Aardappelschotel met Gehakt

In my grandmother's second notebook, the grand dishes had neat titles and dates. The weeknight dishes often did not. They lived under names like aardappelschotel met gehakt, potato dish with minced meat, which is not poetry until you understand the kind of household that trusted such plain words to carry dinner.

But let me tell you a secret. This is not shepherd's pie pretending to be Dutch. It belongs to the Dutch table by temperament: potatoes stretched with care, fresh gehakt (minced meat, from hakken, to chop), onions fried until sweet, and a little nutmeg because the spice cupboard of a supposedly frugal country was never as plain as outsiders imagined. Exuberant cookery in a frugal country, only in a brown baking dish.

The method is honest. You season the meat well before it hides under the mash, because a casserole forgives many things but not a bland middle. You mash the potatoes with butter and milk until soft enough to spread, then rough the top with a fork so the ridges brown first. Hou het altijd simpel, always keep it simple. A dish like this asks for no ceremony, only a spoon big enough for everyone.