Posted by Chris on April 4, 2008
Joel of TravelBeat.Net went to Amsterdam and tried a few of the finer spirits there, including Bruidstranen, a spiced wine popular to newly weds and commonly served at weddings.
Joel sparked my interest in Bruidstranen so I looked a little further into it and found more explanation over at “Dutch recipes for the newly weds.”
This alcoholic drink is especially for weddings although it has a strange name: Tears of the Bride. The gold and silver leaves mean: the smell of roses and moonshine. It has a scent so fine, that it is comparable with the finest perfume. This drink is served at the wedding (or, as the rumour goes: when a woman is not amused with something her husband did, she poors him a glass to remind him of the weddingfauls). It can also be a gift from the married couple to their guests.
…and, what do you know? They also have a recipe for mulled wine (”Hypocras”) there Here’s the recipe. They have some interesting history about it too but you will have to visit them for that:
Hypocras - mulled wine
500 grams / 2lb 2oz. Sugar
2 lemons
2 tsp cinnamon
4 cloves
2 pieces of mace
6 white pepper corns
1 tsp coriander
5 oranges
1 tart apple such as �goudrenet�
� liter / 2 cups / 1 pint milk
2 litres / 2 qts red or white wine
Splice the cloves lengthwise and crush the pepper corns. Squeeze the two lemons and keep the juice. Dice the unpeeled, non-cored apple. Peel the oranges and keep the peels.
Mix juice, spices, peels, milk and wine in a large container and set aside to steep for at least a day, preferably longer.
Soak a large piece of cheesecloth or a good quality tea towel to use as a sieve. Put that (perhaps supported by a metal sieve or clander) over a wide-mouthed container or bottle able eventually to hold 2.5 litres (a gallon), or use smaller containers and pour the contents through a funnel into a larger one.
Enjoy!
Posted by Chris on March 13, 2008
Wow
wow
WoW… taste buds don’t fail me now.
This recipe on Life The Universe and Every in Between was translated from Dutch by Nina and Peter.
Ingredients:
300ml red wine
Zest of one Lemon
Zest of one Orange
4 Star Anise
1 Cinnamon Stick
6 Cloves
220g Caster Sugar
12g Gelatine
900ml Cream
1 Vanilla Bean
Method:
On low heat combine the wine with zests and whole spices (excluding the vanilla bean) with 55 grams of the caster sugar in a saucepan. Stir until the sugar is dissolved then leave for 15mins on low heat to let the flavors infuse. Remove from heat and strain the spices from the mixture setting aside half of the wine mixture (with spices) for a finishing drizzle. Add 5 grams of the gelatine to dissolve in the remaining (strained) wine mixture in saucepan letting it cool down a little before portioning it in to 6-8 small (oiled) ramekins or tea cups. Place in the fridge to set for AT LEAST one hour.
In another saucepan heat the cream, remaining sugar and contents of the vanilla bean together until at a simmer. Remove from heat and dissolve the rest of the gelatine (7g) in the mixture stirring occasionally until the gelatine starts to take form. Then pour the vanilla cream mixture on top of the set wine and refrigerate for AT LEAST 6hours before serving.
Serving:
Ease the edges of the ramekins/tea cups with a knife and then dipping the cup surface in bowl of hot water for 3seconds. This helps to release the contents before placing upside down on a saucer and drizzling with the chilled spiced wine reduction.
Serves six
Enjoy!
Posted by Chris on January 22, 2008
This one caught my attention because the post reminds me of a friend of mine who used to try to mimic recipes he’d tasted before. He is not a chef or anything - just liked trying it.
Jodi’s gluhwein recipe on Jodijalanna looks pretty good. She was given some spiced red wine and liked it so much she decided to make it herself so after a few attempts, she came up with something she is pretty happy with. The brown sugar sounds really good - that’s something we have never tried for some reason. It just makes sense, too. Here’s her recipe.
So this is the ingredient list/measurements, and directions:
Ingredients:
1 bottle of red or white wine
12 oz of water
1/2 cup of brown sugar
1 Bag or Tied Cheese Cloth of :
Cinnamon Sticks (about 1 stick) .20 oz
Dried Orange Peel .35 oz
Whole All Spice .15 oz
Whole Cloves (about 18) .01 oz
OTHER .15 oz (this was bites and pieces remaining on my wax paper after measuring the above)
NOTE: My package had a floating cork on top, but I doubt that is necessary!
Directions:
Put wine, water, sugar and spice bag in pan or crock pot and let simmer slowly, do not boil, “for at least one hour - the longer the better.”
Try it and make sure to raise your mug to Jodi while you drink it.
