Car Free in Ann Arbor: Boerenkoolstamppot

A "mash" of sweet potatoes, kale, and ground lamb

In honor of my parents arrival to celebrate Christmas, I served a variation of boerenkoolstamppot for dinner, which is a traditional Dutch meal containing potatoes, kale, and sausage "just like Mom used to make!"

From wiki - boerenkoolstamppot met rookworst

From Wikipedia...

Boerenkoolstamppot is curly kale mixed with potatoes, served with gravy, mustard, and rookworst sausage. This dish, boerenkool met rookworst, (which could be translated literally as farmers cabbage with smoked sausage), is made of mashed potatoes mixed with cabbage and it is usually eaten with smoked sausage. 'Boerenkool met worst' is one of the oldest and most popular Dutch dishes. Boerenkool was mentioned in cookbooks from the year 1661. 1661 mashed potatoes were not used in this dish yet, although the sausage was already served with the cabbage in this dish. The dish became popular after a few bad corn-seasons when potatoes became popular as food. Boerenkool contains a lot of carbohydrates, which makes it a popular meal for cold winter days

I thought I would "mix it up" a bit and used sweet potatoes for regular potatoes and lamb for the sausage and seasoned the dish with a bit of curry powder. Probably an abomination to some but it tasted great!

More from Wiki about Dutch dinners....

Dinner, traditionally served early by international standards, starts at about 6 o'clock in the evening. The old-fashioned Dutch dinner consists of one simple course: beans or potatoes, meat and vegetables. Traditionally potatoes with a large portion of vegetables and a small portion of meat with gravy, or a potato and vegetable stew. A typical traditional Dutch dinner would include stamppot (Dutch mashed potato mixed with other mashed vegetables) and pea soup. Vegetable stews served as side dishes are for example rode kool met appeltjes (red cabbage with apples), or rode bieten (red beets). Regular spices used in stews of this kind may be bayleaves, juniper berries, cloves, and vinegar. Stews are often served with mixed pickles, including zure zult (head cheese) or stewed pears (stoofperen). Due to the influx of other countries traditional meals have lost some popularity. Stamppot is traditionally eaten in winter.

I find it interesting to learn about my own culture and it explains a lot about my lifestyle. When I was still living at home with my parents, we always had dinner at 6:00 pm and now that I have children, we still have dinner at 6:00. My kids aren't too impressed with Dutch cuisine though, for one, the food is "touching" each other. It seems that foods mashed together are a bad thing. And then of course there is all that kale, a hideous vegetable. I don't remember my feelings towards a stamppot when I was growing up although I suspect I didn't give it a second thought since fast food was not available in the Netherlands at that time and I didn't know any better.

For the stamppot, you'll need kale, potatoes, and sausage or some sort of ground meat.

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I pretty much sprinkle this curry spice powder on everything I eat. The combination adds such an interesting layer of flavor to foods, both sweet and savory.

Peel and boil sweet potatoes until soft.

Mash with a bit of butter

Remove the "backbone" from the rinsed kale.

Place in a large bowl with a bit of water, partially cover and microwave for 5 minutes on high.

After 5 minutes in the microwave

A few seconds in the food processor

I'm pretty sure that women in 1641 didn't have a food processor (or sweet potatoes) but it makes a nice even shred of the kale. I prefer kale in miniature pieces.