Marianne's purchase at the grocery store was spinazie, spinach, and it reminded me of a traditional dish called Spinazie met Soldaatjes, spinach with soldiers, these last ones being fried strips of bread, not the military kind. Spinach is a tricky vegetable to serve kids, right along with spruitjes and boerenkool, but made from fresh produce and with a splash of fresh cream, it may work just fine. And if they don't eat it, try the traditional Dutch approach of mashing the veg with boiled potatoes and a big helping of appelmoes, apple sauce! Works every time :-)
Spinazie met soldaatjes
2 eggs
2 lbs fresh spinach2 slices of bread, day old
1 tablespoon butter
Salt
Pepper
Nutmeg
Generous splash of cream (optional)
Boil the eggs in water, for 8 to 10 minutes, rinse with cold water. Let cool for a minute, then peel and slice.
Wash the spinach and remove any sand, hard ends of the stem or wilted leaves. Cut the korstjes, the crusts, off the bread and cut it into strips. Melt half of the butter in a pan, shake the water off the spinach and add to the pan, stir once or twice, cover and leave on low heat to wilt the leaves.
Stir the spinach. Heat the rest of the butter in a small frying pan and fry the bread on either side until golden brown. Taste the spinach, add a pinch of salt, pepper and nutmeg and stir. If you wish, you can add a splash of heavy cream at this point, stir, and bring up to temperature.
Serve the spinazie with the egg slices and the soldaatjes.
I found your blog today while searching for ideas on what to do with some quark I found at the store last night. I'm not even sure where to begin with saying thanks for all the work you've done here! My grandfather was Dutch, and as a traditional man, didn't do too much cooking. My poor grandmother was raised in a high ranking military home in India, so never really learned to cook (well.) I would get snippets of opa's culinary heritage here and there, but most I'm learning on my own. My husband's family is from Guyana and I am thrilled to see so many Indo recipes, like Bara. Very different from the Guyanese way, but sound delicious none the less. I really love how food is such an amazing way for culture to be shared across the globe, and your blog is the perfect example of that. Keep up the great work!
ReplyDeleteI tried to tell my hubby how we used to eat spinach like this in Holland, and I have been wanting the recipe, thankyou so much for posting this, I used to love spinach done like this as a child.
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