Beer trek : the new frontier.

It was bound to happen sometime: we Belgians make beer , drink beer, cook with beer and make world famous chocolates.
Beer Brewery De Ryck has boldly gone where no one has gone before.

They sell a collection of beer chocolates (no no ! not chocolate beer : Beer Chocolates ! )

Unfortunately even the English version of their website will only give you a Dutch description of these delicacies, so for you my dear readers , I've translated it into English.
( Because I like you all so much, I want to share this inside knowledge with you ! :)

( Want to get a better view ? Leftclick the image for a mouthwatering larger view )

Oh and did I mention they also have beer cheese, beer marmalade, beer sorbet and beer pâté ?
Belgian type breakfast , anyone ?

Balletjes in biersaus ( Meatballs in beer sauce)

Spring is coming and summer isn't too far away, time for another traditional recipe.
This one comes from the center of Belgium, where the cooks use beer in the kitchen even more cheerfully than the French cooks use wine !

You need ( for 4 persons )

2 bottles or 0.75 liters of REAL BELGIAN gueuze ( there IS NO substitute )
( click on this picture to see it in large scale glory : you can almost smell it ;)

( try a dry lager if you can't find the real thing , the result will be good but different )

1 kilogram of lean mixed minced meat ( half pork and half beef )
2 egg yolks
1 tsp of freshly grated nutmeg
a slice of bread 1 cm thick
1/2 cup of milk
butter ( or olive oil )
1 tablespoon of beurre manié (butter and white flour)

I'm making this dish with about 600 grams of lean mixed minced meat
so I use only one yolk and a thinner slice of bread.
Trim the crusts of your slice of bread ( I prefer brown : it adds character! ^_^)

Let the bread soak in some milk .

Add your egg yolks to your minced meat.
Grate about a fifth of a nutmeg (I guess about 1,5 teaspoon ;)
on your meat and add some pepper. ( 4-5 turns of your peppermill )


Now squeeze most of the milk from your bread which should be nice and soggy by now, add it to the meat and knead it all firmly to a nice mix with your hands.

Use a spoon to scoop some mix into your hand and form into balls of a size you prefer.
Rub your hands with a little water, but not too much or you'll find the minced meat
slides around instead of rolling into balls! I use the spoon to scrape the meat of my palms every now and then. A spoon also lets you measure the same amount easier than when you try to scoop some up with your fingers.

I made mine about 4 cm thick and look at that, I got exactly 20 of them !


Melt some butter in a frying pan ( I used a non stick wok ) and on a fairly high heat ( 7 out of 12 electric) brown the balls on all sides in 2-3 minutes ( they shouldn't be cooked through yet ! )

When done , transfer them to a large pot , so they're all on the bottom.

Pour your bottle(s) of gueuze over them to make them happy , put the lid on and let them simmer on a low heat for half an hour.


The original recipe does it all in the same pot and then calls for
degreasing the sauce, which I find a bother.
My way leaves most of the fat behind in the frying pan so you don't have to do this.


Make a tablespoon of beurre manié by mixing a tablespoon of oil or butter with flour. Keep adding flour till the mixture becomes a smooth paste that is nearly starting to crumble. Try using a neutral oil ( first pressed virgin olive oil can be taste a bit too strong )

Scoop the balls out of the sauce and put in a warm dish.

Whisk the beurre manié lightly into the sauce to bind it ( it never gets really thick , but that's not what you aim for anyway so don't worry ). Beurre manié is the same mixture as roux , but roux is cooked by heating it and adding the liquid beforehand. Such as in white sauce. Beurre Manie is added after the cooking and binds for a shorter time , which is fine because you'll eat it right away.


Pour the sauce over the balls in a dish. Ready to enjoy!
(click on picture for a mouthwatering larger view O_O )


Because of the gueuze the sauce has a nice slightly tart taste (tart is slightly acid but nicer ;) which goes very well with the tenderly cooked meat (ah if only I could post the SMELL !)
You can cover this in foil and heat up later in a microwave but it is hard to resist eating it right away! Serve with ample slices of bread ( you will need them to mop up the sauce ! ).

Easter Monday : cherry blossom viewing

Today is Easter Monday .It's a holiday in Belgium , and today the weather has been
wonderful.
Since my largest cherry tree is in full blossom , I'm having a cherry blossom viewing.
( the trees behind the cherry are my two pear trees )

This is cherry blossom : ( click on all pictures to see a larger view)

This is pear blossom : lovely but quite different from the cherry blossom.

