Macaroni

Ten percent of the Dutch population thinks that macaroni and chili con carne are.......Dutch dishes. I kid you not. Eighty-seven percent of that same population eats macaroni at least once a week. When you ask children here in the USA what their favorite kind of food is, they'll usually say: Pizza! Dutch kids would tell you that macaroni was their favorite food.

A Dutch TV show called "Man Bijt Hond" ("Man bites dog") has a section called "Hond Aan Tafel", where the camara crew knocks on a random house door around dinner time and asks the surprised habitants if they can join them. Most often the answer is yes, and the short scene allows for a peek in the life of just an ordinary person. Nine out of then, the answer to "What's for dinner?" is...you guessed it.....macaroni.

And they're not the only ones that love macaroni. Yours truly enjoys a huge plate of the salty, warm, comforting pasta with a pickle on the side to provide some crunch, yummmmm!!!!!!!!!!!! It's one of the many reasons why I keep ground beef in the freezer: once the meat is thawed, this dish is quick and easy to prepare. Just what you need when you're looking for some comfort!

Dutch Macaroni
3 cups of elbow macaroni or fusilli
1 lb of ground beef
1/2 a leek, white only, sliced thin
1 red pepper
1 sachet of macaroni spices*
1 small can of tomato sauce
Pickles, optional

Cook the macaroni according to instructions. Brown the ground beef in a skillet, pour off the fat and add in strips of red pepper and the sliced leek. Stir in the spices and the tomato sauce, simmer for ten minutes. Add the macaroni and mix with the sauce. Serve warm.

* I buy the macaroni spices in Dutch stores online, but the spaghetti spice mix packages that are available in your standard supermarket are practically the same.

Mosselen

Zeeland, the most Western province in the Netherlands, is famous for its mussels, specifically the towns of Bruinisse, Tholen, Yrseke, and Zierikzee. The fishing town of Yerseke in Zeeland is the mussel epicenter of northwest Europe; approximately 90 million kilos of mussels a year come from Yrseke alone. The majority of the mussels go straight to buyers in Belgium, where mussels and fries are considered a staple dish, but in the Netherlands we are also known to enjoy a big pot of mussels, especially when spending a day on the coast.

Traditionally, mussels were on the menu when the letter "R" was present in the name of the month, i.e. starting in September, but nowadays they're available as soon as July.  As soon as they're ready for harvesting, advertisements pop up everywhere, and from September until about April you can find these bivalve mollusks on the menu at restaurants, for sale at the fishmongers, and on many a dinner table all over the country. And it sounds odd, but once I see the advertisements, I start craving them. It's one of those typical "gezellig" things to do: get a big pot of steamed mussels on the table, gather some good friends, a bit of wine, a salad, a crispy baguette, a couple of dipping sauces, and get the party started! 

Fresh mussels are not available to all of us, but nowadays it's quite easy to get good quality frozen ones, so look for them in your grocery stores. About a pound per person is enough for dinner, if you serve it with a salad, fries, and bread, otherwise you may consider a pound and a half, two if they're big eaters. I serve mine with a traditional mustard dipping sauce, but you are welcome to bring your own: curry-flavored dipping sauces and herby ones like a yogurt-parsley sauce also go really well. 

Don't eat the ones that don't open up during the cooking process: they're likely to be bad. Also, watch out for broken shell pieces. 

Mussels
4 pounds (approx. 2 kg) fresh or frozen mussels, in shell

1 cup (250 ml) white wine

1 small onion, peeled and sliced

1/2 carrot, peeled and diced
1 rib celery, diced

2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced

2 bay leaves

5 black peppercorns

Dipping sauce
2 tablespoons mustard
2 tablespoons mayonnaise 
1/2 tablespoon vinegar

Mix into a smooth sauce.

Give the mussels a quick rinse (no need to thaw), and check for "beards": little hairy-looking extensions protruding from the shell. Carefully pull those off, if you find them. 

Put the rest of the ingredients in a Dutch oven, or another big pan with a heavy bottom and a lid. Bring to a boil. Lift the lid, add the mussels and boil for seven to eight minutes, tossing the contents of the pan every now and then. The mussels will open up and will be ready to eat.

