Chef Joost
Appelcompote
Appelcompote is the apple left with its dignity: soft enough to spoon beside pork or potatoes, still chunky enough to remind you autumn did the real work.
Culinary Explorer
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Joppiesaus
Created by
The name sounds older than it is: Joppie was a nickname in a Twente snack bar, and the sauce became the yellow promise that fries, frikandel, and football nights understand perfectly.
Sauces & Condiments
Dutch
Weeknight
Game Day
10 min
Active Time
0 min cook•40 min total
YieldAbout 300ml, enough for 4 to 6 servings
For obvious reasons, a professor of old languages is not expected to stand at a motorway snack counter considering a plastic tub of yellow sauce as if it were a manuscript. This is foolish. The Dutch snackbar (snack bar) is one of our liveliest archives, and it smells of frying oil, raincoats, and boys coming from football with coins in their wet hands.
Joppiesaus carries no medieval name and no VOC shipping receipt, and that is precisely its charm. The name already tells you a smaller, truer story: Joppie was the nickname of Janneke de Jager at Cafetaria Annie in Glanerbrug, in Twente, where a sweet curry-onion sauce began as house sauce before the rest of the country found it. But let me tell you a secret. New tradition is still tradition if people insist on it long enough.
The sauce works because it behaves like the Dutch snack counter itself, cheerful, practical, and just a little sweet. Raw onion gives bite, kerriepoeder (curry powder) gives its yellow warmth, mustard tightens the mayonnaise, and a small sour note keeps it from becoming a sugar pot. You don't cook it. You let it rest. Half an hour is the difference between a bowl of ingredients and a sauce that knows itself.
Hou het altijd simpel, always keep it simple. Make the onion small enough to disappear under the tooth, give the spices time to soften in the acid, then fold everything through mayonnaise and put the bowl in the refrigerator while the fries go crisp. This is not grand cuisine. It is the yellow sauce a weeknight asks for, and weeknights deserve scholarship too.
Joppiesaus is a recent regional snack-bar invention from Glanerbrug in Twente, where Janneke de Jager of Cafetaria Annie developed a sweet curry-onion sauce and gave it the name from her nickname, Joppie. Elite Salades & Snacks began selling it commercially in 2002, and its national fame grew after Patatje Joppie crisps won Lay's Dutch flavor campaign in 2010. The sauce is a useful little correction to the idea that Dutch food tradition only lives in old farm kitchens: the snackbar, too, keeps making folklore.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
full-fat mayonnaise
Quantity
200g
yellow onion
Quantity
60g
finely grated or minced very small
sweet pickle brine or white wine vinegar
Quantity
1 tablespoon
mild kerriepoeder (curry powder)
Quantity
1 tablespoon
Dutch mustard or Dijon mustard
Quantity
2 teaspoons
fine sugar or witte basterdsuiker
Quantity
2 teaspoons
ground turmeric (optional)
Quantity
1/4 teaspoon
fine sea salt
Quantity
1/4 teaspoon, plus more to taste
ground white pepper
Quantity
1/8 teaspoon
sweet-and-sour pickle (augurk) (optional)
Quantity
1 tablespoon
finely chopped
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| full-fat mayonnaise | 200g |
| yellow onionfinely grated or minced very small | 60g |
| sweet pickle brine or white wine vinegar | 1 tablespoon |
| mild kerriepoeder (curry powder) | 1 tablespoon |
| Dutch mustard or Dijon mustard | 2 teaspoons |
| fine sugar or witte basterdsuiker | 2 teaspoons |
| ground turmeric (optional) | 1/4 teaspoon |
| fine sea salt | 1/4 teaspoon, plus more to taste |
| ground white pepper | 1/8 teaspoon |
| sweet-and-sour pickle (augurk) (optional)finely chopped | 1 tablespoon |
Equipment Needed
- •Small mixing bowl
- •Fine grater or sharp knife
- •Whisk
- •Covered jar or container
Instructions
- 1
Soften the onion
Put the grated onion in a bowl with the pickle brine or vinegar, sugar, and salt. Stir and let it stand for 10 minutes. This is the small step people skip and then blame the sauce; the acid draws out juice, softens the raw bite, and gives the mayonnaise something better than sharp onion water.
If raw onion dislikes you, rinse the minced onion briefly under cold water and dry it well before salting. You'll lose a little bite, but the sauce stays honest. - 2
Wake the curry
Stir the kerriepoeder and turmeric, if using, into the onion mixture until no dry yellow pockets remain. Let it sit for 5 minutes. Curry powder is a cupboard blend of ground spices, and ground spices taste dusty until moisture reaches them; a short wait makes the sauce taste round instead of powdered.
- 3
Fold in mayonnaise
Whisk in the mayonnaise, mustard, white pepper, and optional pickle until the sauce is glossy and pale yellow, with onion flecks visible but no lumps of spice. Taste now. It should be sweet first, onion second, curry close behind, and sour enough that one more fry still seems like a sensible idea.
- 4
Rest it cold
Cover and refrigerate at least 30 minutes, or up to overnight. The rest is not ceremony; it is when the onion stops shouting and the curry settles into the fat. Stir once before serving with patat (fries), frikandel (a Dutch seasoned sausage snack), kroket, or bitterballen.
Commercial Joppiesaus is smoother and sweeter than a home bowl. If you want that snack-bar gloss, use a stick blender for ten seconds after the rest.
Chef Tips
- •Use a mild Dutch kerriepoeder, not a fierce curry blend. This sauce belongs to the snackbar counter: sweet, yellow, oniony, and friendly with fried potatoes.
- •Grate the onion if you want a smooth sauce; mince it if you like little bits. Big raw onion cubes turn the bowl into salad, and that is not what the fries asked for.
- •Let it rest. Freshly stirred Joppiesaus tastes like its parts; after thirty minutes it tastes like the yellow thing Dutch snack bars have taught half the country to crave.
- •Serve it cold or cool, not warm. Mayonnaise-based sauces lose their good manners when they sit out too long, so bring out a small bowl and refill it if the match runs late.
Advance Preparation
- •Make up to 2 days ahead and keep covered in the refrigerator; stir well before serving.
- •Keeps 4 days refrigerated. Do not leave it on the table through a whole football match; mayonnaise and onion need the cold.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 60g)
Calories
290 calories
Total Fat
30 g
Saturated Fat
5 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
25 g
Cholesterol
15 mg
Sodium
440 mg
Total Carbohydrates
4 g
Dietary Fiber
1 g
Sugars
3 g
Protein
1 g
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