Le Boeuf Bourgignon
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
The new Meryl Streep/Amy Adams movie titled "Julie & Julia" came out last Friday, and after much anticipation, Flipper (Dad), Turtle (Mom), and I went and saw it that night. The movie was basically about how Julie Powell (Amy Adams) decided that she was going to spend a year cooking her way through Julia Child's cookbook "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" and write a blog about it. The movie flips back and forth between Julie's year cooking and blogging, and the process of Julia Child (Meryl Streep) living in Paris and writing the book. Awesome movie :) would recommend it to anyone.
Anyway, the main dish in the movie (and arguably the most important) is the Boeuf [boof] Bourgignon [bore-gih-nyoh]. Boeuf Bourgignon is a beef stew, and was the first Julia Child recipe that Julie Powell cooked and was also the first recipe out of Julia's cookbook that the editor tried out when she was trying to decide whether to publish the book or not. Turtle and I were so inspired by the movie and so excited that the next morning while Turtle was biking, I was writing down all of the ingredients for the Boeuf so we could make it for dinner that night. A mad dash through Publix later, we were chopping and prepping and attempting to get this thing done that was supposed to cook for 2 and a half-3 hours by 5-o-clock.
We did have one main setback while cooking... although it was more like a discovery than a setback, although it did cause some irritation at the time. The discovery? I found that Julia Child did not write a cookbook filled with recipies. She wrote a textbook filled with examples. What I mean by this is that none of the recipies were just instructional "do step A, then follow by doing step B and step C". They all say what you do, then why you do it and somewhere in the middle of explaining why you do the step, she adds a VERY important detail that if you do not analyze and try to learn what she is saying, you miss. Important steps such as putting the beef in the hot pan in batches so they do not crowd each other and brown better, and blanching the bacon for ten minutes before you fry it were missed because they were in the middle of the explanation instead of being in the actual instructions. My fault, though! Not Julia's! It tasted good anyways!
Also found out that Julia loved her wine. Between braising the onions in wine, and using almost an entire bottle in the Boeuf itself... lets just say that it was a blessing that all of the alcohol cooked out of it :-)
Julia's recipe called for a full bodied red wine, and we were hunting the wine aisle at Publix for the symbol in the shape of a wine glass that indicates a "full bodied" wine. Finally we found it, and realized that it was the only one with this symbol in the entire aisle! And for good reason. I mixed the correct amounts of wine and beef broth in a big measuring cup and let it sit there for a little while while I was fixing the Boeuf, and when I poured the wine/beef broth mixture in the pot there were fermented grape filmy-chunk things stuck on the bottom of the cup... ewww!!! Turtle was wanting to taste test some of the wine and poured herself a glass, only to come to the conclusion that it was WAYYY to strong for her tastes (which turned out to be a good thing because I needed the wine in that glass to braise the onions in anyways lol) Sous chef Turtle was nearly thrown out of the kitchen for wine embezzlement, then for taking her clothes off when it started to heat up due to all of the cooking x)
We served the Boeuf over rice, and it was out of this world! The sauce was incredible, and the beef was very flavorful. However, we did have some issues with inconsistency, because some of the beef chunks would melt in your mouth, but others you would have to chew on for a very long time to be able to get them to go down. Either way, it was incredible... Will definately have to cook that one again! However, I doubt that I will take the Julie Powell approach and cook through the entire cookbook... learning how to properly carve and prepare calf brain does not sound like my idea of a good time :P
Aloha!!!
~The Threeeee Coconuts :)
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