We’re off to Belgium – home of fabulous chocolate and a mixture of French, Dutch, German, and Flemish cuisines – and really good beer. We’re trying to be good boys with the sweets, so no Belgian Chocolate desserts…

Doing a bit of research, Flemish people make up about 60% of the population, so it seemed fitting to make a Flemish dish – Carbonnade Flamande – a beef stew similar to a Boeuf Bourguignon but made with Trappist Ale instead of wine.

Naturally, there are numerous recipes all stating they are the ‘authentic’ recipe, so I have taken the best bits and combined them. And I was able to find a Trappist Ale mentioned in one of the recipes I found, so… onward we go…

Two beef stews in a row, but they are totally different from each other – truly worlds apart!

 

Carbonnade Flamande

adapted from several online recipes

  • 1 kg stewing beef
  • 600ml Trappist ale (I used Chimay)
  • 3 garlic cloves, minced
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 3 tbsp flour seasoned with salt and pepper
  • 3 tbsp butter
  • 250g diced pancetta
  • 2 carrots sliced
  • 2 onions sliced
  • 1 leek sliced
  • 2 tbsp brown sugar packed
  • 3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
  • 1/2 tsp thyme leaves
  • 1 tsp dijon mustard
  • 1 tbsp tomato purée
  • 400ml beef stock
  • a handful of parsley chopped

In dutch oven over low heat, caramelize onions until golden. Set onions aside. Brown the pancetta and set aside with the onions. Dust the beef cubes with flour and brown in batches. Add tomato paste to pot and cook until it starts to brown. Add the garlic, quickly stir, and then add the ale and scrape up the fond in the bottom of the pan.

Add the beef, pancetta, onions, and the remainder of the ingredients – except parsley – to the pot and bring to a boil.

Cover, and place into a 280°F/140°C oven for about 2 hours.

Add parsley and serve.

 

 

Since we’re not doing a gooey Belgian Chocolate dessert, we thought a Flemish roll was in order, so I made Pistolet – a Belgian roll that has a crispy crust and a soft interior. At least, the recipe said it had a crispy crust… It wasn’t quite as crispy as I was expecting. It was, however, really good and sopped up the gravy from the stew really well! The recipe calls for a pre-ferment, so start this the night before you want to bake the bread.

 

Pistolet

adapted from Chef Braakman

Pre-ferment (made about 12-18 hours ahead)

  • 200g flour
  • 160g water
  • ¼ tsp sugar
  • ⅛ tsp instant yeast

Final dough

  • 300g flour
  • 190g water
  • 10g salt
  • 20g honey
  • 20g unsalted butter (at room temperature)
  • 6g yeast

Instructions

Mix the ingredients for the pre-dough, cover and allow to sit at room temperature for 12-18 hours. You should observe loads of air bubbles and an unmistakably aroma of fermentation.

Add all the ingredients of the final dough into a mixer bowl and combine with the pre-dough. Mix with a stand mixer on low speed till all ingredients are incorporated. Increase speed one level up and mix till dough is smooth and elastic. Use the dough hook. If kneading by hand, mix dough in bowl till thick stiff and tacky, transfer to a well-floured surface and knead till dough is elastic and smooth.

Lightly oil a bowl, shape dough in a ball, and set into the oiled bowl. Cover and let rise for about 1 – 1½ hours, the warmer your home, the faster the dough will rise. The dough should be doubled in size. Half way through rising, uncover bowl and knock all the air out of the dough and let it rise again covered. This is called folding and helps to improve the structure of the bread.

Preheat oven to 200˚C/390°F and set a pan of water at the bottom to create steam (in the likely event that your home oven does not have a steam injector)

Turn dough out to well-floured surface and divide into 4 portions of about 220g each to make the long sandwich bread shape, alternatively, bread can be shaped into smaller round balls. 8 balls about 110g each.

Let the dough rise again for about 30 minutes.

Score loaves with a sharp razor blade or serrated knife just before placing in the oven. (Scoring is basically slashing the loaves strategically to control how the dough expands in the oven).

Bake with steam for about 15 minutes (for 4 loaves) and remove steam (remove the pan of water) and bake a further 10 minutes or until bread is nicely browned. Baking with steam creates a nice golden crust, if you choose not you use steam its not the end of the world.

Transfer immediately to a cooling rack.

 

They were good. Very nice flavor and would make a fine sandwich roll. There are six more of them so methinks some will be going into the freezer…

Two letters down – and many more to go… Next week will be C. I’m thinking maybe The Mediterranean…

Stay tuned…