Moules Mariniere with warm stout foam & treacle bread 

I love the way that this dish came out, there are so many complimentary ingredients, tastes and textures to what is normally a standard classic dish. As a Belgian citizen, I take my mussels very seriously, so any deviation from the standard classic interpretations is very welcome. 

Firstly, it was the original presentation of shelled mussels in a glass container, (the first time i tried this I used a pint glass which also looked really cool), the topping of warm Guinness foam as if it were the head on a pint of beer, the crunch and texture of the celeriac, carrot, and shallots, there is a splash of truffle oil and a big flavour boost from the Hollandaise sauce reciple I described above that combines really well the classic mariniere recipe with the modern touches.   

To mop it all up, treacle and honey flavoured bread. I slightly overcooked this first time around, but to be honest, it's one of those dishes that has a very low food cost here in Belgium, so why not keep on practicing until you get it right?

If I was going to make my own Belgian version of this dish, I would replace the Guinness stout with a dark Trappist beer like a Chimy Bleu or Rochefort 10, and add a hint of specullaas spice to the bread as well.

Worth thinking about how you can make this dish your own.

What are the Trappist beers?

Pork and Mushroom Terrine

Let's be honest, this is a Pork cake.

I love the simple description in the book of "spending an afternoon making terrines" as if it is a "calm and civilized" experience, akin to having a wee dram of scotch around a log fire. No.

However, it tastes amazing, has loads of fun flavours that develop over the slow cooking and building of the terrine. I had to improvise using a loaf tin as I didn't have a terrine mould big enough for the recipe, but I think the end result was amazing. 

I used my own home cured smoked bacon for the recipe, which added another flavour to the pork, as well as pork shoulder, liver and belly pork. Total cooking time was about 12 hours to reach temperature. Then I had to dessicate mushrooms, when you only have one working aven, was another overnight job to dehydrate, then they are reconstituted with port. 

I had a bit of trouble trying to find a turkey leg to build the jelly layer, luckily I spotted one at my local supermarket, so I dilligently hacked it up and then followed the recipe to make a delicious poultry jelly that condenses 2 litres of the insanely good chicken stock into a jelly that sets on top of a layer of port infused mushrooms. It's about as good as it sounds. The layering process of the jelly means you build up a thick 1cm layer in different strata as the jelly sets. 

Final wrap up of this dish was to make pickled mushrooms, onions, and dill flavoured cucumbers, served with some freshly baked sourdough and a decadent splodge of truffle butter, which is a really nice touch. The final recipe calls for a shaving of summer truffles over the top, which I'll be honest, I skipped as it was a garnish too much for my pocket. 

I served this as a buffet dish in the end for my friends, they deemed themselves not worthy of the effort.  The recipe says it serves 12. I fed 10 people and then still had enough leftovers for me to eat it for lunch for a week and still not get bored. Amazing.

Chicken liver parfait with bitter orange chutney & toasted brioche

OK, I absolutely love this dish. For me, chicken liver parfait is the kind of thing that has been on most menus since the dawn of time, but I really found this to be a rewarding dish to make, and especially to eat!

There are 4 main components to the dish, the star of which is the chicken liver parfait, blended with chicken livers soaked overnight in milk, and foie gras. I had the perfect size lobe of foie gras that was taking up space in the freezer, so I was delighted to use this luxury ingredient, otherwise it is a very low cost dish to make which my food budget appreciated too.

Tom's recipe uses a Pacojet, a very professional piece of kit that is way beyond the budget of a home chef, I had a quick look and decided that my kids need shoes more than I need one of these! A pacojet essentially is a very clever ice cream blender, so instead of churning the blended parfait, I tried to make this as smooth as possible by passing through a drum sieve a few times, which seemed to do a good job. 

There is a delicious slice of toasted brioche, which has an unhealthy amount of butter in it! It's the only time I have toasted any bread and you can see the butter bubbling in the toaster! There is a really nice bitter orange chutney, in which Tom uses Seville oranges, but I just used the ones I had available and the result was superb.

Final component was the poultry jelly, using the same recipe and technique that you follow to make the pork terrine, but then adding vin jaune to the jelly, which gives it a fascinating flavour. Vin jaune is a wine from the Jura region of France, using a similar method to how sherry is made. I eventually managed to track down a bottle at my local supermarket in December, as this is a traditional ingredient used in festive cooking here in Belgium. 

I will award myself an 8/10 for this, getting a perfect rocher of parfait is something I need to practice, and my piping was a bit off, but as this is such a stripped down dish, the final plating leaves nowhere to hide! 

