Beouf Bouguignon

I did it! I finally made a dish out of Julia Child's cookbook and what a classic French dish this is! Yup, I did make some mistakes (hell, its the first time!), but it turned out amazing. I think I got it 80% right, which is not bad really.

All aspiring chefs be warned - French cooking is laborious. It took me 5 hours to put together 3 dishes: beouf bouguignon, gratin dauphinois (potato gratin) and a morroccan couscous. Her recipes are very precise and if you think some steps are illogical, you will realise later they are there for a reason. For example, she asked that beef cubes (rump steak cut) be cut into 2 inches size. I bought 880g of meat but was unsure it will feed two very hungry men, so I decided to cut them a little smaller. You are suppose to brown the meat cube by cube in the bacon fat. Eh I was my usual impatient self and made a mistake of shoving all the meat into the casserole. Well, as many experience chefs will tell you, it causes the meat juices to run and not all the meat was browned evenly. After 3 hrs of stewing in the oven at 190 degrees celsius, the meat is so soft it literally falls apart. So, had I cut them into 2 inches size and brown them evenly, it will not be so. It was kind of nice to eat broken pieces of beef but of course, it will be most ideal to serve them upright and complete.

When buying ingredients for this dish, follow exactly what she states. I bought a good bottle of South African cabernet sauvignon. It must be young, but as you know, Julia has expensive wine taste which I cannot afford - Bordeaux St Emillion..... Good beef stock from Jones the Grocer, french butter, chunck of bacon. The Le Creuset casserole was such a good investment. It browns meat to a nice crisp and holds heat evenly. And it cleans out easily!

The potato gratin was really easy to make. But I had to dry each slice of potato, just like the beef cubes. Layer and add cheese and butter. I grated two types of Swiss cheese - Gruyere and Edmenthal. Sprinkle salt and pepper, pour boiling milk over, stuff it into the oven at 220 degrees celsius and voila, its ready in 45 mins. Both dishes were so good it was cleaned out completely. I was complimented several times and that made me happy. What is most gratifying to know is that I can do a pressure test and get it about 80 - 90% right. Only chefs with talent could achieve that.  If you don't know what a pressure test is, you should watch the Masterchef and Junior Masterchef series. You are basically given an hour to follow a recipe and reproduce the dish in exactation.

Which recipe next? Fish? Chicken? Hmmmmm.....

I should seriously consider giving up my job. A years tuition at Culinary Institute of America costs USD200,000. Must buy lottery.