Waterzooi - Flemish fish stew with white wine and cream

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cwrw gwent
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Waterzooi - Flemish fish stew with white wine and cream

Post by cwrw gwent » Sun Jan 05, 2014 8:41 pm

This is a recipe for a simple, yet satisfying northern European fish dish you're likely to find in Bruges or Ghent and it combines white wine and cream. It's very tasty and filling in winter

Ingredients (for three people):
1 large leek, chopped into threequarter inch pieces
2 sticks of celery, chopped into quarter inch pieces
1 large carrot, cut in one inch pieces and quartered
6 medium potatoes, quartered
black pepper
parsley
280 mls/half pint dry white wine
280 mls/half pint vegetable stock
230 grams/8oz salmon
230 grams/8oz white fish (pollack or coley is good and inexpensive, though cod or haddock would also work. Try substituting some smoked cod as well)
8 king prawns or equivalent weight of ordinary prawns
100ml cream (less than one fifth of a pint)

Instructions
1 Gently fry leek, carrot and celery for about 15 minutes in a large shallow casserole. The size of the casserole is important as you'll be steaming the fish in step 5.
2 Turn oven to gas 4/180C
3 Add black pepper, spuds, white wine and stock - it's important that the veggies peep over the liquid by about quarter an inch so don't completely cover them.
4 Bring to simmer and place in oven for about an hour while you go to the pub.
5 An hour later the spuds should be cooked. Remove casserole from oven, put on hob and lay the fish on top of the vegetables. Place lid on top and cook on high heat to steam the fish (probably six minutes for white fillets, ten minutes for chunky salmon fillets - depends on thickness).
6 Turn off heat, remove fish to a bowl and gradually add the cream - I use Elmlee double cream but fresh single cream will work. Just ensure that the stew is no longer boiling.
7 When the cream has been fully incorporated, stir in the steamed fish (broken into bite-size bits), gradually bring to simmer and add prawns. Heat through for a minute or two. Add salt to taste

Serve with wheat beer, pilsener, IPA, bitter, mild, the rest of the white wine or whatever takes your fancy. You can experiment with the quantities if, for instance, you'd like more spuds or less celery.

Dr. Dextrin

Re: Waterzooi - Flemish fish stew with white wine and cream

Post by Dr. Dextrin » Mon Feb 10, 2014 11:40 pm

Nice dish. I made this for the missus and she gave it 10/10 - so full marks to you and brownie points for me too!

BTW, you don't say what to do with the parsley. I just stirred it in at the end and all was good...

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cwrw gwent
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Re: Waterzooi - Flemish fish stew with white wine and cream

Post by cwrw gwent » Wed Feb 12, 2014 7:49 pm

Excellent - very pleased. I usually put the parsley in at stage 3 but think some fresh chopped parsley towards the end may go down well. Be sure to try Waterzooi if ever you go on a beer trip to Bruges, Brussels or Ghent and compare it with your home-cooked version.

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seymour
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Re: Waterzooi - Flemish fish stew with white wine and cream

Post by seymour » Fri Feb 14, 2014 2:52 am

Wow, that sounds delicious. Thanks for sharing!

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Laripu
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Re: Waterzooi - Flemish fish stew with white wine and cream

Post by Laripu » Sat Feb 07, 2015 2:32 am

seymour wrote:Wow, that sounds delicious. Thanks for sharing!
Cheers, I agree with Seymour. This is my kind of food. It won't be long before I try this.

Edit to add: when I do this I'll probably add medicinal amounts of garlic. :D
Secondary FV: As yet unnamed Weizenbock ~7%
Bulk aging: Soodo: Grocery store grape juice wine experiment.
Drinking: Mostly Canadian whisky until I start brewing again.

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