Trip to Brugge (Bruges)

I walk over to the Amsterdam Central train station to catch the 6:54 to Bruges. I’ve left my luggage at the hotel. I just have a small overnight bag. This is my last weekend working on my current project. I’ll be going home Monday. There are not many people milling around the station. The train is nearly empty when it leaves. I have my choice when I get as far as Antwerp. I can stay on the train and have one single easy connection at Brussels, or I can gamble a little. If I get off at Antwerp, make the five minute connection and make another ten minute connection at Ghent, I will arrive a half hour earlier. At Antwerp, I take the plunge. Wow! This station has train platforms on three levels. Wouldn’t you just know it. My new platform is up two levels and at the other end of the station. I follow others doing a run/walk. It was close. This train more than half full. At Ghent, the transfer goes smoother. The train is nearly full. It appears this is a very popular place.
Bruges is supposed to be the best preserved medieval city in Europe. It’s quite compact. As the train makes the final entry to Bruges, I’m deciding if it’s far enough to take a taxi, or if I walk it. At Bruges, I feel like I did at Oktoberfest in Munich, except that the average age is older and nobody is in lederhosen – or already drunk well before lunch. Everyone on the train moves as one to the exit, and, like lemmings, flows down the same street towards the town centre. I blend into the flow and move. There is no single site that is better than what I have seen elsewhere. However, there is indeed a gestalt to Bruges where everything converges to match the best of the best. Even the throngs of tourists can’t change that.

While following the flow into downtown, there is a periodicity to the buildings. First, there is a chocolate shop then a souvenir shop, a café selling mouille frites (mussels with fries), a pub with Belgium beer, a tea shop with Belgian hot chocolate and a confectionary with waffles. Repeat regularly. Partially there and I cross a city square decked out for the season and filled with booths selling crafts and food. I purchase a bratwurst with onions on a bun and try to keep from getting onions and mustard on me. Traditionally, that is a tough thing for me to do. After checking out the booths and finishing my food, I continue my way to the bell tower most recently made famous in the movie “In Bruges”.
On the way into town, my trusty GPS was confused by the narrow streets and the reduced access to the all important satellites that it requires to keep me going the correct direction. I went a couple blocks out of my way. It took me past a wonderful looking little restaurant called Saint Amour. Not the best name for a place where I’d be dining alone, but I was sold on dining there as soon as I saw that the first course in the pre-fixe meal was rolled pheasant breast stuffed with foie gras. I called for reservations as soon as I was in the hotel room.

Out in the city, I decided to hit those must see spots. The relic of the Holy Blood. The Madonna with Child. One of Michelangelo’s only sculptures outside of Italy. I don’t climb the bell tower. I’ll leave that to tomorrow. I find several of the top chocolate shops. I’d said I wouldn’t purchase expensive chocolates this trip, but that was before going to Belgium. How can I not purchase some there? I wander any street I see people looking around. Eventually I end up back at the hotel just after dark. When it came time to book a room for the weekend, I'd looked at all the usual suspects. The only place available was outside the old city walls. The town was full. On a lark I called the Crown Plaza. It's location was one of the best in the city. Right in the middle of everything. They said they were full, but since I had platinum status with them, they would find me a room. Excellent. Sometimes, living on the road for most of my life sucks. This was one of those rare times that having platinum status at almost everything helped out. Excellent. The only downside was that they wouldn't give me my corporate rate. It was the full 260 Euro for the night. Oh well, a couple nights at the Qbic hotel in Amsterdam made the price even out for the trip.
The restaurant is in an old wine cavern below street level. It has just enough informality in the formal seating to be comfortable. I am given a table set for one in the far corner of the main dining room. It seems I’m relegated to the periphery. That’s not uncommon. However, in the end it turns out that I have a front row seat to watch the restaurant. It’s a good location after all. The server flows in and out of English, Dutch and French effortlessly. Nobody looks obviously American except for the gentleman who is half of the couple seated in front of me. The server explains the menu in English. The couple nods at his explanation. It is only after he leaves I hear the couple start talking to each other in German. The dinner was exceptional. The wine pairings were well done. A couple items had me scratching my head, but others worked really well, despite what I might think. The foie gras lollie was the biggest surprise. Cold foie gras on a stick and dipped in chocolate. Delicious. Who knew? The food was traditional while playing to the recent trend to have more than one item deconstructed on the plate.







I slept in Sunday and used the day to complete those things I decided were final requirements before leaving town. I went to a café and had the continental breakfast including hot chocolate. That’s something the Belgian’s do well. I wandered around the residential parts of town as it woke up late on a Sunday morning. A few residents were out washing the steps and sweeping small gardens, walking dogs or heading out for a cup of coffee and croissant.

