5.2.09

Dinner, February 4: Stamppot and Basbousa


Money spent on groceries yesterday: 0.00 euro.

Dinner yesterday was the most reliable Dutch winter dish: stamppot.
Stamppot is a mixture of mashed potatoes and an (about) equal amount of cooked or raw vegetables. The classics are raw endive, cooked kale and sauerkraut. It's filling comfort food at its best, usually served with winter meats like smoked pork, bacon and smoked sausage. See here, here and here for more stamppot recipes.

The nice thing about stamppot is that basically anything goes. One of my favorites is stamppot of Brussels sprouts, and I made a really great one with sweet potatoes and cabbage a little while ago. Yesterday it was raw, thinly sliced Belgian endive that went into the mash, together with a couple of chopped up hardboiled eggs, and a tablespoon of mustard. The stamppot was served with shallots fried in butter, and a smoked sausage that I had in the freezer.

No pics, stamppot isn't the most photogenic dich anyway (and this one was particularly boring, with nothing but beige and brown and pink on the plate). But it was a great dinner, and tonight Dennis will eat the leftovers while I have dinner at a friend's house, so this will be another zero euro shopping day. Yay!

What is pictured, is the gorgeous baklava Nouf brought us from Abu Dhabi. This has been dessert for almost 2 weeks now.. just a little piece with a cup of tea.. okay maybe another piece, oh what the heck they're so tiny I'll have a third. There are 2 layers in this box.. so we can keep eating for a couple more days. There were also delicious chocolate covered dates, and a tin of basbousa (I hope I spelled that right) which was my favorite: a dense yet crumbly, not overly sweet, nutty flavored delightfully knobbly-textured semolina cake.

It's real easy living on the cheap when you have friends who bring you kilos of exotic sweets.

5 comments:

MEM said...

I do loves me some basbousa. When you run out you can try another variety at Jerusalem on Haarlemmerstraat (assuming you don't feel like making it yourself)...

Klary Koopmans said...

I think I might try making some this weekend.. after all, semolina is cheap ;)

Anonymous said...

I can really recommend this recipe: http://www.ah.nl/recepten/recept/?id=7880&rq=basboesa. It's a favourite!

I guess you'll be having more time for baking now that you can't blog (etc.) as much as you're used to... ;)

Anonymous said...

Beste Klary,
In de opsomming van favoriete stamppotten miste ik de hutspot. Over de samenstelling kun je uitgebreid discussieren. Moetten er wel of niet krabbetjes in mee worden gekookt of niet? Doe je er bruine bonen doorheen of niet? (De favoriet in het oosten van het land!) Gaat hij met draadjesvlees of alleen met gerookte worst? Kook je hele zwarte pepertjes mee of niet? (Ik wel.) En in Tsjechiƫ gaat er karwijzaad plus witte kool door. Laat mij horen wat jouw favoriet is of misschien nog een variant?

Klary Koopmans said...

jazeker ik ben ook dol op hutspot! met bonen heb ik het nog nooit gemaakt - wel gebruik ik vaan half pastinaak, half wortel. Qua vlees vind ik hutspot eigenlijk het lekkerst met draadjesvlees.. maar met rookworst is het ook geen straf!