Traditional: Capucijners met spek

Capucijners area brown pea-like bean that I have not managed to find outside the Netherlands – frequently sold dried, or tinned, they are (when soaked) round, quite firm, and with the texture of kidney beans.

Ingredients

2 large tins capucijners

1 pack spekreepjes (chopped up bacon pieces)

small pickled gherkins

small pickled onions

Method

Empty the two tins of capucijners into a pan, together with the liquid – warm through.  Fry the bacon pieces until very crispy. Drain any remaining liquid from the pan of beans.  Mix bacon and beans together.

When serving, add gherkins and pickled onions.  A very welcome addition is to garnish with mayonnaise.

More variations on this are to flavour the mayonnaise with mustard, and to serve pineapple chunks with the beans.  Diced apple also works well.

Traditional – Uitsmijter

It’s probably stretching things to call this a recipe, rather like saying “Beans on Toast” is a recipe, but it is a recogniseable item of food eaten by the Dutch – certainly at home.

Ingredients

Butter

2 slices (white) bread

2 slices ham or cheese

2 eggs

Butter the bread.  Lay the cheese slices or ham slices on top of each slice of bread.  Fry the eggs (also in butter, but oil could be used instead).

Tasty and Healthy – Stirfry Chinese Leaf and Shrimps (34)

Stirfry Chinese Leaf with shrimps

Ingredients

2 shallots

1 garlic clove

1 head Chinese leaf

2 dessert spoons (sunflower) oil

2 tablespoons Thai Red Curry paste

350G peeled shrimps

4 dessert spoons natural yoghurt.

Method:

Peel and finely chop the shallots and clove of garlic.  Wash the Chinese leaves, half them lengthwise and throw away the stalk.  Slice the leaves into strips of about 2cm .

Heat the oil in a wok and fry the shallots and garlic for about 2 minutes.  Stir in the curry paste and add the chinese leaf.  Stirfry for about 3 minutes.  Add the shrimps and warm through for about one minute.  Spoon the meal onto plates and spoon the yoghurt on top.

This is nice with yellow rice or noodles and fried peppers.

Hopefully the above is an accurate translation of this:

Roergebakken Chinese kool met garnalen.

2 sjalotjes

1 knoflookteentje

1 struik Chinese kool

2 el (zonnebloem) olie

2 tl Thaise rode curry pasta

350 gr gepelde Norse garnalen

4 el yoghurt

Pel en snipper de sjalotjes en het knoflookeentje.  Maak de kool schoon, halveer hem overlangs en verwijder de stronk.  Snijd de kool in repen van 2cm.  Verhit de olie in een wok en bak de sjalot en knoflook ca 2 minuten.  Roer de curry erdoor en voeg de kool toe.  Roerbak het geheel in ca 3 minuten.  Voeg de garnalen toe en laat die, al omscheppend, in ca 1 minuut door en door warm worden.  Schep het gerecht op de borden en schep de yoghurt erop.  Lekker met gele rijst of mie en roergebakken paprika.

Days out

On Saturday, after collecting huge bags of Iams and cat litter from the garden centre, we went off in search of Haarlem, to find the church where they hold English services. M had looked on the website and thought that there would be some in the morning – which would be good, as we have a few commitments in the afternoon. Sadly, when we got there, we realised that the services were at 2.30pm – the ones in the morning were the Catholic ones.

We went walking around Haarlem, and I thought it was lovely – I’d really like to live there, or perhaps close by – but it’s really expensive, so I don’t think we’ll be able to. Lovely city though.

Much, much later, we had the most lovely meal at Libelle.  It’s a Chinese restaurant, and we were there sufficiently early to get a table – although I felt underdressed.  The restaurant staff were happy to provide extra prawn crackers for Ben, and kept telling us that some parts of the meal would be spicy, or “pittig” but they were about “medium” according to my estimate – Ben had no difficulty with them at all.

I wish I could remember the names of the things we tried – we went for the set menu for two number 203 – which, after a spicy soup, had a sort of chicken and mango salad – Ben liked his, especially the mango and the red pepper.  This was followed by some beautifully presented hot lemony chicken, salmon and a third portion of I think heavily marinated pork with vegetables, and some spicy egg fried rice.

It was such a fantastic meal – the sort of food you would want to have for a birthday celebration – and the staff were present, but not hovering.  And there was a high chair for Ben as well – who behaved himself and who smiled beatifically at the lady who served us.

I suppose my palate is not sophisticated, but I have been adapting to the blandness of food that I encounter here – compared to what is considered fairly normal in the UK – we have not been eating out a great deal, but I am going by the recipes that I find of Dutch traditional fare – both found in books, on the internet, and in the supermarket recipe cards – I might add a few here for reference.

I think that Libelle was only slightly behind the Good Earth in the quality of what they presented.  Probably there was less variety – but then this is a restaurant far away from the cosmopolitan heart of the Netherlands.  I hope they stay in business.