Continental food for a home-sick Dutchy

Don’t get me wrong, I like a good old Roast for Sunday lunch and am also quite fond of a greasy bacon butty with builders tea every now and again.. Especially the latter one combined with scones, cream and jam! But for Jamie Oliver’s sake, English cuisine really isn’t that great!

I find myself wandering around Sainsbury’s and M&S for hours, only to realise at the check-out that my trolley mainly consist of standard bits and bobs and a variety of Polish delicatessen (because that is the closest you get to Albert Heijn food!) Shopping in English supermarkets makes me homesick more than ever.

Luckily my friends come from all over Europe, and are such a sweethearts for sending spices and ingredients so that I can cook non-English food or sometimes they even cook it for me. My parents and friends also make me incredibly happy by visiting me quite often too with lots of Dutch treats.

Suitcase full of sweets for sweet-tooth Dutchy!

Please find below some dishes from The Continent which reminds me of how boring English meals are (I am still very much against this expression of 'Mainland Europe' or 'The Continent' , but hey ho I'm slowly starting to accept that Britain is a bit of an 'awkward partner' in Europe):

- PAELLAAA! This mouth-watering Valencian rice dish is by far my favourite meal of all times. My dad is the #1 expert in cooking this superb combination of seafood, chicken and rice (whenever he picks me up from the airport he has a Tupperware filled up with paella wrapped up in newspapers ready for me in the car to eat on my way home!) But whenever I really crave Paella I either cook it myself with the fantastic spices my Spanish friend sent me, or if I am lazy I just hop down to Nothing Hill market – there’s a friendly man at a stall on Portobello mark who cooks up huge batches of paella. You have to be early because most of the time he totally sells out all the huge pans of paella. Recipe for paella (by a British chef that is) can be found here.

Paella spices from Spain with Love! 

- My Lebanese friend E made me a delicious and very festive looking rice dish called Riz a Djaj a couple of weeks ago. It tastes like it is made by angels!! (She is quite an angel I must say) If you want to know how to make this delicious meal made of rice, chicken, pine nuts, mince meat, pepper and cinnamon please have a look at the blog from the 3 Hungry Tummies. 

E's delicious Riz a Djaj

- And then the ‘encroyable’ French cuisine.... You could write a whole blog solely on the French kitchen. However, I can sum it all up and advise you to go either to Marco Pierre White’s Michelin restaurant L'Escargot (they do fantastic deals: 3 courses for £19.50 on weekdays before 7pm!) or to French Bistro 'Cafe Boheme' , this is another favourite of mine.

I recently had snails and frogslegs at L'escargot – they were very yummy and I really regret not tasting them earlier. We have a saying in Dutch: “wat de boer niet kent, dat eet hij niet” (A stick in the mud will try nothing new, or literally: if the farmer doesn't know it, he won't eat it!) This very much applies to me despite numerous attempt by my family to let me try everything at least once!

Sautéed Frogs-Legs

Cooked Escargots

Of course I can just go to Edgware Road (for Lebanese food), Soho (Chinese), South Ken (French) or Portobello Market/Camden Town to have some non-British food in England, but that only proves us more how English food is build upon the continental kitchen! Thus, the Netherlands gets an extra point for being closer to all these incredible cuisines (and for having the Walhalla of groceries: Dutch supermarket Albert Heijn!).  

Liefs,

Dutchy xx

The Continent 2 - The Island 1