Dutch Hatchee

Axel is so sweet. Every time he picks a country he asks if it says Sweden on the note. I have told him that I can  make Swedish food any time. However, turns out he wants Swedish waffles with ice cream and Euroshoppers chicken nuggets. :) Oh well, this week he picked the Netherlands. I found a great recipe of something called Hatchee. It is a beef stew served over mashed potatoes. 

It called for quite a few ingredients and it also said that you could add either beer or red wine to it to enhance the flavor. I decided to go for a beer. Mostly because I happened to have it at home. I didn't take a lot of pictures this time but I started out by browning the meat in a dutch oven ;) with some salt and pepper. I did this in batches to give the meat a nice even color. I then took out the meat and started cooking the chopped onion. Once it is a little brown and translucent, add the meat back in the pot and sprinkle 3 Tbsp of flour over everything. Cook a few minutes. Add 3oz of tomato paste. Then you add the liquid. Since I used beer i added a bottle of that first and then i added enough water to just cover the meat. It ended up being about 3 cups of water. Add in the chopped apples, thyme, peppercorns, cloves (i skipped them), beef bouillon cubes, molasses, bay leaves and rosemary sprig. Bring to a boil and let it cook for about 2.5 hours (or until the meat is tender). Once tender, mash everything with a potato masher and cook until the consistency you like. I ended up taking the lid off and cooked it about 30 min to reduce it down a little. 

I served it over mashed potatoes with some red cabbage salad on the side (that I bought already made). 

It was absolutely delicious. Definitely the best dish I have made from any of the countries we have picked so far. 

Hachee

2 pounds stewing steak

4 big onions

3 tbsp flour

water (about 4 to 5 cups)

2 beef bouillon cubes

2 tbsp molasses (of appelstroop)

2 slightly sweet and sour apples

1 small can tomato paste (3 oz)

1 tsp Thyme

1 rosemary sprig

2 bay leaves

4 cloves

10 peppercorns

salt and pepper

butter

Optional: adding beer or red wine intensifies the flavor of the stew

Enjoy!