Recipes

One base, thirteen ways to serve it. Practise at home.

The base

250 g very lean beef, ground the same day (ask the butcher for tartare)
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 tablespoon ketchup
1 teaspoon mustard
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon paprika
A few drops of Tabasco, salt, black pepper
Optional: finely chopped onion, capers, gherkin

How

Keep everything cold. Stir the sauce first, roughly one part sauce to four parts meat. Fold in the beef until it is smooth and salmon pink. Taste. More ketchup makes it sweeter, more mustard makes it sharper. Keep it in the fridge and eat it the same day.

Then pick one of the thirteen below.

Raw beef. Not for pregnant people, small children or anyone with a weak immune system. Everyone else: same day, cold, and do not leave it in the sun on deck.

Source: Dagelijkse Kost: americain préparé, The Dutch Table

Broodje speciaal

On: A soft white roll
With: Boiled egg, onion half-rings, chives, mayonnaise

Boil the egg for eight minutes, slice it. Filet on the bottom half, mayonnaise on the top. Egg, onion, chives, pepper. The lunchroom standard since lunchrooms.

Source: Allerhande

Broodje alles

On: A soft white roll
With: Ham, cheese, ham-and-cheese crisps, Bugles, filet americain, Paturain

In this order. Do not press it flat, the Bugles must stay whole. This is the roll Joost Veenbrink handed him after a night of DJing at the Woolloomooloo. One bite. Spat out. This time, swallow.

Martino

On: Half a baguette
With: A sauce of ketchup, mustard, Worcestershire, Tabasco and cayenne. Onion, gherkin, anchovy if you dare

Filet on the bottom, sauce on the top, onion and diagonal slices of gherkin in between. Named after an Antwerp footballer with a hangover who in 1951 asked for 'everything in the cooler'. Ghent says it happened differently. Ghent often says that.

Source: Wikipedia, Allerhande

Toast cannibale

On: Thick toasted sourdough
With: Shallot, gherkin, capers, watercress, mayonnaise loosened with yoghurt

The Belgian café version. Beef cut by hand, piled loosely on the toast, everything on top. Sharper and looser than the Dutch kind. In the Netherlands it is a sandwich. In Belgium it is a meal.

Source: Dagelijkse Kost

Américain-frites

On: No bread. A plate
With: Fries cooked in beef fat, watercress, pearl onions, large sour gherkins

The way Brussels does it. Mayonnaise with chopped piccalilli folded through the beef, capers on the side. Here the filet is the main course and the fries are there to help.

Source: Wikipedia

Speciaal with soft egg and truffle mayo

On: A slice of good bread
With: Six-minute egg, gherkin, shallot pickled in vinegar, truffle mayonnaise

Two tablespoons of filet, egg on top, let it run. For guests who say they don't eat filet.

Source: StudioKOOK

Baguette with truffle and parmesan

On: Baguette slices
With: Truffle mayonnaise, parmesan, toasted pine nuts, pepper

Toast the pine nuts in a dry pan. Filet on each slice, a dot of truffle mayo, shavings of parmesan. A bite each. Make more than you think you need.

Source: Jumbo

Toast with poached egg

On: Thick toast
With: Poached egg, capers, shallot, gherkin

Filet on the toast, make a dip, egg in the dip. The egg is the sauce. The sauce is an egg.

Source: Allerhande

Matzo, Amsterdam style

On: Matzo crackers
With: Amsterdam pickles (onions and gherkin), boiled egg

Break the matzo into pieces that fit in one mouth. Filet, pickles, egg. It cracks, the pickles cut through everything.

Source: Foodinista

Kaiser roll with sriracha egg salad

On: A kaiser roll
With: Egg salad with sriracha mayo, pickled vegetables, sesame, coriander

Filet underneath, egg salad on top, pickles on top of that. Coriander only if nobody is looking.

Source: Foodinista

As a starter

On: A lettuce leaf
With: Tomato, shallot, egg yolk, capers, parsley

Shape the filet with a ring on the plate, yolk on top, the rest around it. This way it looks like someone made an effort.

Source: Paris Match

Vegan filet

On: Bread or little toasts
With: Rice cakes, tomato paste, olive oil, onion powder, paprika, nutmeg, mace, vegan mayo, soy sauce, vegan Worcestershire

Crumble the rice cakes and mix everything in. Leave it for a few hours. The result looks alarmingly like the real thing. Also at the party, on its own table.

Source: VeganChallenge, Plantaardigheidjes

Carrot martino

On: A crusty roll
With: Grated carrot, onion, tomato paste, mayonnaise, ketchup

Stew the carrot and onion until soft, add tomato paste, blend, let it cool. Then build it like a martino. Vegetarian. Nobody notices until someone says so.