Stoemp Met Wortelen (Stoemp with Carrots)

Since winter has arrived, I couldn't resist making this wonderful winter dish.  A traditional dish from Brussels, "stoemp" has everything you need to stay fat warm and happy!  It basically is a type of mashed potatoes with a large amount of vegetables mashed right in with the potatoes.  And you can do it with all kinds of vegetables, although each one will require a slightly different preparation.

This time we'll focus on Stoemp with carrots, one of my favorites, especially when served with a nice banger-like sausage (although it should have a bit more of a peppery taste to it).

What do you need?

For two people you'll need:

6 to 7 large potatoes

10 large carrots

1 large onion

butter

salt

pepper

nutmeg

1 to 2 cups of milk

Let's get cooking!

1. Start by peeling the potatoes and cleaning the carrots and onion. 

2 Boil the potatoes to the point where they're soft enough to make mashed potatoes (usually around 18-20 minutes, but it varies according to the size of the potatoes).  You can halve the potatoes to shorten the cooking time.  Make sure to add plenty of salt to the water.

3.  Dice the carrots into small cubes.  Do the same thing for the onion. Melt a tablespoon of good, unsalted butter in a small frying pan or pot.

4. Once the butter has melted, add the onion.  Stir it until it has become glazy.  At that point, add in the diced carrots.  Keep it on a low fire for about 15 minutes, while stirring regularly.  You may need to add a little more butter or olive oil if you prefer.  Once the carrots are soft, you can remove them from the fire.

5.  When the potatoes are cooked, pour away the water and leave the potatoes in the pot. Mash them up a little bit before adding in the carrots.

6.  Add the carrots, a tablespoon of butter, lots of pepper and freshly ground nutmeg.  Also pour in about a cup of milk to ensure the stoemp is moist enough.  Add more later if need be.

7.  Mash it all together so that you get a consistent orange-yellow mass.

8.  Taste it to check whether it needs more spices or butter, or milk.

Serve with sausage, porkchops or thick bacon.

To wash it down, I suggest a dark beer with spices, such as a Belgian trappist or abbey beer.  A nice pale ale will also go great with it!

Saffron's back, baby! With Flemish Beef stew (grandmother's style)

I'm back! Finally, after almost two months of silence, Pass the saffron, please has jumped back into action! Now that I've settled into my new home and into my new life, I hope to be able to post regularly again, although you'll have to bear with me at some points... Law school will demand most of my time to be spent sitting behing books instead of standing behind pots and pans.

The first dish I'll be posting is my absolute favorite dish, Flemish Beef Stew ( Stoofvlees or Stoverij in Dutch or Carbonades à la Flamande in French). However, there are so many different variations to this dish as there are grandmothers I think. Every family's stew tastes a little bit different. The dish also varies according to the region or city you're in, for example, if you have stoofvlees in Leuven (Louvain), then the taste will be somewhat sweeter than in other cases due to the addition of speculaas (a typical Belgian cookie). Another famous variation to this dish is called Gentse Stoverij, which uses two different types of beer and more herbs (thyme, parsley, etc). However, the recipe I'll be posting is the one created and followed by my grandmother.

What do you need?

For two to three people:

1 kg of beef stew meat (don't use "good meat" i.e. steak etc, rather use the shoulder meat, or rib meat). Make sure it's not too lean, you want to have some fat in there as the taste will be much better and the meat won't turn out to be chewy.

1 medium sized onion

1 teaspoon of sharp mustard

potato flour

2 medium-sized bay leaves

1 tablespoon of vinegar (don't use wine vinegar!!)

Pepper & salt

1 clove

Freshly grated nutmeg

optional: slice of white bread

optional: trappist beer

Let's get cooking!

1. If the meat hasn't been diced, cut up the meat into cubes of about 3x3x3 cm. Then melt about a tablespoon of unsalted butter in a large frying pan. Once it's gone light brown and there's no more bubbles in melted butter, add the beef.

2. Brown the cubes of beef. Make sure all the sides are brown, if not, your stewed beef will be very chewy and tough.

3. Once you fried the beef, remove it from the frying pan and put it in a casserole. Add water to the frying pan, and make a sauce with the butter left in the pan. You will probably have to do this several times in order to get all the rests of butter left in the frying pan to dissolve. Add the sauce to the casserole, but only add enough to leave the tops of the meat sticking out. Add salt, pepper, bay leaves and nutmeg.

