A Dutch Treat

This is a picture of our first attempt to cook Dutch. The bowl in the middle has the famous hutspot, usually called hodgepodge in English. It's a different way to do mashed potatoes to make it a complete meal. Of course, we're just guessing at the measurements since they use the metric system here, but here's how you make it:

2 cups diced or chopped carrots
2 cups diced or chopped onions
2-4 cups diced or chopped potatoes
1 or 2 bratwurst/polish sausage or similar

1. Put the potatoes on the bottom of a pot. Layer on top the carrots and the onions and put the meat on top. In the stores here, the carrots and onions are already chopped up in "hutspot" packs. Cover with water and boil for 20 minutes.

2. Most recipes say take out the meat and drain the pot. But you know that we hate to waste anything so we took out the meat and then with a large slotted spoon took out the potatoes, etc. and put them in a bowl so we could use the liquid to make the vegetable soup you see in our bowls by adding chopped veggies and a whipped egg.

3. Add a lot of butter (half a cup?). With a fork or masher mash the butter, potatoes, carrots, and onions together. Add milk if needed. Salt and pepper to taste. We did a course mash.

4. Cut the meat into bite sized pieces and put them on top.

5. Eet smakelijk! (sounds like "ate smock a luck") Enjoy your meal.

Note: You can use other veggies (such as spinach or stir fry) or meats to mash together, but they say that this is the usual. They say it is even good cold. We'll find out tomorrow.