The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

The smell still hangs heavily in the air…the scent of oil and nutmeg cloyingly mix together, alluding to the creation coming from a now darkened kitchen.  A pot of canola stands somberly alone and cold under the single bulb of the stove hood. For your consideration I present to you the oly koek!!!!  What???

An oly koek, as I learned earlier this week while reading "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", is the pre-cursor to the American doughnut.  It’s a Dutch word meaning “oily cake”.  Considering the amount of oil called for in the frying, the name aptly fits.

I began my week with the now annual re-reading pilgrimage of the  “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving.  I am one of those people who believe in tradition, and often my traditional observance takes the form of reading a seasonally related tale year after year after year.  There is something magical about coming back to a story and trying to recapture the spark you felt the first time you read it.  For me, Washington Irving is always worthy of a return visit.

As if to further delve into “The Legend” and get into the baking spirit of things I decided to get up bright and early this morning and head to Sleepy Hollow cemetery.  We live about 10 minutes away from the famed resting place, and as it’s my third fall season here and have yet to photograph the site I thought it would be a perfect time to remedy this.  The cemetery was quiet, a cool breeze blowing through red tinged leaves bouncing off a grey sky.  The pungent smell of cedar trees and fallen leaves was overwhelming and reminded me of the woods I used to play in as a kid growing up in Missouri.  I casually walked by the head stones, looking at dates and thinking about ghosts, taking photos and making my own memories of a place where others come to celebrate the memories of people they used to know.  I loved it.  I made my way to Washington Irving’s grave and then continued on, up and down the hills of markers until I came to a creek with the old wooden bridge where Ichabod met his end.  It may sound hokey, but for me it was fantastic.  I walked across that bridge and smiled, cementing for myself the memory of the day.

The “Legend” isn’t quite the way my Disney miscellaneous memory recalls it from childhood.  Growing up I remember feeling sympathy for poor Ichabod Crane who is tormented by the larger than life Brom Bones.  It’s the classic case of the school bully versus the underdog.  In actuality, Ichabod from the book is seemingly more of an overly punishing schoolmaster who weasels his way into the houses of local farmers, eats their food, and ogles their young daughters.  He is out to get the Van Tassel fortune, which includes a beautifully described farm and surrounding lands along the Hudson River (not to mention Katrina).  Washington Irving’s strength comes from his use of adjectives.  It’s the detail he lends not only to the farm, but the characters and the Hudson River Valley that make the story a joy to return to year after year.  There is also quite a lot of time spent writing about the harvested bounty of food loading up the sideboard of the Van Tassel farm.  One item in particular is the Pigeon Pie.  For the most fleeting of seconds I considered trying to recreate this peculiar sounding dish, continued to ponder, thought of what that would entail (the incredible pigeon guilt I would undergo), changed my mind and continued on reading the story until I came to the section on cakes.  Ahhh…safety, until I found a word I didn’t know…the oly koek.

I took it upon myself to hit the old Google and figure out what the heck an oly koek is?  The simple answer is a lovely fried ball of dough.  As Ina would say, "now how bad can that be" ? After finding a reasonable recipe I decided to tackle this Dutch delicacy with grim determination.  My main fear really encompassed two things.  1) Yeast 2) A big vat of frying oil that could cause permanent bodily damage if there was a Dutch dough related accident.  It may seem crazy that I’m intimidated by yeast, but I haven’t really used it since pastry school a couple of years ago and I always seem to avoid it.  Today, happily, was not a day for backing down.  With the courage of Ichabod creeping along a lonely moonlit hill I marched to the store and bought 3 quarts of canola oil and the necessary dry yeast the recipe calls for.  I placed the yeast in warm water with a little sugar and happily it came to life rather smoothly.  As a tip, if you are going to make this recipe, make sure you have all your ingredients at room temperature.   The recipe I found doesn’t mention this, but it will help keep your butter from “seizing” and all your little yeasties happy.  http://www.bestlifeonline.com/literategourmet/11_irving.html

The other challenge was the frying.  I’ve never deep-fried anything before!  I have a vague recollection of being a kid and my mom making doughnuts.  There was a crock-pot like contraption (most likely a fryer) involved.  I remember her dropping spoonfuls of dough into the oil and then rolling the outcome in powdered sugar.  I should check my facts on this because I could be making it up based on a TV show or something…the mind does tend to play tricks from time to time.  In my case, I just filled a large pot with the oil…as opposed to lard or Crisco recommended by a few other oly koek recipes I read…I just couldn’t justify making anything with lard and still respect myself in the morning.

The result:  a crispy, yeasty, spicy mixture somewhere between funnel-cake and a bear claw.  It’s surprisingly light and savory until you roll it in confectioners sugar, then it becomes a delicious savory/sweet blend that deserves to be in a place of honor on the Van Tassel buffet line.  I can see why Ichabod would have liked it and why Irving refers to the Dutch lasses as being voluptuous and curvy, I would be too if I ate too many of these things.  The recipe makes about 2 dozen- so pack up a basket and go visit your neighbors.

I can’t think of a better way to spend a moody October day than wandering among the graves of the dead and making baked goods for the living.   It’s just who I am.