Hachee: Dutch Beef and Onion Stew with Vinegar and Spices

From a stew of chopped meat to a winter staple

The name hachee comes from hachée, the past participle of the French verb hacher (to chop, to make fine). It was originally a dish of cooked meat chopped again and stewed, and is thought to have begun by simmering leftover boiled meat again with whatever vegetables were at hand. Another explanation is that wine or vinegar was added to soften meat that had gone tough. The name "hachee" appears among medieval banquet dishes, but the way they were made is often not recorded.

One of the oldest examples you can trace as a recipe is the housekeeping book Betje, de goedkoope keukenmeid ("Betje, the Thrifty Kitchen Maid"), published in the Netherlands in the mid-19th century. According to Christianne Muusers, who runs Coquinaria, a site on Dutch food history, the hachee in the first edition of 1850 and the second edition of about 1851 was made by dicing cold cooked beef and simmering it for about 3 hours with onion, brown sugar, pepper, ground clove, salt, potato starch, and either vinegar or red wine. The recipe makes clear that it was a thrifty dish that used leftover meat.

Today's hachee is generally made not from leftovers but from raw stewing beef. An information site for expats in the Netherlands describes hachee as "meat, fish or chicken and vegetables stewed into a thick gravy with vinegar, clove and bay leaf." The basic form is unchanged: beef and onion simmered for a long time with vinegar and spices. Sourness, sweetness and spice all need to be present before it tastes like hachee, so the tip when making it elsewhere is not to leave out any one of them. Muusers describes this flavor, owing to the vinegar and spice cake, as "almost medieval."

Ingredients (serves 4)

This is a home-cook proportion based on the Coquinaria recipe, adapted to ingredients that are easy to buy.

The hardest ingredient to find is the Dutch spice cake. It is a dense cake baked with rye flour, honey and spices such as cinnamon and clove, and in the Netherlands people butter it for breakfast. Import food shops sometimes carry French pain d'épices, and this is the closest substitute. If you cannot find that, use rye bread and brown sugar to make up at least the thickening and the faint sweetness, and the sauce comes much closer. Cloves, cardamom and bay leaf are all available in the spice aisle of a supermarket or online.

How to make hachee

Prep takes about 15 minutes and the simmer is at least 1 hour, but 2.5 to 3 hours gives meat soft enough to fall apart. While it simmers you can leave the pot almost alone, so use that time to prepare the side dishes.

With mashed potatoes and red cabbage

Mashed potatoes and red cabbage go well with hachee. Peel 1 kg of potatoes, cut them to the same size and start them in salted water. When a fork goes in easily after 15–20 minutes, drain, saving a little of the cooking water. Mash while hot and mix in 1 tbsp butter and warmed milk or cooking water a little at a time until smooth. Flavor with pepper and nutmeg and it is ready. Mashed potatoes stiffen as they cool, so the tip is to mash them to match the time the hachee finishes.

In the Netherlands, red cabbage is classically simmered sweet and sour with apple. Jarred pickled red cabbage (German rotkohl) can be found at import food shops and just needs warming. The dark brown sauce of the hachee, the white of the mashed potatoes and the purple of the red cabbage create a contrast of color on the plate and make it a dish that looks like a Dutch winter table.

Mix it as you eat on the plate

Pile mashed potatoes on the plate, make a well in the middle with the back of a spoon, and pour in plenty of hachee with its sauce. Put red cabbage beside it. As you eat, mix the sauce and potatoes bit by bit with your fork. The rich sauce, sharp with vinegar and spices, is absorbed by the potatoes and comes to just the right balance.

Among Dutch winter home dishes there is also stamppot, mashed potatoes with vegetables mixed in, which is a staple of the cold season alongside hachee. Compared with the Belgian carbonnade, which stews beef with onions in beer, the difference between the bittersweet beer and the sourness of vinegar shows clearly, even though both are stews from the Low Countries.

Frequently asked questions

Can I make it without spice cake?

Yes. The spice cake adds thickness, sweetness and spice aroma, so without it you still get hachee. If the sauce is thin, reduce it longer at the end. Substituting rye bread with brown sugar, or pain d'épices, brings it closer to the original flavor.

Can I use plain grain vinegar?

You can, but it is sharper in acidity than wine vinegar and the aroma moves away from the original. If you use it, cut the amount to 2 tbsp, then taste after simmering and add more if needed.

The meat is not getting tender.

Depending on the cut it can take more than 3 hours. Keep it covered and keep simmering on the lowest heat. Raising the heat makes the meat tighten and tough, and the sauce scorches easily.

Can I make it in a pressure cooker?

Yes. After browning the onions and meat, follow the pressure cooker's instructions for the pressure time. A pressure cooker does not reduce the liquid, so cut the stock to 300 ml and after pressure cooking open the lid and reduce to thicken.

Can I make it ahead?

As a stew, it reheats well. Cool it before putting it in the refrigerator, and when reheating stir from the bottom and heat it thoroughly all the way through. This article does not give a storage time, because we could not confirm a basis for one.

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