Hutspot

   Some time ago, we had promised to cook Dutch food with/for the fathers. We would also do a cooking session with the teachers some time. In June, the Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha was celebrated, resulting in a three-day holiday for everyone. Since Monday was a day off, we decided to cook with Father Jensen that day. To accommodate as many Dutch flavours as possible, we made smaller portions of several dishes.

We had wanted to make pea soup, but smoked sausage is impossible to find here. Nor were we able to find celeriac. And even green split peas they don't have in any of the supermarkets we visited.

   Pork is also difficult to find, as many super- and hypermarkets are owned by Muslim owners, so they don't sell it. Sauerkraut, of course, is also not for sale here. The  principle of pickling/fermenting white cabbage is unknown here. So we had to come up with something else. For the ingredients that were available, we criss-crossed half the city. But we managed to collect most of the things we wanted..

   As an appetiser, we made our famous tomato-vegetable soup. A long-standing favourite with our children. Maybe not typically Dutch, but certainly typically us. And the amount of vegetables in the soup as well as the meatballs are really different from Indian soups. Father Jensen did his best at cleaning and cutting the vegetables.

   Then we had three kinds of mash. Potatoes, carrots and onions are available everywhere here. So are red beets. And even kale is available in some hypermarkets. And of course it has to be eaten with mustard and a big ball of half-and-half mince. In addition, we had also baked some pancakes. Bacon pancake, cheese pancake, pancake with sultanas and plain pancakes.

   As a dessert, we made custard-flip. With what was available here: making our own custard with milk, sugar, cornstarch and vanilla. For the yoghurt, we whipped up curd and for squash we used strawberry sauce.

   Brother Stayn was our master masher, brother Anmod made brilliant soup balls. Simon made the great meatballs and Jaklien took care of the custard and pancakes. Quarter past eight, Fathers Jensen and Shine entered the kitchen full of anticipation. At half past eight, Father Thoppil was called to say the food was ready. We would eat in the VIP dining room, right next to the kitchen. The idea that the stews were eaten like this as a meal was still a tricky concept. Brother Steyn thought it might still be fried like some kind of vegetarian burgers.

   The soup was received approvingly (this was actually a last-minute addition, as Father Thoppil indicated that soup was always delicious). Then the pancakes -with syrup- were scooped up. These were eaten even more enthusiastically. The brothers in particular ate their fill. The stew was okay, the meatballs-with-gravy were tasty. They were surprised that there were so few spices in it. Of course, we had already warned them, that compared to Indian cuisine, Dutch cuisine might be a bit ‘bland’. Consequently, generous use was made of the sharp dijon mustard we had put on the side.

Finally, the dessert was again consumed with great relish. They would never have thought of that themselves.

All in all, people ate with relish, and we were thanked profusely for the food. Of course, there was plenty left over, especially a lot of soup. But this was eaten the next day by the students living internally. This is how we treated the fathers for the second time last week, after the jackfuit we had prepared a few days earlier.