Tasting at De Bijenakker – Applesauce from The Taste Museum

wander – discover – savour – learn – sow – harvest – celebrate – remember – live
TASTE – nestle – shelter – experience – rest – immerse – care
pick – help – listen

De Bijenakker is a historic garden full of wonderful stories. In the first part of this series I wandered through the flowers, orchards, old fruit varieties, herbs and the apiary; today we are going to taste. On an empty piece of land in De Bijenakker soon rises the museum garden of the Taste Museum (English website coming soon!).

Walking through De Bijenakker, you imagine yourself in yesteryear. The peace, colours, smells and tastes; the garden is full of unknown herbs and forgotten vegetables. Last summer I tasted a strawberry straight from the land, what a flavour explosion!

Now, at the beginning of autumn, the first apples start falling, pumpkins grow in abundance and courgettes are sold in the little market stall.

But there is more. On a piece of land in De Bijenakker May 2016 The Taste Museum will open its “doors”. A fantastic initiative by Creative Chef Jasper in collaboration with curator Henk from De Bijenakker, to make people more aware of tastes, eating cultures and biodiversity.

The garden in De Bijenakker will be the heart of the museum and will house the permanent exhibition of flavours. Old seeds from seed banks around the world will be cultivated, photographed and digitized with care.

Old cooking habits, cooking stories with flavour, lectures and catering: the interactive and traveling Taste Museum has an educational character.

While the sun rises, my brother Sjoerd is filming the museum garden with his drone; we’re shooting a promotional video for the Taste Museum. Meanwhile I’m picking some fallen apples to take home for making applesauce. Medieval applesauce in the atmosphere of the Taste Museum, made with fish liver.

Believe me, I had my thoughts about this combination for a moment but I have to admit it’s a delicious applesauce! The sauce has a beautiful saffron colour and is a bit creamy because of the almonds. For a very subtle salty taste I used half of the amount of liver as mentioned in the original recipe found on Coquinaria, a (Dutch) blog full of historic recipes.

Coquinaria is right: this is perhaps the most healthy applesauce you’ve ever made and eaten: no sugar and full of omega-3. The taste is a bit salty, but also warm and sweet because of the cinnamon and ginger. Simply serve and don’t tell your guests about the ingredients, they will love it 😉

Historic applesauce

Makes about 1 large jar

Ingredients

• 1/2 kg of sour apples
• 50 gr of ground almonds
• 100 ml water
• 1/2 tsp. saffron, soaked in a bit of warm water
• 1/4 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 35 gr of drained cod liver or haddock liver (canned)

Instructions

1. Peel the apples, remove the core and cut into pieces
2. Put the apple pieces in a saucepan with the ground almonds, water (instead of these two ingredients you can use 100 ml of almond milk) and saffron and bring to boil over low heat
3. meanwhile drain the fish liver
4. Cook the apples on low heat until soft. Stir occasionally, you can always add some extra water or almond milk if the sauce is too dry
5. Do you prefer a very fine applesauce? Then add the fish liver once the apples are tender and puree the applesauce with a hand blender. If you prefer a somewhat coarser applesauce like me, crush the liver on a plate and stir into the softened applesauce
6. Add the ginger and cinnamon powder with applesauce and spoon into a serving bowl or jar

Do you dare to try this recipe? I would love to hear what you thought of it, will you let me know in a comment below?

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