Well, another roller coaster year has pulled into the station at the end of the ride. While i cannot personally remember a worse December, there were also some lovely highlights of the year, which - as always - centered around friends, family, and food. So to close 2010, i'm going to share with you two of my favorite recipes, the making and sharing of which have become time-honored annual rituals of near-religious proportions and define the term "comfort food" for me. Of course, like all comfort foods, especially French ones, boeuf bourgignon and bûche de noël are labor intensive to make, but for me, a large part of the "comfort" aspect is achieved from the therapeutic effect of losing myself in the culinary process.
Bœuf Bourgignon
Bœuf Bourgignon
Of the two traditions, the newer one (of five or six years) is serving bœuf bourgignon on New Year's Eve. This is hands down my favorite French dish - a popular pick akin, i suppose, to loving apple pie as a favorite American dish. My mother would make it on the rare occasion when i was growing up, but i don't know that it was really a favorite of hers and in any case, i don't remember rhapsodizing about it until i first had it in 1992 at La Crèmerie-Restaurant Polidor in Paris. Le Polidor is a pretty famous spot and was a favorite of James Joyce and Jack Kerouac, as well as me (but this particular fact is not mentioned in the guidebooks); it's tucked away on a tiny side street in the latin quarter, identifiable primarily by the line of people waiting to get in for some of the best (and certainly most reasonably priced) traditional French cuisine in Paris. The tables are pretty much all communal, which is one of the things i actually adore about it, but which has freaked out American friends or family who are used to having acres of space and so-called privacy. What i find interesting about such preconceptions of "privacy" is that i have generally found that when dining in Europe, despite being necessarily packed in like a sardine, one is rarely subjected to the forced eavesdropping that occurs routinely in the States coming from that deafeningly loud group five tables away that just can't help but share with the entire restaurant the hilarity of their incredibly inane antics. I attribute this difference to the loss here in the U.S. of a fine tradition we, too, once had, referred to as "manners," "discretion," and "consideration for others" - or more simply put among some parents I have had occasion to overhear: "indoor voices" (mourning the loss of this tradition is referred to as "being a total curmudgeon").
Anyway, back to le bœuf. The origins of bœuf bourgignon (originally, bœuf à la bourgignonne, aka beef burgundy) aren't that mysterious - it's a peasant dish that came about when some enterprising Burgundian marinated what was likely some pretty tough/nearly inedible beef in a decent local vintage and a bouquet garni, some carrots, and garlic for a day or two, then added a bit of bacon, boiled the whole thing down into a tasty stew, and tossed in some little onions and mushrooms at the end. Interestingly, despite being elevated to haute cuisine, first by Auguste Escoffier (chef of the original Ritz in Paris, and referred to as "the Emperor of Chefs" by Kaiser Wilhelm II), and later internationalized by Julia Child, the ingredients and the process for making beef burgundy haven't really changed all that much. Maybe that's part of the notion of classic comfort foods - the depths and simplicity of the original combine into a culinary essential truth that withstands the harsh tests of time, such that it is no longer just that the dish itself is satisfying, but its essential underlying perfection also provides emotional solace. To go overboard with the analogy, maybe comfort foods are like little stepping stones in the ever-changing river of our daily lives.
It's All About the Terroir
I'm not alone in waxing poetic about such foods. In her chapter on bœuf bourgignon, Sylvie Girard-Lagorce takes far worse emotional liberties in the contrast between nouveau and traditional cuisine, but does point out fairly that stripping away the flourishes of the chefs, at its core, traditional cuisine represents above all else the resources of a given area, and that there are certain "indigenous ragouts," of which beef burgundy is a prime example, that "possess something irreplaceable called native earth." [Ed. note: I am a crap translator. Apologies.] Burgundy is home to some of France's finest wines (like South Americans and soccer, each French province will argue to death that they are home to the finest thing in question (often everything) and there is no "some of" about it, but fortunately as an American, I can love all French wines equally. Except for the reds from the Côtes du Rhone, which are unequivocally the best, though this may be genetic predilection.) And so it is only logical that a Burgundian would come up with the idea to grab one of the many good (but not too good) bottles of wine lying around instead of water or bouillon to marinate the beef, along with the plentiful mushrooms and onions of the area, and then would have the "plain good sense" to use the marinade as the sauce, too. Why burgundy and not any of the other fine "hexagonal red wines with the same fullness of body required to achieve the same tour de force?" Apparently a Bordeaux is "too chic!" a Cadurcien is great in a reduction (but apparently iffy here). But one can apparently legitimately substitute a chateauneuf-du-pape (if one is filthy rich) or a cotes-du-marmandais (good luck finding that here), or can sneak by with any other "powerful and generous" red, so long as one garnishes it with the holy Burgundian trinity of lardons, mushrooms, and pearl onions.
