Waterzooi Belgian Fish Stew

 

Other countries name their soups really cool names. Or maybe it’s just the language thing.  My current example is Waterzooi Belgian fish Stew with Flemish roots.  It’s origin in the East or West Flanders region of Belgium determines whether it’s made with fish or chicken.

 

 

I opted to go with fish to diversify this week’s protein and therefore today’s recipe is Gentse Waterzooi van Tarbot, or Ghent style Turbot stew.  Because Ghent was, and is tied to the sea, and meat was somewhat of a rarity in East Flanders centuries ago, this soup is chock full of chopped fish. Belgians are pretty passionate about their soup and exactly what kind of fish should be used is often the topic of healthy debate.  A very interesting article in the New York Times notes that purists will contend that a fish waterzooi should be based on Belgian perch, and perch alone. Others say that a good fish waterzooi will have eel, carp and pike along with perch. Still others will say that waterzooi should reflect all of Belgium and be a melange of perch, turbot, St. Pierre, mussels, crayfish and gray shrimp.  While all sounded good, I figured it’d be pretty hard to find eel, and if I did manage to find it, emotional trauma might ensue (I hate snakes…and all things slithery).  Therefore, the recipe I used I adopted from Saveur magazine which recommended using halibut, but I really think any white fish would work.

 

The element that makes this soup different that any other type of soup I’ve ever made is that it uses egg yolks to add to the creaminess.  By tempering the eggs, when blended when cream (or in my case, 2% milk), the broth is deliciously smooth without the heaviness that would come from a cream-only base.  Interesting approach, methinks

The vegetable base had me once again using leeks. I swear, since starting this project a month ago, I’ve never eaten so many leeks and I honestly didn’t’ know what I was missing. I’m a leek convert!  As for the rest of the veggies, it lends itself to variation the way that American-style chicken soup does: carrots, potatoes, peas, celery- whatever floats your boat.  I think that fish stock would be the best and significantly add to the flavor, and luckily I had some lobster stock in the freezer from my Lobster Chowder, so I just used that.  However, if you don’t have any fish or seafood based stock, chicken would work just as well. Anything, in my opinion, is better than using water alone.

The most time consuming aspect of this recipe is the prep- chopping all the veggies. Once that’s done, the soup itself takes about 30 minutes.