Dutch Oven

I’m cold. It’s -3°C. Tomorrow it will drop to -9°C. Riding my bike in this temperature is not fun. Even with gloves my fingers sting with cold. When I came back from my run this morning and my hands touched my thighs, my flesh felt numb, like a couple of semi-frozen steaks from the freezer, not part of my body.

So to warm up, I have cooked some comfort food. Dutch comfort food.

Hachee met rode kool en appeltjes en aardappelpuree

(Beef stew with red cabbage and apple with mashed potato)

The word hachee comes from the French word for chopping: hacher. 

Hachee has a history. It probably originated in the southern Dutch province of North Brabant, and the Dutch have served it up since the Middle Ages. Prepared with beef, onions, and vinegar or wine: the acidic liquid tenderises the meat. Cloves and bay leaves go into the pot with the meat. There are also cloves and bay leaves, cinnamon and red wine stewing with the red cabbage and apple. So the kitchen emanates an aroma like spicy mulled wine.

The use of cloves is widespread in the Netherlands: in koekjes (cookies) like pepernoten and speculaas, but I hadn’t realised it was also used in savoury dishes. Cloves, the dried bud of a myrtle like tree, originate from the Moluccas or the ‘Spice Islands’ in Indonesia, the land that was under Dutch rule from 1627 to 1942. The Dutch established a monopoly on the spice trade from the Moluccas from the 17th century and went around pulling up clove trees that anywhere outside their control. Like nutmeg at the time, cloves were worth more than their weight in gold. That was until the 18th century when the French started cultivating the spice in Zanzibar an other places, and the price dropped. Since then all classes could start to afford to utilise the clove to treat toothache and flatulence, preserve food and spice up their hachee.

After cooking for a good three hours, my hachee is tender and flavoursome, and the red cabbage and apple combination complements it perfectly. There’s a little sweetness, offset by a smack of tang and it all sits on top of the Dutch evening meal staple: mashed potatoes. Very warming. Mmmm...lekker!