In some respects, it was a matter of killing time until I was hungry enough to have the mussels, frites and a nice Belgian beer on draft for lunch.


With that done, it was off to the train station with my overnight bag just that much heavier from my purchases. This trip has now created yet another place I have to come back to with Debby.

Goose Confit plus other bits

I bought a goose for Thanksgiving. I love goose, and it's a better amount of meat for a small family. It's also expensive, but if you use all of it, it's worth it.
I hadn't planned on taking any pictures and talking about how I make the goose, however, after a tweeple friend asked about it, I did some pictures. However, me, being me, I forgot to take pictures of the roasted goose breasts and the finished product. Perhaps over Christmas, when I plan to make goose again, I'll do it right. I'll also use up the extra bits I didn't this time around. I didn't take the time to use the innards, and I was castigated by friends for not making the rendered skin into cracklings.
Anywho. I broke down the goose into the standard 8+1 cuts. Two each of the wings, legs, thighs, and breasts. I consider the carcass to be the extra cut. I took the carcas and the extra skin and fat I had cut off of the other pieces into a glass casserole dish and into the convection oven at 225 degrees. After an hour, most of the fat had rendered out. I took all the large pieces and put them into a stock pot with onion, carrots and thyme to simmer for the day. The skin was put back in the casserole and put back into the oven to finish rendering.
You can see how much fat ended up rendering out.
Here's a picture of the stock getting started. I pulled a couple pieces out so you can see how everything browned nicely before going in for stock. Brown always means flavor. I let is simmer softly for about 8 hours. After that, the big pieces are removed. The rest is run through the chinois (fine strainer) and set aside to cool overnight. That lets the fat come to the top for easy removal.
The next day with most of the fat skimmed off it looks like the soft Jello if you've done it well. I've pulled up a little while it's starting to heat to show what it looks like. I set a medium boil and reduced about a gallon to about 4-5 cups. Basically, just taste it until you get the level of concentration of flavor you want. I set it aside, made a roux, put the liquid over the roux and made a light, but strongly flavored, gravy. I only needed to add a little salt and pepper to finish it off. It was spooned over the roast breasts for the finished meal. Back to the confit. After all, that's what this is supposed to be all about anyway.
After I broke down the goose and cut the extra skin and fat off of the legs and thighs, I rubbed kosher salt over the pieces, I minced garlic and spread it over everything. Finally, I used a fair amount of fresh tyme. It was all placed in a zip loc bage with the air squeezed out and placed in the fridge overnight.
After it was removed from the the marinade, it it looked like this. The smell was very garlicky.
Here's the meat going into a glass meatloaf container.
I layer the legs, cover them with fat, put in the thighs and cover it with fat. It's in the oven ready to cook. I've put a tray underneath to collect what boils over.
It quickly became evident that as the meat contracted that parts started sticking out of the fat. I didn't have enough fat, and a deeper container to cover things. I decided I needed a weight to hold everything down. I grabbed a mason jar, since it could handle the heat. I filled it with nails and metal items laying around the basement. I covered the meat with foil and put the jar on it. You can also see the probe thermometer in it. I set the temperature to keep the fat at 210-215 degrees.
After about 3 hours, the meat was pulling away from the bone easily. I removed the meat and let it cool a little. I separated the fat off the solids again. I removed all the meat from the bones. I placed it in a tupperware container and covered it with the fat. Here's a couple pictures.
The first shows what it looks like with warm fat.
The second after it's cooled.
Here's the breasts before cooking. I sprinkled a little salt and pepper on them. I took a cast iron frying pan and placed a little fat in it. After it was hot, the breasts were place in it skin side down. After the skin was crisp and brown, I put the frying pan in a 350 degree pre-heated convection oven. I cooked it for about 10 minutes with the skin down, turned the breast over and cooked for about another 10 minutes. I cooked it until the meat was 130 degreed in the center. I pulled the frying pan and let it sit while I finished up the rest.
Here you can see the finished gravy and some goose confit. I had previously steamed some fingerling potatoes that had been cut into bite sized pieces. I placed them in a frying pan with a little fat, added some fresh tyme leaves, a little salt and pepper and the duck confit that you can see in this picture.
The fat for cooking was the fat that came with the confit when I removed it from the fat. As soon as everything in the fry pan was warm, it was time to plate everything.

The goose breast was sliced thinly across the grain. It was cooked medium. I didn't try to get fancy in the plating. I just placed fanned out breast, some potatoes with the confit in the middle. Covered the breast with some gravy. Finally, I had steamed some hericot vert (French green beans) and placed it on the other side. Everything came out really well. Next time, I'll remember the other pictures.