4. Add the whole onion to the beef. Stick a clove into the bottom of the onion. You can also cut up the onion into quarters and let it dissolve. Also, add the teaspoon of sharp mustard. You can also use a slice of white bread, spread the mustard onto the slice of bread. Put the slice on top of the meat, with the mustard side facing down. The bread will dissolve and thicken the sauce (most likely you won't need to add potato flour afterwards).

5. Put the casserole on a very low fire, and let it cook very slowly for at least an hour (it might take a good deal longer, or it might less time, it all depends on the meat). Every so often check on the meat, whether it's cooked well enough, and give the whole thing a good stir. 6. Take a few tablespoons of the sauce and mix it with the tablespoon of vinegar and about a teaspoon of potato flour. Stir and then add to the beef. This will thicken your sauce (watch out, don't use too much, the sauce shouldn't be too thick, it still has to be quite runny). Stir the stew to let the potato flour do its work.

6. Once it's ready, remove the whole onion and the two bay leaves.

Serve with fresh fries, fresh chopped Belgian endives and some "pickles" (similar to British picalilly, but not as sweet and more sour)!

Smakelijk!! Enjoy!

Mussels + Fries + Beer = Heaven

I'm back! After more than a week of silence, I finally managed to get my act together and tell you about that single dish that's been on my mind since March. Every year, I, and several million other Belgians along with me, anxiously await the arrival of the mussels season. The official start for me and my family is the mussel fair in one of the neighboring villages, which I usually visit several times in a row with friends and family. It's very much a communal happening, maybe even somewhat of a ritual, to go there and wait for a substantial amount of time, just to get a taste of that first succulent mussel. And it was definitely worth the wait this year. Absolutely delicious... A signature Belgian dish, which again demonstrates the relative simplicity of Belgian recipes and the painstaking attention for the quality of the ingredients used. The version explained here is the "Flemish-style recipe", but mind you, there are many variants to this standard recipe: mussels with curry, mussels provençals, with white wine, with beer (one of my favorites is mussels cooked with Duvel, a blond, specialty beer). Regarding the mussels, Belgian always use the Dutch Zeelandic mussels (Zeeuwse mosselen), of which Belgium is the largest importer. I'm not sure these are available elsewhere, so you could try to use other ones, but bear in mind that the quality of the mussels is an absolute determinant of the final dish's taste. If you would like further information on Zeelandic mussels, please visit this site http://www.zeeuwsemosselen.be/ (Dutch).

What do you need?

1 kilo of "Zeeuwse" (Zeelandic) mussels

1 large onion

1 large stalk of green celery (more if they're thinner)

1 bundle of parsley

1 laurel leave

lots of pepper and a little bit of salt

Preparation

1. Wash and clean the mussels.

2. Slice the onion in rings into slices between 0.5 - 1 cm thick.

3. Slice the celery into slices about 8mm thick.

4. Coarsely chop the parsley

5. Take a pot large enough to hold one person's portion and make sure to put a little bit of water in it (enough to cover the bottom). (you could also add a light beer or white wine)

6. Put some mussels in the pot, enough to cover the bottom with one layer. Next, a layer of onion, celery and parsley. Cover that layer with another layer of mussels and keep on going until the entire cooking pot is filled up. Don't forget to put the laurel leave in one of the middle layers.

7. Finally, add salt (but be very careful; there's already enough salt water in the mussels and pepper to your own liking (I personally like a somewhat stronger peppery taste).

8. Put the mussels on a high fire and cover the pot with a lid. Cook the mussels until the water rises to the edge of the pot. Remove the lid, and add half a teaspoon of natural vinegar. Cover it back up and shake the mussels so as to spread the vinegar throughout the pot.

9. Put the pot back on the fire and cook the mussels until the water rises to the edge for the second time. Now check whether the mussels are thoroughly cooked (the shells should have opened). Normally they should be ready after the water has risen twice, but check them just to be sure as there may be some stubborn ones in the bunch.

