Central Europe · Volume 22, Herring, Beer and a Coastline Three Nations Share
Waterzooi op Gentse Wijze
Ghent, Belgium
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 1 hour
- Researched
- 9 sources cited
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
Ghent's food history genuinely does trace to a major medieval freshwater fishing trade at the confluence of the Scheldt and Leie, and a version of this dish using multiple river fish species together is old. A specific legend, that the dish began near a flour mill whose spillage attracted easy-to-net fish, could not be verified against a primary source and is offered here as folklore, not documented history, and neither could the exact thirteenth-century dating, which rests on regional food-promotion sources repeating one another rather than a primary document or a Ghent municipal archive. What is solid: as river-fish stocks declined through the early twentieth century, chicken replaced fish as the standard protein, and the name itself comes from the West Flemish verb "waterzooien," to boil in water.
As tradition built it
Serves 4. About 1 hour.
Ingredients
- 1 whole chicken, jointed, or 4 bone-in thighs and 4 drumsticks
- 1 litre good chicken stock
- 2 leeks, cut into fine julienne
- 2 carrots, cut into fine julienne
- 2 celery sticks, cut into fine julienne
- 2 egg yolks
- 150 ml double cream
- to taste butter, salt, white pepper, parsley
Method
- Gently poach the chicken pieces in the stock, at a bare simmer, never a rolling boil, about 30 to 35 minutes, until just cooked through.
- Lift out the chicken and keep warm.
- In a separate pan, sweat the leek, carrot and celery julienne in a little butter for 2 to 3 minutes only, so the vegetables stay bright and hold their shape, then set aside.
- Reduce the poaching stock a little.
- Whisk the egg yolks with the cream in a bowl, then temper by whisking in a few ladles of the hot stock gradually, off the heat.
- Return the tempered liaison to the pan over very low heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens to a light, silky coating consistency, never allowing it to boil.
- Return the chicken and vegetables to the sauce to warm through, season with white pepper and salt, scatter with parsley, and serve with boiled potatoes on the side.
What a modern chef changes
The liaison respected as the whole point of the dish, and the vegetables cooked with real precision
Rung 4
Method
- Poach the chicken sous vide, around 65°C for about 1.5 hours, for an evenly, gently cooked bird with none of the risk a stovetop simmer carries of a rolling boil toughening it, then use the sous vide bag's own juices to strengthen the finishing stock.
- Blanch the vegetable julienne separately in salted boiling water for well under a minute, then shock in ice water, holding them at the very edge of raw until the final assembly, so they arrive at the table with real bite rather than the soft, khaki vegetables an over-long simmer produces.
- Build the egg-yolk-and-cream liaison with real patience, off direct heat, tempering gradually: this is not an optional finishing touch but the technical heart of the dish, and a liaison that has split from being rushed or overheated cannot be rescued.