I’ll have lived in the Netherlands for five years in January, and I realise I’ve cooked very little Dutch food during that time. Despite being pale, freckly and red-headed, from a culinary point of view I am more Mediterranean than Northern European, and the attractions of stamppot and boerenkool have generally eluded me.
For reasons I won’t go into, however, I recently ‘won’ a Dutch cook book and inevitably started flicking through it with increasing interest… My eye fell upon a dish called Limburgs zuurvlees, which hooked me with its addition of vinegar and apple syrup (the ‘zuur’ elements) and ontbijtkoek (a spiced, dry loaf cake that reminds me of the ginger cake I used to eat for tea in England in the 80s) to what was otherwise a beef stew. Actually, I think it’s meant to contain horse meat, but since when did you find that in the local supermarket? Oh, and the Limburgs bit: for those readers not versed in the Dutch provinces, Limburg is an area in the south of the Netherlands, close to Belgium. So this is very much a southern speciality…
I served it with a potato, celeriac and truffle oil mash and some green beans. Altogether very wintery and sweet and spicy and yummy. Traditionally, I cook dinner for my entire family on Christmas Eve; zuurvlees has been added to the short-list of potential dishes!