Recommendations
Smoked salmon with Hooghoudt Peated Cask Aged Genever
On the platter are toasted triangles of durum bread with a horseradish cream of crème fraîche and lemon zest, topped with smoked salmon and halved quail eggs, with curly parsley and pepper over the top. Opposite stands a cask-aged genever with a smoky note that seeks out the smoke in the salmon instead of overpowering it.
From the shelf
The bottle
Hooghoudt Peated Cask Aged Genever comes from Hooghoudt in Groningen, which has been distilling since 1888. It is a cask-aged genever of 40% vol in a 70 cl bottle. The maker describes the taste as a combination of smoke and fruit, with images of an open fire on the beach and a sea breeze, and with warm sweet elements of cocoa and freshly roasted coffee beans. The description gives no precise ageing time or malt wine share, and we therefore do not mention one. For the designation jenever, the law requires at least 30% vol and at least 1.5% alcohol from malt wine.
The combination
Why this works together
Smoked salmon is rich, salty and smoky, and the horseradish crème is there to keep up with those three things: the acidity of the lemon zest cuts the fat, the horseradish pricks through the salt. What is usually missing is something that picks up the smoke itself, because most genevers are neutral in that respect. This bottle is not: its smoke note lies in the same corner as the cold smoke the salmon has been treated with, and two layers of smoke that find each other sound together instead of pushing each other away. The cocoa and coffee notes from the cask add a slightly bitter underside that the salmon fat can handle, and at 40% vol there is more than enough alcohol to cleanse the palate. The quail eggs with their soft yolk form the mild middle on which both layers of smoke can rest. Smoked with smoked is the whole idea here.
At the table
The dish
- For 4 people
- Ready in 15 minutes
- Type starter
What you need
- 8 quail eggs
- 1 durum loaf
- half a lemon
- 2 tablespoons crème fraîche
- 1 teaspoon horseradish from the jar
- 100 g smoked salmon
- 2 sprigs fresh curly parsley
How to make it
- Boil the quail eggs for 2 minutes until soft-boiled, shock them under cold running water, peel them and halve them.
- Cut the top off the loaf, cut four slices of 1 cm thick, toast them and cut them in half diagonally.
- Scrub the lemon clean and grate off the yellow zest. Mix half a teaspoon of zest with the crème fraîche and the horseradish and season with pepper.
- Spread the toast with the horseradish cream.
- Spread the smoked salmon over it and place the halved quail eggs on top.
- Garnish with the curly parsley and season with pepper over the top.
In the glass
Serving
Pour the Hooghoudt Peated Cask Aged at room temperature into a tulip glass, filled to the brim. Smoke is one of the first things to disappear when cold, and the smoke is precisely the link with the salmon here; at about 18 °C it comes loose together with the cocoa and coffee notes. Keep the glass small, because at 40% vol and with a pronounced smoke note this bottle does not call for a large measure alongside a cold starter.
Everything about Hooghoudt Peated Cask Aged GeneverBack to Recommendations from ’t Bockje
Wij verkopen geen alcohol aan personen onder de 18 jaar. NIX18