Macaroni Schotel - Macaroni Dutch style

This is a typically Dutch hybrid dish; and as with many Dutch classics, it combines the basic structure of international dishes with traditional Dutch ingredients. The Dutch are very adept at taking international favourites and giving them a quintessential Hollands twist. Often the flavours are mellowed for the blander Dutch palate, and it can sometimes be the case that little of the taste of the original dish is noticeable in the finished result. But sometimes, as with this macaroni dish, the combination of ingredients work so well together and bring something totally different. And this particular dish is a veritable meat feast, or more specifically a pork feast! It should come as no surprise that the Netherlands is one of the top pork exporters in Europe, (rivalled only by Germany), and that over half of all meat consumed in the Netherlands is pork. Its safe to say that Dutch people love eating pork!

Ingredients

500g half and half mince (50% pork, 50% beef)

200g smoked speck or lardons

1 red onion

2 cloves of garlic

1 packet of soup vegetables (finely sliced leek, carrot, shredded cabbage and celery leaves)

1 Tb tomato puree
1 tsp paprika powder
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp turmeric
1 400g tin chopped tomatoes
500g macaroni
1 pork smoked sausage*
1 tin of pork hotdogs
a sprig of fresh parsley for garnish

* smoked sausage or rookworst is a favourite of many Dutch dishes, from stamppot and hutspot to brown bean soup and erwtensoep. It comes pre-cooked and vacuum packed.

Roti Kip - Surinamese Chicken Curry

Suriname is said to be a melting pot of races, cultures, languages and cuisines.

You have the original indigenous people - the Amerindian tribes of Arawaks, Caribs, Tiryos amongst others; then you have the descendants of African slaves, the town blacks or "foto nengre" and those of mixed race - the Creoles; then you have the descendants of the runaway African slaves who escaped the plantations into the vast dense jungle - the Marrons; then you have the indentured workers from other former colonies brought in to work on the plantations when slavery was abolished in 1863 - the Javans and other Indonesians; then you have the Jewish-Portuguese, who were some of the first plantation owners in Suriname; the Chinese immigrants, and then you have the whites, the Dutch, "bakras" or "boeroes".