Some where around March of this year my mother was taken permanently into a caring home. Because of that we (her children) had to clean out our mother’s house. A though job to do it was… physically, but even more mentally.
One of the things that I took along with me from my mother’s house to Heemskerk were her recipe books. All this time these recipe books had a nice spot in my kitchen, but I never really used.
One of these books is rather old. The title of the book is “Ik kan koken” (“I can cook”) and was published in 1956. So the book is over 50 years old.
Already for some time I wanted to make in a weekend “Hachee”. Hachee based is a typical Dutch stew based on beef and onions. Often cooked potatoes are served with it.
I looked up the recipe in my mother’s recipe book and decided to make it that way. Well, not completely that way. because the book suggested to use butter to bake the beef. I used olive oil for that.
In the hot olive oil I fried cut onions (2 really big onions). I added in small parts beef to the fried onions. While beef was baked I added pepper, 2 leaves of laurel and some cloves to it. Not describe in the recipe, I added also some fresh garlic.
On the moment the beef was nicely brown, I added some water to it and for 2 hours I left it stew.
After the two hours the beef was very soft and tender. I added some red wine to it. Also not in the recipe, but I added red en yellow paprika cut in small pieces, mushrooms and corn. And during the time this all got warm again, I boiled potatoes.
And there, a very tasteful traditional Dutch stew…. And with such a nice stew you drink a dark, powerful beer. A bock beer for instance!
Sounds and looks good, Rob. Maybe I should come to eat hachee some time at your place!