The Ultimate Belgian Beef Stew Carbonnade Flamande Cooking Along the F1 Circuit | F1-R10

Lights out and away we go. Welcome back, this is Cece and we are doing another recipe for the Cooking Along the F1 Circuit. And this weekend the grid is heading towards the legendary, unpredictable and breathtaking Spa Francorchamps for the Belgium Grand Prix. And if there is one thing that matches the rich history of Spa, it is the rich, deeply comforting flavors of Belgium's Basically it means Flemish beef stew. And this isn't just any beef stew, it is a sweet and savory masterclass of caramelized onions, tender beef and a complex Belgian abbey ale that we're going to be using. And it is incredibly adaptable. So whether you want to finish it in an instant pot or a slow cooker, or do the low and slow on a stovetop, which is what I'm going to do. I've got you covered here. Plus, I'll show you how to switch up some of the ingredients to make it dairy free or gluten free without losing an ounce of that amazing flavor. Okay, so let's go through what we have on the board. So if we take a look here, we have all right, so I have two cups of beef stock. I have two large onions that I sliced in half and then half moons and then separated them because we're going to be caramelizing those so those onions will cook down. I have a five rashes of thick cut bacon that I just sort of sliced into pieces and it's at and it's at room temperature. We have three tablespoons of butter. I'm using an avocado oil high heat one because I'll be browning the meat to get started. We have three tablespoons of brown sugar, three tablespoons of the apple cider vinegar because remember, so we have this umaminess to the dish. So this is that sweet and sour combination that we're going to need. You're going to need two bay leaves. You're going to need some fresh thyme. And I have four large garlic cloves minced. And I'm going to take a couple of cloves as well full and I've just smashed them. And we have some, I'm using chuck beef right now for the beef stew. So I've just got small pieces in here. Again, you decide how much you really need. It can be up to two pounds in here or more depends on how big you want to make it. So again, get that nice and chopped. You can get that chopped down at the butcher or you can do that yourself. I always get it chopped down at the butcher because it just speeds things up. Okay. So, so what we're going to do now is we're going to start browning the meat separately. And plus I'm going to show you a trick on how people from Belgium thicken their stew. So it is a little trick that I'll show you at the end and that's not on the board currently. So I'm going to leave that to the end. So again, I'm just going to salt a little bit of the beef and I always make sure that I take my beef out at least half an hour before I start actually cooking it. I want to bring it to room temperature and the pepper again is to taste, but you want a minimum of a half a teaspoon and just mix that around so that everything has some sort of flavor to it. And the trick about this dish is really about browning the meat. As best as we can get all edges nice and brown. All right, let's go over and get this meat browned up. You want to put as much avocado oil that you would like to see this nice searing hot because we want to build a nice sear. Okay. It's nice. So that's, and remember we are not trying to cook the meat. We're just trying to brown it. And if you have to cook in batches, great. Then do that. You don't want to boil the meat, right? Okay. Now we're just going to add in the onions, the bacon, and we're just going to render this and get it nice and tender. Crispy, I should say, because what we're trying to do is we're trying to build flavor into the pot. You know, as we cook this, right? One of the things that I want to talk to you about is the coolest side effect about cooking is the, the coolest side effects of becoming a better cook is to really have like this superpower that allows you to mentally taste test the recipe as you're reading it, right? Because that allows you then to go, Oh, I know what that is. Oh, I could augment it with this or this. My family likes this, or, you know, I have some dietary restrictions. So it allows you to play those mental games, right? So think about it. When you first start cooking, you read the recipe, like a strict set of rules, and you just follow it to the T. But then as you get more and more comfortable, you start playing around in the kitchen, you start sort of developing your own internal palette of what you like, what you don't like. So you see I'm getting this nice and crispy and we rendering the fat. All of that is where the onions are going to be caramelizing them. So this is cool. And we want to get it near crispy. So the idea is, you know, do you add all the butter that I had said? I said three tablespoons of butter. That's there in case you need it. And depending on how fatty your bacon is, that's also another key element to keep in mind. Now, here's a trick. If you don't have time to wait 35-40 minutes to caramelize all of these onions, you want to speed it up. Just sprinkle a little bit of sugar into the onions. And that's going to speed up the caramelization process. And I'm going to add a little bit of butter. Tablespoon. Let that render down. So you see how the volume of the onions are just slowly reducing. The magic of this stew is all in the caramelization. It's in the sweet and the sour, right? And the sweet is going to be the caramelized onions. If you really want to like sweeten this up really fast, you could have used Vidalia onion. Oh, it smells so good. There's something about just caramelizing onions. Just mix with bacon. Just opens up the appetite. All right, see you in a bit. So I forgot to hit record when I added in the beer. So just before adding in the beer, I put in the minced garlic, sauteed that down, then poured in the entire bottle of beer into the caramelized onions. And I let that reduce until the liquid was about half on the pot. Now we're going to move everything into a Dutch oven and let's go ahead and take the onions. Let's pop that into the pot and then add in the remaining ingredients. So I put in two whole cloves of garlic that I smashed. I've