Nicolas Freeling calls bœuf bourgignon an enigma in his charming stories on his time as a cook in France, The Cook Book. Although the wine portion is clear, the beef cut is not, and the vagueness of the term "beef" here "is a heaven-sent gift to the butcher." Freeling's digressions appeal to the distraction in me, and I love his aside of how the "bifteck also means a price-fixing racket which has become a French national scandal dignified by antiquity and immovability, like the pharmacie. These two unmentionables dictate the whole of French life, like the Syndicate and the Mafia in America." In any case, for beef bourgignon, you're looking for stewing beef, an economical cut (like the Burgundians) and in particular for lean, boneless chunks about the size of a demi-tasse cup from the round or the chuck. Don't worry about fat or sinew, everything will end up tender from the acid of the wine and the time of the cooking. As Anthony Bourdain points out in a brilliantly hilarious essay in his Les Halles Cookbook, don't go for Dean & Deluca here - it'd be a waste, as the true origins of beef bourgignon is from French chefs making do with beef that "frankly sucks" and thus have been masters of transforming the "tough, bony, squiggly, and fatty stuff" - into something magical for eons, god bless 'em. Freeling more poetically sums up the results: "Beef stew is nice anywhere, and in Burgundy in particular - the name conjures up not only the bacon, the red wine, the onions, and the white haricots, but large muscular housewives with broad red faces and cunning little eyes, excellent cooks, with placid temperaments and a subtle humor. Most of Renoir's models, including his wife and a long line of famous servants 'whose skin took the light well' and were forever scrubbing the floor with no clothes on when not eating stew, were Burgundian, and the stew is just like them; marvelously tender, honest, beautiful, and innocently sensualist."
Okay, On to D's Bœuf Bourgignon Recipe
It's All About the Terroir
I'm not alone in waxing poetic about such foods. In her chapter on bœuf bourgignon, Sylvie Girard-Lagorce takes far worse emotional liberties in the contrast between nouveau and traditional cuisine, but does point out fairly that stripping away the flourishes of the chefs, at its core, traditional cuisine represents above all else the resources of a given area, and that there are certain "indigenous ragouts," of which beef burgundy is a prime example, that "possess something irreplaceable called native earth." [Ed. note: I am a crap translator. Apologies.] Burgundy is home to some of France's finest wines (like South Americans and soccer, each French province will argue to death that they are home to the finest thing in question (often everything) and there is no "some of" about it, but fortunately as an American, I can love all French wines equally. Except for the reds from the Côtes du Rhone, which are unequivocally the best, though this may be genetic predilection.) And so it is only logical that a Burgundian would come up with the idea to grab one of the many good (but not too good) bottles of wine lying around instead of water or bouillon to marinate the beef, along with the plentiful mushrooms and onions of the area, and then would have the "plain good sense" to use the marinade as the sauce, too. Why burgundy and not any of the other fine "hexagonal red wines with the same fullness of body required to achieve the same tour de force?" Apparently a Bordeaux is "too chic!" a Cadurcien is great in a reduction (but apparently iffy here). But one can apparently legitimately substitute a chateauneuf-du-pape (if one is filthy rich) or a cotes-du-marmandais (good luck finding that here), or can sneak by with any other "powerful and generous" red, so long as one garnishes it with the holy Burgundian trinity of lardons, mushrooms, and pearl onions.