Serve them in the casserole with either fries or buttered white bread on the side. Belgians eat the mussels with a special mussel dip sauce, made with mayonnaise, mustard, parsley, chives and sometimes light yoghurt

Belgian Fries

Fries are at the heart of almost every Belgian's love of food and hence you'll see them being served everywhere. They are Belgians' primary street food, where you can get it at so-called "fritkoten" (literally "fries shacks"), but you'll also find them in all kinds of restaurants and taverns, being served as an accompaniment to a wide variety of main dishes. In Belgium there's a true fries culture, which is why Belgians will often try to point out that it's actually Belgian fries and not French fries. A legend which is often told to explain this erroneous callsign, states that during the Second World War US troops were based in the French part of the country. During their arduous battle in the Ardennes, the French-speaking locals introduced them to the deep-fried potato slices. However, it has been noted that the term French-fried potatoes was already in use before WWII. More probable is the linguistic explanation; French may refer to julienning of vegetables.

Regarding the true origins of fries, the discussion still continues. Belgian historian Jo Gérard states that the story of the fries goes back to 1680, when the locals of the cities Namur, Andenne and Dinant often caught little fish in the Meuse river which they then served fried as a side dish. However, when the river was frozen or too turbulent, it is said they turned to potatoes and cut them into the shape of little fish and deep fried those in oil. However, this story has never been confirmed by other sources and consequently, other regions or countries claim to have been the first to create fries.

Regardless of whether or not Belgians were the first people to fry potato slices, they are at the very least their symbolic creator and most definitely the only ones who have built an entire culinary specialty around the delicious golden potato sticks. No other country consumes more fries per capita than Belgium, which isn't too surprising as even the smallest Belgian town has its own frietkot or friterie. The fry is not only the most popular snack, but is featured alongside many national dishes, with some of the most popular being: mosselen met friet (mussels and fries), friet met stoofvlees (fries with Flemish beefstew), friet met biefstuk (steak and fries).

If you step inside a frietkot or friterie, you'll find an amazing range of accompanying meats and condiments, which go very well with your portion of fries. You have several kinds of sausages such as cervela, lookworst (garlic sausages), curryworst, mammoet etc. Also popular are the boulet (a large cold meatball), vogelnestje (bird's nest; a large meatball with a boiled meatball inside and served in tomato sauce), saté, fried pieces of chicken and many many more. In terms of sauces and condiments, a whole new branch of fritsauzen or fries sauces has evolved over the years. While the most popular accompanying sauce is still (egg-based) mayonnaise, there are now so many sauces to put on your fries that I'm not even able to list them all. There's ketchup, curry ketchup, curry sauce, mammoet sauce, samoerai sauce, pickles (one of my favorites, similar to the British picalilly but not as sweet and packs a bit more sour flavor), stoofvleessaus (the sauce of the Flemish beef stew), white beans in tomato sauce, andalouse sauce, etcetera,...I think you're catching my drift.

Another sign that fries have been embedded deeply in the country's food culture is the manner in which the fries are prepared. It starkly differs from the methods followed in other countries and gives Belgian fries their specific taste and golden color (see below).

Regarding ingredients and cooking equipment, certain remarks can be made. First of all, what type of potato should be used for making fries? Well, at home we use a variety called bintje and sometimes also eersterlingen. However, I don't believe this variety is available to fries lovers outside of Belgium and the Netherlands (and perhaps some other surrounding ones), so in general I'd suggest using any type of potato rich in starch. More information regarding potatoes and fries in general can be found at http://www.belgianfries.com/.

As a frying oil, you should use a vegetable-based oil, which is able to handle the high heat for extended periods of time. In the past however, fries were fried in beef or horse lard, however that's rarely still used (I must admit I'm curious as to how fries fried in beef lard would taste). Either way, remember that whatever oil you use, it will have important consequences for the final taste of the fries. Make sure not to use the same oil endlessly! You should limit the number of times the oil is used to 10 times, as the oil breaks down a little every time it's heated up, which then affects the taste.

As far as cooking equipment goes, you'll need a deep fryer on which you can manually adjust the temperature of the oil/fat. Furthermore, an ideal tool for making large quantities of fries in the comfort of your own home is the fry-cutter, seen in action here. This is a wonderful aid when you have to prepare a large batch of fries for family or friends! If you would like more information about this tool or if you would like to purchase one, please contact me at dejosmans@hotmail.com.

What do you need?

