potato

An old family recipe

I have good memories of this salad. My grandmother (on the right, with me on her lap) prepared it during long vacations during the summer in Maastricht, the Southern-most city of the Netherlands, when it was very hot. My mother also had it on her repertoire as an easy meal during heatwaves. So this is…

Herb soup with potato dumplings

Straight to the recipe A delicate herald of Spring The text for this recipe is from a cookbook from the nineteenth century, but in fact the recipe is older. In Le cuisinier from Pierre de Lune (1656) there is a ‘potage the santé’ with sorrel, purslane, chervil and herbs, and no doubt there are other comparable recipes. Two…

Traditional Dutch herring salad

The Dutch are famous for eating ‘Dutch new’ or ‘matjes’ herring, which is essentially still raw. Tourists stare with fascinated abhorrence at those strange people who let the fish slide down their throats with extatic expressions on their face. But why would this be any less delicious than eating Japanese sashimi? And the herring is…

Dutch beef stew or ‘hachee’

Great with mashed potatoes and red cabbage Hachee (pronunciation ɦɑʃeː or hashay) is a traditional Dutch winter dish with beef. It has an almost medieval flavour, because of the use of vinegar and peperkoek (something like gingerbread but not quite the same). Hachee can be served as a separate dish, but I have chosen to prepare an oven dish, with red cabbage and apple on the bottom…

Mashed potatoes and endives

A very Dutch summer fare This dish, boiled potatoes and uncooked endives mashed together, was the favourite dish of my mother. We still prepare it on her birthday and her date of death (twenty years ago). So, for my family and me this is an emotional dish. My mother preferred meatballs with it, but I…

Traditional Dutch potato salad

Russian Salad the Dutch way I suppose Russian Salad is a popular dish all over the world, but I wonder whether it is as connected with festive holidays as in the Netherlands, where it is called Hussar’s Salad (‘Huzarensalade’). It is a traditional dish on New Year’s Eve, presented as a clock with the hands…