Recipe: Gentse Waterzooi (Flemish Chicken Stew)

Last night I cooked this classic Belgian dish for my boyfriend and his mum... and they loved it ("that sauce is really really nice, you should make it more often!"). The recipe below is my adaptation of a recipe in an excellent Flemish book on Belgian Cooking - by Nest Mertens and Dirk De Prins (De Belgische Keuken, Standaard Uitgeverij, 1995). Basically it's a chicken stew, but in a very Flemish way: lots of vegetables and quite a bit of butter, cream and eggs (no wonder the sauce is so yummie!). This is the Waterzooi with chicken, the original version has fish in stead of chicken, but I haven't tried that one yet!

Ingredients
1 large chicken, cut in pieces
2 large onions
5 celery sticks
4 carrots
3 leeks
a bunch of curly parsley (it really should be the curly one, the flat parsley won't do!)
1,5 l chicken stock
100 ml single cream
2 egg yolks
juice of 1 small lemon
100g butter
pepper and salt

Cut half the vegetables in fairly large chunks (2cm), and the other half in smaller pieces (julienne). Melt about half the butter in a heavy-bottomed pot, and cook the large chunks of vegetables first, for about 15 mins (leave the lid on - or slightly askew - so the vegetables sweat and don't dry out). Take out of the pot, set aside, and add a bit more butter to cook the julienne. Again, cook for about 10 minues, in similar way.

Return the larger chunks of vegetables to the pot, add pepper and salt (but not too much - the chicken stock will have salt already). Put the chicken pieces on top, add a few stalks of the parsley and add the chicken stock. Bring to the boil, and let simmer for about 20-30 mins, until the chicken is cooked through (leave the lid on, slightly askew). The stock should be reduced by about half.

When cooked, take out the chicken pieces, and put in an oven dish to keep them warm. Take out the stalks of parsley and let the stock with the vegetables cool down for a few minutes. Mix the egg yolks with the cream, also adding a few spoonfuls of the stock together. Whisk the eggs and cream in the stock, so it becomes silky and creamy (do not let boil again as the egg yolk will curdle). Add the lemon juice, and a generous amount of the parsley leaves (cut up). Return the chicken pieces to the pot, mix it all, and serve immediately.

Best served with potatoes or bread (to soak up that sauce!). If you want it really Belgian, serve with chicory.