ah holland, it seems that i've underestimated the power of orange. after all, ,i cooked dutch food early on, expecting that i was merely giving you the chance to play a role in the cup festivities and yet somehow, here i am, still reverting back to your cuisine, having now forgotten more about dutch food than most north americans will ever know. here you are, fit and tough as ever, about to move on to the final of the world cup for only the second time in my lifespan (and let's face it, i really wasn't paying attention the first time). no, you won't get to take on your former nemesis germany. but you'll be staring down the iberian eyes of the spanish inquisition as you make a quest for your first-ever world cup title. if you win, i'll make a batch of brownies in your honour.
of course, in honour of you hanging tough and fighting your way through the semi-final, i figured i'd cook up a dish that, strangely, was buried somewhere in my memory of searching for dutch recipes either this year or four years ago (i don't look that often). i had to make sure i was right about the origin of it and, lo and behold, i was. (the memory loss hasn't started yet.) so for dinner i made a lovely dish of cod with mustard cream sauce. normally, i'm not a fan of putting sauces on fish. call it part of my maritime heritage, but i'm a little suspicious (you might say i turn a fishy eye towards it) of any dish that buries the lovely, delicate taste of fish in something heavy, because to me, it means someone's trying to hide the taste of not quite so fresh fish. but hell, i live in montreal now. i no longer know what fresh fish means. so i decided to compromise just this once, because the sauce sounded tasty and because i love mustard. yes, mustard. as in "cut the mustard", which is certainly what you've been doing, holland. it's been lovely getting to know you and your ways with seafood.
(fyi- the rice you see with the dish is not strictly speaking dutch, but indonesian. rice with corn is often served as part of a tasty table of appetizer-portion dishes called a "rijstaffel", or rice table, once it's translated from dutch, the people who adapted the traditional festive meal and then gave it their own name, still used internationally to this day.