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Boeuf a la Flamande
For this national dish that part of the animal called the "spiering" is used, which is cut from near the neck. What is called fresh silverside in England answers very well. Cut the beef into slices about half-an-inch thick and divide the slices into four pieces. This you can do with a piece of four pounds. For a piece of four pounds, cook first of all four large fried onions in fat. Put the beef in the hot fat when the onions are colored, and saute it; that is, keep moving the meat about gently. Take the meat out and place it on a dish. Add to the fat two dessert-spoonsful of flour and let it cook gently for five minutes, adding a good pint of water. Pass the sauce through a tammy, over the onions, and put the meat back in it, and it ought to cover them. Then add a dessert-spoonful of good vinegar and a strong bunch of herbs. Stew for an hour, take off the fat and remove the bunch of herbs. Heat up again and serve.
This is carbonnade flamande in its plainest, beerless form — a vinegar-sharpened beef stew built on a fried-onion base. The one thing to change is the cooking time.
- Stew far longer than an hourAn hour will leave neck or silverside tough and fibrous; collagen in these cuts does not break down until well past that. Plan on 2 to 2 1/2 hours at a bare simmer, covered, until the meat yields to a fork.
- "Spiering" and silversideThe Flemish cut described comes from near the neck — chuck or shoulder in a modern butcher's terms, and the better choice here. Silverside (bottom round) is leaner and drier; if you use it, keep the heat very low and expect a firmer result.
- Dessert-spoonfulA dessert spoon is between a teaspoon and a tablespoon, roughly 2 teaspoons or 10 ml. So about 4 teaspoons of flour for the roux and 2 of vinegar.
- A good pintAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz (about 570 ml), not the American 16. "A good pint" means a generous one; add enough that the liquid just covers the meat and top up with water or stock if it reduces below that.
- TammyA tammy is a fine woven cloth used for straining sauces. A fine-mesh sieve does the same job — strain the thickened sauce onto the reserved onions, then return the beef.
- The fatThe recipe specifies only "fat." Lard or beef dripping suit the dish and hold up to searing; butter browns and burns at that heat, so use dripping, lard, or a neutral oil.
- Bunch of herbsA "strong bunch" is a bouquet garni: thyme, bay, parsley stems, tied so it lifts out whole. Modern versions of the dish often add a clove or two and a little brown sugar to balance the vinegar.
- Yield and servingFour pounds of beef feeds six to eight. Boiled or fried potatoes are the standard accompaniment, and the stew improves reheated the next day once the fat has been lifted off cold.
The Belgian Cook Book was compiled in England in 1915 from recipes contributed by Belgian refugees who had fled the German invasion, and sold in aid of Belgian relief — which explains the book's habit of translating Flemish butchery terms like spiering into English equivalents for a host-country reader. The dish belongs to the family of Flemish beef stews known as carbonnade flamande or stoofvlees, usually made today with a dark Belgian ale; the older, humbler versions like this one rely on vinegar alone for the sour note that cuts the sweetness of the long-cooked onions.