Belgium Unit

I think, and I could be wrong, my parents visited Belgium once when I was a kid. If I’m recalling this story correctly, they went to go visit one of my Dad’s friends, and my grandparents stayed with my brother and me. The only story I remember from that trip had something to do with a boat, and pulling out part of the pier, maybe? Okay, that doesn’t really have much to do with Belgium, but that’s what I think of. In reality, it’s an interesting country, so I had fun with our Belgium unit and added it into our geography lessons. I’ll be adding this into our Europe Unit, which is growing quite nicely.

(maybe affiliate links, I don’t really know, maybe I’ll link to capers?)

Belgium resources

Again, like is becoming all too common, there are no books at my library for Belgium, so our Belgium unit kicked off and was finished with watching the Geography Now Belgium video, and doing a quick Google search to find a bit more information.

Belgium Recipe: fish

I looked up Belgium recipes, and after scrolling through several that flat out said this is a French recipe with a Belgium twist. I hadn’t watched the Geography Now video before looking up the recipes, so it didn’t make sense at the time. 

NOW, I understand the reason, Belgium was carved out of France, or parts of it were. Let’s head over to our:

Belgium recipe, lemon fish, where I made everyone unhappy, and I kinda didn’t follow completely.

Belgium recipe ingredients

• 5 tilapia filets (the original says sole, but this is what I could get)
• 6 T flour
• salt and pepper to taste
• 3 T olive oil
• 6 T butter
• 1 lemon, juice only (which I first zested so I could use the zest in scones)
• 2 T capers (optional)

Let’s make this fish!

1. Coat the fish in flour (with that salt and pepper to taste)
2. Heat the oil. Cook the fish, flipping to ensure both sides are cooked.
3. Take fish out of pan, and melt the butter, then mix in the lemon juice and capers.
4. Put the fish back in, and get it all nice and covered in your lemon butter mixture.

Reactions to the fish….

Okay, here’s the thing. Only Princess and I like lemon on fish. However, I don’t really like capers, and I only put them on because I figured other people in my family do like capers.

I was wrong. Batman ate them and grimaced.

Jeff and Superman complained about the lemon, even though for their fish I put less than half the lemon juice called for.

Oh, and then as I was re-reading the instructions on the post, I realized the recipe was actually a french recipe.

SIGH.

And just as a side note, we used this as our main meal as we watched Maze Runner along with a Serbian dairy spread that I absolutely adored.

Yield: 5 fish filet

Belgium lemon fish

Print

This Belgium lemon fish filet is a great addition to your seafood recipes if you like citrus dishes.

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 5 tilapia fillets
• 6 tablespoons flour
• salt and pepper to taste
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 6 tablespoons butter
• 1 lemon, juice only
• 2 tablespoons capers

Instructions

1. Put flour in a small flat dish and mix with salt and pepper to your tastes. Then coat each tilapia filet in the flour mixture.
2. Heat the oil in a pan and cook the fish about 2-3 minutes per side until the fish is a nice golden color.
3. Remove the fish to a plate, and melt the butter in the pan. Add the lemon juice and capers to the melted butter, and swirl the pan to mix the sauce together.
4. Add the fish back into the pan, and spoon the sauce over the fish.
5. Serve with rice or roasted potatoes.

Belgium Notebooking pages

All right, I was amazingly amused by the craziness of the Belgium borders and all the crazy ways you figure out whether a house is in Belgium or Germany.

We were all laughing as poor Barbs was trying his best to explain the demographics, how the country went together, and every single absolutely crazy thing going on there. I think he was slowly going crazy.

Aside from the April fools episodes, I don’t think I’ve laughed so much as I watched an episode.

Seriously, I’m watching their video again, and my brain is whirling as he explains the government. 

More geography lessons

• Europe notebooking pages
• Cyprus Almond Shortbread
• Cave Paintings of Lascaux
• Albanians meatballs
• Zuppa Toscana

Belgium picture used under Creative Commons license