Recommendations

Hachee with Rutte Old Simon Genever

On the plate is hachee: beef rib meat stewed for three hours with five onions, vinegar, bay leaf and cloves into a dark, sweet-and-sour gravy. Set against it is an old genever with 40% malt wine, in which roasted walnut and hazelnut were distilled along, seeking out the caramelised onion in the pan.

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From the shelf

The bottle

Rutte Old Simon Genever comes from Distilleerderij Rutte at Vriesestraat 130 in Dordrecht and is made to the oldest recipe of founder Simon Rutte. It is an old genever of 35% vol in a 70 cl bottle. Rutte states a malt wine share of 40%. Besides juniper berries, the recipe contains roasted walnuts and hazelnuts, coriander, angelica, mace, liquorice and carob; the distillery makes three distillates and two macerates for it, which are then combined with malt wine.

Rutte Old Simon Genever

The combination

Why this works together

Hachee is at heart an onion dish: five onions that are first fried sweet and then reduced for three hours with vinegar and cloves to a gravy that is sweet, sour and caramelised all at once. That roasted, nutty sweetness is also in this genever, because roasted walnut and hazelnut were distilled along in it. That makes the transition from plate to glass fluid instead of a leap. The 40% malt wine gives the body that a gravy reduced for three hours needs, and the mace and liquorice in the bottle run straight alongside the clove and the bay leaf in the pan. The vinegar in the hachee and the alcohol in the glass work together on the beef fat. This makes it a pairing in which nothing has to fight: onion, nut and spice twice over, and the alcohol that keeps it all open.

At the table

The dish

  • For 4 people
  • Ready in 20 minutes of preparation and 3 hours of stewing
  • Type main course

What you need

  • 5 medium onions
  • 700 g beef rib stewing meat
  • 50 g unsalted butter
  • 3 tablespoons wheat flour
  • 500 ml water
  • 1 beef stock cube
  • 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
  • 2 dried bay leaves
  • 4 whole cloves
  • salt and pepper

How to make it

  1. Halve the onions and slice them into rings. Cut the meat into pieces of 3 cm and sprinkle them with pepper and salt.
  2. Heat half of the butter in a casserole and brown half of the meat for 3 minutes over medium heat, turning. Scoop the meat out and brown the rest in the remaining butter. Then put all the meat back in the pan.
  3. Turn the heat low, add the onion rings and sauté them for 5 minutes, stirring.
  4. Sprinkle the flour over everything and cook it for 3 minutes over low heat, stirring well. Pour in the water and crumble the stock cube over it.
  5. Add the vinegar, the sugar, the bay leaves and the cloves. Bring to the boil and simmer the hachee with the lid on for 3 hours on a very low heat; stir regularly. After two and a half hours take the lid off and let the gravy reduce for the last half hour. Season with pepper and salt.

In the glass

Serving

Pour the Rutte Old Simon Genever at room temperature into a tulip glass, filled to the rim. Aged genever should not be chilled, and with this bottle that goes doubly: the roasted nuts only open up at room temperature. Put the bottle next to the roasting pan and fill the glasses when the hachee is served.

Everything about Rutte Old Simon GeneverBack to Recommendations from ’t Bockje

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