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Stoofpot = possibly my new favorite Dutch word.
By Kristen | October 31, 2006
Around this time of year, especially if it’s cold, windy, and rainy (like it’s been here lately), I start thinking about Holland.
The dashing young man you see in the foreground (hauling my ridiculously overpacked suitcases) is my husband of approximately 10 days. We spent a two week honeymoon traveling from Amsterdam to Delft to Maastricht and then back to Amsterdam.
Admittedly, the food is not what comes springing to mind when you think of the Netherlands (and what they pass off as “pizza” is a goddamned crime). It’s very… homey: sausage, potatoes, kale, bread, etc. And if you’re there — as we were — in December, when it’s rainy (it almost never snows there) and windy (which is almost always), it’s perfect.
So, last night, I made Limburgse stoofpot van lamsvlees — lamb stew Maastricht-style. What makes it “Maastricht-style”? I have no idea, but it was still good.
Recipe (adapted from GoDutch.com) is under the cut.
- 1 lb lamb in cubes
- 2 tbsp flour
- 1 tsp thyme
- salt & black pepper
- 1½ cups chopped
- 6 cloves garlic, chopped
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 3 tbsp butter
- 2 cups strained tomatoes
- 2 cups red wine
- 4 bay leaves
- 24 black, pitted olives, chopped
- 1 tsp sugar
- 4 tbsp chopped parsley
Mix the flour, thyme, salt and freshly ground pepper. Toss in the meat cubes until all sides are well-coated. Put the oil and butter in a skillet and brown the lamb cubes on all sides. Add the onions and garlic.
When the onions become very light brown, pour in the wine and the tomatoes. Add hot water if necessary to just cover the meat. Put in the bay leaves.
Cover the pan and simmer for 70-ish minutes and see that the meat remains just covered with liquid. Add the chopped olives and the sugar. Simmer for 10 more minutes, uncovered, until the sauce has thickened. Take out the bay leaves and stir in parsley just before serving.
I think the olives really made this stew. I tasted it halfway through cooking and was fairly unimpressed, but after the addition of the olives, it added a salty note that it really needed. So, if you’re making this, don’t cheap out on the olives.
And for those of you still reading, here’s an additional photo with a little peek into my kitchen life:
Topics: Nederlands Dat!, Make It Yourself |
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October 31st, 2006 at 1:14 pm
Just found this site..
I Live in The Netherlands, even in Delft.
I find it really cool to read about all the things that differ in our countries.
And also I agree on the pizza thing….
October 31st, 2006 at 1:23 pm
Hallo!
Oh, Delft — my favorite Dutch city. Just thinking about it makes me want to cook some pofferjes.
October 31st, 2006 at 2:14 pm
Gaaf (Cool)
Poffertjes are delicious :)
November 1st, 2006 at 12:45 pm
I am a new reader, and I just wanted to thank you for “gezellig”. I can’t express how happy it makes me that there is a word for this. I told my Hungarian coworker that I had learned it (his wife is Dutch) and he told me that yes, it was a good word, and gave me the following (paraphrased) description of what it meant to further clarify for me: “If you’re drinking coffee outside on a warm, sunny morning in front of a quaint bakery, and maybe there’s some music playing and you’re reading something nice, you’d say it was gezellig.” Sounds perfect to me. :)
November 1st, 2006 at 12:53 pm
Plus, it’s super fun to say. You can really ham it up on the gutteral G sound. My other favorite Dutch word to say is the one for shopping cart: winkelwagen.
December 5th, 2006 at 7:35 pm
A few years ago I took a ladyfriend from New-Zealand around Delft when she wanted poffertjes, she insisted to order them , it became “pantoffeltjes” .
finaly we got our poffertjes,
What do you have with “gezellig”? It’s such a “closed-curtain , happy together” kind of word. It makes me shiver.
Sinterklaas has left tonight, back to normal again.
(Tomorrow everyone will change its goodies he doesn’t like in all the shops all over Holland).
Bye,
Jim (from Delft)
January 17th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
[…] A couple of months ago — around the time the weather got cold and I started thinking about Dutch food — I became determined to reverse engineer this soup. I knew the two main components — soup and meatballs — and I asked my mother-in-law about it, what was in it, how it was made, et cetera. She told me in the Dutch supermarkets, you’d usually buy pre-chopped soup vegetables, cover it with water, and add a Maggi bouillon tablet or two, along with the meatballs. […]
September 29th, 2007 at 9:47 am
[…] needed to buy, including ingredients for something I made last year (and am dying to make again): Limburgse stoofpot van lamsvlees. It wasn’t easy, but I did resist the urge to pull out my tattered 101 Simple Meals […]