Starter: shrimp cocktail

Instructions

Cut the onion, garlic and chili pepper and fry this in a generous amount of oil.

Add the spices and stir well.

Add the wine glass by glass. Let the wine reduce before adding another glass.

Add the shrimp, and stir through the sauce until they are cooked.

Serve with the baguette.

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Main course: beef stew

Instructions

For the stew

Cut the meat in 4 by 4 cm pieces, season with salt and pepper in cover in flour. Leave for 10 minutes.

Cut the onion, carrot, celery and garlic in the meantime.

Preheat a large pan (preferably with a thick bottom) on medium high heat and put in (half) the butter until melted.

Sear the meat. Make sure all the meat touches the bottom. Do this in two batches if needed. Only turn the meat once and remove from the pan when seared.

Add the vegetables back in the same pan. Do not clean the pan! The remains of the meat give a lot of flavour in your stew. Fry for 5 minutes until soft. Add the meat back in.

Add the cloves, thyme and bay leaf, beer, apple stroop and stock. Stir through and let simmer on a very low heat (with a lid on, preferably) for 4 – 5 hours, until the meat starts to fall apart and the sauce has thickened. Check and stir regularly. The meat should always be completely covered in liquid, otherwise it will become tough. Add some water if needed (probably not needed if you have a lid on, but without a lid it might be).

For the carrots

Cut the carrots in half.

Preheat a pan on medium high heat and melt half of the butter. Fry the carrots until they start to caramelize.

Turn the heat low, add the remainder of the butter, the apple stroop and half a glass of water.

Put on a lid and let the carrots glaze. It is ready as soon as the carrots are cooked.

If your sauce gets too thick before your carrots are done, add some more water and put the lid back on to cook.

For the potato mash

Follow the instructions on the box!

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Dessert: panna cotta

Warm the milk and cream in a pot on a low heat. Don’t let it boil. Add the sugar and let dissolve.

Scrape the beans out of the vanilla pod, and add in the milk mixture. Also add the pods.

Let it simmer for 20 minutes. Don’t let it boil.

Meanwhile, soak the gelatine in cold water.

After 20 minutes, turn of the heat and add the gelatine. Squeeze the gelatine carefully to get rid of excess moisture. Stir in the gelatine until it dissolves.

Let the hot mixture cool down to room temperature in the same pot.

Sieve it to get rid of the vanilla pods (don’t throw them away – dry them and carefully dab them clean and add to sugar to make your own vanilla sugar).

Divide the mixture over 10 moulds (use coffee cups, or little dishes). Let set in the fridge for 4 hours minimum, but preferably overnight. Then you can eat them from the moulds or remove them from the moulds and serve with the sauce.

For the sauce: put the frozen raspberries in a small pan on low heat. Let them thaw until the raspberries fall apart completely and it forms a sauce (You can add a bit of water to get it started). Taste and adjust the sourness with a teaspoon of sugar at the time if needed. Sieve the sauce if you don’t like the seeds.