Wortelstoemp bento

For those of you unfamiliar with Belgian "cuisine", the title of this post will have raised some eyebrows.  Stoemp is a popular dish over here, eaten by everybody up and down the social ladder. It evokes cosy family dinners and hearty winter meals. But what is it exactly? Stoemp consists of mashed potatoes with another vegetable, and is usually named after the other vegetable used. In this case, the stoemp has carrots in it and therefore it is called wortelstoemp (wortel being the Dutch word for carrot). But you could also make spinaziestoemp (spinach), erwtenstoemp (green peas), preistoemp (leek), koolstoemp (cabbage), ...

The recipe is also quite straightforward : cook the potatoes and the veggies, mash everything roughly together (you should still be able to make out the pieces), season to taste with salt, pepper, nutmeg and the herbs you like.

Anyway, this bento almost didn't make it because I was dead tired yesterday and went to sleep around 10 PM. (If you know that my normal bed time hour on working days is somewhere between 0.30 AM and 1.00 AM, you can appreciate my effort.) So, I didn't feel like making a bento last night and went to sleep thinking I would grab a sandwich on my way to work. When the alarm went of at 6.00 AM however, I felt completely refreshed and decided in the spur of the moment, to make a bento anyway. A morning bento ... now, that's a first.

I made this one in half a hour's time. Quite an achievement!

Wortelstoemp bento - 10.03.2010

In here you'll find two wortelstoemp cones (leftover from last night's dinner) topped with cheese sakura and lined with broccoli sprouts. On top of the green sprouts, there is a quail egg and some baby corn slices. In order to go with this month's B.O.M.B., I used red lettuce leaves and cauliflower to separate the broccolini and snowpeas from the rest of the bento. The protein part consists of storebought falafel (I have given up on trying to make my own) and for the sweet section I have red and yellow plum, nectarine, black and white grapes, blueberries and kiwiberries.

Smakelijk. :o)

1 comment:

Jacqueline said...

Das hast du in einer halben Stunde geschafft? Nein, das fasse ich nicht! Großartig =) Das sieht toll aus! Und deine Idee mit dem stoemp im Bento ist wirklich gut. Schnell gemacht und mit so vielen Gemüsen machbar. Eine super Idee, die ich gerne aufgreifen würde ;)