a crunchy outside. There are variations on their names, depending on which form they have, for example disks (schijf) or rectangles (blok, hap). Buying French fries and snacks at the snackbar is not the only way. Many people have a deep-fat fryer at home, which they use to fry everything themselves. The assortment of French fries is actually larger at the supermarket than at the snackbar, you can buy the thinner and the thicker fries as well, and there are alternatives like fries with extra crunch and crinkled varieties, all in the freezer. All the sauces are available at the supermarket as well. The supermarket assortment of snacks (also frozen) is much smaller, a lot of the less common snacks you can only get at the snackbar; but the supermarket does have party packs with snack minis that are perfect to serve at parties, or for people like me that like a little bit of everything. Another common thing that is eaten together with French fries and snacks is apple sauce. It refreshes your mouth and quenches your thirst, both very relevant since snackbar food is quite fatty and salty. And it also serves as the vegetables in the dish. Most people just buy a jar of apple sauce at the supermarket, but I think those are quite bland, so I make my own. People always talk about cooking apples versus eating apples, but in the end you can cook all apples to make apple sauce. The real eating apples just take a bit longer to cook, because they are firmer. But I generally use all-round apples like Elstar and Jonagold, because those are grown in the Netherlands, have an excellent flavour in most dishes and also are tasty to eat on their own. Best of all, they are usually the cheapest apples available too.
Apple sauce Prep Time
Cook Time
Total Time
15 mins
15 mins
30 mins
Fresh, sweet and slightly tart apple sauce, perfect as side-dish, but also as dessert or as filling for baked goods. Author: Ena Scheerstra Recipe Type: Side Serves: 4-6
Ingredients 1 kg apples 100 g sugar Optional: cinnamon; lemon juice/peel; vanilla
Instructions 1. Peel, quarter and core the apples, then cut them in chunks. 2. Pour a small layer of water in a pan, place the apples on top (when using lemon peel, add this now). 3. Bring to the boil. 4. Cover the pot and lower the heat. 5. Cook 10 minutes, or until soft. 6. Stir in the sugar and optional ingredients. 7. Leave to cool and serve at room temperature or chilled.
Notes The amount of sugar depends on the type of apples you use. The amount given is for tart apples and gives a quite sweet apple sauce. If you like it less sweet, or you have sweeter apples, use less. You can make the apple sauce either smooth, by cooking it until all the apples disintegrate or by pushing it through a sieve, or chunky by cooking it not too long and just stir it to break it up a little.
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