Nicolas Freeling calls bœuf bourgignon an enigma in his charming stories on his time as a cook in France, The Cook Book. Although the wine portion is clear, the beef cut is not, and the vagueness of the term "beef" here "is a heaven-sent gift to the butcher." Freeling's digressions appeal to the distraction in me, and I love his aside of how the "bifteck also means a price-fixing racket which has become a French national scandal dignified by antiquity and immovability, like the pharmacie. These two unmentionables dictate the whole of French life, like the Syndicate and the Mafia in America." In any case, for beef bourgignon, you're looking for stewing beef, an economical cut (like the Burgundians) and in particular for lean, boneless chunks about the size of a demi-tasse cup from the round or the chuck. Don't worry about fat or sinew, everything will end up tender from the acid of the wine and the time of the cooking. As Anthony Bourdain points out in a brilliantly hilarious essay in his Les Halles Cookbook, don't go for Dean & Deluca here - it'd be a waste, as the true origins of beef bourgignon is from French chefs making do with beef that "frankly sucks" and thus have been masters of transforming the "tough, bony, squiggly, and fatty stuff" - into something magical for eons, god bless 'em. Freeling more poetically sums up the results: "Beef stew is nice anywhere, and in Burgundy in particular - the name conjures up not only the bacon, the red wine, the onions, and the white haricots, but large muscular housewives with broad red faces and cunning little eyes, excellent cooks, with placid temperaments and a subtle humor. Most of Renoir's models, including his wife and a long line of famous servants 'whose skin took the light well' and were forever scrubbing the floor with no clothes on when not eating stew, were Burgundian, and the stew is just like them; marvelously tender, honest, beautiful, and innocently sensualist."
Okay, On to D's Bœuf Bourgignon Recipe
There are a lot of recipes out there, and i've read most of them and, like my best dishes, my own version is actually an amalgamation of what i find to be the best points of all of them, but I would like to cite my sources out of intellectual integrity: Julie Rosso & Sheila Lukins, Julia Child, Anthony Bourdain, and Larousse Gastronomique are my main sources, with a little nod to (shudder) Martha Stewart on the mushrooms and onions. While there are those who would still marinate the beef in wine and herbs starting the night before, don't do it. It's not necessary, and one of the biggest keys to a great stew is properly browned beef, which requires that it be bone dry before you put it in the fat. While bœouf bourgignon is the perfect dish for tough, grass-fed, non-"steroid-jacked" beef (which really, is all you should be eating), even that beef is much more tender than those of the days of yore, and so marinating it is not only a waste of time, it becomes nearly impossible to get it dry enough for quick and proper browning. An overview for those of you who are already tired of this post and just want to finally get the recipe, dammit, and will be annoyed by the long-winded discussion about how i go about making this: you're going to cook some bacon until crisp, take that out, put in some beef, brown it in batches, throw in some chopped onions, shallots, and flour and brown it on high heat for about 4 more minutes, pour in some wine and stock and other stuff, and stick it in the oven to roast at 350 degrees F for a couple of hours, after which you will add some roasted mushrooms and onions. You will, if you are wise, be doing this the night before and will then put it in the fridge overnight. The next night, you will reheat it in the oven for another hour at 350 degrees, and will thicken it with a beurre manié before serving with either potatoes or noodles and chopped parsley sprinkles.
Ingredients for 6 servings:
6-8 ounces thick bacon or lardons, cut into medium/large dice
3 pounds beef chuck, cut into 2" chunks
1 cup chopped onion
1 chopped shallot
3 cups Burgundy or Côtes du Rhone wine (spend more than $7/bottle and less than $20)
3 cups beef stock
2 Tbsp. tomato paste
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh rosemary leaves
1 bouquet garni (couple of each: parsley sprigs, thyme sprigs, bay leaves, celery hearts, maybe a rosemary sprig - basically whatever's in the garden still on December 31 - either tied into a bundle with string or if you're really anal, you can wrap it into a little cheesecloth bag and tie that with string)
1.5 cups peeled and cut carrots (about 3-4, you can do 1/3" thick rounds or 1.5" long thick slices)
2 cups red or white pearl or boiler onions
8 ounces fresh wild mushrooms (I like shitake and crimini, chanterelles are good, too)
Spray olive oil or 1 Tbsp butter, melted
1 Tbsp. red currant jelly
1 Tbsp. butter, softened
1 Tbsp. flour
2 Tbsp chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
Another note: this recipe is easily (and usually, for parties) doubled. If that's the case you will need two cocottes or dutch ovens in order to properly do all the steps prior to putting it in the oven. If you have a big enough pot you can combine both batches at that point.
