OLIE BOLLEN - SWEET DOUGH, POWDERED SUGAR, HOT FAT

About a week ago a mailinglist of which I am a subscriber was startled out of its collective slumber by a desperate wake-up call. One of the members had a crisis.

A gentleman named A, who is married to J, requested a recipe for Oliebollen ('oil balls'). That being one of the few things that his spouse liked in the Netherlands, and their anniversary coming up, led him to his e-plea.
Naturally, I was somewhat distressed to find out that an American woman wasn't entirely enchanted by the Dutch and their marvelous cuisine (what, you didn't know?), but I papered over my disappointment at her disappointment, and provided the recipe.


OLIE BOLLEN

4 (four) Cups white flour.
1.75 (one and three quarters) Cups warm (scalded) milk.
3 (three) TBS Sugar.
3 (three) Eggs.
1 (one) TBS oil.
1 (one) Tsp. Salt.
1 (one) TBS active yeast.
1.5 (one point five) cups chopped raisins.
A few drops vanilla essence, a little fresh orange or lemon zest.

Plus oil for deep-frying and powdered sugar for dusting.


Proof the yeast in the milk, with one tablespoon of the sugar dissolved therein (meaning: stir sugar and yeast into the warm milk, and let the yeast foam up and become all nice and active again).
Mix all other ingredients, and add the yeasted milk gradually after it has foamed. Mix well. Cover with a damp cloth, put in a warm place, and let the batter sit two hours or more till doubled in size.
Heat the oil for frying to 375 - 400 degrees. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the hot oil (use a second spoon to push the batter off the first). Fry golden, remove from oil when done, drain on papertowels, and dust with powdered sugar.

Note I: A teaspoon of cinnamon can be added to the batter, or to the
powdered sugar.
Note II: If the milk is too hot for you to put your finger into,
it is too hot for the yeast. Better wait a moment - you don't want to kill the yeast, do you?
Note III: Leave plenty of space in the deep-fryer or the cauldron
- there is nothing worse than bliksems hot oil splashing up or boiling over.
Note IV: Some folks may want to avoid lactose and or gluten. Sorry, this recipe is not for you. Get real.


These things are usually available from stands of dubious cleanliness outside trainstations and in public squares from end of October through the beginning of March.

When exiting the train station in Eindhoven into the biting cold wind of late autumn, on the side where all the regional buses await passengers, it is sheer heaven to purchase a fresh bag of these, hot from the deep fat, and inhale them one after another, the powdered sugar getting up one's nose and all over one's clothes, fingers and lips tingling from the contrast with the frigid air.

The first time I went back for a visit, nearly nineteen years ago, there were some Cantonese girls standing by the fry-stand doing the same thing, and I surreptitiously listened in on their conversation. They were all students of the Chinese grammar school in the city, heading back to the villages in the Kempen where their folks ran restaurants. Their parents would have utterly disapproved of the expenditure of precious funds on hot dough (though, as children themselves, they had probably done exactly the same thing in Naam Hoi, Suen Tak, or Poon Yip). How delicious the guilty delight of shared funds invested in toasty comfort, the powdered sugar on their faces betraying their decadent spendthrifting, or perhaps even that all five had been snorting mega-lines of cocaine before going home!
Chinese-accented Dutch, Dutch-accented Chinese, and reverent little moans of pleasure as each hot airy doughpuff disappeared into a greedy mouth. Chan-hai ho sik! Sheer heaven.

I am not surprised that A's wife J fondly remembers oliebollen. It is also one of my more golden memories of the Netherlands.
As long as the Dutch do not speak, but simply feed me oliebollen, I should be happy there.