Top notch Belgian products go into in this lush beer and endive soup… Fresh endives, grey North Sea shrimp, a local strong ale and grated Belgian trappist cheese!
Here is a pure Belgian recipe!
Fresh endives, grey North Sea shrimp, a local strong ale and grated Belgian trappist cheese on toast! Witloofsoep in Flemish, but then my style… Nothing but delicious top notch Belgian products in this beer and endive soup!
The classic endive soup is mainly a smooth cream of endive soup, blended until soft and silky.
Belgian Ingredients
I just wanted to do something different here.
Besides, my husband is not a fan of blended cream soups. He loves chunky soups though. I do add one egg yolk to my endive soup to make it somewhat creamy without adding any cream.
Do you know endives?
Have you prepared endives before?
This vegetable is also known as chicory. The black endive roots used to be roasted and ground and used as a substitute for coffee, especially during the world wars in Europe.
Best Endive Soup with Belgian Beer & Cheese
Endives are a great vegetable: they are so crunchy, fresh, juicy and just a tad bitter.
I wanted to keep those characteristics and came up with a chunky endive soup. I thought that the bitterness of the endives would be a great match with beer, so I added a Belgian tripel beer also known as a strong ale from my local Carolus brewery in Belgium.
An delicious choice, hands down.
I also like to slice up the softer yellow tips of the endives and sprinkle them on top of the endive soup as well to add extra crunch.
Endive Soup & Grey Shrimp
So let’s move on to another delicacy from Belgium: the grey shrimp!
Also known as brown shrimp, especially in the UK.
I love those tiny meaty shrimp, their salty sweet flavor is quite hard to describe. All I can say is: if you have the chance to taste them, go for it. Check out my shrimp stuffed tomatoes (tomate aux crevettes) or my buttermilk mashed potatoes with poached egg and shrimp for more grey shrimp recipes!
And last but not least: trappist cheese!
Trappist
Familiar with trappist beers?
Some monasteries where trappist beer is made, also make cheeses. Why? Cheese and beer are a perfect match, better than wine and cheese if you ask me but that’s a personal opinion.
For this endive soup I chose an Orval cheese. It melts beautifully on some toast. Which brings me to my last Belgian ingredient: a slice of sourdough bread from Belgian baker’s shop Le Pain Quotidien!
Do you love endives?
Then also check out my endives wrapped in ham in creamy cheese sauce!
Enjoy!
Best Belgian Beer & Endive Soup Recipe
Top notch Belgian products go into in this beer and endive soup... Fresh endives, grey North Sea shrimp, a local strong ale and grated Belgian trappist cheese!
- 2 large fresh Belgian endives
- 1 cup Belgian strong ale (tripel) (240 ml)
- 2 cups chicken or vegetable stock (480 ml)
- 1 tbsp unsalted butter
- 1 medium garlic clove chopped
- 3 tbsp onion chopped
- 1 tsp strong mustard
- 1 egg yolk
- nutmeg
- pepper
- salt
- Add the chopped onion, garlic and butter to a large saucepan and place this over medium heat.
Gently fry the onion and garlic in the butter for 5 minutes. Then add the strong ale.
Turn the heat high and bring the beer to a good boil. Let it reduce by half and then add the chicken or vegetable stock. Also add the mustard.
Then turn the heat lower now to medium again and bring the stock to a light simmer. In the meantime chop the endives up roughly (you can keep some of the yellow tips aside for garnish). Then add the chopped endives to the soup. Season the soup with a pinch of pepper, nutmeg and salt.
Stir the soup and then take the pan off the heat. Cover the pan and let the endives poach in the soup for about 5 minutes. Then with a stick blender mix the endive soup for 3 seconds to make it just a tad creamier. Don’t blend it into a smooth soup, keep some texture. If you're using a blender, blend 6 spoonfuls of endives and stock and add it back to the soup.
- Add the egg yolk.
Whisk fast and place the soup over medium heat for another minute. Check the seasoning and add extra pepper, nutmeg or salt to taste. Then scoop the endive soup into large bowls. My favorite garnish: grilled trappist cheese on sourdough bread, a handful of grey shrimp and raw sliced yellow endive tips for extra crunch.
Cooking with Beer
I have been preparing and posting a lot of savory recipes with beer lately.
So I thought I might as well open up a brand new chapter about beer cooking and recipes with beer! I am sure that I will not hear any grunts or sighs. Quite a lot of food bloggers I know are very interested in cooking with beer and get really creative with flavor and food pairing.
No doubt that beer cooking is a very interesting aspect of our gastronomy. Don’t think that it is all sloppy stewed food! You might all be very familiar with one of the most popular beer recipes ever: beer and cheese soup!
Or beer sauces for steaks or fish!
Love it or hate it.
