Tonight's entry may be my most ambitious yet. Mainly because I'm homemaking two different dishes to be served together, rather than just producing an all-in-one meal. This has got me running in circles in the kitchen and worrying like an idiot. Because these are dishes I've never made, I'm using external recipes. Instead of listing the exact ingredients I'm using, I'm going to discuss how my own technique varied from what's listed.
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| Here's how the dough looked once I'd had my say. |
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| I'm not sure if it's because I used big chunks of dough, but these really seem less like noodles and more like little dumplings. |
Spaetzle is one spelling of a type of noodle native to southern Germany (the other spelling involves umlauts, which I don't care to fish around for at this moment). Really, they're more like small, thin dumplings. Tonight they'll be my side starch and general gravy sponges. I list them first of the two dishes I'm making tonight because the first thing I did is prepare the dough.
Following the directions exactly, the dough came out a little too clumpy, by my estimation. So, I added another 1/4 cup of water and about 1/3 cup of flour to even it out. After that the dough was nice and smooth.
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| Once all the ingredients are dumped in. Sadly, I wasn't able to get pics of the beef or bacon cooking or the onions sizzling away due to technical issues. The camera was grumpy. |
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| I cooked it down for about 1 hour 45 minutes. Here it is after I stirred in the mustard and parsley. |
First of all, I refuse to call a Flemish dish by a French name. I'm relatively ignorant of what they call it in Flanders, but I'm hesitant to believe that it is anything in French. Not that I have any political opinions regarding Belgium regionalism one way or the other, but it just seems disrespectful.
Now first off this recipe recommends using a darker Belgian beer. Specifically Chimay Blue. If you want to use the same style of beer but can't find Chimay, any Belgian dubbel should do. I'm trying it with a lighter beer, however: Leffe Blonde. In addition, I pulled out all the bells and whistles. Allspice, thyme, parsley, mustard: it's all in there.
Results
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| Candlelight. Beer in a goblet. Rich food. It says something about our society when a poor student can eat like a king. It says even more that most people would rather eat fast food than cook for themselves. |
Well. I have found something tastier than my step-dad's beer stew. Surprise, surprise, it is also a beer stew. The lengthy cooking time ensures that the liquid boils down to what is basically a beef-and-beer gravy, with a sweet tang to it no doubt gained through the incorporation of the Leffe Blonde. It might be fun to try this basic recipe with an unusual craft beef. Maybe make it with chipotle ale and serve it with rice and beans.
The spaetzle doesn't have much of it's own presence, which makes it perfect for a dish like this. It fulfills its role as gravy sponge admirably. When serving, I recommend laying the spaetzle out in a serving dish and heaping the stew on top of it directly. Give it some time to soak in the gravy before it gets to your plate.
As a side note, Both recipes produce about two me-size portions. . . but I am a six-and-a-half foot tall bipedal black hole. I suspect this could serve three or four mere mortals easily. An ideal dish for a dinner for two.
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| Once more I have made something that is fugly and delicious! |
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