To serve, place the pan on the table with an extra plate for the shells. Serve with fries, a green salad, and a dipping sauce. Use your fingers to pull the mussels out of the shells or a small fork, and dip into the sauce. 

Smaokelik! (as they say in Zeeland!)

Bruine Bonen met Rijst

Brown beans and rice, or as we say in Holland, bruine bonen met rijst, is a typical dish from Suriname, a former colony of the Netherlands. Here in America, I don't have easy access to the Dutch brown beans, so I use pinto beans instead.

Bruine Bonen met Rijst
1 small piece salt pork
1 small onion, peeled and diced
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tomato, deseeded and chopped
2 cans pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup water
1/4 cup tomato sauce
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoonblack pepper
1/2 beef bouillon cube
1 bay leaf
1/4 cup celery leaves
1 tablespoon sugar
1 cup instant rice
Water

Cut the salt pork in small dice, then fry in a skillet until soft and transparent. Add the onion and the garlic. Stir until soft, then add the tomato. When the tomato has softened as well, add the beans, the water, the tomato sauce, ginger, pepper, the bouillon cube and bay leaf. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for about twenty minutes. Taste and adjust (don't add any salt before tasting, the pork tends to be salty enough), add the sugar and the celery leaves, remove the bay leaf and stir everything together. Simmer for another five minutes while you prepare the rice.

Put the rice in a microwaveable bowl, add enough water so that the rice is covered, then microwave on high for two and a half minutes. Let it sit to dry for a minute or two, then stir.

Serve the beans on top of the rice. Nice with some crunchy slices of cucumber.

Hutspot met klapstuk

Yesterday, the city of Leiden celebrated the victory in 1574 over the Spanish invaders. It's an annual celebration during which the Leideners consume large amounts of white bread with herring and even larger amounts of something called hutspot, a colorful mashed potato dish. It's not only eaten on the 3rd of October, but is an extremely popular evening meal during the cold winter days. Hutspot is traditionally served with klapstuk, a piece of braised beef, but sometimes will also be eaten with a typical Dutch meatball. The best carrots to use for this dish are winterpenen, winter carrots such as the Flakkee or Autumn King, a larger and thicker variety of the orange carrot that is harvested shortly after the first frost. The sugars in the carrot add a hint of sweetness to this dish that will appeal to almost any eater, young or old.

The origin of this particular choice of starchy food goes back to a small remainder of stew that was presumably left behind in a large copper pot by the fleeing Spanish army. A young man found the still warm stew and shared it triumphantly with the rest of the starving Leiden-ers. Or at least with those that didn't like herring, I'm sure.

The name of this dish does not sound very appetizing, not even in Dutch. Loosely translated it means "hotchpotch with slap piece". Well, there you go, see what I mean? Who wants to eat that?

But, as is often the case, appearance deceives. In this particular example, the name is not very flattering and quite honestly, neither is the picture. But the taste will convince anyone that there is more to this dish than a silly name.

It is said that the original stew contained parsnips and white beans, and that the meat in the stew was mutton. How it came to be carrots with potatoes and beef.....only history knows. The carrot appeared in Holland for the first time in the 17th century, out of Iran, and was cross-polinated until it had a bright orange color, to honor the royal family, the Oranges. At that point, the carrot was introduced to the rest of Europe and hey presto! Long live the Queen and orange carrots for all!

As for the "slap piece": klapstuk is the meat that is cut from the rib. I used slices of beef chuck rib roast and it worked beautifully. The meat is marbled and during its 90 minute braising time will release all kinds of wonderful flavors and most of the fat. You'll love it!

Hutspot met klapstuk
For the meat

1 lb of sliced beef chuck rib roast

2 cups water
1/2 beef bouillon cube

1 bay leaf

8 black pepper corns, whole
1 tablespoon flour, dissolved in 1/2 cup water

Add the water to a Dutch oven or a braising pan, add the bouillon cube and stir until dissolved. Add the beef, the bay leaf and the pepper corns and braise on low heat for approximately 90 minutes or until beef is tender.

