Recommendations
Braised beef shank with Zuidam Rogge Genever 5 Jaar
On the plate is stewed shredded beef that has been in the oven for five hours until it falls apart with a fork, in a dark jus of onion, vinegar and ketjap. Across from it stands a rye jenever that has lain in cask for five years and cuts straight through that sweet jus with its peppery rye note.
From the shelf
The bottle
Zuidam Rogge Genever 5 Jaar comes from Zuidam Distillers in Baarle-Nassau, the family business that Fred van Zuidam started in 1975 and where the spirit is now distilled by his sons Patrick and Gilbert. It is a rye genever of 35% vol in a bottle of 100 cl, cask-aged for five years; the label says which casks the bottling in question comes from. The designation jenever legally requires at least 30% vol and at least 1.5% alcohol from malt wine.
The combination
Why this works together
Shredded braised beef takes five hours of stewing in a jus of onion, vinegar and ketjap manis, and that gives a sauce that is sweet, sour and deeply savoury all at once. The risk with a plate like this is that the sweetness takes over, especially in the last bites. Rye is the grain that has the answer: it brings a peppery, almost spicy sharpness that a wheat or maize distillate lacks, and that sharpness cuts through the ketjap. The five years in cask add wood and dryness, so the jenever does not turn thin next to the long-stewed meat, and wood and reduced jus sit close together. The vinegar in the pan and the alcohol in the glass together take care of the beef fat. That keeps a heavy stew readable down to the last strand, and that is exactly what a rye jenever is for next to braised dishes.
At the table
The dish
- For 4 people
- Ready in 15 minutes preparation and 5 hours in the oven
- Type main course
What you need
- 700 g beef rib stewing meat
- 70 g unsalted butter
- 4 onions
- 35 g wheat flour
- 2 beef stock cubes
- 550 ml water
- 4 whole cloves
- 3 dried bay leaves
- 5 tablespoons vinegar
- 4 tablespoons ketjap manis
- salt and pepper
How to make it
- Preheat the oven to 140 °C. Cut the beef into cubes of 2 by 2 cm and sprinkle them with salt if desired.
- Heat the butter in an ovenproof casserole and brown the meat in batches of three minutes until golden all round. Lift the meat out of the pan with a slotted spoon and leave the fat in the pan.
- Cut the onions into rings and sweat them for 6 minutes over low heat in the fat left behind. Add the flour and cook it for 5 minutes, stirring, until it colours.
- Add the stock cubes, the water, the cloves and the bay leaves and bring everything to the boil, stirring. Take the pan off the heat and stir in the vinegar, the ketjap manis and the meat.
- Put the pan with the lid on in the oven for 5 hours. Take the lid off after 4 hours and let the juices reduce uncovered for the last hour. Remove the cloves and the bay leaves and season with pepper and salt.
In the glass
Serving
Pour the Zuidam Rogge Genever 5 Jaar at room temperature in a tulip glass, filled to the brim. A cask-aged jenever does not belong in the fridge; chilled you lose the wood and the peppery rye, and those are precisely the two things that stand against the jus here. Put the bottle next to the roasting pan and fill the glasses when the meat comes to the table.
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