AARDAPPELS EN WITTE KOOL—POTATOES AND WHITE CABBAGE

It is the last day of Holland, Michigan's Tulip Festival so we are going to end the week with an old Dutch recipe.  Carol VB remembers fondly her Mother making a dish with pig hocks, potatoes, barley and cabbage. She wondered if I had a recipe as her Mother's memory is slipping. My family never made anything like that so I started looking through my books. The last one I looked in had a dish similar to what Carol had described.

I purchased this cookbook at the Dutch Village when I was quite young. It has stayed with me through all the chapters of my life and all my loses. It was written in 1936 which seemed to be around the time that other communities were gathering their recipes from the “Old Country” and putting them into books. This one is “A Book of Authentic Dutch Recipes Collected From the Dutch Housewives of Holland, Michigan” according to the first page.

This is not the dish you would serve when the tulips are blooming and the trees are in bloom. For this dish we have to set the scene. The day is short, darkness comes very early. It is cold, teeth chattering cold. The humidity is high with icy rain or snow in the air. The humid cold makes the very marrow in your bones freeze. The wind is howling off the North Sea or Lake Michigan. You have a family to feed and perhaps the funds to buy food are low. Potatoes and white cabbage enables you to feed a large family with just a half a pound of meat whose flavor is then infused into the other ingredients giving meat flavor without buying enough meat to serve everyone an individual portion of meat. The barley and cabbage add many nutritious components. The potatoes add essential vitamins and minerals as well as bulk. Cooked all together you have a big pot of warm comforting nutritious food. Serve with butter, salt and pepper.

AARDAPPELS EN WITTE KOOL—POTATOES AND WHITE CABBAGE

½ head cabbage, medium to large
8 medium-sized potatoes
½ c pearl barley (could only find quick and pearl is much better)
½ lb. pork steak, I used pig hocks

Shred cabbage, cut potatoes in quarters, and chop pork steak in pieces. Place in pan with barley and cover with water. Cook slowly for 2 hours. When well cooked, drain off the liquid. Mash and mix the ingredients thoroughly. I found draining the pot completely was difficult so after mashing I put the pot back on the lowest possible burner and cooked, stirring occasionally, until the excess liquid had cooked out.

Since Carol wanted the dish with pig hock, not pork steak, I cooked the pig hock first to remove the excess fat.

After the hocks are cooked, strain the broth and reserve.  Remove skin and fat from the meat.  Reserve meat to put into pot with potatoes and cabbage.

Shred cabbage.

Peel potatoes and cut into chunks.  Put pig hock broth in a pot.  Add potatoes, cabbage, and barley.

Bring to a boil.  Cover and simmer until potatoes are done.  Drain. 

I cooked drained mixture on a low heat to remove excess moisture.

Mash the ingredients together.

Serve with butter, salt and pepper.  Eet Smakelijk!

Actually today would be a good day to have this tummy warming dish as even though it is May, the wind is howling, there is intermittent rain and the temperature is only 41°F.