Potato and carrot mash

I have another traditional Dutch dish for you: potato and carrot mash. This is a wonderfully warming, hearty and filling dish during this cold winter. I spiced things up a bit - as I usually do - since the traditional version required boiling your finely sliced carrots, potatoes and onions together. You then mash them all together and end up with a glue orange-yellow substance which does not look very appetizing, to say the least. It still tastes fine, if a bit bland. So in my version we leave the pieces of carrot a bit bigger, and after we boil them, we fry them together with the onions which we do not cook but fry instead…

Potato and carrot mash
Serves 4 

Ingredients
1 kg potatoes, peeled and cut in equal parts
400 gr carrot, peeled (wintercarrot this variety is called in Dutch, these are just HUGE carrots)
4 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp curry powder
3 red onions, sliced in half rings
1 cup of creme fraiche (125 ml)

Method
1. Boil the potatoes in salted water for 20 minutes until done. In the meantime: cut the carrots in rectangles, 4 cm long and 0,5 cm thick. Boil them in salted water for 6 minutes until they have softened but still have a bite to them.
2. Heat 2 tbsp op oil in a frying pan and fry the cumin and currypowder for 2 minutes. Add the onion and fry for 4 minutes. Then add the cooked carrot slices and fry for another 2 minutes. 
3. Strain the potatoes and put them in a bowl. Add the creme fraiche and the remaining oil and mash the potatoes roughly (you don’t need a gluey mash). Add salt and pepper to taste and stir the onion and carrot through the mash. 

You can keep this dish completely vegetarian by serving it with some red beans. They add some depth and extra heartiness. This is also great with sausages (traditionally we eat it with smoked sausages) or fried slices pork belly sprinkled with some curry powder and black pepper.