Instructions for Cooking (if you're me, anyway, which i don't necessarily recommend):
Again, a helpful overview: this is going to take all damned day (actually one and change), and you will be working a 10 hour day on top of it. However, as Anthony Bourdain has summed up perfectly, in order to be a good cook, you need not be highly trained, nor within a mile of a Dean & Deluca, but you "will need a pure heart, and a soul....You must enjoy what you're doing...You need passion, curiosity, a full spectrum of appetites. You need to yearn for things....You need love." This is in part because cooking is the textbook living example of transformation, and like any alchemist knows, a little bit of your soul goes into the process. If you are in a bad mood, if you don't love what you're doing or who you're doing it for, or god-forbid, all of the above, then get the hell out of the kitchen and order pizza, because otherwise your resentments will seep into the end results. The worst cooks are the ones who hate cooking, which is no surprise, and there are as many fantastic cooks as there are people who pour their love for the heft of a good knife and the satisfying sounds of the chopping, searing, and whipping, or for wanting to please their favorite child returned home, or for the joy of feeding friends or even strangers into the pan on the stove in front of them.
So, remember this - that you are doing this out of love, out of passion and need to be pure of heart when you go to the butcher's to find he doesn't open until 11am, run around getting the rest of the ingredients and come back only to be told that you should have called ahead because he's leaving town tomorrow for two weeks and so isn't keeping chuck in stock and only has 2 lbs and you need 6. Take a deep breath and be amused by his Australian accent; don't stomp back to the car - focus on good will. Go to work. Don't eat dinner. Leave at 9:45pm and head straight to the DC Whole Foods that stays open until 10:30pm and prepare to lay open thine wallet for the very last 6 pounds of chuck in the entire establishment and be glad that you're not doing tenderloin. While dodging the crowds, sweep up a hunk of cheese, some good Belgian beer, and a pecan roll for dinner and dessert. Grab your bags from the cashier, and before you laugh too hard at the little hipster girl in her slouchy knit cap and pseudo-hippie togs whom you follow into the garage where she then incongruously if predictably climbs into a giant Mercedes SUV-type looking thing, remember that you, you little down-to-earth snob, are climbing into an Audi wagon while wearing bright fuscia Paul Smith stockings. It's best to embrace your own hypocrisy and take advantage of that amazing drive train on the way home; take the Parkway so you can have fun racing around the curves while getting home in record time in a driving style you would never permit your spouse to perform with you in the car, and do so hopefully ahead enough of your vegan friends and spouse who are off having dinner to get this thing in the oven before they get back. When you enter the kitchen at 10:55pm, exhausted, fighting end-of-year angst and frustration at all that is going wrong, pull out your bottle of Three Philosophers, your hunk of divine Cambrozola (camembert meets gorgonzola and has the prettiest baby of the cheese world), a handful of crackers, and put on some Louis Armstrong and sing along to C'est Si Bon until you feel your spirits start to lift.
Add the wine, stock, tomato paste, reserved bacon, chopped rosemary, and bring to a boil, scraping up anything that has stuck to the bottom of the pan.
Chop the carrots in whatever shape(s) you want and add them to a pot of boiling water for 5 minutes. If you have some leftover rosemary, add that, too - it'll flavor the carrots.
Prepare the mushrooms. If they're small, just trim off the ends, but if they're big, split them in half or quarters, too. For the onions, you can be lazy and just throw them in a pot of boiling water for about 5 minutes, but if you're feeling the joy, cut a small "X" in the bottom of each before doing so. Either way, drain them, rinse with cold water, then trim off the bottom and squeeze them out of the first layer. Julia says to "peel carefully so as not to disturb the onion layers." I disturbed some of them, I must confess. I'd say no one was the wiser, though. Put the onions and mushrooms in a baking pan and spray with olive oil (or if that's unavailable or if you just prefer butter, toss them first in a tablespoon of melted butter), and sprinkle them lightly with salt (truffle salt is superb if you have it). Put the pan in the oven during the last 30 minutes of baking of the stew.
After two hours, the beef should be quite tender. Remove the bouquet garni, add the mushrooms, onions, and carrots to the stew, and blend.
