Brussel sprouts with mashed potatoes and pork belly
Stamppot
Dutch people know what's up here, as we grow up eating stamppot in winter season. Stamppot just means mashed potatoes with different types of veggies, depending on which stamppot we eat. For example we have "Zuurkool" meaning mashed potatoes with white sour cabbage. Often eaten with a smoked sausage (rookworst in Dutch) or pork belly (speklappen).
We have many varieties and in every family there's probably at least one of these "stamppot" recipes with a certain twist that's passed on for several generations as in the end, grandma's version taste bests. In our family, I remember being crazy about grandpa's "zuurkool", it took me until a few years ago to figure out why that was.
It was not even because he told me but because I recognized that taste when we started to buy real butter over the margarine we used to buy before. I suddenly tasted why I preferred his version over my mother's version, as she always stuck to margarine because of the price as well as the fact that she believed you'd get fat from it. Grandfather knew best I guess, the taste doesn't compare if you ask me.
Pork belly
We ate quite a few stamppot dishes over the years because we had a local variation of rookworst (smoked sausage) in Budapest coming really close to the real deal we know from Holland. When we moved back to Spain, we quickly discovered some online supermarkets selling products from Holland as we love a good stamppot, especially when it comes with a smoked sausage we only have to heat up in the microwave, lol.
The other option is to add pork belly, which I have noticed is harder to find here. They sell it in most supermarkets but often there is just one or two packs of it, at least when I want to buy it, haha. I don't know if that's because it's just not that popular here or just because of bad timing. Either way, last time I was again lucky and pulled out the only pack with pork belly. I was happy they had it because we had little time and I already prepped the Brussel sprouts and potatoes for that evening.
Crunchy prefered
We love the pork belly most when it's baked until it's crunchy but often I don't feel like waiting for that moment and settle of the middle ground of them not being too crunchy but at least close to that point. I read somewhere that you need to cook the belly before baking them to get them that crunchy, I will try that next time. This time I went for the marinated version instead:
I never really measure this honestly but I think this time I added 4 tablespoons of Ketjap Manis (one of the things I always have in my cabinet and come from the Dutch supermarket) with 3 tablespoons of olive oil, 3 garlic cloves and pepper. I can probably pimp this marinade but I was trying to be as quick as possible.
The process
When starting the baking process, I put it on high temperature to start with and then lower the temp gradually, most important thing is to not start doing anything else and get distracted to forget about these pork bellies because you may end up having them burned completely. They took quite long but it depends on your pan and stove as well, so I've learned over the years when dealing with different types.
They look really dark but that's mostly because of the marinade, the ketjap does this:
I really loved them, I only baked part of the pork belly that evening to let the rest set in the marinade overnight as that always tastes better. As for the Brussel sprouts, I stopped buying them fresh years ago to switch to frozen ones as they are generally very good. It also saves me a lot of time peeling/cutting them and they are done much faster as well.
I used 1,5 bag of 450grams sprouts on 1,5 kg of potatoes. Normally, I'd add two bags at least but as I wanted my daughter to love it instead of refusing it, I went easy on the sprouts. With success because she loved it! WIN!
It's quite funny because I remember most children not eating these sprouts when I was a child, and I was a fuzzy eater myself, but I LOVED sprouts, lol. Now I have this little fuzzy eater as a daughter and she also loved this, a bit strange, but I'm happy with this one!
Food prep all the way
What I love about stamppot is that I always have too much, so either we ate twice from it and put the remaining bit in the freezer for a single portion later, or I give the food a twist the third day to give it a totally different bite. It surely helps me in terms of time and food the following days.
Are you in team Brussel sprouts or are you on the team who hates the taste? PS I don't like the smell, it's horrible!
I defo love the Brussels Sprouts, but I really HATE stamppot with a passion. The only stamppot I don't simply refuse to eat is one with Raw Endive. I'm not 'your typical Dutchie' when it comes to stamppot. Lol!
Haha that's fine, my boyfriend is the same btw. Minus the "Andijvie". I hated that one myself but I can see how I could like that one nowadays as I probably enjoy the bite. Still need to give that one a go to test it again.
!PIMP
I just really hate cooked veggies with a passion, and raw endive was a middle ground for my mother to get me to eat at least some veggies. 🤣 But she had to watch very carefully how she would make the stamppot. The mashed potatoes (puree) could NOT be watery either... because then I would simply refuse to eat it and settle for just the piece of smoked sausage. I was a fuzzy eater too ... lol!
haha I agree with you though, my mother used to cook everything and then present it to me, making me hate some veggies even more. I know now there are much better ways to eat veggies and some are even best raw lol.
Watery puree is a no no :) You're right!
And even now, all these years later... that one thing hasn't changed. I still refuse to eat stamppot 99 times out of 100
I don't eat it as much as I did before either, like a few years ago, in Budapest, I'd often lean towards that in winter time because there was a serious lack of other veggies we'd find in our area (those that you WANT to buy because of how they look, lol, because there was enough available looking like it should have been thrown in the bin yesterday).
Here in Spain I didn't have the same issue last year so we ate a few "stamppot" dishes only. But when I make it, I make a full pan so that I have leftovers for another time.
Now that's something I've never cooked. Growing up vego meant that I would never be able to eat fatty meat even when I started to eventually eat a little meat here and there!
I did learn something about stamppot though! It reminds me of bangers and mash or colkannon. I often do something like it in the winter but with vegetarian sausages.
Haha I can imagine that this is not high on the list of meats you'd eat every now and then. That's fine, I don't eat it often either btw, I think the last time I bought this must have been years ago. I will probably not eat it again anytime soon, way too much hassle to bake them as I want them and the little one preferred it without the meat, smart girl!
Those two thing your mention are foreign to me, lol. I never had a veggie sausage although I tried a few veggie meat replacements over the years. The thing is, I'm not that crazy about meat in general so I don't eat it daily anyway. I can do without it for weeks without missing it. I ate way more when I was younger but the past years, I've started to learn eating more vegetables and actually loving them as well so when I present a new dish here, it usually contains more veggies than meat haha.
My boyfriend is a true meat lover he could go carnivore if he wanted to but when I present a meal salad filled with many veggies and nuts, he loves it so much that he can get two portions lol, so we often find a middle ground for dinner.
That looks great! I bet they came out tasting just as good!
Yes!