April 9, 2016

Flemish Stew.

stoofvlees

After I shared my recipe for a classic tomato soup, the idea dawned on me to share my recipes of other 'Belgian classics' as well. Next up; Flemish stew! Most of my fellow countrymen eat this dish with a big portion of our typical Belgian fries but to make it a little more special, I served this with oven baked smoked paprika fries. Oh.. usually this dish is made with beer but as I'm not a big fan of beer (I know, and I call myself Belgian), I left it out. If you want to make it the real traditional way, you can substitute part of the water with two bottles of beer (best is to use dark beer). Anyway, each family probably has its own recipe and here's mine:

Ingredients (for +-6 persons)

  • 1,5 kg of beef (chopped in small pieces)
  • 1 big onion
  • 3l water
  • 4-5 stock cubes (meat)
  • 3 slices of bread, smeared with mustard
  • butter (to bake the onion and meat in)
  • 2-3 bay leaves
  • 1 big spoon of cornflour (to thicken the sauce)

Preparation

  1. Bake the chopped beef in a pan so that all the meat has a brown crust (it doesn't need to be cooked through yet). You might need to do this in 2 or maybe even 3 times as it's quite a lof of meat and not all pans are made for such a large quantity.
  2. In the meantime, you can chop the onion and lightly baked (until glazed) in a large pot (the one you want to cook your stew in). Once the meat is all baked, you can add this to your onions.
  3. Take the pan in which you have cooked the beef and add a little of water so all the juices and flavor stops sticking to the pan. Add these juices to your other pot.
  4. Add the water and the stock cubes to the onion and beef and bring to a boil. Add the bay leaves. 
  5. Smear the slices of bread with the mustard (lots of it) and put on top of the stew. Let it simmer for several hours (I usually let it simmer for about 3 hours) and stir regularly. 

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