**for the slow cooked beef**

1. Put all the ingredients in a big enough pot, cover with cold water and bring to a boil.
2. Once it boils a foam will appear on the surface, scrape this off, you can do this with a fine sieve or a (fine) slotted spoon.
3. Turn down the heat and let this simmer for a good 2-3 hours. You want the water to reduce by almost half. Don’t throw it away, you’ll need this stock for the roux!
4. Turn the heat off and let pan and contents cool completely.

**for the ragout filling**

1. Now that your beef is nice and tender you need to fish it out of the cooled stock. You could drain and sieve your stock liquid and either compost or reuse the veggies for something else – I just compost it.
2. Set yourself up with a chopping board and a couple of forks (or whatever tool you find most useful in shredding) and shred your chunks of beef. Again, the finer the better as it means it will mix best and equally with your roux.
3. Mince your onion to super fine.
4. Heat a big frying pan and add the butter.
5. Once melted, but not browning, add your finely chopped onion.
6. Fry the onion until translucent and no longer raw.
7. Add the flour, a bit at a time and mix it in your butter & onion until completely absorbed and it starts to form a crumbly ball like texture.
8. Add the stock (from your slow cooked beef) a bit at a time until you have a mixture that is sticky but smooth, gloopy but firm. This roux is the base of your Bitterbal filling!
9. Add your shredded beef and mix well into the mixture.
10. Add the seasonings and stir well. Add to taste, more is better in my opinion.
11. Let this rest, and put in the fridge to cool further and stiffen up completely (if your fridge space allows this, you can leave it in the pan).

**the making of the bitterballen**

1. Once the filling has chilled and stiffened enough (a good few hours?) you can take it out and start the process of shaping.
2. For Bitterballen size you’d want a little smaller than a ping pong ball, use a tablespoon for rough measuring.
3. Roll the filling into a little ball. It’s sticky work, wet hands (water) can help or a few extra hands/people helping to divide, roll & coat.
4. Work fast, as soon as you’ve shaped the ball, roll through flour to coat evenly. At this stage you could use a plate or other movable surface to coat all rolled filling until you’re ready for the next step. Don’t wait to long though.
5. Next up you roll your flour covered, ball shaped filling through the egg, swiftly followed by rolling them through the breadcrumb. You may get why it’s easier to do this with a few people and get a sort of production line going. Don’t get discouraged to do this though. They are absolutely worth it and doable by yourself. Just a bit messier
6. Once they’re coated in flour, egg & breadcrumb they’re ready to be deep fried. Make sure your oil is hot.
7. Do only a few Bitterballen at a time, so they’ll cook evenly and are cooked through (everything is already cooked so no danger of anything raw – save the egg).
8. Take them out once they have the desired deep brown colour or pop to the surface of the oil and float
9. Set aside on a plate covered in several layers of kitchen roll paper, just to have it absorb any excess oil.

Serve near enough immediately with an ice cold beer of choice (mine is Hoegaarden – a Belgian White Beer) and mustard of choice. I really like Dijon mustard, but any good quality mustard works. Personally I also like them either dipped in a little bit of ketchup or mayonnaise (or both/all three?) but that’s not for everyone.

Eet Smakelijk!