Harry van den Bergh

Yes, really, we have got soy sauce (or shoyu) that is produced in The Netherlands (or Holland as this part of The Netherlands is called). And Rotterdam is the soy sauce capital of The Netherlands. These soy sauces are produced from soy beans that grow in The Netherlands.

Tomasu has been brewing soy sauce for a number of years. They have a number of varieties including sweet & spicy, or my favourite one with sea buckthorn.

A second producer is Choro Koji (who also makes miso) They only recently started brewing a delicious soy sauce

Both from Rotterdam, and both delicious. Interesting to hear about brewing soy sauce elsewhere. Do you know soy sauce brewers in unexpected countries? Please leave a comment.

My go-to coffee is an espresso or an oat-milk flat white, made on our Profitec Jump espresso machine. But for a change, I regularly brew a filter coffee with my Hario V60 Switch.

The nice thing is you can use the V60 switch both as a pour-over as well as an immersion coffee (like French press or Aeropress) This is because you can close the filter and thereby regulate the contact time between coffee and water.

The most interesting thing is to combine pour-over and immersion. On YouTube you can find different methods like this one by Matt Wilson of this one by Tetsu Kasuya. Both global champion baristas

I do like the combination method, but not sure yet in which order I prefer them.

I love miso. Delicious a simple hot-drink, a soup with noodles or giving taste to vegetables. And even in chocolate brownies or caramels. There are thousands of things you can use miso for. But there are many varieties and qualities of miso.

Most miso from the supermarket tastes mostly like salt and nothing more. I have made miso myself a few times, it was OK but not outstanding. So I am always on the lookout for great artisanal miso.

My favourite one is made by Choro Koji, een miso-bewer (yes, that's what it is called) from Rotterdam. Hiroki, the owner of Choro Koji can be found regularly at the farmers market in Rotterdam (Oogstmarkt), which is the nicest market in The Netherlands, but you can also buy it in a number of shops and online.

The base ingredients like soybean, buckwheat and barley are from The Netherlands. The salt is from France and the A.Oryza spores are from Japan.

Are you aware of miso produced in other countries than Japan? Appreciate if you link them in the comments.

I can understand if you do not like kombucha. It's "you hate it or you love it" product. I love kombucha, but I think a lot of commercial kombuchas are too sweet and lack the "funky" taste. Therefor I prefer my home made kombucha.

To make kombucha you need a scoby, a symbiotic combination of bacteria's and yeast. Which looks like this:

You can buy scoby online. But if you know someone who has a scoby, you can ask to split it. Scoby grows over time, so it can easily be shared. I keep my scoby in the fridge with a little kombucha. So it lasts for ages.

When you see a kombucha recipe and look at the amount of sugar it's easy to think this is a mistake. Because you use an enormous amount of sugar. You may also think the kombucha will be super sweet which is also not the case. The scoby makes that most sugar will change into acid.

My recipe for kombucha:

Heat 240 grams of water with 240 grams of sugar until all sugar has dissolved.

Remove the pan with the sugary water from the fire and add 15 grams of tea. Let it steep for a few minutes. Every tea can work, I like a combinationof gree tea and oolong. And sometimes I add some rose petals for colour and taste.

Strain the tea mix and add 1,5 liter of cold water. Add the scoby as well as the liquid (kombucha) in which you stored the kombucha.

Now the waiting starts. Keep it about 2 weeks at room temperature. After 2 weeks taste it. If it's still quite sweet, leave it for a few days or another week.

If it tastes right, remove the scoby and return it (with a bit of the kombucha) to the fridge. Put the kombucha in bottles. Leave them for a week or so, they develop a nice bubble. Drink the kombucha cold with some ice cubes.

Recently we bought a single dose grinder. A grinder without a hopper, where you add the beans just before grinder.

The big benefit of a single dose grinder is you can easily change beans on the fly. Use a different coffee for your pour-over in the morning than for your espresso after dinner.

Adjusting your grind is also easier. As you measure the beans separately, there is only one variable to adjust: the grind-size With a regular grinder it's always complex to adjust the grind-size and the weight of the beans at the same time.

I regularly set the grinding to coarse for my V60 filter and weight 15 grams beans, and then change it to 10 grams with a fine grind for a single dose espresso.

The grinder I have selected is the Niche Zero. I like the clear settings of this grinder, which makes it easy to get back to the tuned settings after changing brewing method. The Niche Zero looks great (at least that's my opinion) and overall has good reviews.

Weighting your beans can be done on a regular scale. But I came across a nice gadget, a cup with a built-in scale, the Subminimal Not a must, but actually a fun "nice to have"

Overall a nice set to experiment with different brewing methods and coffee roasts. In the past I always ordered at least a kg of a specific coffee because it took time to tune the grinder. Nowadays I often buy several roasts of 250 grams each or try-out packages of roasters.

