Recently, your cooking team went on a business trip to Brussels. A great city with excellent food, welcoming cafés and exquisite beers. But not only that. The town inspired both the Anglo-Saxons and the Dutch to name a vegetable after it. The Dutch speak of ‘Brussels lof’: chicory. And in English everyone knows and (dis)likes ‘Brussels sprouts’. As it happens, both these vegetables are very popular in the Netherlands. Actually, and you are not going to believe this, the Dutch have special websites with loads of information about nothing but sprouts and chicory. Facts, history, best practices and of course recipes. If you don’t believe us, please visit www.spruiten.info for Brussels sprouts and www.witlof.com to learn everything there is to learn about chicory (‘Brussels lof’ or ‘witlof’). In honour of both Brussels and the Netherlands, your team picked one recipe from each site. For the sprouts recipe you will need the typically Dutch ‘komijnekaas’, cumin cheese in English. Komijnekaas is a yellow cumin spiced cheese made from semi-skimmed cow’s milk. The chicory recipe is a variation on a very Dutch classic week-day dish: chicory with ham and cheese in the oven. So, in honour of both Brussels and the Netherlands, cook away!
Sprouts with cumin cheese sauce
Ingredients
750 grams of cleaned sprouts
salt
1 sachet of white sauce (from the supermarket)
2.5 decilitre milk
75 grams of young cumin cheese (roughly grated)
Preparation
Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil. Cook the sprouts for about 5 minutes until just done and drain them. Prepare the white sauce with the milk following the instructions on the sachet. Add the grated cumin cheese to the sauce and allow it to melt while you stir. Pour the sauce over the drained sprouts and serve with potatoes and roasted meat.
Chicory dish with smoked ham and Brie
Ingredients
2 tablespoons of butter
150-200 grams of Brie
3 big heads of chicory
6 slices of Cobourg ham
2 tablespoons of Zaanse mustard
2-3 tablespoons of honey
about 500 grams of ready-made mashed potatoes
Preparation
Preheat the oven to 200°C. Generously grease an oven dish. Bring 1 litre of water to the boil in a water cooker. Cut the Brie in 6 slices. Cut the chicory heads lengthwise in halves and cut out the wedges at the bottom. Place the chicory heads in a cooking pan, pour the boiling water over them and bring back to the boil. Cook the chicory heads for five minutes. Drain them and let them cool down a bit. Smear the slices of Cobourg ham with a thin coating of mustard and a generous coating of honey. Place each half head of chicory on a slice of ham and wrap it with the ham. Add the rest of the mustard to the mashed potatoes and spoon the mashed potatoes in the oven dish. Place the roles of ham and chicory on top of the mashed potatoes and put a slice of brie on each role. Cover the dish with a matching lid or with one layer of aluminium foil (shiny side inside). Place the dish in the oven for 15 minutes. Remove the lid or aluminium foil after 10 minutes. Serve with a bit of mustard, if you like.