To serve two people you'll need the following:

5 to 7 mid-sized potatoes or 5 large potatoes per person

vegetable-based frying oil

salt

Let's get started!

1. Peel the potatoes, removing any eyes or protuding parts which might prevent the fry-cutter from working smoothly. Put the peeled potatoes in cold water to rinse them and let some of the starch leave the potato. This will make the fries less sticky and more crispy.

2. Cut the potatoes into slices using a knife or fry-cutter. I sometimes also put these freshly cut fries into cold water again. This further reduces the amount of starch left in the fry, making the final result more crispy on the outside.

3. Wrap up the uncooked fries in a towel, thoroughly drying them off. Keep them wrapped up in this towel during the entire first round of frying. Turn on the deep-fryer and heat up the oil to 170°C for the first fry.

4. Put a handful of raw fries in the oil and cook them for about 7 to 8 minutes (after having done this for several times, you'll be able to tell when they're ready to come out simply by listening for a specific tone of sizzles coming from the oil). They will be slightly fried on the outside, with a slightly darker yellow exterior. In either case don't fry them till they're golden!!!! Stir the fries wel when they're in the oil. Use a large, flat ladle with large holes in it.

Don't put in too many at once, as you'll cause the oil to cool down considerably, and you'll end up with cooked fries instead of fried ones. Also, the fries will absorb more fat when cooked to a soggy state.

5. This step is crucial in the preparation of Belgian fries, and is what sets the Belgian style apart from the other frying styles. Once you've fried them for 7 to 8 minutes, take the fries out of the oil and leave them to sit in a tray for a while. Continue frying the rest of the fries, until you've fried all of them for a first time. Leave the entire batch of pre-fried fries to rest for about 20 minutes. This will give you time to put the final touch on any of the accompanying dishes or condiments.

6. When all the table guests are ready for the fries, turn up the heat on your deep fryer to 190°C. Again, take only a handful of the pre-fried fries and put them in oil. Fry them for about 2-3 minutes, while giving them a good stir. Once they've reached a light-golden color, take them out of the oil and put them in a bowl with kitchen paper. Toss them around a little bit before serving.

Serve them hot, with a little mayonnaise and salt! Enjoy!!!

Frikadellen met krieken (Meatballs with sour cherries )

Another signature Belgian dish with contrasting tastes, typical of the region I live in, the South of the province of Antwerp. I know it may sound strange, even people from other parts of the country who don't know this dish will usually give me the "what the heck?!" response. But trust me, the saltiness of the meatballs goes great with the tangy sweetness of the sour cherries! If you're not sure what a sour cherry is exactly, you can find more information on it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sour_cherry.

In the past, and also today (perhaps to a lesser extent), this was/is a dish eaten at festive occasions, such as the town fair (kermis), family parties, etcetera etcetera. I've heard it being eaten as a desert, but in my family, we've always had it as the main course.

What do you need?

To serve three to four people:

550 gr of ground beef
450 gr of ground pork
250 gr of breadcrumbs (no crust, only the dry inner white part)
4 eggs
salt
pepper
nutmeg

1 kg of sour cherries preserved in their own juice
3-4 tablespoons of sugar
3 tablespoons of water
1-1,5 tablespoons of potato starch

Preparation:

1. Take a big casserole and put the ground meat in it. In total, there should be about 1 kg of meat, but make sure that there's a little more ground beef in the whole than ground pork. The pork gives a lighter flavor to the beef and also adds some fat, again adding to the overall taste. But you shouldn't use too much pork, otherwise the meatballs will get too greasy.

2. Add the breadcrumbs, the eggs, salt, pepper and nutmeg. If the meatballs are too sticky, or too "wet", add a bit more crumbs. To make the breadcrumbs, leave a couple of slices of white bread out to dry, and after a couple of days break them up into crumbs.

3. Use your hands to mix all the ingredients, so that you get one homogenous mass.

4. Roll the meat into balls of about 3 to 4 cm in diameter.

5. Boil water in another casserole. When the water is boiling add the meatballs, and boil them for about 10 minutes. When boiled, pour away the water and leave the meatballs to cool down.
In the meantime, get started on the sour cherry sauce. You could also make the sauce first, and leave it to cool in the fridge, as I for example prefer my sauce to be cold. But it works equally well when the sauce is still warm. When the sauce has been prepared, fry the meatballs in a frying pan with a litte butter. When they all have a dark golden look, they're ready to be served.

