Boulets liègeoises Lequet (Liège meatballs)

For ➓ meatballs
1 kg of minced pork & beef [avoid to mince the meat too finely].
2 eggs
15 cl milk
½ onion
300 g bread crumbs (or chapelure)
beef fat

1 liter of sauce:
100 g onions
100 g sugar
10 cl white vinegar
400 g Sirop de Liège [*never use a syrup with other ingredients than apples and/or pears]
salt & pepper
½ bay leaf
1 l water
200 g of white roux

Mix the ingredients for the balls. Roll balls with your hands. Dip the balls in beef fat at 160°C for about 15 m. [Caution: do not use the same grease for the frites].
For the sauce, mix all ingredients. Cook 45 m. When the sauce comes to a boil, lower the heat and wait 10 m. Remove the sauce from the heat, and bind with the roux. Pour the balls into the sauce. [The sauce is less liquid on the second day and often better].
Serve with real frites, fresh mayonnaise and a blond Belgian beer.

This is the way Café Lequet serves its famous boulets. Some cooks prefer to cook the balls in the oven. Try this with this sauce with some flour added.

Boudins d'Amay (Belgian pudding sausages with sweet potatoes, turnips & parsnips)

For ➍
4 boudins blancs de Liège (white sausages with pork meat, bread and marjoram)
4 boudins noirs (black pudding sausages) with raisins
4 parsnips
4-6 sweet potatoes
3-4 rutabaga/swedes (purple turnips)
1 tbs honey
4 onions
2 ts sirop de Liège
4 garlic cloves
3 ts mustard
4 ts cranberry jam
fleur de sel
Espelette pepper
olive oil
butter

Dip the unpeeled parsnip in salted water and boil for 15 m. Cool in ice-water, rub the skin off.
Cut the parsnips into thick slices and brush them with olive oil. Sprinkle with fleur de sel, and toast the slices on both sides on a grill. Drizzle with (mandarin) oil and give them a whirl with the pepper mill.
Meanwhile put unpeeled sweet potatoes, in an oven @ 200°C. Roast for 45 m.
Put 4 unpeeled onions in the oven and let them yarn. Peel the sweet potatoes, rub the sweet potatoes with olive oil and a little sesame oil, sprinkle with fleur de sel, a little Espelette pepper and honey. Put the sweet potatoes in a baking dish with butter and bake them a little more.
Peel the onions, arrange them with some crushed garlic cloves in a baking dish. Peel the rutabaga turnips, cut into cubes. Fry them briefly in olive oil and add them to the baking dish. Brown a little butter and spread over the turnips. Sprinkle with fleur de sel and pepper. Put the baking dish in the oven for 40 m @ 180-200°C. Toss a few times.
Mix 3 ts mustard with 4 (or more) ts of cranberry jam.
Slice black pudding sausages with raisins and white Liege tripes. Fry in foaming butter.
Arrange the sweet potato, roasted parsnips, turnips on the warmed plates. Dress the turnips with a spoonful of syrup of Liège. Put the sliced sausages next to a generous serving of the mixed mustard. If desired, garnish with parsley and sesame seeds.

*Alternatively, clean and slice the vegetables. Steam for 20 m and grill them lightly.

*Or peel the vegetables, cut  into small parts, preheat an oven to 200°C, put the vegetables on baking paper (each in  small group of its own), spray with olive oil, bake them for about 25 m. Dress the vegetables with honey, mustard & jam, butter, as indicated in the recipe.

Boulets à la Liègeoise (Liège meatballs)

For ➍
1 kg minced meat, pork & beef
2 eggs
3 large onions
handful of parsley
4 slices of white bread, slightly stale
20 cl cold milk
50 g butter

Remove crust from bread. Put the bread in a deep plate. Cover with cold milk.
Chop onions.
In a skillet, heat butter and melt the onions for 5 m. Cool for a few m.
Put the minced meat in a bowl. Add the onions. Mix with a fork.
Stir 2 egg yolks. Keep the whites for another use.
Take the bread. Press it into a ball to discard the milk.
Mix the bread and the meat.
Chop the parsley and add to the mixture.
Make 9 to 10 meatballs
Lightly grease a baking dish.
Place the balls in the dish.
Place the dish with balls in a 180°C preheated oven for 40 m.
Serve with sauce à la Liègeoise and frites. Drink a blond Belgium beer with it.

For the Café Lequet version.

Sauce à la Liègeoise (Liège syrup sauce)

For ➍
4 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.