R E C I P E S

Carbonade à la Gueuze (Beef Braised in Tart Belgian Beer)

By Edward Behr

Gueuze is a younger, effervescent form of lambic, the otherwise flat Belgian beer brewed with wild yeast, which gives distinctive flavors and tartness. This recipe for carbonade à la flamande — to use the more general name — reflects a conversation I once had with a Belgian chef named Yvon Schenkeveld, who might not agree with all my details. Traditionally, the liquid was either dry lambic, including gueuze, or the lambic mixed with sugar and called faro. Carbonade is also very good made with other amber and dark Belgian beers, and similar beer-braising is applied to other meats, including pork and rabbit (see lapin à la kriek). The beef for carbonade is often the French cut paleron (a muscle covering the shoulder blade, not an American cut) or aiguillette (bottom sirloin flap, from the hind leg), which provides marbling and gelatin. American butchers don’t break down a carcass into as many different cuts for different purposes, and when they slice the chuck crosswise into slabs, the best you can do is select one with marbling and cartilage, the latter for gelatin. Usually in Belgium the meat for carbonade is sliced 2/3- to ¾-inch (about 1.5-cm) thick, but I use thicker pieces in the hope of a moister result. The old cooking fat was lard. Restaurants reflexively add brown stock, but in the days when soup was always on hand, a housewife might add bouillon. The carbonade is sometimes thickened by cooking in it a piece of bread spread with coarse Flemish mustard; it would be better to stir the mustard in at the end, off the heat, to preserve all its flavor and bite — except that it doesn’t matter, since the mustard only distracts. A modern idea is to use a slice of gingerbread (pain d’épices), but the spices are at least as distracting — plain, simple flour is best. Traditional carbonade is sweet from plenty of onions, but if you use dry lambic, the onions don’t supply enough sugar and you must add some sugar to balance the beer’s tartness. Serve the carbonade with mashed, steamed, or boiled potatoes. Drink a beer whose bitterness or sweetness is similar to that of the dish.

 

3½ pounds (1.5 kilos) beef chuck (shoulder)

lard or excellent, fresh-tasting olive oil or another good, light cooking oil

4 or more large onions, totaling as much as 2¼ pounds (1 kilo)

¼ cup (35 gr) all-purpose flour

1 quart (1 liter) excellent gueuze or other lambic beer, such as from the Cantillon brewery

a bundle of herbs: 1 bay leaf, half a dozen parsley branches or roots, and a couple of branches of fresh thyme, tied together (or use dried thyme, loose)

salt and black pepper

brown or white sugar

 

Dry the beef with a paper towel, and cut it into roughly 2-by-2-inch (5-by-5-cm) pieces, following as much as possible the breaks between muscles. In a large, heavy pot with a lid, brown the meat well in fat, working in batches so as not to cool the pan by crowding — for 30 minutes or more. While the meat is browning, chop the onions coarsely. Remove the browned meat to a warm dish.

Over medium heat, brown the onions in the pot, adding more fat as needed, about 12 minutes. Add the flour, mixing it with the fat and cooking it for 1 minute. Add the beer while stirring. Return the meat to the pot, and add the herb bundle, 1 teaspoon of salt, and grindings of pepper, mixing all together. The meat should be almost fully immersed; if not, add more beer (or water, broth, or stock). Cook at a very low bubble, placing a heat diffuser under the pot if necessary and setting the lid either more or less ajar to help control the temperature. Cook the meat until a skewer slides easily in and, especially, out — about 3 hours.

Remove the meat and about half the onions with a slotted spoon; discard the herb bundle. Carefully skim the fat from the liquid. Boil it, if necessary, to reduce it to the consistency of rich but runny cream. Return the meat and onions to the pot, and heat them thoroughly. Taste, and add salt and a little sugar, as needed. Serves 6.


From The Art of Eating Cookbook

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