Click here to learn about Vin Jaune

Gala Pie with Matson Sauce

I love pork pies. I could just leave that there and be happy with the result. These delicious gala pies are about the size of a small apple, you get a perfectly cooked quail egg, then wrap that in a lovely pork mixture of shoulder, cheek, bacon, and then wrap in a layer of blanched spinach. All of this is then wrapped in caul fat, and finally a layer of crisp pastry that has been made with a goodly helping of lard.  

Matson Sauce, if you read the book, is an old recipe from "an estate in Gloucestershire". You are instanly carried away to the green rolling hills of the English countryside, and conjour up images of some Downton Abbey style country kitchen, with teams of kitchenmaids and butlers scurrying about.

Actually, it is a tribute to the curry sauce that Tom used to get from the chippy onthe council estate where he grew up in Gloucester. 

It's a lovely dish, and one that by now, I think I am starting to get the hang of some of the techniques shared in the book. I made a bunch of these over Christmas 2021 and then served them as a starter with the H&F Venison as a main course. The only ingredient I couldnt find was black mustard seeds, so i had to use yellow and mix it up with black sesame seeds.

The pastry was nice, the presentation was nice, the taste was nice, and I really enjoyed making them. 

A solid 8/10

Braised hare & pearl barley with foie gras and pickled quince  

OK, I cheated. I asked my butcher, I checked in every market, but for some reason, hares do not have legs for sale in Belgium. Don't ask me why, I love cooking hare and have done so many times, but this was one ingredient too far. So I used rabbit hind legs instead which was, for me, just as good, and I had some in the freezer, so I gave it as good a shot as I could. I browned the rabbit legs, then followed the recipe to braise them in H&F chicken stock.

The pearl barley has a beautiful, silky texture, and when it is mixed with the braised legs, it tastes amazing. I love the deglazing that the recipe suggests with honey and soy sauce, it's the same technique that is in the duck dish, and it works really well to get the sweet and salt together.

Quince is a very British ingredient, it seems almost Dickensian or even Elizabethan, to have "pickled quince", but it tastes great and provides a perfect balance to the dish. The hare tenderloin was nicely cooked, but I do need to find a pan I can cook foie gras in, as all of mine seem to stick. Hmm. The recipe called for frozen foie gras, but I just didn't have any so had to defrost what I had and slice it as carefully as possible. the leftover went into stuffing the Christmas goose, so nothing was wasted!

The chives are nice, I love the lemon thyme flavours, I think it is my new favourite herb. Overall, the textures and flavours of this dish are great, it's a really good winter warner as a starter, I dished it up a a main course a few nights before Christmas and loved every bit of it.

I'll five myself a 6.5/10 - the foie gras didn't work as well as it could, I didn't have hare legs, and to be fair, I probably could have tried a bit harder with presentation, andI'm sure if I looked a bit harder, I could see if hares have legs.

Salt Cod Scotch Egg

OK, this is an an absolute home run for anyone who wants to give this a try. Relatively simple, I've used cod trimmings, you dont need the best bits, which are cooked slowly as a confit with saffron, blended together with a smooth mash to make the brandade, wrapped around a perfectly poached quail egg.

The mixture is then wrapped up into a ball, dredged in flour, egg, and panko breadcrums, and deep fried  for a few minutes until crisp and golden. Two additional touches, a grilled slice of chorizo, and a delicious roasted red pepper sauce that I have made a bunch of times now, that is so good, it is probably my go to recipe for an alternative to ketchup. Practice makes perfect, 9.5/10  

Red Mullet Bouillabaisse

Loads of fun fishy things happening here, with a mighty kick of garlic to set your nose on fire. The wheatgerm crackers got a touch over-browned, but these were fun things to try and make, pressing fresh garden herbs, parsley, tarragon, and the very last of the edible flowers from my potager into the pastry, rolling through a pasta machine to make super thin, I'll definitely give these another try soon.

 Making friends with the fish guys at the weekly market in Jodoigne is definitely a plus, this recipe asks for a kilo of fish bones to make the stock, and they quite happily gave me a load of really good turbot bones which gives the soup an amazing richness. There are some nice refined touches, the roasted red pepper discs, a nicely cooked piece of crisp mullet, a rich fennel jam, orange oil, and a powerful garlic oil and aioli to keep even the most dedicated vampire at bay. 

Nice dish, good presentation, lose points for the crackers and the fennel jam could have been a bit better, but still an awesome dish to prepare. I'll give myself a solid 7/10 and work on the rest for next time.