Cool and refrigerate overnight. Woo hoo - it's
and you still have to clean the kitchen
This is part of the reason for doing this the night before serving; the other reason is that it tastes much, much better that way, but if you really don't have time for that, the dish should be ready to thicken anytime after 2 to 2.5 hours. If you have refrigerated it overnight, reheat it in the oven at 350 degrees for one hour. Remove, make a beurre manié by combining one Tbsp each butter and flour into a paste; add about 1/4 c. of the sauce to the paste and mix until thoroughly blended. Add mixture back to rest of stew and stir until beurre manié is incorporated and stew is slightly thickened. Add red currant jelly and blend. Sprinkle with parsley and serve with buttered parsley potatoes or egg noodles to rave reviews and calls for you to open a restaurant (they've all had a couple of cocktails and didn't see your kitchen). And by god, now it's time to crack open the really good bottle of wine and celebrate this wonderful feast and the start of a new year with people you love.
Bûche de Noël
After a post this long, I will not tax you with the story of this year's bûche-making other than to note that its construction required two days and everyone's participation, and while we did have one of the best-decorated bûches yet, we also ate Christmas Eve dinner at 12:30am. Here was the process of making it:
Et ben, voilà!
Ingredients for 6 servings:
6-8 ounces thick bacon or lardons, cut into medium/large dice
3 pounds beef chuck, cut into 2" chunks
1 cup chopped onion
1 chopped shallot
3 cups Burgundy or Côtes du Rhone wine (spend more than $7/bottle and less than $20)
3 cups beef stock
2 Tbsp. tomato paste
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh rosemary leaves
1 bouquet garni (couple of each: parsley sprigs, thyme sprigs, bay leaves, celery hearts, maybe a rosemary sprig - basically whatever's in the garden still on December 31 - either tied into a bundle with string or if you're really anal, you can wrap it into a little cheesecloth bag and tie that with string)
1.5 cups peeled and cut carrots (about 3-4, you can do 1/3" thick rounds or 1.5" long thick slices)
2 cups red or white pearl or boiler onions
8 ounces fresh wild mushrooms (I like shitake and crimini, chanterelles are good, too)
Spray olive oil or 1 Tbsp butter, melted
1 Tbsp. red currant jelly
1 Tbsp. butter, softened
1 Tbsp. flour
2 Tbsp chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
Another note: this recipe is easily (and usually, for parties) doubled. If that's the case you will need two cocottes or dutch ovens in order to properly do all the steps prior to putting it in the oven. If you have a big enough pot you can combine both batches at that point.
Instructions for Cooking (if you're me, anyway, which i don't necessarily recommend):
Again, a helpful overview: this is going to take all damned day (actually one and change), and you will be working a 10 hour day on top of it. However, as Anthony Bourdain has summed up perfectly, in order to be a good cook, you need not be highly trained, nor within a mile of a Dean & Deluca, but you "will need a pure heart, and a soul....You must enjoy what you're doing...You need passion, curiosity, a full spectrum of appetites. You need to yearn for things....You need love." This is in part because cooking is the textbook living example of transformation, and like any alchemist knows, a little bit of your soul goes into the process. If you are in a bad mood, if you don't love what you're doing or who you're doing it for, or god-forbid, all of the above, then get the hell out of the kitchen and order pizza, because otherwise your resentments will seep into the end results. The worst cooks are the ones who hate cooking, which is no surprise, and there are as many fantastic cooks as there are people who pour their love for the heft of a good knife and the satisfying sounds of the chopping, searing, and whipping, or for wanting to please their favorite child returned home, or for the joy of feeding friends or even strangers into the pan on the stove in front of them.
