Oven baked fries with peanut sauce and mayonaise. This Dutch 'patatje oorlog' is the best! | in my Red Kitchen

Oven baked fries with peanut sauce and mayonnaise

 

Oven baked fries with peanut sauce and mayonaise. This Dutch 'patatje oorlog' is the best! | in my Red Kitchen

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a Dutch recipe. And here I am, giving you Dutch junk food which you don’t normally make at home 😉

Our recent trip to Amsterdam totally inspired me to share this recipe with you. I didn’t grew up with going out for dinner (so maybe that’s why I enjoy it so much 😉 ) but on weekends we sometimes got some take out food! There wasn’t much choice, it was either Chinese food or fries, frikandellen and bitterballen from the so-called ‘snackbar’.

Ghee roasted sunchokes | in my Red Kitchen

Ghee roasted sunchokes

Ghee roasted sunchokes | in my Red Kitchen

Do you know sunchokes? No? And have you ever heard of Jerusalem artichokes? It’s the same root vegetable and it’s also called topinambour, earth apple, sunroot or earth pear (in Dutch it’s called earth pear or topinambour).

They look a little like bloathed ginger roots but they are actually the edible roots of a North American sunflower plant.

sunchokes-raw

I really like this explanation of where the name ‘Jerusalem Artichoke’ came from

Chinese "pizza" is a great snack, it's filled with mustard greens and bacon! | in my Red Kitchen

Chinese pizza with mustard greens

Chinese "pizza" is a great snack, it's filled with mustard greens and bacon! | in my Red Kitchen

‘Chinese sauerkraut’, that’s how my Chinese aunt calls mustard greens. And she is right, it dóes taste a little like sauerkraut.

I can remember eating a kind of pita bread filled with sour greens and onion in China. One of my aunts cousins (or at least that’s what I think he was) took us on a day trip into the mountains while we where there. No idea where these mountains were, but it sure was beautiful! We drove the whole day and at one point we stopped at a river for a swim.

Curried potato salad - perfect side dish for your barbecue party! | in my Red Kitchen

Curried potato salad

Curried potato salad - perfect side dish for your barbecue party! | in my Red Kitchen

Can somebody please explain why the Americans celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day, which is an Irish holiday?

My sister is visiting and I explained it to her as ‘the Americans just like holidays, so they adapted this Irish holiday’.
But please tell me if I’m correct and besides that… Whát are we actually celebrating? I know about the green color, the clovers and those leprechauns. But why? And how?