Remove the meat to a serving dish, discard the bay leaf and peppercorns and stir the dissolved flour into the pan juices. Stir scraping the bottom of the pan, loosening any meat particles that may be stuck. Bring the heat slowly up until the gravy starts to thicken. Pour the gravy over the meat and set aside, keeping it warm.

For the hutspot
6 large potatoes, peeled and quartered
8 large carrots, peeled and diced
4 large onions, peeled and sliced
2 cups of water
Pinch of salt

Place the peeled and quartered potatoes on the bottom of a Dutch oven. Pour in the water so the potatoes are just covered. Add the pinch of salt. Put the carrots on top, and finish with the onions. Cover and bring to a boil, then lower the heat and boil for about 20 minutes or until the potatoes are cooked. Pour off the cooking water, but save it. Mash the potatoes, carrots and onions until you achieve a mashed potato consistency or leave larger lumps, that's a personal preference. If you need more liquid to make it smoother, add a tablespoon of cooking liquid at a time. Taste, adjust with salt and pepper.

Now place a large scoop of hutspot on a warm plate. With the rounded side of a spoon, make an indentation on top of the hutspot, like a pothole. This is the famous "kuiltje". Put a slice of beef on top and pour a tablespoon or two of gravy into the kuiltje, and serve your beautiful, Dutch dish. All you need now is a pair of clogs and a picture of the Queen on the wall :-) Nah....not really.

Appelbollen

Those of you that read my other blogs know that, these last several years, I've been picking fruit in local orchards around the valley for most of my cooking and canning. For one, the price you pay for fruits when you pick them is at least fifty to 70% cheaper than in the store. The fruit is also fresh off the tree so it still has all its vitamins and minerals and, on top of that, you support your local farmers. A win-win for all, and it's a fun day out for the family. 

 
Early summer is cherry time, mid summer is peach and plum time, and now that the weather is cooling down a bit, the last of the apples and pears are coming off the tree. Oh joy!! Apples play an important role in the Dutch kitchen: apple sauce is a standard condiment for many potato-based dishes (ever tried French fries with mayo and apple sauce? Don't knock it before you try it, it's the way Dutch children eat their fries) and a key ingredient in potato salad, Hete Bliksem (mashed apples and potatoes) and of course in desserts: Dutch apple pie, apple beignets and the old-fashioned Dutch apple dumpling, the appelbol. Sweet, firm apples in a puff pastry cover and filled with soaked raisins and walnuts.....What a delight! You want a firm apple for this dessert: I used a Golden Delicious, but a Jonagold, Gala or a Braeburn will do just as well. And if you don't have apples? Use a pear!

Probably not a coincidence that these dishes do best in a wintery, cold setting. The appelbol is more often than not a sugary treat with morning coffee, a sweet ending to a long, windy walk along the beach or together with a cup of hot chocolate after ice skating on the canals. Appelbollen are usually served warm and without any additional adornments such as whipped cream, but the last several years people have been adding warm custard or a scoop of vanilla ice cream. It's all good!

Appelbollen

4 medium sized apples

4 tablespoons golden raisins and currants, mixed

1 tablespoon walnut pieces, chopped

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

3 tablespoon sugar, divided 

4 tablespoons apple juice or rum

4 puff pastry squares (approx. 5 x 5 in.)

2 egg yolks

1 tablespoon water

Preheat the oven to 400F. Wash the apples, and peel and core them. Mix the raisins, walnuts, cinnamon and 1 tablespoon of sugar, and add the apple juice or rum. Set aside and soak for a couple of minutes, then fill each apple with the mixture. If you have boerenjongens, this is a good time to use them! 

Set each apple, top side down, on a square piece of puff pastry and wrap the apple, by pulling up each corner and tucking it slightly into the cored hole. Make sure all sides are covered and clinging to the apple. 

If you have some extra dough left and a couple of cinnamon sticks, you can make stems and leaves and wrap the apple with an additional decorative something or other, but it's not necessary. If you do use cinnamon sticks, make sure to wrap the top with a little aluminum foil, as they tend to burn easily.

Make an egg wash with the yolks and the water, and brush on the dough. Sprinkle all four apples with the remaining sugar. Place each apple in a ramekin or small aluminum pie dish, smooth side up. Bake golden brown in 20-25 minutes.