Rich Belgian flavours for a stay-at-home Christmas
This delicious menu by Meuwly’s chef Roger Letourneau features rich, hearty, old world flavours and techniques he learned while cooking in Belgium. The menu is designed the menu for four people, or two with leftovers. Every step builds flavour in the dish and some of the menu could be done in advance. Start prepping the roast a few days before. You could slice vegetables, steam potatoes, fry lardons, bake pears and make the streusel in the morning. You will be rewarded by the time spent, shopping, prepping and cooking. One thing for sure—buy the very best Alberta pork you can find at a local butcher.
To drink? Begin with fine bubbles and charcuterie from Meuwly’s. Pair the sweet flavours in the menu with wine with some residual sugar or red fruit and good acidity as the dishes are rich—Mosel Riesling, Kadarki, Cru Beaujolais, or a northern Italian red. Or, follow Roger’s lead and drink beer.
Pork Roast
Two techniques to build flavour and a crispy crust—applying the salt and gin mixture a few days before cooking, then rubbing the roast with sugar and spices after the initial cooking. This will keep the crust flavourful and crispy and the meat juicy.- Roger Letourneau
A few days before
| 4 lbs | top butt or shoulder roast |
| 1.5 % | salt, by weight of roast (if you don’t have a kitchen scale, count 1T salt per every 2.5 lbs (add a tsp extra if using coarse salt) |
| 4 oz | Strathcona Spirits Barrel Aged gin |
A few days before the meal, rub the roast with the salt and gin mixture. Leave out for an hour or two to absorb, then rub all over with olive oil and place back in the fridge.
Day of
Approximately 2 hours before cooking the roast, remove from the fridge and pat dry very well to ensure a good sear.
| Coating | Dijon mustard |
| brown sugar, pepper, gin spices (juniper, anise, angelica, coriander, cassia dried orange peel, crushed or cracked) |
Preheat the oven to 300ºF.
Place the roast (uncoated) in the oven on a wire rack if possible. If there is no rack, throw some carrots or sliced potatoes into the roasting pan for the roast to sit on to lift it up off of the pan. Roast until the internal temperature is 145ºF.
Once at the desired temperature, take out of the oven and let rest at room temperature for 20 minutes. (Keep in mind that the resting time will bring you up another 10ºF, and you are putting it back in the oven in the next step).
Turn the oven up to 350ºF while the roast is resting. Mix the brown sugar and spices together. Taste and adjust according to the amount of spices desired. Once the meat has rested 20 minutes, coat the roast with the mustard all around, followed by the spice and sugar mixture. Coating the roast with the mustard first allows the sugar mixture to stay in place. Place the coated roast back in the oven.
Once there is nice caramelization on the outside (roughly 20-30 minutes) take the roast out and let it rest for 10 minutes in a warm spot (not covered, as that would create steam and wreck the coating.)
Slice right before serving.
Tartiflette
A cheese and potato gratin originating from the Savoie region where potato is referred to as tartifle, giving the name to the dish. It calls for a cheese called reblochon, from reblocher, meaning to milk a second time, resulting in more cream in the milk.- Roger Letourneau
| 500 g | Reblochon, Delice de Jura, Taleggio or aged raclette cheese, whole piece |
| 1.2 kg | potatoes, small variety |
| 200 g | Meuwly’s pancetta, petit salé or thick bacon (cut into a small dice) to make lardons |
| 1 med | onion, sliced |
| 8 T | butter |
| 2 T | crème fraîche |
| 100 ml | dry white wine (Roger suggests wine from Aprement in the Savoie, or, you could use any dry, high-acid white) |
| olive oil as needed |
Gently cook potatoes in salted simmering water. Do not boil the potatoes too hard as they will crack and become waterlogged. Remove cooked potatoes from the water and cool. Cut them into quarters or eights if possible. Salt if needed and reserve.
While the potatoes are cooking, place the lardons in a pan and fry until just crispy. Do not overcook. Drain on paper towel and reserve.
Meanwhile, heat the butter in a pan and sweat the onions gently. Once translucent, season with salt and reserve.
In a casserole dish, place one layer of potatoes followed by a good dousing of olive oil, then half the onions and lardons. Add another layer of potatoes then the remaining onions, lardons and crème fraîche (spread evenly over top.) Slice the cheese in half horizontally so it’s as wide as possible, placing over the casserole to cover. Lastly, pour the wine over top.
Put into a preheated oven at 430ºF (400ºF in a convection oven) and cook until the top is caramelized. Aim for a nice golden brown on top—too much and the cheese will overcook and split. The shape of the cheese should be retained.
