Eating Around the World (From Home....And Gluten Free...): Netherlands

Welcome to the Netherlands! The Nifty Niece learned all about the Netherlands in school, so once again, we decided to cook some food from this country. It didn't disappoint! According to Google, the population is about 17.28 million people and the capital is Amsterdam. And the national food is...

Netherlands political map

Stamppot!

What is this, you ask? It is mashed veggies! Think mashed potatoes on steroids. Traditionally it is served with Rookworst, which I couldn't find anywhere. A good substitute was a smoky or spicy sausage - this I could find! Dessert was Oliebollen, which are Dutch Donuts. Kids love donuts, right? I thought this would be straightforward. Here's what we did:

STAMPPOT

4 small Yukon Potatoes

1 large Sweet Potato

3 Carrots

1 Rutabaga

1 Onion, chopped

6 Garlic Cloves

1 Leek

1 bunch Kale

1/4 C Butter

Salt and Pepper, to taste

3 shakes Nutmeg

Parsley, for serving

Smoked/Spicy Sausage

Peel and chop potatoes and rutabaga. Chop carrots.
Put all vegetables in a large pot and add enough water to barely cover. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender.
Drain vegetables, add butter, and mash (don't puree).
Season with nutmeg, salt, and pepper.
Serve with parsley on top and sausage on the side (that you've already cooked in a skillet or BBQ).

(Source: https://www.all-thats-jas.com/dutch-stamppot-vegetable-mash#wprm-recipe-container-9998 and https://www.food.com/recipe/dutch-stamppot-with-rookworst-124192)

OLIEBOLLEN

2 C lukewarm Milk

1 Envelope Active Dry Yeast

3 tbsp Sugar

4 C Gluten Free Flour (I used America's Test Kitchen)

Pinch of Salt

1 Egg

Oil, for frying

Powdered Sugar, for dusting

In a small bowl, combine the lukewarm milk with yeast and sugar. Let it sit for about 10 minutes.
In a large bowl, sift the flour with the salt. Make a well in the center of it, and add the egg.
Add the yeast mixture and mix with a mixer until a thick batter forms.
Cover and set in a warm location for 1-2 hours to rise.
Heat oil to 350 degrees,
Drop golf ball-sized balls of batter into the hot oil and cook until they are golden on the outside and cooked through.
Let them drain on some paper towels, dust with powdered sugar, and serve.

(Source: https://leitesculinaria.com/181644/recipes-oliebollen-dutch-doughnuts.html)

And, once again, we forgot to take a picture of the dessert...Guess we were too excited to eat it! Funny story: Nifty Niece is not a fan of vegetables, so when she heard that the meal was mashed vegetables, she went into negotiation mode. She negotiated out of adding butternut squash to the recipe and added some additional potatoes instead. So, if you make this, it does call for butternut squash :-) It was an adventure to cook this meal, with some mishaps. But I'll let Nifty Niece tell you about it:

The food from the Netherlands is interesting and suits its country well. The Stamppot does not
look good but tastes yummy. The Stamppot makes sense as their national food because it uses
a lot of farm crops and the Netherlands is known for having lots of flat farmlands. It’s a little
challenging to make the Stamppot, because cutting all of the vegetables takes a while, and all
the vegetables have to be soft enough to mash without making it into a soup.

The Dutch Doughnuts are fun to make, but a little challenging when it gets to the frying. They
are not sweet but they have a cakey texture. Our dough didn’t rise before we fried it, but it still
turned out good! I liked using powdered sugar as a topping, but they would also be good with
ice cream and fresh fruit to give it more sweetness. Or jam would be good too!

The Netherlands food is different from our food, but it still tastes delicious, and you should try
it!

So the rating. We are all going to rate the dishes on a scale of 1-10.

ME
Taste of Stamppot (1 is terrible, 10 is amazing): 8