Jan-Erik van Beek
Jan-Erik van Beek is head chef of restaurant Goesting in Deventer
How green is your menu?
‘You have to move along and keep one renewing. On the menu we have a vegetarian pie with seasonal vegetables. During the winter we mainly use cabbage species, i love that. Besides the usual courgettes and peppers, we also use asparagus and baby carrots. We also work a lot with beets. And we have wraps with seasonal vegetables and, as a starter, tomato tartar with marinated portobello and guacamole. But the best vegetable dish is our Wellington of puff pastry with smoked black sesame. The filling consists of spinach, goat cheese, walnuts, dates and puffed tomato with thyme and rosemary.’
How does the Deventer crowd reacts?
‘We have a lot of vegetarian guests and they’re very pleased with what we have to offer. That’s what makes us different. And if it’s up to me we would have even more vegetables on the menu; there are so many preparations. You can also keep it simple. Like tartar of raw vegetables, brings a delicious bite to a dish.’
What do you love?
‘I prefer working with forgotten vegetables, but that’s not possible all year long. I love beautiful earthy flavors. As if the vegetables you eat are directly from the ground. I once made a stew of forgotten vegetables. When eating that like a sauce in a pastry box, you do not need any meat. I love asparagus, but also rutabaga and kohlrabi, leek and spring onions. And mushrooms. Especially roasted. I love the taste of a mushroom ragout or -soup. We also serve duxelles: large filled mushrooms from the oven with cheese, port, fig chutney, dried dates and walnut crumbs. People love that. My favorite fruits are strawberries, peaches and mangoes, but we don’t use them often. They’re to laborious. That’s why we mostly work with coulis.’
The people from Rungis are always there for you and everything can be arranged
And that’s when Rungis steps in…
‘Exactly: we have a limited kitchen and run a lot of lunches. Mostly salads, and you can’t scrape every carrot yourself. Rungis helps us out, everything is fresh and they have two great lines which we can choose from. The cheaper on, Du Marché, also very good and everything gets delivered very early, even in the morning at eight or nine o’clock. The people from Rungis are always there for you and everything can be accomplished, everything can be arranged.’