Week 14: Belgian - Sole Meuniere with Duck Fat Fries [Cooking]

Intro from Cooking Challenge: We all know about Belgian chocolate and beer and I’m sure you've heard of the waffles, but there’s a lot more to Belgian cuisine that we can explore this week. Similar to many countries, Belgium has outside influences on the food, most notably French and German, but they also have dishes they call their own. A few of the more popular dishes are:

• Moules-frites: mussels steamed with onions and celery, served with fries
• Waterzooi: stew of chicken or fish, vegetables, cream and eggs
• Chicons au gratin: a gratin of endives in béchamel sauce with cheese
• Stoemp: potato mashed with vegetables, served with sausages
• Smoutebollen/Croustillons: Deep-fried balls of sweet dough (Belgian fair food!)

As always, enjoy yourself, learn something new and have fun cooking! And here are a couple links for inspiration: The waffles here do look awesome, Lots of examples of typical dishes.

Disappointingly, I could not find any true Dover sole anywhere in the city this week!  So I was already starting at a disadvantage.  But it was still tasty - I followed the recipe found here.  However, the real star of this week was...

THE DUCK FAT FRIES.  I picked up a nice tub of duck fat from my local greenmarket and fried these babies up.  I have to say, the massive pan of heated oil for the first fry was possibly the most terrifying thing I've done in my kitchen so far.  But it was well worth it.  Recipe from here.