I recently picked up a copy of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking because I (a) wanted to try French cuisine (b) there is no decent French restaurant within 50 miles and (c) who doesn't love Julia Child? Although I should point out that I bought this book before seeing the movie Julie & Julia, which apparently everyone has seen. This is my first (very clumsy and forgetful) attempt at cooking while photographing. Please forgive my many mistakes while cooking this dish.
Without further ado I give you... beef bourguignon!
Here are (most) of our ingredients. Sorry some of them are hard to see.... and missing. Doh!
First we begin by cutting the rind off the bacon, and slicing the bacon into strips.
Also please disregard that nerd there... her contact prescription expired (in JULY) and she finally ran out of contacts to wear.
Elliot likes to take 'artistic' photos.
Here are the bacon rinds and strips.
I also began slicing up this beautiful chuck pot roast into 2" cubes.
In the meantime, place the bacon and rinds into boiling water for 10 mins. This removes the smokey flavor of American bacon... I'm making this dish 100% French in America.
The meat is all cubed up now.
Next take the bacon out of the boiling water, dry it thoroughly and place in a casserole dish (aka dutch oven) with heated oil and butter.
Brown that bacon!
Take the bacon out of the casserole and set aside.
Next we crank up the heat and sear our meat.
Oohhh smokey!
now the other side.... yes I realize some of those pieces aren't nice and brown yet, don't worry I gave them a little extra time.
Once it's brown on both sides remove and set aside with the bacon.
In the same pot and oil throw in some diced onions and sliced carrots.
Saute those for a bit then add the bacon and meat back in.
Sprinkle a little flour on one side, turn over and sprinkle some more. Then place this uncovered in a 450-degree oven. Did I forget to say preheat your oven? Cook it for 4 minutes, turn the meat over and cook it for 4 more minutes.
Pull out a young red wine, I have Chianti here.
Remove the casserole from the oven and add 3 cups of red wine and enough beef stock to barely cover the meat.
This is my favorite part... can you smell that? Mmmm...
Add 2T of tomato paste, 1t of parsley (not pictured.. oops!), 1/4 t of thyme and a crumbled bay leaf.
Cover and stick it in a 325-degree oven for... 2 1/2 hours!
Look he does dishes too!
While the pot is in the oven, slice up some mushrooms for sauteing.
Peel some small white onions (these are gold onions... they we the only ones I could find at Ralph's)
Place them in a pan with hot oil and butter until brown, then add 1/2 c of beef stock, half a bay leaf, thyme and parley. Let it all simmer together for 40-50 minutes. Please use a smaller pan than I did... trust me.
Here's the bourguignon fresh out of the oven. How delicious does that look?
Sous chef Shima stirring the mushrooms.. what a good roommate she is.
Saute the mushrooms.. and don't crowd them (like I did), or the won't get nice and brown.
Add the onions and mushrooms to the pot and simmer for 2-3 minutes. I also added some boiled potatoes at this point, but you can leave them out if you want.
Ahhh perfection.. almost.
A nice dinner setting... yes I realize we have that bottle of wine there and no wine glasses. I have no wine glasses, I am a poor, about to be not starving, college student.
This turned out so well. The meat was crispy and yet so tender you could eat it with only a fork.
Bon Appetit,
Stephanie
