Sunday 6 February 2011

Birthday Bourguignon


And another month gone. With no post. Not that there hasn't been some cooking happening. There certainly HAS been eating going on, and so I shall try to redeem the neglectful silence with some highlights.

We start with a birthday dinner of Beef Bourguignon--Julia Child's Boeuf Bourguignon, to be precise. Yes, a food blog post about Julia Child and Beef Bourguignon...wasn't there a book or a movie or something recently...?

Anyway, for friend P.'s birthday, Chef E. and I hosted a French-inspired evening. Taking our cue from Julia's master recipe in The Way to Cook (a 'crowbar separation' from both Amy Adams and Mastering the Art of French Cooking)we meticulously patted man-portion kilos of cubed beef with paper towels and got to browning. A bottle of wine, Italian tinned tomatoes, some stock, and a few hours later we had stew, served with green beans with lemon dressing and toasted almonds.

As this was a celebration of E.'s birthday as well, an apple pie, as requested, was wrestled up, and there was dinner!

Our dessert was experimental to say the least, without Grandma's recipe for pie crust to hand, and dear friend A., who can't eat dairy. Soy butter to the rescue! I ended up with a super pliable dough that rolled out beautifully, and the roux for the stew was definitely none the worse for this lactose-free substitute.

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