For ➍4 onions chopped
3 tbs sirop de Liège*
50 g butter
1 tbs flour or cornstarch
salt & pepper
2 cloves
1 bay leaf
1 sprig thyme
1 ts marjoram
Melt the butter in a skillet and sauté the chopped onion, 1 to 2 m. Add 5 ml water and cook 5 m on medium heat, while stirring (onions should not brown).
Mix flour and 20 cl of hot water.
Pour over onions and cook 2 to 3 m.
Add the sirop and spices.
Mix well and simmer 20 m on low heat to make the sauce thick and shiny.
Serve with boulettes à la Liègoise.
*Another Belgian fruit spread, based on pears, might do.
Café Lequet serves its meatballs with a slightly different sauce.
The sirop de Liège is a highly concentrated fruit syrup, made from fruit from the the massive fruit plantations in the Limburg and Liège provinces. The Meurens company in Aubel, near Liège, has produced fruit syrops since 1902 in the rural tradition of the Pays de Herve. The final recipe was developed in 1937, and registered in 1947 as le vrai sirop de Liège, the box showing the blossoming pear trees of Aubel. The sirop is made of pears, apples and dates, 400 g of fruit for 100 g of syrup, 700 g for the version with no sugar added.
