Uitsmijter

The Uitsmijter. The name evokes images of strength, courage and forceful endings. The word "uitsmijter" itself means "forcefully throw out" and can refer to a profession (bouncer at a nightclub), but in food speak, it's the name of a solid open-faced sandwich with meat, cheese and fried eggs. It's not a sandwich for dainty eaters or a peckish appetite. The Uitsmijter is here to deal with your hunger, with your need for food. It's the ruler of all sandwiches. It's a manwich. It's a ter-mi-na-tor......

In the south of Holland, where I grew up, uitsmijters would be served as the last "one for the road before we get thrown out" meal after a night of partying. Groups of friends would usually end up at someone's house late at night (or early in the morning) after the bars closed to wrap up the night with a warm, comforting meal in their stomach before going to bed. Many a parent has woken up to the smell of ham and eggs in the middle of the night, only to find a kitchen full of youngsters eating breakfast. That was often the point where the "throwing out" happened :-)

The Dutch will often have an uitsmijter for breakfast (on the weekends) or lunch. The sandwich is eaten with knife and fork and is a full meal. The great thing about it is that you can make this sandwich your own: you decide what bread, what cheese, what meat and how you like your eggs fried. It's all good!

Most often the choice of meat will be ham, if not specified, but uitsmijters can also be served with roast beef, pastrami, turkey, bacon or even just with cheese.

The eggs are usually served sunny-side up, over medium. If you order an uitsmijter for breakfast it's served by itself. As a lunch item, it usually comes accompanied with a small salad on the side or some greens to spruce it up.

Uitsmijter
2 slices of bread
Butter
2 slices of ham
4 slices of cheese
2 eggs

Put two slices of bread on a plate, and butter them lightly. Put the slices of ham on the bread, then the cheese. Add butter to a skillet and fry the eggs. If you want, you can also fry the ham. When the eggs are done to your liking, slide them on top of the cheese, add some salt and pepper and you're ready to go!

21 comments:

  1. Hans-from-CuraçaoApril 6, 2011 at 8:01 PM

    Recommend as well to add some sweet pickles (not the kosher ones!) and/or pickled onions ("zilveruitjes"). Sliced tomatoes are also required. To add calories: pop on some fried slices of bacon...

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  2. De uitsmijter is hier nu bekent in Florida USA, sinds dat wij de "uitsmijter" hier dagelijks maken !!, sinds >> 1990 << !!!!

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  3. net zoals de nederlandse , kroket, frikandel, de gebraden carbonade, de patat friet, en vooral niet te vergeten de >> Nederlandse GEHAKTBAL << vergeet de nederlandse specerijen en ga op zoek op internet naar alternatieven, wij heben ze !! :)), voorbeeld !!; gehaktkruiden naar Nedrlands recept ! >> Ingrediënten voor gehaktkruiden

    8 tl zout
    6 tl nootmuskaat
    4 tl witte peper
    2 tl foelie
    2 tl gember
    2 tl uienpoeder
    1 tl koriander
    1 tl knoflookpoeder

    deze hoeveelheid is voor +/- 4 kg <<

    succes er mee

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    Replies
    1. after you make this combination, what can you do with it?
      where is it goot?

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  4. Excellent website! Will be passing this on to all my American friends.

    The Chief Cloggy Medic

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  5. Thanks, Chief Cloggy Medic (that's a pretty cool title!) for stopping by!

    Anonymous, thank you for your exuberant messages, but unless you tell us who you are and where you are located, we're not going to be able to enjoy all that good Dutch food in Florida!

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  6. I like a little dish of Pesto on the side to put on my Uitsmijter.

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  7. My dad used to make these for Sunday night dinners!! It's been YEARS since I had these. Wow.. great memories. :)

    Jessica

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  8. [..] or even just cheese.

    Wow, what a striking remark, who would have thought of that!

    A Christmas afterthought...
    In the Dutch supermarket nowadays you can get chicken salad, basicly it contains lots of chicken and a tiny amount of garnish. They could have left the chicken out so you can even have yourself eating just garnish of cause but the butchers don't like that idea so now the traditional 'broodje gezond' also has transformed in a fast food variant by adding slices of meat to it. Didn't start out that way! The Dutch nowadays will put meat into anything! It wasn't always like that, now it seems anything goes. BTW did it ever occur to you or have you ever considered eggs being in fact chicken menstruation? As long as they aren't fertilised anyway. I have no problem with that, it's just peculiar when you come to think of it.

    Johannes

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  9. My mother made these with slices of hard-boiled egg! (She didn't like her eggs fried.)

    Paul Hoogeveen

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  10. My parents and I always put some butter or olive oil in the pan until hot, then the ham,then cook the eggs on top. Cheese on the buttered bread, then the cooked ham and eggs on top. Lekker!

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    Replies
    1. Reminds me of the time I was working as a 'chef' in the Melk Weg in Amsterdam.. We used to serve this all the time.

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    2. i remember going to Melk Weg in the '70's. Good times!

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  11. Absolutely loved these from my local in zevenbergen

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  12. An abiding memory from my time in Meppel years ago. A masterpiece, I often make it back here in Dorset. Superior to the Strammer Max. The Strammer Otto is close but no cigar.

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  13. I'm writing a story set in the Netherlands, and I want to know; if someone was going to cycle with a friend through a national park, would them bringing sandwiches to eat for lunch be normal? And if so, would they bring an Uitsmijter?

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    Replies
    1. Sandwiches would be normal (check the Broodjes post for ideas), but an uitsmijter would not, as this is usually served warm. A very traditional lunch would be one sandwich (two buttered slices of bread with one topping, i.e. cheese, ham, salami, liverwurst) made with white bread, and one with whole wheat. Cut down the middle so you have two halves. These are added to a small square, flat plastic box. An apple, or another piece of fruit, is usually added as dessert, unless one of the two sandwiches contains a sweet topping, like hagelslag or jam. For a drink, buttermilk (karnemelk), regular milk, or a flask with tea or coffee. Have fun writing!

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  14. Definitely sandwiches, you could not possibly bring an 'uitsmijter' with you, it would be a mess.
    A lot of people drink milk with breakfast and lunch. It is very normal for a CEO to drink milk instead of wine for lunch, much to the horror of their overseas guests.
    Marjolyn

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  15. My husband is from the Netherlands, and the first time I ever visited there after we were married, I had one if these open faced sandwiches. The restaurant we were in also served pancakes, but I would not have been able to eat a whole pancake. I had weight loss surgery the December before, (in 2001), so his family suggested this. I thought it would just be 1 of these with ham and cheese and egg, but the server brought out this HUGE plate that had 1 of these with ham/cheese/egg, 1 with roast beef/cheese/egg, 1 with turkey/cheese/egg, and 1 with just cheese/egg, all in an open-faced sandwich style. I couldn't eat all of that, and I just are the one with ham. My husband, father-in-law, and brother-in-law ate the other 3. We came back home to the US about 2 weeks later, and I started making this dish myself. LOL! I call it a ham and egg thingie and we have enjoyed it now for about 21 years or so. I have attempted babi pangang, borenkohl, hutspot, a butter cake, and a few other Dutch recipes. Most of them have been really good, but I do not care for endive anything!

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    Replies
    1. Linda, good for you for continuing to cook Dutch dishes at home. Uitsmijters can be quite filling, but a plate with four different versions sounds amazing! I am with you though, I would have probably only eaten the one, and shared the rest. Glad you stopped by!

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  16. My mother, who was born just outside the Hague but moved to England at age 3, used to make this for us. Her variation was to toast the bread and warm the ham in the pan with the cheese on top to melt it.

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