Place of origin | Netherlands, Belgium |
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Main ingredients | Potatoes, carrots, onions |
Hutspot (Dutch, pronunciation ) hochepot (French) or hotchpotch in English, is a dish of boiled and mashed potatoes, carrots and onions with a long history in traditional Dutch cuisine.
According to legend, the recipe came from the cooked bits of potato left behind by hastily departing Spanish soldiers during their Siege of Leiden in 1574 during the Eighty Years' War, when the liberators breached the dikes of the lower lying polders surrounding the city. This flooded all the fields around the city with about a foot of water. As there were few, if any, high points, the Spanish soldiers camping in the fields were essentially flushed out.
The anniversary of this event, known as Leidens Ontzet, is still celebrated every October 3 in Leiden and by Dutch expatriates the world over. Traditionally, the celebration includes consumption of a lot of hutspot.
Hutspot is normally cooked with klapstuk in the same vessel. Klapstuk is a cut of beef from the rib section. It is marbled with fat and responds well to slow cooking in hutspot. If klapstuk is not available, then smoked bacon is commonly substituted. The carrots used are generally of the type known as (winter carrots), which give the dish its distinctive flavour ordinary carrots cannot match.