6. To make the sauce, pour the contents of the jar of preserved cherries in a small casserole. Add the 3 (or four, or two, depending on how sweet you want it to be; my grandmother makes it really sweet, whereas my mother prefers to keep some of the cherries' natural sourness). Boil the mixture for about 5 minutes and then leave it to cool down while you mix the water and starch.

7. Mix the potato starch with the water. Add it to the cherries, to thicken the sauce. Again, here you can add more or less starch, depending on how thick you want your sauce to be. Briefly boil the thickened sauce again (for 2-3 minutes).

Serve each person about 6 meatballs, and pour an ample amount of sauce on each plate. Serve with a couple of slices of white or whole grain bread.

Smakelijk!

"Kermissoep" (Fair soup)

My grandmother often makes this soup for Sunday lunches, when the entire family has lunch at her place. Originally, this soup was only cooked when there was a "kermis" or fair in town, which called for a celebration. The celebratory part of this soup in those days was the use of meat, as in the past -for example during the war- meat wasn't always readily available. Luckily, we now don't have to wait for the fair to come to our village in order to enjoy this hearty soup!

Ingredients

300 gr of meat to create the stock, preferably a piece of shank (beef)
4 large stalks of celery
2 large leeks (only use the white part)
2 mid-sized carrots
(optional) 2 tomatoes
macaroni
Salt
Pepper
Laurel leaf

Preparation:

1. Fill a large casserole with water and add the the shank (with bone and the oh so important marrow). Often this soup meat is eaten afterwards (it's delicious cold with some mustard, and it also goes very well with the fried young potatoes described in a previous post.), and if you do wish to eat it afterwards, it's preferable to add the meat to the water once the water has reached its boiling point. If you don't plan on eating it, you can add the meat to the water from the beginning. Leave the meat to boil for about an hour (depending on the meat) so that the meat has been thoroughly cooked. Remove the meat from the casserole. Keep the stock boiling.

2. Finely chop up all the vegetables, the carrots let's say about 0,5 cm thick whereas the celery and leeks can be anywhere between 0,5 and 1 cm. The tomatoes can be cut into larger chunks, as otherwise they would desintegrate rapidly.

3. First add the sliced carrots and leave them to boil for about 15 minutes. Then add the chopped celery, and boil for another 10 minutes. Finally, add the leeks, macaronis and tomatoes. Leave this to boil for another 5 minutes and then turn off the fire.

4. Serve hot, with little meatballs; Belgians put little meatballs in almost all their soups. They even voted tomato soup with meatballs to be their all-time favorite dish! These meatballs are made with ground beef and pork, breadcrumbs and eggs. I will put up the full recipe for making these small ones as well as the standard, larger ones tomorrow.

Belgian Food & Young potatoes with cured ham

Finally, I will be starting a long line of posts on Belgian cooking and Belgian food. Most of the traditional Belgian dishes are handed down from generation to generation, usually from (grand) mother to daughter, but in this case from grandmother and mother to (grand) son. I basically spent a few days interrogating my grandma, asking her to spill her secrets. Although I was already quite familiar with the preparation of the larger share of these dishes, my grandma's help was essential in getting things right. But you all know grandma's cooking, absolutely delicious, but usually done without the slightest sign of precise measurements. So, on that note, you'll have to bear with me for a bit and experiment a little on your own, to get the recipe to fit to your particular tastes.

As this is my first Belgian food post, I thought it would be a good idea to give a short descriptive introduction into Belgium's food. This actually led me to do some culinary soul searching as I had never thought about Belgian food in this way before. I had always taken my own country's food for granted, never really stopping to wonder why there weren't any Belgian cookbooks alongside the endless rows of cookbooks of more internationally established cuisines, such as the French, Italian, and Spanish ones (to name a few). Only now that I have had the opportunity to savor an ever-growing number of dishes from all over the world, am I beginning to see that our little country’s cuisine deserves to be recognized as a full, rich and delicious kitchen as well. Part of the explanation lies in the fact that Belgian culinary tradition is still mainly an oral one as indicated earlier. For over five decades, there’s only been one essential Belgian cookbook, of which each family owned a copy; “Ons Kookboek” by the “Boerenbond” (Our Cookbook written by the Farmer’s Union). Only in the past decade and especially in the past three to four years, has there been an increase in the number Belgian cookbooks available in bookstores. This may have to do with the recent institutional crises that the country has experienced, which has brought some people to search for a unifying Belgian identity. I can only applaud such initiatives.
However, the cookbooks produced so far are still focused on the internal Belgian market, which doesn’t exactly help the promotion of Belgian food abroad, where Belgian cuisine all too often equals Belgian chocolate, waffles, endives, beer and sprouts. Although these products are delicious and Belgians are very proud of them, there are so many more delicacies to be explored and savored by foreigners! As far as I know, only one good Belgian cookbook has been written; “Everybody Eats well in Belgium” by Ruth Van Waerebeek. You can find this book on Amazon.com.

