Note: My note yesterday about The Hubs having Hutspot for dinner last night prompted me to pull this modified post from our family blog. This was posted there on May 6, 2010.
2010 is "Family Fitness." In addition to making an effort to be more active, both The Hubs and I are trying to get to a healthy weight. This makes meals interesting, because he is trying to gain weight, while I am focused on losing it! And, now that our kiddo eats what we eat, we've been much more mindful of what we serve. Last year we started a habit of trying three new recipes a week. We didn't always make our goal, but we did greatly expand our menu options. We've continued this tradition this year, and as my confidence has grown, so has the variety of our meals.
One of The Hubs' favorite Dutch meals is hutspot, which is basically potatoes and carrots mashed together:
1¼ hours | 20 min prep
SERVES 8 -10
Ingredients:
6 onions
6 carrots
8 potatoes
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1/4 cup butter
salt
pepper
6 carrots
8 potatoes
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1/4 cup butter
salt
pepper
Directions:
- Dice & boil onions and carrots 20 minutes. I actually found some rainbow carrots. They come in shades of red, orange and yellow. I thought they'd add a festive look! Aren't they pretty?!
- Drain.
- Boil peeled and quartered potatoes 20-25 minutes, til tender. We use red potatoes because they taste great even with the skins on them, and I'm all about saving the time of peeling them!
- Drain and dry thoroughly.
- Add onions and carrots mash well.
- Add salt, pepper, butter and milk.
- Mix.
- Warm all together and serve hot.
In Holland, this is usually a meal by itself. Occasionally, it is served with sausage, but that's more for stampot, which is a recipe for another day. I've started playing this recipe by substituting sweet potatoes, rutabega, and parsnips for some of the potatoes to make it a little healthier. Eventually, I will figure out a way to make it in the crockpot.Fun (kinda somber) fact:
Hutspot is more then just an answer to mashed potatoes - it is a dish full of history and tradition. The ever-helpful Wiki says: According to legend, the recipe came from the cooked bits of potato left behind by hastily departing Spanish soldiers during their Siege of Leiden in 1574 during the Eighty Year's War, when the liberators breached the dikes of the lower lying polders surrounding the city. This flooded all the fields around the city with around a foot of water. As there were few, if any, high points (and September in the Netherlands is not exactly a warm month), the Spanish soldiers camping in the fields were essentially flushed out.
The anniversary of this event, known as Leidens Ontzet, is still celebrated every October 3 in Leiden and by Dutch expatriates the world over...During the Nazi occupation the dish came to represent freedom from oppression since its ingredients could be grown beneath the soil and thus somewhat hidden from sight, and the carrots gave the dish an orange colour, which represents the Dutch Royal Family.
The anniversary of this event, known as Leidens Ontzet, is still celebrated every October 3 in Leiden and by Dutch expatriates the world over...During the Nazi occupation the dish came to represent freedom from oppression since its ingredients could be grown beneath the soil and thus somewhat hidden from sight, and the carrots gave the dish an orange colour, which represents the Dutch Royal Family.
This looks good, reminds me of living in the Netherlands years ago. I had almost forgotten this dish until a few days ago when something reminded me of it and I decided to try to make it. I miss the street food you can get at various vendors in the Netherlands...
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