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Belgian chicken soup Ghent Waterzoy

Belgian Chicken Waterzooi (Gentse Waterzooi)

A wonderfully unusual, delicious chicken soup with cream! A really different and tasty chicken soup enriched with cream and egg yolks.

gali nartja

Recipe author

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Composition / ingredients

Servings:

Chicken

500

Potatoes

Onion

Carrots

Celery stalk

Cream

200

Egg yolks

Thyme

0.5

Peppercorns

Bay leaf

Salt

Translation table of volumetric measures

Nutrients and energy value of the composition of the recipe

By weight of the composition:

Proteins 27 % 6 g

Fats 32 % 7 g

Carbohydrates 41 % 9 g

128 kcal

GI: 100 / 0 / 0

Cooking method

Step 1:

First, make the broth. Pour about two liters (8 cups) of water into a large pot and add the chicken (any parts work). Toss in one peeled onion and the seasonings: dried thyme, bay leaf, and a teaspoon of allspice berries. Set the pot over medium heat and simmer for about an hour.
Step 2:

Now the vegetables. Peel the potatoes and cut them into small pieces. Peel the carrots and cut them slightly smaller. Peel and finely chop the onion. Cut the celery stalks into small pieces too.
Step 3:

Whisk the cream (the richer and thicker, the better) together with the egg yolks, beating lightly with a fork.
Step 4:

Once the broth is done, take it off the heat. Lift the chicken out onto a plate along with the onion — you won't need the onion anymore.
Step 5:

Now strain the broth through a fine sieve.
Step 6:

Take a clean pot, pour in a little vegetable oil, set it over the heat, add the onion, and fry for five minutes.
Step 7:

Then add the rest of the vegetables: potatoes, celery, and carrots. Pour the wonderfully fragrant broth over them and cook until the potatoes are tender.
Step 8:

Let the cooked chicken cool a little. Carefully pull all the meat off the bones and cut it into small pieces.
Step 9:

Once the vegetables are soft and tender, season the soup with salt to taste and stir in the chopped chicken.
Step 10:

Now, stirring constantly, pour in the cream-and-yolk mixture in a thin stream. Stir well, taste and add more salt if needed, and cook for another five minutes. Your Belgian waterzooi is ready.

A classic Belgian stew and a traditional dish of Flanders. It's sometimes called Gentse Waterzooi, a name that points to its origin in the city of Ghent. The original recipe used fish, but the chicken version is more popular today. The most likely reason for the switch is that Ghent's rivers grew more polluted and the fish disappeared from them. Another hallmark of the soup is that the broth is made separately.