But what exactly is the Belgian kitchen? How could one describe Belgian food? I have often heard the Belgian food being described to foreigners as “cooked with the same quality and finesse as the French cuisine, while it is served with German generosity”. That is essentially what it comes down to; Belgian food can be characterized as a combination of German, Dutch and French cuisines, with the French influence clearly being dominant. This isn’t all too surprising, when one takes into account that the regions which nowadays constitute Belgium have been overrun by and been under the control of foreign powers on countless occasions. The Romans, Germans, Spanish, Austrians, Dutch and especially the French, all left their marks on the country’s culture and culinary traditions. Even today, the country remains a meeting point of the two main European cultural groups: it sits astride on the barrier which separates the Flemish, who have a Germanic culture, from the Walloons, whose culture is of Romanic origin.

Belgian food is still deeply ingrained in its medieval traditions; the recurrent use of spices such as saffron (Pass it please!!!), nutmeg, the abundance of vinegars, condiments, mustards, almonds and dried fruits, they all lead to typically medieval contrasting tastes such as sweet-salt (for example red cabbage with sweet apples served with salted bacon), sour-salt and sweet-sour. This all reminds us of the region’s rich history as an economic center, when its ports of Brugge and later Antwerpen saw all those exotic spices being bought and sold within their walls.

Belgians tend to attach enormous importance to the quality of the ingredients used in their cooking. Long before the great chefs of the world chanted in chorus that high-quality ingredients are “key” to great cooking, Belgians (and others obviously) had already realized and consequently applied this knowledge to their everyday cooking. Belgian cooking usually doesn’t mix a great number of flavors to create highly complex palettes (although such complex dishes do exist), but rather it will use several key ingredients and bring their inherent flavors to the fore. Hence, you must have high-quality ingredients, as there’s nothing to hide poor quality ones with. A typical example is a dish which is very popular this time of year, namely young potatoes with cured ham, demonstrates this very well. There are two (yes, only two) pivotal ingredients: fresh, young potatoes and cured ham, either salted or smoked. Once the young potatoes have been boiled, they are sliced and fried in a frying pan, with either good butter or for the waistline-conscious, with a neutral vegetable oil, such as sunflower seed oil. When they’ve reached a light brown color on at least one side, they’re served with several slices of good cured ham, and a green salad. As you can see, you must have good ingredients to start with or otherwise your entire dish is ruined. Typical dishes such as this one, give a correct image of the honest, rustic kitchen that can be seen as the Belgian kitchen.
A true reflection of their love of all things delicious and mouthwatering, is the sheer quantity that the food is served with. If you ever have the opportunity to take part in a Belgian family dinner, or a large family party, such as a birthday party or “kermis” (fair) parties, then you’ll see why we are called the Burgundians of the North. Tables will be filled to the edge with main dishes, side dishes, condiments, sauces, beers and wines. Trust me, if you’re a guest at one of these parties, the most common question you’ll be asked is “Are you sure you don’t want anything more? You’re full? Nonsense, have some of this…” Even a simple Sunday morning brunch or evening dinner (depending on the family), will feature pistolets (a round, golden-colored bread roll), sandwiches, wholegrain bread, raisin bread, and several pastries. To go with the bread, you’ll be able to choose from different types of hams, salami, paté, sausages, americain (raw ground beef mixed with herbs and a sauce – a Belgian favorite), chicken in mild curry sauce, chocolate paste and the list can go on and on. Suffice it to say, you will not leave the table feeling hungry!