To drink on such a lovely day , I'm having a Kriek Lambic , which is a beer that originated when people conserved their surplus of cherries (noordkrieken) by keeping them in barrels of beer.
These cherries are bright red and taste more sour (tart) than the other types which taste more sweet.
The alcohol in the beer preserves the cherries. To make this beer , which won the gold medal in Brussels in 2005 , 240 grams of cherries are added to one liter of Lambic beer and then ripened in oak barrels. This type of beer has been made like this since the 19th century.

As is traditional in Belgium , every beer has its own type of glass to drink it from.


This beer tastes tart and a bit sweet just like a real cherry and is very popular in summer : drink it rather cold. Very refreshing. It's a lovely naturally red colour ( no colorants , no sweetener ! )


See how even the foam is a lovely pink from the cherries ?

Lambic is a beer that can only be produced in one area in the world , namely around Lembeke, not very far from Brussels in Belgium and then only during winter.
This is because all the other beers are made to ferment by adding yeast under carefully controlled conditions in isolation. Lambic is made to ferment by letting the brew cool off in large tanks with all the windows open, so the wild yeasts in the air can fall into the brew and start the fermentation. During summer there are way too many organisms in the air : the fermentation would run wild. Since these wild yeasts are specific to this area, it can only be made there.

The result is a unique beer with a taste that is very complex and that also varies from year to year. Because it is rather flat ( doesn't foam ) older lambic is mixed with younger lambic which gives geuze , a beer that does produce a nice foam and is even more complex of taste.
The pressure in the bottle can get quite high , so they use bottles of thick glass with thick corks and a metal wire to keep the cork in (just like champagne).
The best ones can taste quite tart, like biting into a rather unripe apple , which is a shock to people used to the 'usual beers', but works wonders to help you digest your food after a large and copious Flemish dinner ;)

This is the 'chapel' where the brew cools down overnight and collects the necessary microorganisms to start fermentation from the outside air with large ventilators :

(Disclaimer : this picture is the property of Brouwerij Boon , Lembeke, Belgium ). Looks like a swimming pool full of beer , doesn't it ? It's not beer yet, it has a long way to go before it is.
The site is in Dutch only, but the wonderful pictures there speak for themselves.

Large oak beer barrel being scraped on the inside.

(Disclaimer : this picture is also the property of Brouwerij Boon , Lembeke, Belgium )

Of course this being Easter , we have Easter eggs . These are all brown and black chocolate with a liquid filling ( I'm not fond of white ) and every colour of wrapping is another filling : coffee, vanilla, lime, banana, fondant, and many others I've forgotten.

At work we got a small present for Easter : a bag with some eggs and this kawaii chocolate bunny.

For this cherry blossom viewing I bought these original handmade 'cerisettes' at a chocolatier in Mechelen ( cerise is French for cherry ). The cherries are whole (stone and stem and all) and are kept in alcohol for up to 5 years. The taste from the cherries transfers to the alcohol.
These real cherries are then each covered with dark chocolate which is filled with the original alcohol. They're quite large and a mouthful, but as the chocolate cover starts to melt and the cherry flavoured sweet alcohol flows into your mouth you'll have a wonderful experience. Trust me ! ( See the stems sticking out ? ) ( Click the picture for a mouthwatering full view :)

Vlaamse stoofkarbonaden : Beer, Beef, Belgium.

I promised a while ago to present a traditional dish from my country that could be cooked abroad. Here it is.

Foreign dishes can be hard to cook for many reasons : unfamiliar , hard to get ingredients , unfamiliar cooking techniques and cooking utensils.

This very traditional Flemish recipe should be do-able for most people.

Basically it's a very hearty stew of beef and onions in beer.

The finished dish can be frozen in portions for later, reheated quite simply (microwave !) and you can eat it with cooked or pureed potatoes or French fries or slices of brown bread.
I find it goes very well with Japanese style steamed rice ( click photo to see a larger version).


No vegetables ? If you eat it after a vegetable soup like leek or spinach, you'll have a very complete and balanced meal.

