So we booked our flight to Belgium for this summer, which cannot come soon enough. Get us out of this never-ending winter. Even more important, get us back to our beloved land of all things that are tasty! Just over four months and counting...
In honor of our trip, we recently had a taste of Belgium dinner combining two of our favorites: carbonnade à la Flammande (belgian beer stew) and pommes frites (fries). OK, so we cheated a bit and bought frozen fries, but they were of the Yukon gold persuasion- the closest you can probably get stateside. Even if we made our own they just couldn't compare to those from our favorite friterie (which will be merely a block away from our friends' house!), Maison Antoine. We did splurge, though, for a bottle of Belgian style ale for the stew- worth it!
I used this recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/beef-carbonnade-with-vegetables-belgian-beef-stew-recipe.html (I did not add the potatoes as we served it over the fries.)
While it may not have been 100% authentic, it certainly brought back memories of our favorite little under appreciated European country. It got us thinking of of all the chocolate, waffles, waterzooi, vol au vent, and frites we've savored during our previous visits; it also gave us inspiration for July: chocolate crawl, Liège meatballs and stoemp (which have both somehow eluded us for three visits), seeking out the ultimate Liège waffle... oh, and about a dozen more sauces chez Antoine! Not to mention bringing a spare suitcase for all those jars and bottles of sauces we'll be bringing back!! (That's in addition to the spare suitcase for our chocolate haul, of course.)
À bientôt, chère Belgique!
