Let's go Dutch, cookbook that is!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

One family who’s departing Beijing for good brought in a stack of books to chuch this morning. My wife grabbed a cookbook, the title of which is 15 minuten vegan comfort food. The recipes are all in Dutch, so I seem to able to parse a lot of it given my prior knowledge of German. But I don’t recognize the cooking/measurement abbreviations. I’ve never seen dl in a recipe. I’m only familiar with that as the abbreviation for deciliter which nobody outside of a lab uses. The recipes look might good, too.

I’ll really appreciate any help on this.

2

Why wouldn’t it be decilitres? It’s about the right size for cooking measurements. 5 dl would be roughly 2 cups, for instance.

Would amounts of that nature fit the recipes?

3

I wonder if translator extraordinaire @Pardel-Lux knows Dutch?

4

I have only a passing acquaintance with Dutch after years of living in Luxembourg, but I can confirm I have seen recipes (in various languages) using deciliters. So it doesn’t seem at all unusual to me.

5

Being Dutch, I can confirm dl=deciliter. Feel free to ask for more clarifications :slightly_smiling_face: .

6

No, I don’t, but I know dl as deciliter from Spanish and German recipes too. People use that outisde labs for sure. Now where are the recipes?

7

Thanks!

I was in a taxi when I posted the question, so it wasn’t comfortable to look through the book and see other recipes. Thanks for the answers so far. The thing that confused me was the recipe I’d randomly turned to had el, tl, and dl. The book’s author is using both metric and traditional measurements, unless there’s a metric version of teaspoon and tablespoon. I don’t recall seeing those two measures when I lived in Germany, just “official” metric measures.

I now have:

Traditional

el = tablespoon
tl = teaspoon

Metric

cm=centimeter
dl=decilieter
g=gram
l=liter

8

Googling around for measures in cooking I found

The standard European spoon sizes are:

Teaspoon: Approximately 5 milliliters or 0.17 fluid ounces.
Dessert spoon: Approximately 10 milliliters or 0.34 fluid ounces.
Tablespoon: Approximately 15 milliliters or 0.51 fluid ounces.

As you already have EL (Esslöffel in German, guess similar enough in Dutch: table spoon), TL (Teelöffel: tea spoon), then DL could be Dessertlöffel: 10 ml (one ml = 1 cubic centimeter) or 0.34 fluid ounces.
Reading the recipe it should be possible to deduce whether it is 10 ml = 1 centiliter or 100 ml = 1 deciliter, as one is ten times more than the other.

9

Here’s one I asked the wife to make for next weekend. Since I’m ovo-lacto vegetarian, we’re not concerned about the cow milik in the digestive biscuits.

peanut butter cheesecake shots

For 4 people

The silky smooth filling in these chesse cake shots is thanks to smooth peanut butter. Because they are so rich, it is best to serve them in small glasses or shot glasses.

Digestive biscuits from supermarkets’ own brands often do not contain cow’s milk. However, always check the ingredients list.

Spoon the peanut butter into a bowl and add the soy cream. Beat them with a fork or balloon whisk until you get a thick, creamy mixture.

Melt the vegan butter in a small pan over low heat. Meanwhile, crumble the biscuits until they resemble breadcrumbs; do this in a food processor or blender or put the biscuits in a plastic bag and tap them with a rolling pin. Remove the pan from the heat, sprinkle the biscuits in it and mix everything well.

Let the sponge mixture cool for a few minutes and then press it into the bottom of small glasses. Spoon the peanut butter mixture on top and sprinkle the chocolate drops over it. You can place the cheesecake shots in the refrigerator for 2 hours before serving for a slightly chilled dessert.

3 tbsp smooth peanut butter, at room temperature
1 dl light soy cream
1 full tbsp vegan butter
6 digestive biscuits (vegan)
4 tsp dark chocolate drops (vegan)

In Dutch:

pindakaas-cheesecakeshots

Voor 4 personnen

De zijdeachtig gladde vulling in deze chesse-cakeshots is te danken aan gladde pindakaas. Omdat ze zo machtig zijn kunt u ze het best serveren in kleine glazen of borrel-glaasjes.

Digestive-biscuitjes van het eigen merk van super-markten bevatten vaak geen koemelk. Controleer echter altijd de ingrediëntenlijst.

Schep de pindakaaas in een kom en voeg de sojaroom toe. Klop ze met een vork of ballongarde tot een dik, romig mengsel.

Smelt in een kleine pan de vegan boter op laag vuur. Verkruimel intussen de biscuitjes tot ze op broodkruim lijken; doe dit in een keukenmachine of blender of doe de biscuitjes in een p;lastic zak en klop erop met een deegroller. Neem de pan van het vuur, strooi de biscuitjex erin en meng alles goed.

Laat het biscuitmengsel een paar minuten afkoelen en druk het dan op de bodem van kleine glazen. Schep het pindakaasmengsel erop en strooi de chocoladedruppels erover. U kunt de cheesecakeshots voor het serveren 2 uur in de koelkast zeeten voor een licht gekoeld dessert.

3 el gladde pindakaaas, op kamertemperatuur
1 dl lichted sojaroom
1 volle el vegan boter
6 digestive biscuitjes (vegan)
4 tl purechocoladedruppels (vegan)

10

I frequently see the same mixing of unit types. In a French recipe, for example, I’ll be told to add une cuillérée à café of salt to 500 ml of boiling water, or some such. In practice, I find this generally (though by no means consistently or strictly) indicates rough measure to taste (the traditional unit) versus a more rigorous measure on which the recipe functionally depends (the numerical metrics). The recipe might call for 600 g of carrots, for instance, sauteed in une cuillérée à soupe of butter.

11

In my next life, I want your past life! I love that country, both the capital city and the wonderful views outside the cities.

12

OK, so we have the instruction and the amount:

Assuming that both peanut butter and soy cream are about as dense as water, we have 45 g of peanut butter and either 10 g or 100 g of soy cream. How much light soy cream do you need to get a “thick, creamy texture” when you whisk it under?

13

I’ve no idea. That’s why I asked the wife to make it. :wink: Hey, she majored in nutrition back in South Korea. I’m sure she can figure it out. :smiley:

14

It’s true, I do sometimes pinch myself.

15

I just coined that expression thanks to you. My senior Drill Sergeant also had a mighty fine life, even though his MOS was what’s now known today as 92M (Mortuary Affairs Specialist). When he wasn’t drill sergeanting, he was posted to Luxembourg. Lucky sod.

16

Makes sense he’d be posted in Lux, with that specialty; as you probably know, we’ve got a good sized American cemetery just outside the main city. Not one of the biggest (50 acres, about 5000 graves, as I recall), but it’s specifically dedicated to those who fell in the Battle of the Bulge, so it’s very well taken care of. Beautiful grounds.

17

I am sure she will, but I guess she will say 1 dl = 10 cl = 100 ml = 100 c.c. Because I think that if you whisk 10 g of soy cream under 35 g of peanut butter you will not get a “thick, creamy texture”, but rather something softer than peanut butter, but still stiff like miso paste. So you (or your wife) start with that, see that it is not enough (probably) and then add the remaining 90 g of soy cream. If you do it the other way around there is not turning back, but it would probably still be OK, as 100 g is most likely the correct answer anyway.
Of course some people may argue that adding 100 g of soy sauce to 45 g of peanut butter does not give you the “thick, creamy texture” you want but something watery and runny. Please tell us which conclusion you have reached when you solve this.