got the bay leaf and the thyme put in there as well. And then just add in your beef, juices and all. And you want to put this on low, stir it all around. You want to get all the onions mixing in with the meat. And at this point, I'm adding in my extra salt. Again, it's to taste. And half a teaspoon of black pepper. And then we pour in the two cups of beef stock. And just let this simmer away. It's a great dish to do. Leave it on the pot, leave it on the stove, forget it and then go do something else while this renders up and cooks down. And I'll show you how to thicken the sauce with their special way of doing it late. So I was going to show you how to thicken the stew. So traditionally, carbonara is thickened by placing a slice of Belgian farmhouse bread slathered with Dijon mustard right on top of the stew while it simmers. The bread disintegrates and thickens the gravy beautifully. So this whole stew is about sweet and sour balance like I mentioned. And in Flemish stew, it's about that delicate tightrope that you walk between flavors and the dark Belgian beer that provides that pleasant bitterness while this massive piles of caramelized onions that we did brings in that sweetness. Now to keep the dish from tasting too heavy or cloyingly sweet, it needs the acid and the acid and sharpness balance, right? So the mustard traditionally is a sharp Dijon mustard or you can use that rustic wholegrain mustard melts directly into the broth as the bread dissolves, cutting through that rich fat of the beef and the bacon and balancing out the sweetness of the onion. And also, you know, sometimes that people in Belgium will substitute the farm bread that they use and they'll actually use pain de spiesse, which is like a Belgian spiced gingerbread. And what that brings to the dish is some warmth and festive notes of like nutmeg and cinnamon and cloves to the stew. And that's a great alternative for a winter stew versus a summer stew, which is what we're doing right now. Oh, take a look at that rich, glossy, dark gravy. Look at that. Oh, get those onions all melted in there. The little bacon bits, the meat, meat is super tender. So good. What I like to do is, is I like to sort of put a little tray on here. This is dinner for two and put a tray out, put the French fries on the board, put some crusty bread that we can use for dunking and just serve it with a nice Belgian Trappist beer. And this is exactly the same beer that the Belgian beer that I used in the stew. And so I want to show you the color of it. So this is a strong one. And that maltiness, that bitterness is what is in the stew. And it goes perfectly well with this particular. So I'm a firm believer if you put it in your, if you put it in, if you put any alcohol in your food, it is something that you also want to be able to drink. So let's give that a try. It's nice and hoppy. Love it. Oh, you got that bitter note. And then I got some caramelized note in there as well, but you do get that bitterness coming through. And that's exactly what you're looking for in the stew because it balances off with the caramelized bacon onions that we did. Now this dish is typically always served with French fries and you wonder why, because you can dunk them into your gravy. Perfect. So let's give this a try. I'm just going to take a meat piece. Oops. And I just want to show you how tender that is. The seeds is falling apart. Oh yes. It was definitely worth the extra time and effort you put in to caramelizing the onions and then stewing down the beef. Nice swig of that beer. Perfect. Oh man. I'm telling you that this is unbelievable. I'm picking at it. Let's try it again. The sweetness of the caramelized onions hits you first and then it's followed by that deep multi, multi, mult, is that a word? Multi? Complexity of the Belgian beer. And then that little punch of tangy mustard right at the end. It's the ultimate comfort food for this high-speed race. Let me tell you, it's so good. Wow. And the best part of this too is having the opportunity to just dunk it. I should be serving this on my own plate, but we're doing the shot here. Oh, that is so comforting. Wow. I'm super excited to get into that. Okay. Wow. Before we dive into this, let's talk about what happened at Silverston last weekend. Well, let me tell you, Silverston never disappoints. The 2026 British Grand Prix was so chaotic. It was dramatic. It was controversial. It's a controversial finish. I mean, you had like so many people crashing. Max Verstappen had a major crash. So disappointing. And on the podium, whoever, like who finished on the podium was Charles Leclerc, George Russell and Lewis Hamilton. They finished. But what was so amazing is that Antonelli was like excellent all weekend. He had pole position and then he couldn't get off the line. And Charles Leclerc overtook him. And then he started having car trouble as well. So disappointing. But you know what? If you think about it, Mercedes has picked up some extra points with George Russell being on second place. It's looking to be an amazing race this weekend. Lots of controversy. And let's see who wins at this beautiful, breathtaking Spa-Francorchamps track. And this track had its first race in 1950. So just look at this gorgeous glossiness that you got. And it is so tasty, so yummy. And if you just dunk in a little bit of bread in there. Oh, my God. So yummy. So there you have it. The gorgeous Carbonade Flamande, which is Flemish beef stew. It is one of the national treasures. It is ubiquitous everywhere. It is a great bar food that is served and it's always something that never disappoints. And it's eaten year round. So, so hearty. Once again, thank you so much for joining me today. Always greatly appreciated. If you're new to the channel, welcome. If you have not yet subscribed, hit that subscribe button, hit that like button and share this video to your friends and family on your social media. Tell them about the site. We are a small creator site and we're trying to grow the channel. We're trying to hit our milestone of a thousand subscribers and looking for everybody's help to get us there. Help us get us over the finish line. Once again, thank you so much for joining me. Have a wonderful day. Ciao for now. Don't forget to hit subscribe.