Bourdain's Beef Stew
For those who are interested, HotTubRon has just got engaged to a vet and is getting married in October. Ladies of Nowheresville, weep your hearts out.
***
I decided to make something new last night for the English who were coming round for dinner: boeuf bourguignon. I am usually not impressed with the results when I try to cook stews and the like. For some reason the meat and liquid never quite bond to form a mellifluous whole. My curries have the same problem. So I normally pin all my hopes on pudding and hope people manage to choke down the main course as best they can.
This time, the recipe I used came from Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles book. He is the guy who wrote the scary book Kitchen Confidential, which describes how and why most chefs in NYC are ex-con cokeheads. His recipes are also quite scary: things like tripe, or civet of wild boar, with about fourteen zillion ingredients. Of one recipe, he says, "it isn't very difficult and won't take too much time if you spread the work over three days."
The boeuf bourguignon was one of the less intimidating choices in the book a) because its ingredient list was mercifully short b) there was no offal involved and c) the cooking time was only about three hours, as opposed to one week.
The major problem turned out to be finding the beef: a very particular cut from the shoulder which the French call paleron, and (some) Americans know as chicken steak. (Chicken steak is not to be confused, in Jessica-Simpson fashion, with chicken, chicken of the sea, chicken-fried steak, or chicken tied to a stake.)
I visited five supermarkets looking for it. The conversations I had in each were almost identical, whether it was the high fallutin' Whole Foods, Anderson's the alledgely expert butcher or the really dodgy Reed's:
Me, wearily: "Do you have any chicken steak please?"
Meat Lady: "Chicken? It's over there ma'am."
Me: "Not chicken. Chicken steak."
Meat Lady: "Chicken fried steak?"
Me: "Not chicken fried steak, chicken steak. It's a cut from the shoulder of a cow that once went moo. It is lean but not too tough, just right for a stew that only simmers for two hours."
Meat Lady, blankly: "Don't know about that, ma'am. But how about a nice bit of sirloin?"
Me: "Er, no."
Finally, on the fifth and last supermarket (the much maligned El Gigante on the way home) I struck gold. The master butcher overheard the above conversation with the Meat Lady and escorted me straight to the gold@ Chickensteak, on special offer, only $1.80 a pound. I LOVE El Gigante.
***
At first I was a little worried. As it was cooking it looked sort of grey and insipid. Not exactly appetising, and nothing remotely resembling the picture in the book. But it got a lot better, and anyway, we ate on the screened in porch after it had got dark, so noone could see what color their food was. And it actually tasted rather good.
So here, with acknowledgements to AB, is how you make it.
Ingredients: 2lb of chickensteak (or in the UK, chuck steak rounds), cut into 1.5 inch pieces. 4 onions thinly sliced, 6 carrots cut into 1 inch pieces, one garlic clove, quarter of a bottle of red Burgundy wine, 3 tablespoons of demiglace, a bit of flour, olive oil, bouquet garni (bay leaf, fresh thyme and parsley) and parsley to finish.
Serves four hungry people, or six thin ones.
1) Season and fry meat off, in batches in a big pot, until golden brown. Not grey.
2) Take meat out, turn down heat to medium low, and cook onions in the pot for 10 minutes until soft and golden brown.
3) Add 2 tablespoons of flour and cook for 5 minutes, stirring. Add wine, being sure to scrape up brown bits from bottom of pan. Add meat, carrots, garlic and bouquet garni.
4) Add demiglace, and enough water to cover the meat by one third. Bring to boil then reduce to simmer.
5) Cook for about 2 hours until meat is tender. You will need to stir it well every 15-120 minutes.
Eat, with mashed potatoes and with a bit of parsley on top.
***
Of course, things didn't go entirely well. I was so excited about the beef that I forgot to take pudding out of the oven. My friends were forced to eat, in true Bridget Jones fashion, burnt marmalade pudding. Nathalie and the CRM speculated generously as to what it would have tasted like if it hadn't stayed in the oven over twice as long as it should have, while EnglishJustin merely confined himself to the observation that it was "chewy". Oh well, you can't win em all.
