Julia Child’s Beef Bourguignon

Sorry about the pix - it gets dark so early now and I broke my indoor lighting contraption. Just know this tastes better than it looks!

Thanks to our conversation in culinary school the other day, I FINALLY cracked open myMastering The Art of French Cooking book. I am embarrassed to admit that I’ve never made a Julia Child recipe before. I am happy to report that it certainly won’t be the last.

Julia’s Boeuf Bourguignon has seen a resurgence in popularity recently due to the book/movie Julie and Julia. It’s a cute book and a cute, albeit totally different, movie (due partly to the fact that it was based on both the Julie/Julia book and Julia’s My Life in France. I highly recommend both (well, all three).

This is good stuff. It’s pot roast on crack.

Or I guess, pot roast you wouldn’t be embarrassed to serve to company.

But first, a few things about Julia’s writing.

Her recipes are…a little vague. Meaning – she gives you leeway as the cook to use your own judgement. Thing is…most recipes that I am used to are written assuming I am a cooking novice. Directions are spelled out in such a way that I can’t mess it up. Julia kind of assumes I’m not a dummy…even though sometimes…

Case in point:

She tells you to crank up the oven to 450 degrees when you put the beef in. I thought, huh, that seems really really high. Then she says to make sure the beef is at just a simmer – adjusting the heat accordingly. I kind of don’t like that because I don’t like opening the oven door and releasing the heat.

I mean, just TELL US what temp you want it to cook at, ‘mkay?  And ok, I just sorta forgot to turn it down… So the heat remained at 450 degrees.

At the two hour mark, I thought MAYBE I should check on it.

THANK GOD I DID because it had already formed a black crust on top. Another twenty minutes and it would have been burned to a crisp. I had saved it just in time.

And oh my goodness. Wow. Rich. The sauce had thickened perfectly and coats your tongue. The meat was meltingly tender. I cannot tell you how good this was.

What else did I learn?

Two-buck Chuck is maybe a wine that doesn’t age well? Ha! Just an FYI. We don’t drink wine at our house so whenever we get a bottle, it sits around. I’m not sure, but I think we had this wine maybe 3 years? There was some heavy duty sediment in the bottom of the bottle. I honestly don’t think this is because it was “well aged”. Anyhoo, it did no harm. Maybe it added some good flavor?

Oh – and I screwed up the pearl onions part. I searched for frozen pearl onions because I did NOT want to go through the trouble of peeling the little buggers, but I could not find them. Alas, I got frustrated, the onions weren’t cooked correctly, yadda yadda.

And my final screw up? Due to the fact that I essentially overcooked the dish, there was no straining of the sauce at the end. Which maybe turned out to be a benefit since, like I said, I was frustrated by the end of my cooking expedition (note: maybe making Beef Bourguignon, Bolognese sauce and Sourdough bread all at the same time is A LITTLE overboard… so take what I say about being frustrated with a grain of salt).

Anyhoo, because the recipe is lengthy and I want to give you the full experience of Julia’s recipe writing (read: I am l.a.z.y), here’s a link to the recipe in Julia’s own words.

Julia Child’s Beef (Boeuf) Bourguignon

Beef (Boeuf) Bourguignon recipe

Brown-braised Onions (Oignons Glaces a la Brun)

Mushrooms sauteed in butter (Champignons Sautees au Beurre)

And finally, just an FYI – what kind of cuts of meat are appropriate for this dish? This is what Julia says:

(From Mastering the Art of French Cooking)
The better the meat, the better the stew. While cheaper and coarser cuts may be used, the following are most recommended. Count on 1 pound of boneless meat, trimmed of fat, for 2 people; 3 if the rest of the menu is large.
First choice: Rump Pot Roast—Pointe de Culotte, or Aiguillette de Rumstek
Other choices: Chuck Pot Roast—Paleron, or Macreuse à Pot-au-feu
Sirloin Tip—Tranche Grasse
Top Round—Tende de Tranche
Bottom Round—Gîte à la Noix

Enjoy!

Ms. Pantry Raid

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Chorizo stuffed bacon wrapped dates

 

Salty, sweet and smokey - what's not to love!

So I was actually expecting to be alone for Christmas day this year. My husband was visiting his family in Ohio and my family was going to have a rather understated celebration a few days later. At the last minute (meaning Christmas day), my parents decided to visit me in Chicago. Not a lot of stores are open on Christmas day and to be honest, I had very little time (an hour and a half to be exact), so I threw together a menu based on what I could find in my house. It actually turned out pretty spectacular if I do say so myself. Sometimes it is best when you don’t have time to overanalyze the situation.

One of my “top 5” favorite dishes of all time is the chorizo-stuffed madjool dates with smoked bacon and piquillo pepper-tomato sauce at Avec in Chicago. With just three ingrediants, the dates are amazingly complex. Really, it’s pork wrapped around pork. How can you possibly go wrong?? What took mankind so long to come up with this? Oddly enough, I had all of the ingredients I assumed to be in this dish on-hand so I gave it a shot.

Ingredients

Thinly sliced bacon – cut in half

Pitted dates 

Spanish Chorizo – don’t use the non-cooked Mexican kind – cut into pieces small enough to stuff into date

Wow, that was easy, wasn’t it?

Steps

Preheat oven to 350

Slice date so you’ll be able to open it up and stuff it

Put small piece of chorizo inside date

Wrap bacon around stuffed date

Place on baking sheet (covered in foil for easy cleanup)

Bake in oven for 20-25 minutes or until the bacon fat is rendered and bacon crisps up

Watch out – they are hot!

I served them in a spiced Mediterranean tomato sauce – similar to what is served at Avec (and lo-and-behold! I found a use for my Harissa!)

 

Spiced Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

14 oz can diced tomatoes

2 T olive oil

4 T chopped onion (or thereabouts)

2 cloves garlic

½ cup dry red wine

1 roasted red pepper coarsely chopped

2 t harissa

1 t brown sugar

1 T fresh parsley chopped – plus some more for garnish

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Steps

In a medium saucepan, saute onion in olive oil over medium heat until soft – 5 min. 

Add the garlic, red pepper and harissa

Saute another minute

Add the red wine

Bring to a simmer and reduce by half

Add canned tomatoes and brown sugar

Simmer 20 minutes

Salt and pepper to taste

Put in food processor (or blender) and process till smooth

Finish with herbs

Serve hot

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