Dutch hutspot with smoked sausage

Traditional mashed potatoes with a lot of local charm!

In the Netherlands one of the most traditional and also most common dishes of the winter are several versions of stamppot- Easy one-pot dishes consisting of potatoes mashed together with some kind of vegetable. These dishes are filling, warm and the quintessential embodiment of traditional Dutch food! The most common varieties are boerenkool (mashed potatoes with kale), zuurkool (mashed with sauerkraut), and of course my personal favorite – hutspot. Hutspot is made with mashed potatoes, onions, and carrots. It’s nothing fancy, just good old-fashioned Dutch comfort food.

All of these dishes are inexpensive, incredibly simple to make and easily scale-able for big groups, which makes them a very common staple in student houses! So when I started studying in the Netherlands, my former roommate Janine taught me how to make hutspot, which is by far my favorite of these one pot dishes. The onions get soft and melty, the carrots have a nice fluffiness to them and everything comes together in a big plate of mashed goodness.

Janine learned to make it from her grandmother, which put a local twist on the dish that is rather uncommon in the rest of the country – adding syrup, parsley and serving it with smoked sausage. The syrup goes really well with the sweetness of the carrots and elevates this dish from normal mashed potatoes to something incredibly tasty. Don’t over-mash it; you want the hutspot to be slightly chunky, which gives you more interesting contrast of textures.

Nothing more to say than: Thank you Janine! I sure miss the good old times 🙂

(For 4 hungry and cold people)

Ingredients

• 1000g potatoes
• 500g carrots
• 500g onions
• 1 cube of beef stock
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 ring of smoked sausage (cooked; about 300g)
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons syrup; try to get Dutch pancake syrup, otherwise use maple-syrup
• A dash of nutmeg
• 1 small handful of parsley

Peel, cook and mash!

Peel the potatoes and cut them into equally sized chunks. Peel the carrots and slice them up. Peel and roughly dice the onion.

Place vegetable into a big pot, add the stock cube and the bay leaves. Fill with water until everything is just covered. Place the smoked sausage on top to steam it. Cover with a lid and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and let simmer for 20 minutes.

Drain the cooking water but reserve half a cup of liquid. You will use this to make the mashed potatoes even creamier. Remove the sausage from the pot and let it rest on a plate.

In the pot with the drained vegetables, add the butter, the syrup and a splash of the cooking liquid. Season with nutmeg, salt and pepper. Roughly crushing with a potato masher.

Add the parsley and fold it in. If you want a smoother texture add another splash of cooking liquid.

Divide the hutspot onto plates. Slice up the smoked sausage and divide accordingly.

Drizzle with a bit more syrup and some extra parsley!

Let me know in the comments what you think of this twist on hutspot! Have you ever tried it with syrup? Do you think it’s a dish that’s only suitable for the winter? Like other stamppots better? Let me know in the comments below!