Every wednesday of October there are Bordeaux wine tastings in 5 trendy bars in Brussels. Last wednesday  6 and 9pm there were tasted more than 1200 glasses of wine or more than 200 bottles 🙂those ‘Brussels people’ sure know how to drink!  They have a wide assortment of red, white and rosé wines from the Bordeaux region for a price between 4 and 20 euro and op top of that they have foreseen some nice music to go with this liquid of gods!

 

So definitely THE place to be after work on Wednesday if you like great wine, great atmosphere and a vintage location

If I can’t convince you, maybe this little video can

For the next editions you have to go to:

woensdag 12 october at London Calling

rue de Dublin 46, 1050 Brussels. Metro Porte de Namur

Concert van Christophe Astolfi Trio

 

woensdag 19 october at Les Pénates

rue de Vergnies 42, 1050 Brussels. Metro Flagey

Concert van Alexandra Vassen (DJ set)

 

woensdag 26 october at Bar du Matin

Chaussée d’Alsemberg 172, 1050 Brussels. Metro Albert 3

Concert van Jack Fire

Hope to bump into you!!

Cheers

For everybody who likes the best food  you can get in one of the most beautiful Belgian cities! At the end of this month there will be a 3 day event in the city center of the world famous Bruges (Brugge).

The reason for it is that Brugge is one Belgium’s cities with the most star restaurants, pastry chefs and a few of the world’s best chocolatiers. That is why between 29  and 31^st between 11am and 9 pm of October the culinary event ‘Kookeet ‘ will take with participants like Karmeliet***, Hertog Jan**, De Jonkman*, Aneth*, Sans Cravate*, Patrick Devos, Bistro De Refter, ’t Stil Ende, ’t Pandreitje and the list goes on and on. The entrance to the event is free, but every dish that gets served has a price between 3  and 9euro (which is certainly reasonable as it are the best chefs preparing it). You can find the dishes that will be served on the following Link: http://www.bruggeplus.be/nl/kookeet

 I’ll be going, hopefully I’ll see you there!!

For all you guys that want to spoil you taste buds , you should really go to the Brussels Wine & Delicacies expo from 24 until 27 November.

This is not only a tradeshow for professional foodies, all us regular people are also welcome to enjoy the more then 4600m² of the best Gastronomy has to offer . What makes this expo different? Well  Wine é& Delicacies tries to focus on authentic ingredients and flavors from Belgium, France, Italy, Japan, etc…  like for example the champagne from Paul Hazard, in chocolate marinated Sauterne grapes from Chocolatier Verdier, handcrafted Roquefort cheese, etc….

Besides being able to temper your taste buds, you’ll also be able to feast your eyes on culinary demonstration (by kitchen aid), meetings with great star chefs, and list goes on and on ….

I’ll be going, hopefully I’ll see you there?

You’ll find more info on the Wine & Delicacies expo Brussels website

Sorry, this is especially for my dutch speaking followers.

From  October 1^st until November 15^th you can enjoy Flemish top gastronomy made by young and very potential chefs .

You can enjoy a 3 course menu for €45 with wines and waters included. Find out which are the participating restaurants on the  link below:

 http://www.vlaanderenlekkerland.be/Startpagina-home-Jong-Keukengeweld.html

I will certainly try one (or more) of them out.

Let me know which one you’ll be doing?

Tomorrow I’ll post another great recipe!

Saturday I was invited to go to the Electrolux Foodpairing workshop . What Foodpairing does, is looking at every ingredient separately from a more scientific point of view.  They will see which product would go with which other product, based on matching molecules… From all these matching ingredients they make a graphical overview, where they separated the branches of the tree per category (dairy, meat, herbs, etc…).  At this workshop the main ingredient was Jacqmotte Coffee.

The graphic works as follow: in the middle you will have the main ingredient and this product will match with all the surrounding products. The ones that are closer to the main product (in this case the Goudzacht coffee) are a better match then the ones further away… obviously this is just a small part of the tree. The tricky parts for Chefs would in this case of course be to find the right dozing needed to make the combination work at its best.  Did you  know that 80% aromas we perceive are actually determined by our nose? I discovered this for myself through the following test. Bernard Lahousse from Foodpairing gave us a covered tube with sugar, we had to close our noses and eat the sugar, after a few minutes, we had to open our noses again. Only at the moment we opened our noses, we noticed there was also cinnamon in the sugar….

I must say that I really enjoyed this workshop as you see food in a whole different perspective. During this workshop Masterchef Peter Coucquyt showed us how we can try to match products that you wouldn’t be matching in the first place.

When you think of matching coffee with food, I automatically think of desserts like café glacé. But would you think of combining it with salmon or bacon? Or using fresh coffee on top of a dish?

Not me (at first), but after trying different combinations,  I was really convinced that mixing products doesn’t always have to be about making the normal combinations (or expected combinations), because you might really be surprised what nice mixes you might discover.

Some of the Foodpairing dishes Chef Coucquyt and his sous-chef Marijn Roovers made for us:

• Patato chips (pringles) with Guyère cheese, vanilla oil (made in a few minutes) and grounded coffee
• Salmon salad with asparagus, lemon and coffee (this was the biggest surprise for me)
• Backed bacon with crispy onions perfumed with coffee

• Chicken wings cooked in coffee
• Braised chicory with a chocolate-coffee sauce and vanilla ice cream (very nice combination)

• Another personal favorite was the Mascarpone crème with coffee, slightly baked apple, quince jelly and cinnamon caramel (the combination of the quince and caramel gave honey taste…)

• And they even found a way to make the classical café glacé in more special way. With toping it with a foam of milk and liquori.

 You know what the best part is? That all of these dishes are also easy to make at home!!

 I’m really happy to have experienced this workshop and hope that I will be able to discover more things like this in the future. I also want to share that the location used for this workshop was terrific, it took place at the soon to be opened new offices and showroom of Electrolux – AEG Belgium in Brussels.

You guys can discover more Foodpairing combination trees on the Foodpairing websites:

http://www.foodpairing.com/en/home/ & http://www.foodpairing.be/

 Let me know if your experience is as renewing as it was for me?

Thanks to the Foodpairing team: Peter, Marijn and Bernard