Amazing workshop at one of Holland's best restaurants 'De Librije'

Amazing workshop at one of Holland's best restaurants 'De Librije'

A few months ago, one of our friends had this great idea to gather enough people to intent a fully veggie cooking course at three-star restaurants: 'De Librije': the restaurant of super chef Jonnie- and his wife and wine-expert Therese Boer. We had to be with at least 12 people, but ended up with 16. And since Zwolle isn't directly around the corner (of Amsterdam) we decided to book a little hotel in de centre of the old city, just a 15 minute walk away of the place to be. (but i think it took us about an hour to get back..!)

We made some amazing dishes, which even the big meat lovers among us (yes, they also attended the course) loved a lot.

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I asked our best friends to come along (you know, those of the sunday afternoons of good- and lot's of food, and drinks, the red-head and her husband) and so, after dropping off our three kids at their grandparents, we took off with the four of us, full of expectations and a great mood. After a good hour drive, we checked in at Pillows, left our stuff and walked to the place to be. We were a bit late, (due to the fact we made a little pitstop for a glass of wine) so everybody else was in place already while we were welcomed with a another great glass of wine.

Jenneke, the Chef and host of our evening, explained us what we were about to make in groups of four. Four dishes; a starter, second starter, main, and dessert. It sounded quite dazzling all together, but happily enough we were gonna make just one of the dishes (for the 16 of us!).

Believe it or not, my friend Nanda refused to make a dessert (she doesn't like sweets) so we ran after her to find a suitable dish, nobody else had chosen yet. We ended up preparing the first starter, which i actually liked a lot, since it was a quinoa salad, with goat cheese, mustard leaves, a little sauce of centrifuged beans and garnished with puffed wild rice.

Quinoa is one of my favorites, and so nice to make. But it was prepared differently than i was used to, of course! It was cooked as usual, but than mixed with homemade remoulade sauce and tiny pumpkin bits, which were chopped very well by my sweety!

 Believe me, he was very proud of himself!

The beans were cleaned, and blanched for just one minute in boiling water before they went into the juicer. A beautiful green bean-juice came out which was seasoned with some salt, pepper and sushi-vinegar. It was set aside to cool down and used later.

Hanno took care of the curry cream, which was needed to finish the dish with. But when he finally had massured and weighed his ingredients he forgot to cover the blender before turning it on. With full speed the whole ceiling was nicely covered with some curry kind of oil! Including himself of course.
Poor him, he had to start all over again. Mm, let's have some wine.

So than it was my turn and Jenneke showed me how to puff dried wild rice. I had to use sunflower oil because it gets much hotter than olive oil. At 220 C. i had to pour in a handful of the black rice, which immediately started to puff and float. Seriously it looked gross. It was like i was baking maggots, yuk. But alright, i knew what i was making and so i seasoned it with enough salt, (Jenneke said everything tasted better with enough salt, i totally agreed) and it was absolutely delicious!

So here we are, all components ready to merge into a perfect dish! (you see what i mean with the rice above?)

Nicolaas saw these gloves, and had to put them on. No, he is 39.

Very professional, don't you think?

You can see who is doing the hard work, and who likes to play! Nicolaas run over to the neighbors when he saw them playing with fire. (boys of course) They were fixing this great lentil dish with roasted mushrooms. 

Anyway, back to our starter, because we were the first (of course) to serve our dish. It turned out perfectly, it was a blast to finally start eating after the first amount of wine! 

'Quinoa salad, with beans and goat cheese'

'Lentil salad with roasted mushrooms and onion confit'

'Celeriac with pistachio, red beets and magnolia'

'egg' made of chocolate, pineapple and coconut'

It seriously was a great evening with awesome food and ridiculously good wines of Therese Boer. Our starter was followed by a lentil salad with roasted mushrooms, a main course of celeriac with pistachio, red beets and magnolia (!) and of course the beautifully mad egg of chocolate, pineapple and coconut.  In the coming week i will prepare some of the dishes above to explain the recipe, and to see if it turns out just as well on my own and with my family to taste it!

Cheers!