Pork cheek-stew with homemade Belgian Fries! #food

This is Belgium's national dish (Stoofvlees met frieten) with a twist:

(source: dagelijksekost.be)

As I am preparing it now for a dinner tonight with friends, I thought I would share it with you!

Ingredients:

2 big onions (chop them fine)
3 kg of pork cheeks (cut them into pieces of 5 cm)
2 tranches of bread with mustard smeared on it
black pepper, salt
6 Rodenbach beers (25 cl)
Herbs: Thyme and Bay leaf

First we stew the meat golden brown so the juices of the meat stay inside. Season with black pepper and salt.
Then we stew the onions golden brown.

Make sure you do not burn the butter or the meat because we will put everything together again and poor Rodenbach into it, so all the butter that is sticking to the bottom of the pot needs to be absorbed by the beer.

Here we go:

I have poured in 5 Rodenbach beers so everything is just covered in it. Now we leave it on a medium fire for a half an hour, no lid, the sauce needs to thicken so juice must be able to escape!

After a half an hour we add the thyme and the bread and mustard.
The bread is for the starch so the sauce can thicken, and the mustard is for the taste. It gives it a bit of spice and bitternes, because the Rodenbach is quite sweet and sour.

Now lower the heat a little bit more and leave it on for another hour without lid.

After an hour it is ready, the sauce has thickened and the meat is incredibly soft but still juicy.

Serve with cut chicory and homemade fries and mayonaise.

Bon appetit!