I’m continuing my Dutch theme for December (November was Zuurvlees, if you recall), this time with a funny shaped cabbage known as spitskool. It’s sort of conical, but in all other respects looks and behaves like a regular white cabbage. I bought it purely because it was whole, and I resented the fact that my local supermarket had cut up boerenkool and andijvie to sell to me in a bag with a stamppot label on it. More worrying still were potatoes that called themselves stamppot aardappelen that had been ready peeled, cut in half and (I believe) cooked, so that all you had to do was heat and mash them. As though we can’t cook a potato and cut up a cabbage by ourselves? Honestly.
I apologise for all the Dutch terminology in this blog entry. Essentially, spitskool and boerenkool are types of cabbage (andijvie is related to chicory, but also looks kind of cabbage-y) and stamppot is mashed potato that has something green running through it. What you’re looking at – in fact – is bubble and squeak that hasn’t been fried yet.
