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.

Oh...I forgot...I need suggestions on what to serve with it. I have russet potatoes, homemade bread, baby greens for salad, broccolini...what else???

It has about 45 minutes to go in the oven. I can't tell you how incredible the house smells right now!

I'm thinking of making an apple Tarte Tartine for dessert.

(I think that my over abundance of energy is coming from the espresso.)

So...it came out so delicious! Unfortunately, my DH came home 3 hours late from work. I gave up on him and ate before he did. He finally came home, scooped it up cold, put it in a coffee mug and ate it. I told him that he should at least bother to heat it up. He didn't care. He was tired. I got up this morning and the entire pot of stew was gone. I guess he liked it. So much for the romantic, gourmet dinner idea. Glad that I didn't make the Tarte Tartine.

While I like cooking elaborate dishes (sometimes), this is the frustrating part for me. What takes lots of time and labor is gone in a matter of minutes Haha. Glad your dish was a winner :-)