Belgo Cookbook Hardcover – 10 Feb. 1997

I’m featured in it, so what’s not to like!

This is typical of the Belgo Centraal restaurant itself - all about great food and fascinating beers with lots humour. There's a quirky edge to the presentation, which is intended to emulate the menu design and raises a smile, but the food is taken very seriously and the recipes are excellent.The book opens with an introduction to London's Belgo restaurant and why it was established. It is then divided into seven sections: Moules, Frites, Biere, Cuisine A La Biere, Traditional Belgian Dishes, Belgo Specialites and Plus. Plus has special features including a brief history of Belgium and chocolate.A lot of the recipes are accompanied by excellent photographs of the finished dish, which is always helpful, but others leave it to your imagination. The recipes give both the Belgian and English names, the number of servings that the recipe is designed for, and simple instructions for how to assemble each dish.If you don't like mussels you are going to be seriously upset with the first chapter and much of the rest of this book. If you love them, you are going to be in ecstasy. There are good instructions for how to clean mussels, their shelf life, how to cook them and how to eat them. The recipes are wonderful, making the most out of the humble moule. Some are delivered in their casserole pot, (like the wonderful Moules Moutarde - mussels with mustard and cream) whilst the Moules Platters are cooked in the casserole but then arranged opened out on a platter, covered with toppings and finished under a grill or fried (like the simple but divine Moules Meuniere - pan-fried with lemon and butter).The chapter on Frites starts with a history of the humble chip, a discussion of the various national approaches to cooking it, and a guide to cooking them. This book goes with the fry-twice approach, which most chefs seem to recommend these days.It goes on to provide a history of Belgian beers, the types of Belgian beer available and what to drink them with, and how to pour the perfect glass, followed by a guide to cooking with beer and several recipes that use beer as a main ingredient. Getting hold of the beer might be a bit of a game unless you live near a specialist off-license - when did you last see Kriek cherry beer or Framboise raspberry beer in your local offie? But others use more mainstream beers like Hoegaarden and Duvel . Examples of dishes from this section are Duck with blackcurrant beer sauce, Chicken with beer, cream and mustard sauce, Pork fillet with Westmalle Dubbel Trappist Ale and Flemish Beef Stew. There are even two fruit beer desserts!Next, there's a chapter on traditional Belgian dishes, and this is the least quirky and most mainstream section of the book. The ingredients are usually easy to source and there's a freshness to the dishes that is very appealing. There are starters, main courses and desserts. Including dishes like scallops with seafood and cream sauce and shrimp and brandy bisque croquettes, it follows up with dishes like eels in green sauce, Salad Liegeoise (warm salad with bacon, new potatoes and green beans), tarragon spring chicken, black pudding with sherry vinegar, Belgian sausages and mash, and several wonderful Waterzooi (stew) dishes. There are several desserts including lemon tart and Belgian chocolate mousse.Belgo Specialities moves beyond the traditional and explores some of Belgo's signature dishes, including numerous recipes based on asparagus and leeks (both served simply with sauces), more mussel dishes, and others using some less obvious ingredients including snail and mushroom tartlets, warm pigeon salad, sauerkraut with mushrooms, and turbot with squid ink sauce. The mussel, cream and saffron soup is wonderful, as is the asperge meuniere, I am not much into desserts but the crepes look lovely, as does the triple chocolate terrine.Two criticisms, apart from the difficulty of sourcing some of the ingredients: The descriptions of how to make the various oil-based dressings (particularly in the asparagus and leek sections) really don't make it clear that the incorporation of the oil into the ingredients is a tricky business that makes the difference between a thick sauce and a pool of liquid. The second is that there are no instructions for making the standard and distinctive Belgian mayonnaise that come with the frites in the Belgo restaurants.I used to work around the corner from Belgo Centraal and we were regular lunchtime visitors there. The book brings back some great memories. If you are only interested in the food, you may be disconcerted by the number of pages dedicated to types of beer, but it would be a perfect gift for someone who is interested in both cooking terrific food and would have fun sampling the beers to go with it.

Thoroughly enjoyable read. the recipes are quite varied although there is an emphasis on seafood and despite Belgium being a northern European country, you'll find alot of the dishes fairly light. Recipes are clearly laid out and instructions easy to follow. Once you get to know your beers, you'll be able to play around with the beers (and even some of the wines) used in the dishes, and with over 1000 different Belgian beers being brewed, you'll not be short of experimentation. It's a shame Belgo themselves don't offer half the things inside this little gem of a book...

A good cook book.A great present for an american friend.belgian recepies with lots of flavorA nice present.

Good cook book.

Interesting facts about this special restaurant chain. I almost can't wait to eat there again.

cookbook of the much missed sadly departed Belgo, excellent straightforward recipes

Excellent book, can't wait to start cooking!

I read the book years ago and was looking to get a copy to use. The book is great if you are looking for mussel and frites ideas - which I was! My only gripe is that the book looks to be second hand as the pages are faded and the cover corners dented. Appreciate the book was published in 1997 however for the cost of the book and freight it wasn’t worth it. And to try to return it would just add more cost and time.