Contains 250 recipes that reflect the cooking traditions of Belgium, covering the categories of appetizers, salads, and small plates; soups; fish and shellfish; poultry and game; meat; cooking with beer; vegetable and fruit side dishes; potatoes; waffles, pancakes, and breads; and desserts.
This Gourmand Award winner for Best Foreign-International Cuisine “will broaden your horizons to the left of La Belle France and you will thank it” (Mostly Food & Travel Journal). Ruth van Waerebeek’s wonderful compendium of Belgian recipes celebrates the country that boasts more three-star restaurants per capita than any other nation—including France. It’s a country where home cooks—and everyone, it seems, is a great home cook—spend copious amounts of time thinking about, shopping for, preparing, discussing, and celebrating food. With its hearty influences from Germany and Holland, herbs straight out of a medieval garden, and condiments and spices from the height of Flemish culture, Belgian cuisine is elegant comfort food at its best—slow-cooked, honest, and hearty. It’s the Sunday meal and a continental dinner party, family picnics and that antidote to a winter’s day. In 250 delicious recipes, here is the best of Belgian cuisine: Veal Stew with Dumplings, Mushrooms, and Carrots; Smoked Trout Mousse with Watercress Sauce; Braised Partridge with Cabbage and Abbey Beer; Gratin of Belgian Endives; Flemish Carrot Soup; Steak-Frites; Steamed Mussels; and desserts—some using the best chocolate on earth—including Belgian Chocolate Ganache Tart, Almond Cake with Fresh Fruit Topping, and Little Chocolate Nut Cakes. As the Belgians say, since everybody has to eat three times a day, why not make a feast of every meal? “Ruth is an engaging writer, plenty of stories and reminiscences pepper the text. . . . Bask in Belgian goodness, a cuisine that really deserves to be better known.” —Foodepedia
Belgian food and drink, often overshadowed by the those of powerhouse neighbors France and Germany, receive much deserved attention in this thorough overview, the most comprehensive available in English. Belgian waffles, chocolate, and beer are renowned, but Food Culture in Belgium opens up the entire food culture spectrum and reveals Belgian food habits today and yesterday. Students and food mavens learn about the question of Belgianness in discussions of the foodways of distinct regions of Flanders, Wallonia, and Brussels. Packed with daily life insight, consumption statistics, and trends gathered from the culinary community on the Web, this is the ultimate source for discovering what has been called the best-kept culinary secret in Europe. Scholliers thoroughly covers the essential information in the topical chapters on history, major foods and ingredients, cooking, typical meals, special occasions, eating out, and diet and health. He is keen to illuminate how Belgium's unique food culture has developed through time. Before independence in 1830, Belgian regions had been part of the Celtic, Roman, Spanish, Austrian, French, Dutch, and German empires, and Belgium's central location has meant that it has long been a trade center for food products. Today, Brussels is the European Union administrative center and a cosmopolitan dining destination. Readers learn about the ingredients, techniques, and dishes that Belgium gave to the world, such as pommes frites, endive, and beer dishes. A timeline, glossary, selected bibliography, resource guide with websites and films, recipes, and photos complement the essays.
Never Trust a Skinny Italian Chef is a tribute to three-michelin star restaurant, Osteria Francescana and the twenty-five year career of its chef, Massimo Bottura, 'the Jimi Hendrix of Italian chefs'. Voted #1 in the S. Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants Awards 2016. Osteria Francescana is Italy's most celebrated restaurant. At Osteria Francescana, chef Massimo Bottura (as featured on Netflix's Chef's Table) takes inspiration from contemporary art to create highly innovative dishes that play with Italian culinary traditions. Never Trust a Skinny Italian Chef is a tribute to Bottura's twenty-five year career and the evolution of Osteria Francescana. Divided into four chapters, each one dealing with a different period, the book features 50 recipes and accompanying texts explaining Bottura's inspiration, ingredients and techniques. Illustrated with photography by Stefano Graziani and Carlo Benvenuto, Never Trust a Skinny Italian Chef is the first book from Bottura - the leading figure in modern Italian gastronomy.
