Drinks advice

Ghent waterzooi with Filliers Oude Graanjenever 5 Jaar

The deep bowls hold Ghent waterzooi: poached chicken in a broth with crème fraîche, baby potatoes and fine strips of celeriac, carrot and leek. Across from it stands an East Flemish old graanjenever with malt wine of at least five years old, which cuts through the milk fat and sharpens the broth again.

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Chicken waterzooi
Photo: [puamelia], CC BY-SA 2.0

From the shelf

The bottle

Filliers Oude Graanjenever 5 Jaar comes from Graanstokerij Filliers at Leernsesteenweg 3 in Deinze, East Flanders, a family business founded in 1880 by Kamiel Filliers in Bachte-Maria-Leerne and now run by the fifth generation. It is an old jenever of 38% vol in a 70 cl bottle, with malt wine of at least five years old; the bottle has a glazed finish with an embossed seal, modelled on a stone jug. Graanjenever is a protected designation for Belgium, the Netherlands and the French departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais.

Filliers Oude Graanjenever 5 Jaar

The combination

Why this works together

Waterzooi is a dish of cream and stock, and that is a difficult combination to pour something beside: the milk fat coats the tongue and the stock is too delicate to fight with anything heavy. An old grain jenever with five-year-old malt wine does two things here, and both are needed. The 38% alcohol breaks up the milk fat, so the stock and the celeriac can be told apart again after every sip, and the mature malt wine brings a grain sweetness that nestles in beside cream instead of working against it. That works because cream and mature malt have the same soft, round structure; had a young jenever been poured here, the stock would have received only alcohol and no body. The poached chicken is mild enough to give the jenever room, and the lemon juice in the cooking liquid keeps the whole on the fresh side.

At the table

The dish

  • For 4 people
  • Ready in 35 minutes
  • Type main course

What you need

  • 350 g baby potatoes
  • half a celeriac
  • 1 small winter carrot
  • 1 thin leek
  • half a lemon
  • one and a half chicken stock cubes
  • 750 ml water
  • 300 g chicken breast
  • 200 ml crème fraîche
  • 2 sprigs of celery leaves
  • freshly ground pepper

How to make it

  1. Boil the baby potatoes until almost done according to the instructions on the packaging, drain them and let them cool. Peel the celeriac, cut it into slabs and then into thin strips.
  2. Scrape the winter carrot. Halve the leek lengthwise and wash it well. Cut the leek and the carrot into strips of the same size as the celeriac.
  3. Bring 750 ml water with the juice of the half lemon to the boil and crumble the stock cubes into it.
  4. Halve the chicken breasts. Turn the heat down low, stir the crème fraîche into the stock and poach the chicken in it for about 5 minutes.
  5. Add the baby potatoes and the vegetable strips and let everything simmer gently for another 3 minutes. Season with pepper, spoon the waterzooi into deep plates and garnish with the celery leaf.

In the glass

Serving

Serve the Filliers Oude Graanjenever 5 Jaar at room temperature in a tulip glass, filled to the brim. Old grain jenever is not meant to be chilled; the five-year-old malt wine is the layer that stands beside the cream here, and cold pushes it away. Put the bottle beside the plates and only fill the glasses once the waterzooi has been served.

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