Boeuf Bourguignon. Happy 100th Julia!

Thank you Julia for all your wonderful work! We continue to cook in your honor, and we do save the livers :-)) !! Happy 100th anniversary.

Here is one of her signature dishes - Boeuf Bourguignon. Don't be intimidated - this is actually just a bit easier from Julia's - but the basics are the same. You can make this!This is taken from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, by Julia Child et al, p. 315. You can follow that recipe and get the same result. Or...Here I modify just a bit based on the easier way I made this. What a wonderful, classic dish - best made the day before if you have time!

¼ lb bacon, diced (the thicker the cut the better)
2-½ to 3 lb chuck roast, cut into 2-inch pieces
2 Tbsp flour
3 medium carrots cut into quarters diagonally
1 large onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 12-16-oz package button mushrooms, washed and halved
2-3 dozen pearl onions, peeled - see cooks' note
3 cups dry red wine
about 2 cups beef stock (or you can use chicken stock)
2 Tbsp tomato paste

Preheat oven to 375F. In an oven-going Dutch oven, brown the bacon until just crispy. Remove bacon with a slotted spoon. Make sure your beef is dry (pat with a paper towel if necessary) so that it browns well, as Julia insists (and she is correct)! Heat bacon fat in Dutch oven until just smoking and add half the beef. Make sure beef cubes are well separated. Brown all sides well and remove to a bowl. Repeat with other half of beef. Remove beef to bowl, leaving oil in pot.

Add the flour, carrots, onions and garlic to the pot and cook, stirring often, for about 8-10 minutes, until vegetable begin to caramelize. Turn heat to high and add the wine, carefully. Stir in the tomato paste, to combine completely. Bring to a boil and stir down all the brown bits in the pot. Return the bacon and beef to the pot and nestle in the wine. Add just enough stock to cover the beef, with tips sticking out. Cover Dutch oven and place in oven. Cook about 2-2½ hours, stirring once or twice, gently. Check meat for tenderness, and cook more if necessary.

Meanwhile, sauté mushrooms in a bit of olive oil, until browned through. Set aside. In same pan, sauté the pearl onions over medium-low heat in a bit of olive oil and butter (2 Tbsp each) until just browned on the edges and beginning to soften, about 20-30 minutes. Stir into beef mixture and adjust sauce consistency with water or broth. Make sure everything is cooked through - sertve over mashed potatoes or pasta.
Cook's Note: This is a quick way to peel pearl onions! Bring a smal pot of water to a boil and drop the pearl onions in the water. Blanch for about a minute and turn our into a strainer. Cut a slice into one end of the onion, and slip the onion through the cut - make the cut big enough.

Cooking with Julia, Ginette, Monique... and Glenn

I know how to cook Coq Au Vin (chicken with wine) because my mother, Monique, taught me by demonstration many, many times in my youth. This was Monique's signature dish, so I needn't reference Julia for instruction. But Monique would often refer to the classic French cookbook of her youth - "Je Sais Cuisiner" by Ginette Mathiot, and I still have her original French version in my cookbook collection.

My French is not good enough to navigate culinary jargon and idioms very well, so I don't refer to Je Sais Cuisiner much at all - until now, that is. It just came out in English and my father-in-law (an old friend of Monique's, by the way) just gave it to me - thanks Pops! I now see that Monique basically prepared Ginette's dish.

So when Glenn, Pam and Claudie came over for the weekend, Glenn and I cross-referenced Julia, Ginette and what Monique had taught me, and we made a great Coq Au Vin dinner. Glenn made his famous Mashed Potatoes with Celery Root and we modified the classic French chicken dish with fresh shitake mushrooms - the only ones Glenn will eat. That was an excellent, tasty modification. And of course fresh oysters a la Glenn (basically naked with lemon...) were fantastic hors d'oeuvres.

Coq Au Vin1/4 lb bacon, diced
2 roasting chickens, cut in pieces
2 leek, cleaned and diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
3-4 sprigs fresh thyme
3 cups red wine
2 Tbsp tomato paste
1 lb. fresh mushrooms (we used Shitake)
25-30 pearl onions

3 Tbsp flour
2 Tbsp softened butter
1/4 cup Cognac

Cook bacon in a large Dutch Oven pot, until just crispy. Remove to a large bowl and remove all but 1 tablespoon of fat. Add 1 tablespoon olive oil and crank heat to high. Brown the chicken pieces in batches of 6-8 pieces at a time, removing to the bowl with the bacon as progressing.

Add the leek to the Dutch Oven (add more oil if necessary) and sweat down until softening. Add the garlic and thyme and cook until garlic is fragrant, about 2-3 minutes. Return the bacon and chicken to the pot and add the wine and tomato paste. Salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to a simmer. Simmer for about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile in separate pans, saute the onions and the mushrooms until just softened, each in a bit of olive oil. After the chicken has cooked 20 minutes, add the mushrooms and onions to the chicken for another 10-15 minutes. Then remove the chicken mixture to a large serving bowl or platter. Add Cognac and carefully flambe.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour and the softened butter and whisk into the sauce in the Dutch Oven. Raise the heat and cook, stirring until thickened. Pour sauce over the chicken in the serving bowl and garnish with parsley.


Glenn's Mashed Potatoes with Celery Root
under construction