SEX, now we have your attention ... You order, get, and pay for your drinks at the bar. That was what was written on the menu of Mischa's bar. Mischa, and I together with 3 of our school mates wanted to become famous chefs when we were teenagers. We all started our education at the same famous hotel school in Belgium. In the end one would drop out, two would change careers completely, one would commit suicide and I, well I became a chef but never got to the famous part. This is a personal journey, recollected from the memories of a Belgian Chef de Cuisine, starting in the early '70s in Flanders - Belgium, taking us to Istanbul in 2021. A tale of lost innocence, first loves, sex, drugs, and an inside view on the restaurant and hotel business with its dirty scandals and secrets. A quest for recognition on the road to self-acceptance. It is a reflection on my coming of age and married life in a new country. The red line through it all is the tragic suicide of a friend, demons from the past, an unexpected confession, and a promise to right the wrongs that were bestowed upon the innocent.
Charcuterie, the art of transforming pork meats into various preparations as an array of dishes, has traditionally held a very important place in gastronomy. An art that demands serious attention by the chef, its success depends not only on the execution but also on the presentation. Chef's Guide to Charcuterie demonstrates how to transform lesser
Written as a series of interconnected essays—with recipes—Relæ provides a rare glimpse into the mind of a top chef, and the opportunity to learn the language of one of the world’s most pioneering and acclaimed restaurants. Chef Christian F. Puglisi opened restaurant Relæ in 2010 on a rough, run-down stretch of one of Copenhagen’s most crime-ridden streets. His goal was simple: to serve impeccable, intelligent, sustainable, and plant-centric food of the highest quality—in a setting that was devoid of the pretention and frills of conventional high-end restaurant dining. Relæ was an immediate hit, and Puglisi’s “to the bone” ethos—which emphasized innovative, substantive cooking over crisp white tablecloths or legions of water-pouring, napkin-folding waiters—became a rallying cry for chefs around the world. Today the Jægersborggade—where Relæ and its more casual sister restaurant, Manfreds, are located—is one of Copenhagen’s most vibrant and exciting streets. And Puglisi continues to excite and surprise diners with his genre-defying, wildly inventive cooking. Relæ is Puglisi’s much-anticipated debut: like his restaurants, the book is honest, unconventional, and challenges our expectations of what a cookbook should be. Rather than focusing on recipes, the core of the book is a series of interconnected “idea essays,” which reveal the ingredients, practical techniques, and philosophies that inform Puglisi’s cooking. Each essay is connected to one (or many) of the dishes he serves, and readers are invited to flip through the book in whatever sequence inspires them—from idea to dish and back to idea again. The result is a deeply personal, utterly unique reading experience.
Unfold the remarkable story of chef Edwin Menue, owner of Belgian Michelin star restaurant Cuines, 33 He wanted to become a professional motocross rider, but a serious accident shattered his childhood dream. That's why Edwin Menue directed his ambition towards another goal: the kitchen. Failure was not an option. After numerous internships at celebrated restaurants, chef Edwin, his wife Fleur Boussy and fellow chef and brother-in-law Frederik opened Cuines, 33 a unique tapas-centered restaurant in Knokke. Less than a year later, their drive, exquisite taste and passion were rewarded a first Michelin star. After Frederik left the restaurant, the menu at Cuines, 33 reflects Edwin's personality even more. His seasonal kitchen is characterized by bold flavors and a cosmopolitan flair. The restaurant's interior is as eclectic and colorful as the dishes. Edwin Menue finds inspiration in everything: an odd-shaped twig in the forest, a colorful tagine in Marrakech, the scent of Barcelona, a broken plate, a tattoo. This book tells the remarkable story of a chef for whom only the best is good enough. A perfectionist with only one goal in mind: to offer his guests an unforgettable experience.