Recommendations

Fried balkenbrij with Schermer Moutwijn

In the pan lie slices of balkenbrij a centimetre thick, dredged in flour and fried dark brown in butter until crisp on the outside and soft inside, with coarse mustard and bread alongside. Opposite stands a matured malt-wine jenever of forty percent, which with its grain and bread notes sits on the same level as the flour in the balkenbrij.

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From the shelf

The bottle

Schermer Moutwijn is an aged malt wine genever of 40% vol in a 100 cl bottle. The bottle comes from the Netherlands; nothing is fixed about the location of the distillery or the maturation period that we have been able to verify, and we therefore state only the designation, the alcohol percentage and the volume. Malt wine is a grain distillate distilled three to four times in the still, and in a malt wine genever that distillate makes up the largest part of the alcohol rather than a contribution to a grain base. That explains the full, bready character of this style.

Schermer Moutwijn

The combination

Why this works together

Balkenbrij is a dish of leftover pork and offal, cooked with flour and flavoured with rommelkruid, a spice mix that includes liquorice, aniseed, cinnamon and ginger. It is rich, soft and spiced all at once, and its main ingredient is actually flour. That is exactly why a malt wine genever makes such sense here: malt wine is distilled from a grain mash and, after three or four distillation runs, keeps a bready, dense grain flavour that sits right alongside the fried flour of the brij. The liquorice and aniseed in the rommelkruid also find their match in the botanicals genever is usually distilled with. The forty percent alcohol does the work that butter-fried offal calls for and cuts through the fat. A young genever would only wash this dish away without catching it.

At the table

The dish

  • For 4 people
  • Ready in 20 minutes
  • Type starter

What you need

  • 600 g balkenbrij from the butcher
  • 3 tablespoons wheat flour
  • 30 g butter
  • 4 tablespoons coarse mustard
  • 4 slices of sturdy brown bread
  • freshly ground pepper

How to make it

  1. Cut the balkenbrij into slices about 1 cm thick.
  2. Sprinkle the flour on a plate, season it with pepper and turn the slices in the flour on both sides. Shake off the excess flour.
  3. Heat the butter in a frying pan until it starts to foam and turn the heat to medium.
  4. Place the slices in the pan and fry them for about 4 minutes per side, until they are dark brown and crisp on the outside. Turn them over carefully, because warm balkenbrij is soft.
  5. Let the slices drain briefly on kitchen paper.
  6. Lay the slices on the bread or loose on a plate, with the mustard next to them.

In the glass

Serving

Serve the Schermer Moutwijn at room temperature in a tulip glass, filled to the rim. Maltwine genever is a distinctly grain-rich style and needs warmth: at about 18 °C the bread-like layer that is the whole point here comes loose. Chilled, nothing of it is left. Keep the glass small, because this style is full-bodied and so is the mash.

Everything about Schermer MoutwijnBack to Recommendations from ’t Bockje

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