Recommendations
Apricot and walnut dip with Hooghoudt Oloroso Cask Aged Jenever
On the platter is an airy dip of cottage cheese with rosemary, sprinkled with roasted walnuts and finely chopped dried apricots, with wedges of flatbread around it. Opposite stands a jenever of which part of the malt wine lay seventeen years in ex-oloroso sherry casks, and which took on exactly the same dried-fruit note there.
From the shelf
The bottle
Hooghoudt Oloroso Cask Aged Jenever comes from Hooghoudt in Groningen, a family distillery that has existed since 1888 and now works in the fourth generation. It is an oude jenever of 40% vol in a bottle of 70 cl. The share of malt wine is 22%, distilled from equal parts of wheat, rye and corn, and part of that malt wine spent seventeen years in ex-oloroso sherry casks. For the designation oude jenever at least 15% alcohol from malt wine and at least 35% vol apply.
The combination
Why this works together
A cask in which oloroso has lain gives a distillate a very specific flavour: raisin, dried apricot, walnut and a dry, nutty finish. That is no coincidence but the same pattern oloroso itself has, and so it is logical to put on the plate what is in the glass. The dried apricot picks up the cask sweetness and the roasted walnut runs one to one with the nut tone from seventeen years of sherry wood. The cottage cheese brings milk fat and a light acidity, and the 40% alcohol does two things there: it takes away the fat and it lifts the acidity so that the dip does not go flat. The rosemary gives a resinous side that belongs with the juniper berry. So this is not a contrast but a stacking, and 22% malt wine is just enough body to carry that stacking without drowning out the dip.
At the table
The dish
- For 4 people
- Ready in 15 minutes
- Type drinks snack
What you need
- 50 g unroasted walnuts
- 4 g fresh rosemary
- 100 g cottage cheese
- 1 tablespoon semi-skimmed yoghurt
- 1 tablespoon mild olive oil
- 1 wholemeal flatbread
- 50 g dried apricots
How to make it
- Toast the walnuts for 2 to 3 minutes in a dry frying pan over medium heat and let them cool. Finely chop the rosemary.
- Mix the cottage cheese, the yoghurt, half of the rosemary and half of the olive oil into an airy dip. Season with pepper and salt.
- Mix the remaining olive oil with the remaining rosemary in a small bowl.
- Warm the flatbread according to the instructions on the packaging and cut it into wedges. Arrange the wedges in a ring on a platter.
- Roughly chop the walnuts and finely cut the apricots. Put the dip in the middle of the dish, scatter the nuts and apricots over it and drizzle the whole with the rosemary oil.
In the glass
Serving
Pour the Hooghoudt Oloroso Cask Aged Jenever at room temperature into a tulip glass, filled to the rim. For a jenever that draws its character from sherry wood, chilling is harmful: the dried-fruit notes close up and mostly alcohol is left. Put the bottle next to the bowl and fill the glasses only when the dip is on the table.
All about Hooghoudt Oloroso Cask Aged JeneverBack to Recommendations from ’t Bockje
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