General

Dutch cuisine is shaped by the agricultural produce and history of the Netherlands. It is characterized by its somewhat limited diversity in dishes, the high consumption of vegetables when compared to the consumption of meat, and the wholesomeness of the dishes.

Because of the Dutch colonial past, there has been a considerable Asian influence on Dutch cuisine. From the 16th century onwards all sorts of spices mainly from the Dutch Indies were introduced into Dutch cuisine. Hence many traditional Dutch dishes are (heavily) flavoured with Southeast Asian herbs and spices. Later Indonesian dishes such as nasi goreng, rice with chicken or pork, became part of Dutch cuisine. Because of this, local Chinese takeaway restaurants in the Netherlands also have considerable Indonesian influences, leading many restaurants to style themselves "Chinese-Indonesian".

Bread & Cheese

The Dutch are famous for their dairy products and especially for their cheeses. The vast majority of Dutch cheeses are semi-hard or hard cheeses. Famous Dutch cheeses include Gouda, Edamm and Leyden. A typically Dutch way of making cheese is to blend in herbs or spices during the first stages of the production process. Famous examples of this are cheeses with cloves (usually the Friesian nagelkaas), cumin and caraway (most famously Leyden cheese), or nettles.

Dutch bread tends to be very airy, as it is made from yeast dough. From the 1970s onward Dutch bread became predominantly whole grain, with additional seeds such as sunflower or pumpkin seeds often mixed with the dough for taste. Rye bread is one of the few dense breads of the Netherlands. White bread used to be the luxury bread, often made with milk as well as water. A Friesian luxury version of white bread is sugarbread, white bread with large lumps of sugar mixed with the dough.

As well as cheese, the Dutch also use meat products and sweet spreads on their bread: typically sprinkles (hagelslag), treacle (stroop), and peanut butter (pindakaas). Regionally popular hearty meats include blood sausage (bloedworst), dried sausage, and uierboord, made from cows' udders.

Typical Dutch Dishes

Some classical typical Dutch dishes include stamppot (Dutch stew) and pea soup. Popular stamppotten include:

• Hutspot, made from potatoes, onions and carrots served with slow-cooked meat or bacon.
• Boerenkoolstamppot, kale (a form of cabbage) mixed with potatoes, served with gravy, mustard and rookworst (smoked sausage).
• Stamppot rauwe andijvie, raw endive mashed through hot potatoes, served with diced fried speck.
• Hete bliksem, boiled potatoes and green apples, served with stroop (syrup) or tossed with diced speck.
• Zuurkoolstamppot, sauerkraut mashed with potatoes. Served with fried bacon or a sausage. Sometimes curry powder, raisins or slices of pineapple are used to give a stamppot an exotic touch.

Stews are often served with mixed pickle, including zure zult or stewed pears (stoofperen).

Meat products include gehaktballen meatballs, blinde vink, minced meat wrapped in bacon, balkenbrij, a type of liverwurst and meatloaf. The gravy in which the meat is produced is also eaten. A variant of this, eaten around the IJsselmeer, is butter en eek, where vinegar is added to the gravy.

If a dish consists of beans/potatoes, meat and vegetables, these vegetables are sometimes served as a stew, like rode kool met appeltjes (red cabbage with apples), or rode bieten (red beets). Regular spices used in stews of this kind may be bayleaves, juniper berries, cloves and vinegar.

The Dutch also make several forms of pancakes, including poffertjes (miniature pancakes) and spekdik (a Northern variant with bacon). Wentelteefjes is similar to French toast. Broeder, a type of cake, is also eaten for dinner, mainly in West Friesland.

Desserts often include vla, pudding, or yoghurt. Regional variants include broodpap, made from old bread, griesmeelpudding, grutjespap, Haagse bluf, Hangop, Jan in de zak, Karnemelksepap, Rijstebrij (rice pudding), Krentjebrij and Watergruwel.