Flavors On The Road with Marilyn Amaterasu

🇳🇱 Klik op de vlag voor de Nederlandse versie

Vegetarian Kapsalon recipe

I regularly eat Kapsalon both with meat and in vegan style. For my homemade version, I chose to make it vegetarian. First, I’ll explain what Kapsalon actually is, why it has that name, and how it became a popular dish. Then I’ll share my vegetarian recipe.

In Dutch, “Kapsalon” means hairdressing salon. The dish itself is a hearty combination of fries topped with shawarma or doner meat, melted cheese, and fresh salad. It’s typically served with garlic sauce and sambal. Variations include kebab, gyros, chicken, or falafel instead of shawarma.

Why is it called Kapsalon, and how did it originate? In 2003, Nataniel Gomes, owner of a hairdressing salon on Schiedamseweg in Rotterdam, created the dish at the nearby shawarma shop El Aviva by combining his favorite ingredients into a single meal. The creation became a regular order and earned the playful name “hairdresser” (kapsalon). The dish quickly became popular with young people and spread to snack bars and shawarma shops throughout the Netherlands and Belgium, and later to Germany. Since 2011, Rotterdam has awarded the Golden Hair Salon Award annually for the best Kapsalon. The dish is notably high in calories. (Source: Wikipedia)

Vegetarian Kapsalon recipe

Ingredients:

• 400 grams of sweet potato fries
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 cucumber
• 75 grams of lettuce melange
• 25 grams baby spinach (you can also use regular spinach)
• 50 grams of edamame
• 1 small can of corn granules  
• 160 grams vega chicken pieces from The Vegetarische Slager (the Vegetarian Butcher) or Vivera
• 1/4 finely chopped red cabbage
• 25 grams of freshly cut chives
• 5 tablespoons of plain yogurt (I used Arla, but any plain yogurt works)
• 1 clove of freshly pressed garlic
• half teaspoon of salt
• a pinch of pepper
• sriracha sauce (adjust to taste—I prefer it spicy, but you can mix it with yogurt to reduce the heat)
• 30 grams of fried onions (from a bag)

Preparation method:

1. Bake sweet potato fries in a preheated oven on a baking tray lined with baking paper for 30 minutes, turning them halfway through.
2. Trim the cucumber ends, then use a potato peeler to shave thin slices lengthwise.
3. Clean the red bell pepper, remove the seeds, and cut it into thin slices.
4. Peel the garlic clove, press it into a bowl using a garlic press, and mix with yogurt and salt. Adjust yogurt and salt to taste.
5. Clean the red cabbage, cut off one quarter, and slice it finely.
6. Bake chicken pieces with salt and pepper.
7. Once the sweet potato fries and vega chicken are ready, assemble your plate: start with lettuce melange and baby spinach as the base, then layer in the chopped red cabbage, baked sweet potato fries, and vega chicken pieces. Top with thin slices of red bell pepper, edamame, corn, and fried onions. Drizzle with the homemade garlic yogurt and sriracha sauce, then finish with fresh chives. Enjoy!