When you are travelling you need an app to find good restaurants. And off course there is Google Maps. But that's what everybody uses, and there choices might not be the ones a real foodlover enjoys. And what Tripadvisor or TheFork offer is often in the same league as Google Maps.

A long time ago my to-go app was Foursquare. With a lot of check-ins and dedicated lists of places to eat. But Foursquare is gone, and the successor Swarm has a different purpose.

The apps I use now are World of Mouth , Le Fooding and European Coffee Trip

World of Mouth

This app I discovered only recently. It's an app where chefs and professional foodies share their restaurant picks. But you can also add your own reviews and tips. You can do a check-in (like in Foursquare) or create a wish-list of restaurants you like to visit. The number of restaurants is lower than Google or Tripadvisor, but definitely a good app to find something a bit more special.

Le Fooding

This is the one you need when visiting France. Nice restaurants, but also shops with nice produce. On the website you can read nice stories about restaurants, and they even have a restaurant guide on paper (for France, but also one for Belgium) Also here, number of restaurants is small compared to Tripadvisor, but quality is high.

European Coffee Trip

If you love specialty coffee this is the app you need. And shops with specialty coffee can often be found in the nicest area of a town, so it's also an app to discover the best neighbourhoods of a city.

There are alse websites that help you discover restaurants. If you are in The Netherlands (or more specific Rotterdam, Den Haag, Utrecht or Amsterdam) then the to-go website to find a restaurant is De Buik.

If you have come across other websites or apps for restaurant discovery, or finding the best places for foodies please leave a comment below.

Coffee on a hot summer dat? A coldbrew might be a better choice than a warm espresso or milky cappuccino.

The base of coldbrew is simple. Mix coarsely ground coffee with water and leave it in the fridge for 16 to 24 hours. Then strain it and it's ready to drink.

You can also make cold coffee with warm water. With a filter (like a Hario V60) put icecubes in the coffee pot and let the pour-over coffee land on the ice cubes. Officially not a cold brew (as you brew with warm water) but a good way to make a cold coffee without the hours waiting time. However the tast is different.

I listened to an interesting podcast about the taste of coldbrew, "Hot vs Cold: The science behind temperature and taste" Worth listening the whole episode, but some of the highlights were:

• Cold-brew is less bitter. Bitter taste don't get extracted easy, so with low temperatures they remain in the coffee waste, and do not get in your drink. Another reasons is some of the aromas we associate with bitter can be better smelled when using warm water. In that case it's not the taste but the smell.
• Coldbrew has more aroma. Reason may be that some of the aromas evaporate with higher temperatures, but remain in the water with low temperatures.
• Coldbrew is less acid. This is a combination of effects, and a bit more complex. Listen to the podcast if you want to know more.

Interesting to hear about the experiments with coldbrew, but also interesting to try the several methodologies yourself and compare the tastes.

Tempeh is such a wonderful product. You change something with hardly any taste (like soybeans) into something full of flavour. I love the nutty taste of fresh tempeh. Although you can make tempeh from all kind of produce (I tried chickpeas and buckwheat) the ones I have made of soybeans have the best taste.

The process starts by soaking the soybeans overnight. I bought hulled soybeans which makes the process more easy. I buy them from Naturaplaza. If you can’t get hold of hulled soybeans you need to remove as much skins as possible by snapping the soaked beans between your fingers. If about half of them are without the skin it will work fine.

Then you need to cook the soybeans, for about 45 minutes. They do not have to be completely cooked, it’s best to keep them a bit firm.

After cooking discard the water and let the beans cool until somewhere between 35 and 40 degrees Celsius. Then add a little bit of tempeh starter (a teaspoon is enough for about 500 grams of soybeans) and mix the starter well. Tempeh starter can be purchased online, I buy it from Starter Cultures.

Then put the beans in plastic bags (like IKEA ziplock bags) and pinch little wholes in the bags with a skewer. Instead of ziplock bags nowadays I use petri dishes, which works great. 

Now you need to leave them at 30 degrees for about 48 hours. You can do that in an oven (most modern ovens can do 30 degrees) or use a fermentation chamber. I know people making fermentation chambers from an old fridge, but you can also buy them. I bought one from Domingo Club which is a good choice. It’s actually an open source design. So if you are handy, you can build one yourself. 

Check the beans every now and them. You do not need to be afraid of any black spots on the tempeh (especially close to the wholes) these are the spores and it’s perfectly natural. Anything blue of green is a bad sign.

