Limburgs zuurvlees recipe ~ a Dutch meat dish with fries 🇳🇱

Hi all 👋🏻

Today I want to share with you all my first post here in this community and my version of a classic Dutch recipe, originally found in the most southern point/ part of The Netherlands 🇳🇱 ~ Limburg.
We call it “ Zoervleisj ” (in Dutch dialect) or “Limburgs Zuurvlees” (sour meat dish from Limburg… but is it?)

I cooked it today most of the day… so my house is smelling amazingggg hahaha and I promised to share this dish recipe with @zakludick 😁 a few days ago, so here it goes!

So what did I use for this dish. Let’s see…
I need to explain a few things first before I officially start.
I cook and bake mostly intuitively… so I mostly don’t follow recipes, measures etc. and do what “feels right” 😉 if that makes sense haha

I add ingredients by taste and what I know they taste like and what combinations would work, learned by cooking for a long time now. Actually since I left “home” at the age of 16. My mom (88) used to make this dish and learned from her mom… my version is adjusted to my likings, so I left out a few ingredients. ( like jeverbessen, sugar and onions) It still taste great though…. I promise 😎

So next, I tried to make it easier for you to follow, so I measured most ingredients for you 😁

We take for 4 people:

• butter and olive oil
• About 600 grams of beef cubes. Any stew meat will do, but beef is best in my opinion. (In the old days, they did use horse meat… but let’s not go there)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Hot water, about 200 ml
• Vinegar, about 150 ml
• 3 or 4 dried bay leaves depending on size
• 12 cloves
• “Appelstroop” about 3 table spoons
• “Peperkoek/ ontbijtkoek” about 2 or 3 slices

(I explain what the “2 last items” are at the bottom of this post, and hope you have something similar or close to it to use in your country. I ordered mine on-line as Spain doesn’t have them)

You must think by now… oowww that will be a very flavoursome dish. And you are right. It has a strong flavour and although there is also vinegar in it… it is a sweet dish. 🥰

My set up.

The meat ( no it isn’t out of date, I took it out of the freezer and this is after defrosting 😉)

A heavy iron pan with lid

Salt, pepper, bay leaves and cloves

Appelstroop

As you can see it is very thick sirupy like, with lots of sugar from apples

Peperkoek

I cut 2 thicker than sandwich slices off

Next I fill a 300ml glass half with vinegar so about 150ml

I add water to fill it up.

Olive oil and a good chunk of butter

I add to the pan and heat it up on medium to high heat

While that is heating up I add salt and pepper to the meat

Almost there…

I add the meat just before the butter turns… if you like you can wait a little.

I stir the meat around so it gets quickly a cook on all sides

When that’s done I add the bay leaves

The cloves

To the meat

Next we take the water and vinegar mixture, add it to the pan

Turn up the heat higher…

I stir and notice the meat isn’t covered with the fluid

So I add more water to it to cover the meat like this:

Now the heat was turned up higher, it all is the same temperature. We turn the heat now to simmer…

Place the lid and leave it for about 2,5 to 3 hours.

I chose 3 hours as I like the meat to be so soft that it falls apart in my last process. 😎

So I had some time to look at Hive and comment and engage with all you lovely people 😁

Tringgggg the alarm goes, 3 hours past.

I look in the pan and see… there is probably to much fluids in the pan.

This next step is also my preference, I take out all bay leaves now and the cloves… the ones I find hahaha
Why you may ask? The dish will go very dark in the next steps, almost dark brown/ black. So You don’t see the cloves and can eat them if you don’t like the taste.

So mine are out of the dish.

Next I take out some of the fluid with a big spoon and set it aside in a glass, in case we need it later when the meat dish got to thick… I always can add back now more liquid 😉 from the dish itself.

I add now 3 table spoons of the very thick and sticky Appelstroop

After stirring

Notice it all is still rather thin. I turn the heat back up now to medium/ high.

I add the first slice of Peperkoek. This I do in stages as I want to see how the sauce thickens up.

The first one… it is still too thin so I add the second one.

I still think it is too thin after both.

I slice off another smaller slice of Peperkoek.

Add it and stir…

Yes, it is getting there… I turn the heat to low again.

Now as this bubbles away slowly. Not to hard…
I start to fry up some fries 🍟 to add.

The time for heating up the fryer and frying a small batch of fries is about 12 minutes. I fried the fries for 4 minutes.

The sauce thickens up nicely and is ready now.

Tringgggg the alarm for the fries goes off.

I places them in a bowl on some kitchen paper to drain the access oil.
I add salt to them

Let’s plate up 😁🤩

I present to you ”Limburg Zuurvlees” with fries.

Yes, we put it all over the fries 😉😁

And we Dutchies… do like to add mayonnaise and curry sauce on the side. Some even like it all over this dish. (But it doesn’t need any additional sauces actually…)

You can add if you like vegetables like cooked red cabbage or peas and carrots.
If you don’t like fries, mashed potatoes work also really well with it.

Now I still have some of this meat dish left, so I save it for the next day. It is warmed up the next day even better 🤩 can you imagine… 🥳🥳
You can also place it in a box and put it into the freezer for another day too.

As promised let me tell you what those 2 specific ingredients are.

First Peperkoek or Ontbijtkoek.

You can read more about it In this website from Wikipedia!

It states:
”An ontbijtkoek (literally translated breakfast cake) or peperkoek (pepper cake) is a Dutch and Flemish spiced cake. Rye is its most important ingredient, coloring the cake light brown. It is often spiced with cloves, cinnamon, ginger, succade and nutmeg.
Ontbijtkoek is traditionally served at breakfast with a thick layer of butter on top, as a replacement for bread, however, due to its sweet taste it is also served as a snack.”

You can almost compare it with ginger cake it has lots of spices in it too.

Next ingredient.

Appelstroop.

I found not much specific information about it, but The website of the product itself says…
that the Ingredients are:
”Ingredients:
Sugar beet juice and apple juice concentrated to spread with a 55% sugar content (natural fruit sugars). Fruit content: 140g apples per 100g spread.”
That website also tells you how they work and what products they have more. Have a look. 😊

I think myself that this Appelstroop comes very close to Maple Sirup. Just this is done with apples and sugar beet. Maybe you do find something similar in your country.
It just needs to be sweet and break the vinegar flavour in the dish up.

If you try this dish… let me know, would love to hear your opinion and what you think of it 😁
That’s all for todays #Foodie post. Until the next one! 👋🏻😎
Hope you enjoyed reading my recipe and seeing the photographs.
Thank you for looking and reading 😊 🙏🏻

Any questions or comments, let me know. Always happy to help.

Have a great day all 😎
Grtz Jackie

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