The following ingredients are for 4 servings (in Belgium! Could serve 5 or 6 in other countries ))

1 kg of lean unsalted cooking meat ( this beef  is sold in Belgium mostly precut in cubes and made from the brisket or neck : it's a tough but very nutritious and lean meat, that needs long slow cooking to get tender )
3 medium sized onions
1 heaped tablespoon of brown sugar
1 tablespoon of plain flour
1 large bay leaf
1 sprig of thyme
100 grams of unsalted butter
1/2 liter of good brown beer
1 good slice of bread
1 tablespoon of mustard (Dijon or another hearty one)
pepper
salt

Large pot with lid ( to cook )
Large pot ( to hold the browned meat )

3 hours of your time ( although 2,5 of those are spent letting the food simmer , so you can spend them doing other stuff around the kitchen )

Where are the brisket and the neck ? See below

I use these red onions because they've got a good flavor. Yellow ones are good too, but don't use the very large ones ( they're too weak and sweet tasting ).

Cut the beef in medium sized cubes (about 3 - 4 cm ).
Melt the butter in the large pot on a medium fire ( electric setting 6-7 out of 12)

(Here I use 1 and a half tablespoon of olive oil instead of butter because
a) I almost never use butter in the kitchen
b) I am Flemish , therefore I am allowed to (haha)
c) it doesn't change the flavour of this dish
d) olive oil is healthier
e) I made this on a Sunday and couldn't get butter from the shops

Add the beef cubes and brown them lightly on all sides ( moisture comes out from the cubes : keep stirring to let most of it evaporate ). Use a large pot ! This one's 27 cm across.
If you have a smaller pot or larger amounts of beef , brown the beef cubes in portions, otherwise the pan will not get hot enough and your beef will not get browned , but start to cook. The browning is important for the taste.

Tip the browned cubes of meat in a dish and sprinkle the flour over them ( you could also do this after they go back into the pot later)
Turn the heat down a bit and put the onions in the pot.
Keep stirring them till nearly glazed in the fat left behind by the meat. Add a little butter or oil if needed.

Sprinkle the brown sugar over them and stir for a minute to color the onions.

See how nice and brown the onions have become ?


Add the spoon of vinegar and stir.
Put the beef back in the pot and add your beer. It will foam a lot when you pour it in but that's OK.

Use a Belgian brown beer , NO OTHER BEER will do !

Seriously, use a good tasting brown beer . Don't use a low alcohol table beer : too sweet. Don't worry about the alcohol : at the end it will all be gone. Kids can eat this dish : they'll love it.

Season with five to six turns on your pepper mill and a few pinches of salt. Put in the thyme and the bay leaf. The beer should cover most of the meat.


Turn down the heat ( electric setting 3 out of 12) , put the lid on and let simmer quietly for an hour.
After that , the smell when you lift the lid will be tantalizing. Trust me it will get even better.
Don't worry that the meat is still very tough at this point : you're only halfway.
Spread the tablespoon of mustard ( use Dijon or another hearty mustard ) on your slice of bread and put it on top of the meat with the mustard side down.
(DO USE a self baked full grain brown bread like me ! White bread is for WIMPS ! And toothless old people !)

The bread will bind the sauce , the mustard aids in flavoring and tenderizing the meat.
Since it completely dissolves , you can use white or brown.

I keep the heat fairly low and add a little beer ( a few tablespoons ) at this point if I find it's becoming a bit dry.
Later on , use water or the beer taste will be too obvious.
Check from time to time and stir.
Make sure it doesn't get too dry and starts burning , which can happen because there's now flour from the bread in the stew : burning would ruin the dish.

It'll take from 1 to 1,5 hours till it's ready.

You can tell by seeing how tender the meat has become : it should come apart easily ( see photo ) but not completely fall apart : you're not making a sauce. Taste it and let it stew longer if you feel it's not tender enough.
You can see in this picture that it's still quite moist.


I like serving this dish with the same beer I've cooked it with.


Have fun and let me know how it went !

(I've found many variations of this dish on the web ( especially on Dutch sites) . FORGET about those , they're all FAKES ! This is the ONLY REAL ONE ;)
Actually, as with most traditional dishes , the recipe varies slightly in several parts of the country and from cookbook to cookbook.
This recipe comes from an out of print cookbook from 1984 (no longer available and only printed in Dutch) that compiled 125 original recipes from all over Flanders ( the Flemish speaking part of Belgium).
Tip : use a flat bladed wooden spoon for this kind of dishes : it's a lot better to stir food that's sticking to the bottom of the pan. You can use the high tech non stick one ( I have both ) but I can buy ten of the wooden ones for the price of the other ;)