Julia Child's Boeuf Bourguignon
Today is a cool, misty day, so I'm staying in and making Julia Child's Boeuf Bourguignon. It's actually an adapted version of her recipe that I found here: https://www.thespruceeats.com/boeuf-bourguignon-recipe-2313356 . I had a big chunk of beef that I bought on sale, I had a few gallons of red wine that we made a couple of years ago, so what the heck...let's do this!
This recipe has some unusual steps that I would have never thought of, like NOT salting the beef cubes before I brown them, or after the beef is browned (and salted,) sprinkling it with some flour and putting it in a very hot oven for 4 minutes to "toast" the flour, or separating the sauce from the stew so that you can put it in a pan and reduce it more. There are a lot of other steps to this recipe, but none of them are hard to do, they just take time and a little care. It's a fun dish to prepare if you love to spend a half-day in the kitchen cooking the Julia Child way.
There were a couple of ingredients that I didn't have, so I had to fake it. I didn't have pancetta, so I used beef fat and a little salt. The beef stock had to be mixed with some veggie stock to make enough for the recipe. I cut up whole carrots to replace the baby carrots. And, alas, I didn't have any of those beautiful, pearl onions that it called for, so I used regular, yellow onion cut into cubes. I just put my dutch oven of beef, wine and veggies in the oven to braise for 2-3 hours. I'm kicking back with an espresso. I feel so European! Anyway, I'll let you know how it turns out.