This is a very unusual Dutch dish with a funny name. “Blote billetjes in het gras”, literally translated as “Bare bottoms in the grass”. It’s often cooked for small children.
I will serve this with “krieltjes”, which are tiny potatoes and smoked sausage.
Ingredients
| 2 persons |
| – 400 grams of white beans (pre-cooked) |
| – 400 grams of flat beans |
| – 800 grams of baby potatoes |
| – 50 grams of butter |
| – 1 Smoked sausage |
| – Salt |
| – Pepper |
Preparation
- 1) Start by washing the flat beans, and cut off both ends. Then place the flat beans horizontally in length on a cutting board. Cut them in slices of about 0,5 cm thick (also called Batonnet), preferably diagonally to create longer pieces. Place the slices in a cooking pot.
- 2) For the cooking part turn the heat to high. Then add about one tablespoon of salt and submerge the flat beans in plenty of hot water. Wait until the water boils. Let the flat beans boil for 4 minutes and then turn off the heat. Finally, drain the water by using a sieve and let the beans dry for a while.
- 3) Now for the potatoes. If you have fresh ones, like me, then you could bake them unpeeled. In that case wash the potatoes thoroughly and scrap away any dirt.
- 4) Start boiling the potatoes in order to bake them later. In the attached video, we will first bake and then simmer them. I found the method, by boiling them first, tastier and easier. You can use the same cooking pot to cook the potatoes for about 20 minutes, depending on their size. Drain the water afterwards by using the sieve.
- 5) Sprinckle the potatoes with salt and place a fry pan on low heat. Add 50 grams of butter and wait until it’s metled. Now turn up the heat to medium-high and wait until the liquid in the melted butter is vaporized (when you don’t hear it sizzling much anymore). Be careful to not burn the butter by overheating it. Tip is to remove the pan further away of the heat from time to time.
- 6) Add the potatoes to the pan and bake them gold brown on each side on medium-high heat. Bake each side between 3 – 4 minutes, then flip them over on the next side and keep repeating these steps. Once all sides are golden brown, take them out and place them on a plate. Apply black pepper on top.
- 7) Now it’s time to warm up the smoked sausage. Take it out of the plastic package. At this stage the fastest method is to place it in the same frying pan we used for the potatoes. Pour a tiny bit water, close the lid and set the heat to medium-high. Wait until the water boils, then let the sausage simmer for 5 minutes on low heat. Finally turn off the heat and set the pan with the lid still closed aside so the sausage can stay warm.
- 8) Finally it’s time to warm up the white beans. You can re-use the cooking pot for this. Set the heat to low-medium and warm up the beans by regurlarly stirring them with a tablespoon for about 5 minutes.
- 9) When the white beans are warm enough, we can add the slices of green flat beans to the same pot. Stir them until you have an evenly coloured mix of green and white.
Congratulations your done!
Serve the ingredients on a plate which will have the whole right part covered by baked potatoes. Place the mix of green and white beans next to the potatoes, in the middle of the plate. Finally cut the sausage in half and place one part on the most left side of the plate. See the presentation part of the video here at the bottom of this page.
Video