Beer-braised Endive
This is a traditional dish made in Holland and Belgium that uses caramelization and a couple other techniques to bring out the sweetness of this vegetable, counterbalancing the bitterness. If you’re averse to the bitterness of the endive, you can cut out the root before serving. Immediately before serving, add your strips of raw endive and toss them in the sauce.- Roger Letourneau
| 4-8 | Belgian endive |
| brown sugar, to coat | |
| 8 T | butter |
| Orval, Rochefort 8 or Trappist beer | |
| malt vinegar to taste | |
| salt to taste | |
| anise-flavoured spices or chicory root, optional, ground |
Reserve one or two of the endive to serve raw. Cut them in half lengthwise, then into quarters. Slice them vertically into long thin stripes and reserve for garnishing the dish.
Cut the rest of them vertically so the root is still intact on both sides and you have two flat pieces from each endive.
Heat a pan that has enough surface area for all of the spears to lay flat-side down. Toss endive in a handful of sugar to coat. Melt the butter in the pan and place your endive face down in the butter and let it slowly caramelize in the pan for 15-20 minutes. Add more sugar depending on your taste. At this point salt the endive on both sides and flip them over and start caramelizing the other side. If you need more butter or sugar add it at this point. Once the round side is caramelized add your beer (add enough so the endive is half-covered, allowing the tops to retain their texture from caramelization.) Add the spices and simmer until the beer has reduced by half. Adjust your seasoning to taste with salt, brown sugar and malt vinegar.
Roasted Vegetable Salad
This salad is easy to make and you can use any vegetables you want as long as you keep in mind the cooking times of the vegetables. For example, if you have really large carrots and your parsnips are small, consider halving or quartering the carrots prior to roasting.- Roger Letourneau
| 2 lrg | carrots, whole |
| 2 lrg | parsnips, whole |
| 1 sml | cabbage, sliced thick |
| ½ jar | Meuwly’s pickled golden beets or carrots |
| salt to taste | |
| olive oil as needed | |
| sherry vinegar to taste | |
| 1 bunch | parsley |
| 1 bunch | chives or green onions |
Pre-heat oven 350ºF.
Wash the vegetables and remove excess water. Place into a bowl with olive oil and salt and toss well. Be careful not to break the cabbage, keep the root intact. Once your vegetables are well-coated, place them in a deep baking tray or ceramic dish and cover tightly with aluminum foil. Place in the oven and cook for 30 minutes. At this point check your vegetables for doneness. The trick is to have vegetables that are soft enough to absorb a vinaigrette but not soft enough to turn into a mash—strive for al dente on the root vegetables and just cooked through for the cabbage.
Cool and reserve roasting liquid (if not too burnt) from the pan. Cut the cooked vegetables into bite size pieces. You could do diamond cuts or paysanne or cut them at an angle. Cut your pickled vegetables into small dice as they will be part of the vinaigrette. Chiffonade or rough chop the parsley leaves and finely cut the chives. Reserve.
Combine parsley stems with sherry vinegar, roasting liquid and salt in a blender. Make sure it tastes fairly acidic and well-seasoned. Next, blend olive oil into this mixture to make a vinaigrette. Taste again and adjust seasoning. Mix the vinaigrette with the pickled vegetables, chopped parsley, and chives.
When you’re ready to serve, toss your vegetables in this dressing.
Salt-Baked Pears with Streusel Topping
Salt intensifies the sweetness and peariness.
| 2 lrg | fresh pears (1 half/person is a nice serving size) |
| coarse sea salt, as needed | |
| Poire Williams eau de vie or pear liqueur (optional) |
Pre-heat oven to 350ºF.
Line a small cake pan (something with tall sides) with aluminium foil. Spread enough salt to cover the surface of the pan, about half an inch deep.
Cut the pears in half lengthwise and place skin-side down into the pan, pressing down lightly so the salt forms a bed around it. Drizzle the cut sides of the pears with a small amount of spirit if desired. Bake for about 30 minutes, until tender. (A paring knife should just slide through easily, but the pears should still be holding their shape.)
Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly. They can be re-warmed in a 325ºF oven just before serving if needed.
Serve warm, with a scoop of Little Bear French vanilla gelato in the hollowed-out part, garnish with a tart fruit sauce such as our Citrus and Ginger Cranberry Sauce, or the North 49 Haskap topping and have with a small glass of Poire Williams.
If you prefer a more savoury dessert, serve with a wedge of room-temperature Camembert.
Streusel Topping
For a bit of crunch, garnish with a quick streusel topping. Here’s one adapted from the King Arthur Flour cookbook. It can be made ahead.
| 50 g | flour |
| 50 g | brown sugar |
| 25 g | rolled oats |
| 25 g | chopped hazelnuts |
| pinch of salt (add salt to your desired taste—remember the pears will be well seasoned!) | |
| hefty pinch | cinnamon (1/8 t) |
| pinch | fresh orange zest |
| 50 g | unsalted butter |
Preheat oven to 325ºF. Combine dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Work the butter in with your hands until the texture resembles small crumbs. Spread this on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake at 325ºF until golden (about 10-15 minutes) stirring every 5 minutes.
Transfer to a room-temperature tray to cool down so it doesn’t keep cooking on the hot baking sheet.
Serve at room temperature. Extra streusel can be frozen and sprinkled on ice cream or yogurt.