You can find a lot of recipes for tempeh dishes. I have noticed you get the best results when adding marinade after baking. Most recipes advise marinade first. So first bake them in a little oil until nice brown (somewhere around 10 - 15 minutes) and then add a marinade. My favourite marinade is a mix of soy sauce, sesame oil and gochujang. 

For years it’s our go-to breakfast, a piece of home made flapjack with a cappuccino, a flat-white or a filter coffee. With a dose of nuts and seeds it’s a great start of the day

Ingredients:

1 can (about 400 grams) of condensed milk

400 grams of oat flakes

200 grams of raw nuts

50 grams of pumpkin sees

50 grams of sunflower seeds

25 grams of broken flaxseed

Preparation:

Preheat the oven at 170 degrees Celsius

Heat the condensed milk (in a microwave, of put the can in hot water for a few minutes) The only reason for heating is to make it thinner, so it is easier to mix in the ingredients.

One by one mix in the ingredients. Put a sheet of baking paper on a oven tin and spread the mix across the paper. Bake it for around 25 minutes in the oven until golden brown.

Let it cool down and break it into pieces.

My favourite recipe for focaccia. It takes some time, but mostly waiting time, not actual working time. And absolutely worth doing it. The times are indicative, a little bit shorter or longer doesn't hurt.

Recipe

• Step 1
  • 400 grams flour (T00 is a good choice)
  • 280 grams water
  • 9 grams dry yeast
  • Combine these ingredients and let it rest for 15 minutes.
• Step 2
  • Add 12 grams of salt, mixen well, and again 15 minutes rest.
• Step 3
  • Add 20 grams olive oil and another 15 minute rest.
• Step 4
  • Take the dough and fold it. Rotate a quarter and fold again. and another quarter rotation and fold. And another one.
  • Now let it rest for 40 minutes.
• Step 5
  • Repeat step 4 (including rest) two more times.
• Step 6
  • Spread olive oil on the bottom of an oven tray. Sprinkle a little beetje semolina on the bottom.
  • Put the dough in the oven tray, and also spread a little oil on top of it..
  • Let it proof for an hour.
  • This you could do a day in advance and put the dough in the fridge or another cool spot..
• Step 7
  • Flatten the dough and let is rest for 30 minutes
  • Preheat the oven on 220 degrees Celsius.
• Step 8
  • Make a salamoia by mixing 30 grams olive oil and 30 grams of water and shake it well.
  • Make little wholes in the dough and sprinkle the salamoia over the dough.
  • Sprinke a bit of salt (fior di sale) over the dough
  • Bake 30 - 40 minutes in the oven until a nice, golden colour.

Let it cool down and enjoy!.

Mixtape with hits and facts from the year 1978

A restaurant with a focus on fermentation. That's a must-go for me. So I was very happy we could book a table at the popular Fermin restaurant in Rotterdam.

The week we visited the restaurant they received a green Michelin star, so we were extra lucky we had a reservation.

We had a great meal, probably the best we had in 2024. Great dishes with a lot of local produce. Lots of vegetables grwon in the region but also some crayfish and deer, both caught locally. Unfortunately a month later we heard Fermin is closing down, so even though you can't go there anymore, I wanted to share the experience. And I hope one day they will start a similar restaurant again.

When you live in the EU and you get this message from Meta, you can object to your data being used to feed their AI models. I just did. #meta #privacy #AI

Over the years I have tried a diversity of music equipment. SP-404, Maschine, OP-1, OP-Z and more. And every time it turned out I enjoyed making music on iPad or iPhone most. Simply because it is always there, and apps like Koala Sampler & Logic Pro for iPad are really powerful. But on the other hand I do not want to be always on my phone. Since a few weeks I have a Teenage Engineering EP-133 K.O. II And this is definitely the most immediate and fun of all. So guess this one will stay

Really enjoyed listening to this podcast with the founder of the “vegetarian butcher” and “those vegan cowboys” about a food chain without animals. The podcast (in Dutch) is part of the moral ambition series #moreleambitie

overcast.fm/+BH9tIYV0…

Moving from one Mastodon server to another is pretty easy. I just moved to indieweb.social Be aware posts are not migrated, just followers and following. #mastodon

Configured micro.blog as the center of my socials. Posts go out to Mastodon and BlueSky. If it has a picture also to Pixelfed. And usingg IFTT to save in Day One. Would be greatat though to have Day One integration in micro blog. #fediverse #microblog

BBQ season has started. Firing up the Co-Fire tonight. #bbq #co-fire

Making some lofi music on my iPad #chillhop #lofi #koalasampler on.soundcloud.com/bmgG3fDQm…

Great podcast on how algorithms have flattened the world. overcast.fm/+BBNj6pk4…