***
I decided to make something new last night for the English who were coming round for dinner: boeuf bourguignon. I am usually not impressed with the results when I try to cook stews and the like. For some reason the meat and liquid never quite bond to form a mellifluous whole. My curries have the same problem. So I normally pin all my hopes on pudding and hope people manage to choke down the main course as best they can.
This time, the recipe I used came from Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles book. He is the guy who wrote the scary book Kitchen Confidential, which describes how and why most chefs in NYC are ex-con cokeheads. His recipes are also quite scary: things like tripe, or civet of wild boar, with about fourteen zillion ingredients. Of one recipe, he says, "it isn't very difficult and won't take too much time if you spread the work over three days."
The boeuf bourguignon was one of the less intimidating choices in the book a) because its ingredient list was mercifully short b) there was no offal involved and c) the cooking time was only about three hours, as opposed to one week.
The major problem turned out to be finding the beef: a very particular cut from the shoulder which the French call paleron, and (some) Americans know as chicken steak. (Chicken steak is not to be confused, in Jessica-Simpson fashion, with chicken, chicken of the sea, chicken-fried steak, or chicken tied to a stake.)
I visited five supermarkets looking for it. The conversations I had in each were almost identical, whether it was the high fallutin' Whole Foods, Anderson's the alledgely expert butcher or the really dodgy Reed's:
Me, wearily: "Do you have any chicken steak please?"
Meat Lady: "Chicken? It's over there ma'am."
Me: "Not chicken. Chicken steak."
Meat Lady: "Chicken fried steak?"
Me: "Not chicken fried steak, chicken steak. It's a cut from the shoulder of a cow that once went moo. It is lean but not too tough, just right for a stew that only simmers for two hours."
Meat Lady, blankly: "Don't know about that, ma'am. But how about a nice bit of sirloin?"
Me: "Er, no."
Finally, on the fifth and last supermarket (the much maligned El Gigante on the way home) I struck gold. The master butcher overheard the above conversation with the Meat Lady and escorted me straight to the gold@ Chickensteak, on special offer, only $1.80 a pound. I LOVE El Gigante.
***
At first I was a little worried. As it was cooking it looked sort of grey and insipid. Not exactly appetising, and nothing remotely resembling the picture in the book. But it got a lot better, and anyway, we ate on the screened in porch after it had got dark, so noone could see what color their food was. And it actually tasted rather good.
So here, with acknowledgements to AB, is how you make it.
Ingredients: 2lb of chickensteak (or in the UK, chuck steak rounds), cut into 1.5 inch pieces. 4 onions thinly sliced, 6 carrots cut into 1 inch pieces, one garlic clove, quarter of a bottle of red Burgundy wine, 3 tablespoons of demiglace, a bit of flour, olive oil, bouquet garni (bay leaf, fresh thyme and parsley) and parsley to finish.
Serves four hungry people, or six thin ones.
1) Season and fry meat off, in batches in a big pot, until golden brown. Not grey.
2) Take meat out, turn down heat to medium low, and cook onions in the pot for 10 minutes until soft and golden brown.
3) Add 2 tablespoons of flour and cook for 5 minutes, stirring. Add wine, being sure to scrape up brown bits from bottom of pan. Add meat, carrots, garlic and bouquet garni.
4) Add demiglace, and enough water to cover the meat by one third. Bring to boil then reduce to simmer.
5) Cook for about 2 hours until meat is tender. You will need to stir it well every 15-120 minutes.
Eat, with mashed potatoes and with a bit of parsley on top.
***
Of course, things didn't go entirely well. I was so excited about the beef that I forgot to take pudding out of the oven. My friends were forced to eat, in true Bridget Jones fashion, burnt marmalade pudding. Nathalie and the CRM speculated generously as to what it would have tasted like if it hadn't stayed in the oven over twice as long as it should have, while EnglishJustin merely confined himself to the observation that it was "chewy". Oh well, you can't win em all.
posted by alranson | 10:55 AM
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