2010 October 19

I DID IT. I really truly did it.

I, AEB, made Boeuf Bourguignon a la Julia Child.

It was laborious and it was time consuming.

But also, it was DEVINE.

A true masterpiece.

YUM.

First, I had to go to three (yes, three) grocery stores to gather all my ingredients. I probably could have accumulated everything I needed in two, but only Trader Joes sells wine (a STAPLE ingredient) and I could not find pearl onions at either Stop and Shop OR Whole Foods. Tragic. I had to go with the cute little boiling onions and luckily, they worked just fine.

After gathering the goodies I set to work…

First, I placed one tablespoon of olive oil into my glorious new dutch oven.

How adorable is this measuring spoon? (THANKS Aunt Heidi!)

Then, I cooked the bacon. MMMMM BACON.

Bacon is like home to me. That smell just takes me right back to Saturday morning in the Cuse. Chocolate chip pancakes anyone? Yes please…. OH WAIT. Sorry. Where was I? Oh yes, the Boeuf.

Anyways, before you actually cook the bacon you need to simmer it for 10 minutes in 1.5 quarts of water (that’s 3 cups in case you ever decide to take on this expedition yourself). This was a little strange to me… seeing the bacon floating free in all that water, but I went with it. What Julia says, I do.

After the bacon was fini I set forth drying the meat. I patted that meat as dry as it would go with about a zillion paper towels.

And then after I had finished off at least one whole roll of paper towels, I browned the meat in the leftover bacon fat. YUM.

Next came the carrots and onions. Julia says to use only one carrot but I say PISH to that. I LOVE carrots! I didn’t want to stray too much from the directions though, so I used two. A worthy compromise I thought. And then one onion. Chopped and thrown into the pot.

And then, everything goes back into le creuset at 450 degrees for 4 minutes.

Then take it out. Add a little salt (1 tsp) and pepper (1/4 tsp). Add a little flour (2 tbsp). Back to the oven for 4 more minutes.

Then comes the wine. Loads and loads of wine.

3 cups.

That was almost the whole bottle.

Almost. The remainder I happily had in a glass.

The dutch oven then went into the oven at 325 for just about 3 and 1/2 hours. A nice simmer to soak everything together. Simply delicious.

While the meat and veggies were immersed in a wine bath via the oven, I tackled the mushrooms. You know what Julia says about this one: “Don’t crowd the mushrooms!”. And so that’s exactly what I didn’t do. I let my mushrooms breathe. And they bubbled and browned just perfect.