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Groningen eierbal with Hooghoudt Karaktervolle Oude Graanjenever
On the plate lies a halved eierbal: a boiled egg in a coat of set curry ragout with parsley, breaded and deep-fried golden brown. Opposite it stands an old Groningen grain jenever made to a pre-war recipe with plenty of its own distilled malt wine, which catches the curry and the breadcrumbs with grain sweetness.
From the shelf
The bottle
Hooghoudt Karaktervolle Oude Graanjenever comes from Hooghoudt in Groningen, a family business that has been distilling since 1888 and by now for four generations. It is an old grain jenever of 38% vol in a 70 cl bottle, made to a pre-war recipe with a lot of its own distilled malt wine. The description gives no exact malt wine share. For the designation old jenever, the legal requirement is at least 35% vol and at least 15% of the alcohol from malt wine; for grain jenever it also applies that all alcohol must come from grain.
The combination
Why this works together
An eierbal is a stack of soft things: a boiled egg, a thick roux of butter and flour with stock, and then a crust of breadcrumbs from the deep fryer. The only sharpness comes from two and a half teaspoons of curry powder, which is a spice blend that is mostly warm and earthy rather than sour. Something like that does not call for a cold, dry jenever that merely washes everything away, but a jenever that can carry the curry. This oude graanjenever, with its high share of its own malt wine, has exactly the grain-sweet, bread-like roundness that goes with the roux and the breadcrumbs, and that roundness finds the coriander and the turmeric in the curry powder. Meanwhile the 38% vol provides enough alcohol to cut through the frying fat of the crust. In this way a hearty snack stays in balance with a small glass beside it.
At the table
The dish
- For 4 people
- Ready in 30 minutes, plus 4 hours to set
- Type drinks snack
What you need
- 5 eggs
- 50 g butter
- 100 g wheat flour, plus 2 tablespoons for breading
- 450 ml vegetable or chicken stock
- 2.5 teaspoons curry powder
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
- 50 g breadcrumbs
- oil for deep-frying
- cling film
How to make it
- Melt the butter in a saucepan and stir in 100 g flour until the mixture looks like wet sand. Slowly add the stock and stir for about 4 minutes until a thick sauce.
- Stir in the curry powder and the parsley and let it simmer for another 2 minutes. Season with pepper and salt.
- Spread the ragout out in a shallow dish, cover it with cling film and let it set in the fridge for at least 4 hours or overnight.
- Boil four eggs for 5 minutes, plunge them into cold water and peel them.
- Divide the ragout into four portions, fold each portion around an egg and, with damp hands, roll it into a ball. Roll the balls through the 2 tablespoons of flour.
- Beat the fifth egg. Roll the balls through the egg, let them drain briefly and then roll them through the breadcrumbs. Repeat those two steps for a thicker crust.
- Heat the frying oil to 170 °C and deep-fry the balls one at a time for 5 to 6 minutes until golden brown. Let them drain on kitchen paper and halve them when serving.
In the glass
Serving
Pour the Hooghoudt at room temperature into a tulip glass, filled to the brim. Old grain jenever should not be chilled: at around 18 °C the malt wine and the bread-like grain notes open up that catch the curry, whereas the cold shuts them down. Keep to one small glass alongside a whole eierbal, because the snack is already substantial on its own.
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