So, remember this - that you are doing this out of love, out of passion and need to be pure of heart when you go to the butcher's to find he doesn't open until 11am, run around getting the rest of the ingredients and come back only to be told that you should have called ahead because he's leaving town tomorrow for two weeks and so isn't keeping chuck in stock and only has 2 lbs and you need 6. Take a deep breath and be amused by his Australian accent; don't stomp back to the car - focus on good will. Go to work. Don't eat dinner. Leave at 9:45pm and head straight to the DC Whole Foods that stays open until 10:30pm and prepare to lay open thine wallet for the very last 6 pounds of chuck in the entire establishment and be glad that you're not doing tenderloin. While dodging the crowds, sweep up a hunk of cheese, some good Belgian beer, and a pecan roll for dinner and dessert. Grab your bags from the cashier, and before you laugh too hard at the little hipster girl in her slouchy knit cap and pseudo-hippie togs whom you follow into the garage where she then incongruously if predictably climbs into a giant Mercedes SUV-type looking thing, remember that you, you little down-to-earth snob, are climbing into an Audi wagon while wearing bright fuscia Paul Smith stockings. It's best to embrace your own hypocrisy and take advantage of that amazing drive train on the way home; take the Parkway so you can have fun racing around the curves while getting home in record time in a driving style you would never permit your spouse to perform with you in the car, and do so hopefully ahead enough of your vegan friends and spouse who are off having dinner to get this thing in the oven before they get back. When you enter the kitchen at 10:55pm, exhausted, fighting end-of-year angst and frustration at all that is going wrong, pull out your bottle of Three Philosophers, your hunk of divine Cambrozola (camembert meets gorgonzola and has the prettiest baby of the cheese world), a handful of crackers, and put on some Louis Armstrong and sing along to C'est Si Bon until you feel your spirits start to lift.
Okay, now you're ready.
Step One: Crisp the bacon over medium-high heat.
Transfer the bacon with a slotted spoon to a plate and leave just enough bacon grease in the pan to leave about 1/16" or 1/8" layer on the bottom. Make sure the beef is patted bone dry with a paper towel, then add in small batches to hot grease until browned on all sides, about 4-5 minutes, and then setting aside while remaining pieces are browned. If you aren't getting a nice deep brown in that around that time, your heat is probably too low - this is where good cast iron pans separate themselves from bad ones - if you can afford a Staub or can get someone to give you one, make the investment. Not only are they beautiful, but they'll save you time because they're just better pans that heat more evenly than my $50 on sale giant Calphalon dutch oven.
Add all the beef, the chopped onion, the shallot, and sprinkle the flour over everything. Season with a light sprinkle of salt and a generous bit of pepper. Stir repeatedly over high heat for another 5 minutes until a rich dark brown:
Once brought to a boil, add the bouquet garni, cover, and stick in the oven at 350 degrees for 2 hours. (This is where you can combine the two batches if you want). You really don't have to do anything to it while it's in the oven - hooray!
Celebrate with dessert and the leftover wine. Clean your knife - there's more work, dear.
This is part of the reason for doing this the night before serving; the other reason is that it tastes much, much better that way, but if you really don't have time for that, the dish should be ready to thicken anytime after 2 to 2.5 hours. If you have refrigerated it overnight, reheat it in the oven at 350 degrees for one hour. Remove, make a beurre manié by combining one Tbsp each butter and flour into a paste; add about 1/4 c. of the sauce to the paste and mix until thoroughly blended. Add mixture back to rest of stew and stir until beurre manié is incorporated and stew is slightly thickened. Add red currant jelly and blend. Sprinkle with parsley and serve with buttered parsley potatoes or egg noodles to rave reviews and calls for you to open a restaurant (they've all had a couple of cocktails and didn't see your kitchen). And by god, now it's time to crack open the really good bottle of wine and celebrate this wonderful feast and the start of a new year with people you love.
Bûche de Noël
After a post this long, I will not tax you with the story of this year's bûche-making other than to note that its construction required two days and everyone's participation, and while we did have one of the best-decorated bûches yet, we also ate Christmas Eve dinner at 12:30am. Here was the process of making it:
Et ben, voilà!
Happy New Year and All That
Well, it's been quite a year. As usual, the house still isn't done and i haven't really stuck with any of my resolutions, although for once i did lose some weight, but that was due to stress, not anything meritorious, like exercise. My last yoga class was probably 2 weeks ago, and the instructor reminded us that it is also the end of a decade and so we should consider setting intentions for the next decade. The next decade!! Who needs such pressure? This year also marks the end of my 30s, which my favorite law school professor told me would be so much better than my 20s. Were it not for the construction and the four knee surgeries, maybe. It's all quite overwhelming, actually, to look back on this year, the decade, and further, so i've decided to keep my resolution for next year simple, straightforward, and attainable:
Here's wishing you and yours a happy 2011. Cheers.
1 comment:
One of the ingredients is missing - you'll need 3 Tb flour to sprinkle over the beef.
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