Ilse's Kitchen - culinary adventures of a girl who loves to eat

Ahhh, the joys of meatballs in tomato sauce. They serve them in just about a dozen different countries - as albondigas in Spain, polpetta al sugo in Italy, or just good old meatballs for the native English speakers out there. And yes, the meatball is a common phenomenon here in the Netherlands too. My grandma’s generation served them the size of a small fist (gehaktballen) with potatoes and gravy, or smaller (gehaktballetjes) in vegetable soups. And yet, they never really had me convinced. I wasn't a meatball kinda gal. Meatballs, to me, seemed boring. Until one day, when a friend came over and made some meatballs with a packet of minced meat and a handfull of leftovers from the fridge and the pantry. The sauce was amazing. So were the balls - succulent, aromatic, mmmm. I became an instant convert. Of course, I had to try a repeat. With the pantry fully stocked with nuts for the breakfast bars I made earlier, I decided go a little nuts myself and toss some in. It goes with...

You can't get much more Dutch than 'stamppot'. Based on the most important of national staples, the potato, the stamppot has earned itself a place in history, and a firm place in the hearths and homes of most Nederlanders. There are few meals better suited for dreary winter weather. Say it the way it sounds, as stamped pot, and you should get the idea - the stamppot is basically a large pot of potatoes and some kind of vegetable, stamped to a multi-coloured mash. Favourites at our house were cabbage-based - andijvie, boerenkool, or sauerkraut, although we've made them with beetroot too on occassion. They were alright, but I was never too excited. They were always the same. Because we lived abroad as I grew up, I never got to try them at other people's houses - this was just not something the non-Dutch seemed to cook. 

Ok, maybe 'healthy' is overselling it a little, but at least this version contains nearly all the food groups and definitely has more veggies than the average. I like to tell myself that makes a difference. Macaroni - with its fair share of cheese - has been in my family as far back as I can remember, but my mother knows better. She first made it as a student, when pasta was far from common at Dutch dinner tables. The instructions told her to prepare each of the ingredients, one by one. She followed them to the letter and served them all separately .   Luckily for us, her macaroni has come a way since then. When I left home, I took my mother's recipe with me and added a touch of my own here and there. The current version is a comfort food I'm happy to make in over-sized quantities and eat as leftovers for days. Ingredients (serves 2 with leftovers): 1.5 cups macaroni  1 red bell pepper 1 green bell pepper 1/2 leek 2 medium-size onions 150g h...

It might have been in the name, but when I first picked up some merguez sausages I expected them to be Spanish. As it turns out, they're a spicy North African variety that comes in beef or lamb, and is often eaten with couscous or used in tajines. I'd bought beef, intending to use them for quesadillas. Figuring there was no reason not to continue along this original train of thought, I did, and I wasn't sorry. The spiciness makes a great combo with the goat cheese and cilantro. Ingredients (serves 2): 300g Merguez sausage (I used beef, but you can also go for lamb) 100g goat's cheese (I used chevre, sliced and tough white outside removed) 3 medium-size shallots, chopped few sprigs coriander (cilantro), chopped 6 flour tortillas (I used the 'gordita' type, which is a bit smaller and thicker than the tortillas used for burritos) 1 lime cut into wedges Mexican salsa roja ( click here for the recipe ) Instructions: 1. Place the merguez sausages in ...

Some days I just can’t be bothered to cook a proper meal. But a girl’s gotta eat, and chips alone won’t cut it. What to do?  For some reason barbeque sauce has been occupying a lot of brain space this weekend. Maybe because I was eyeballing bottles at a specialty food store the other day. Eyeballing aside, I didn’t buy any - which got me wondering... what do BBQ sauce fans do when the stores in their area don't sell them? Having relatives mail/haul these things over is an option familiar to many an expat, but I figure it's probably more useful to know how to make it myself. And, it turns out, not so hard. In fact, not hard at all.  Ingredients (serves 4): 12 chicken drumsticks (or, if you're cooking for two, get 6 drumsticks and keep the proportions for the sauce the same, saving your leftover sauce in a bottle in the fridge). BBQ Sauce:  1 cup balsamic vinegar 5/6 cup ketchup 1/3 cup cane sugar 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 teasp...

Having just returned from 3 1/2 weeks in Mexico, my first post of 2014 was inspired by things Latin. In Mexico City I spent some time at the house of a friend whose mother was known for her empanadas. No better time and place to learn the tricks of the trade - and as with most things I hadn't tried before, after a bit of practice it turned out to be easier than I had expected.