Classic Beer Cheese Soup
I don’t mind a good bowl of beer and cheese soup for lunch.
Luc and I live in a popular beer country. Belgium can count on more than 1200 different beers and an astonishing 180 breweries and it doesn’t stop there. So how does that sound!
Mind you, those hip micro breweries are popping up like mushrooms nowadays and a bunch of those craft beers taste absolutely great! Our hometown Mechelen has its own local brewery, Carolus (Het Anker).
Carolus
This brewery exports 80% of their beer to the US! And indeed, we often see our hometown beer in a pub in New York.
We once found our beer in a shop in Atlanta!
There is a lot of difference between beers: trappist, stout, golden ale, brown ale, amber beers…
But I am far from an expert. I know of a couple of beer fanatics who would do a much better job than me to pair food and beer.
My favorite beer of all beers?
Lambic
Lambic beer, a wheat beer from the Brussels region with its very own way of open air fermentation that results into a very fresh, almost vinegary kind of flavor. I don’t know about you but I personally just love that sharp sour kind of flavor.
If you are in Brussels, definitely go visit the Cantillon brewery: it is a small brewery and after your visit you can taste the different types of lambics. And buy them on the spot even if you want to.
‘t Hommelhof
There is this wonderful restaurant in Watou, Belgium that is famous for it’s ’beer cuisine’: ’t Hommelhof.
It is close to where I was born. The dishes head chef Stefaan serves are just absolutely outstanding… You can even choose for matching beers to go with your menu instead of wine. I love this restaurant to bits.
This is one of the best in Belgium if you ask me!
So how to cook with beer then?
Be aware of and know the dish you want to prepare and choose your beer carefully. You will probably use a blond ale beer if you are making light sauces and more a powerful and heavy brown beer for stews that have to simmer for a few hours.
Cooking with Beer
How about fruity beers for dessert?
Anyway, it is pretty much up to you and what you like!
Oh here is a silky beer soup!
This one is not as chunky as the endive soup you can find at the top of this page but this soup went down easily as well. Even the hubs who prefers chunky soups didn’t say a word but polished off his soup bowl in a blink of an eye.
It is flavorful and rich, packed with potatoes, thyme and mushrooms.
Just the kind of soup I like! Seems like I can never make enough of this delicious stuff!
Silky Mushroom Beer Soup
Since I was going to publish my endive beer soup I thought I would include this mushroom beer soup just as a little extra recipe. I made this soup quite unexpectedly, I was merely throwing together some leftovers.
I am glad I took pictures ‘just in case’ this beer mushroom soup would turn out to be a success. And it was! So here is bonus beer soup recipe for you! I hope you enjoy this one as much as we did.
Recipes with beer: I love it!
Enjoy!
Silky Mushroom & Beer Soup Recipe
Mushroom beer soup: flavor bomb!
- 5 large white mushrooms
- 6 oz potatoes (170 g), peeled and diced
- 1 garlic clove chopped
- 1 cup Belgian strong ale (tripel) (240 ml)
- 2 cups chicken or vegetable stock (480 ml)
- 1 sprig fresh thyme
- 1 tbsp unsalted butter
- 4 tbsp cream
- nutmeg
- pepper
- salt
Add the diced potato, chopped garlic and half of the butter to a large saucepan and place it over medium heat.
- Stir fry the potato and garlic in the melted butter for 3 minutes. Season with a little pepper, nutmeg and salt to taste. Pour in the chicken or vegetable stock and bring the potatoes to a boil.
- Then turn the heat lower and simmer the potatoes for 5 minutes. In the meantime clean the white mushrooms using a soft brush. Slice up one of them and roughly chop up the rest of the mushrooms. Add the roughly chopped mushrooms and the beer to the potatoes in the pan.
- Simmer for another 2 minutes. Melt the rest of the unsalted butter in a non-stick pan and add the sliced mushroom. Gently bake the mushrooms for 3 to 4 minutes until they start to turn golden brown. Season them with a little pepper and salt.
- Once the mushrooms are cooked, take the pan off the heat and put them aside until needed later. Remove the thyme sprig from the beer broth and blend the cooked potatoes, mushrooms and broth into a silky smooth soup.
- Add the cream to the soup. Check the seasoning and add extra pepper, nutmeg or salt to taste if necessary. Scoop the beer and mushroom soup into bowls and garnish with the browned mushroom. Serve hot.
That is a fantastic Belgian chowder June! The bitter flavors (which have almost being eliminated from modern diet) are usually derived from ingredients that have anti-cancer properties like olives, endives& some other greens etc. Which means a balance of flavors, like Hippocrates suggested, is vital for good health.
That being said, we never had an endives soup and the combination with shrimp and cheese sounds amazing! Thank you for another great idea dear June!
xoxoxo