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I saw this floating around the InterTubes a while back and thought, “bullpucky.” Tonight, I tried it. Holy moly … it works!  Why didn't I know this before? All those years wasted, peeling one clove at a time! And you know what? If it works for me, it’ll work for you!   Boeuf bourguignon with potatoes and broccolini I finally tackled a long put-off project, the famous boeuf bourguignon (beef stew in red wine with bacon, onions, and mushrooms) from Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. This is a recipe you’ll need to study and understand before you start, especially if you’re going to prepare it by yourself. You’ll need a plan: mine was to prepare the dish in stages, making sure I had all the ingredients to hand, as well as the pots, pans, strainers, and utensils I’d need. A well-stocked kitchen is a must, and with that in mind I’m including a list of equipment. The items listed are the ones I used, not necessarily what Julia would have used. Though the ingredients and cooking methods I describe here are Julia’s, I’ll organize my directions around the stages I used during its preparation. I’ll also describe a few important cooking techniques that aren’t necessarily included in Julia’s recipe: some come from watching PBS tapes of Julia’s TV shows, some come from elsewhere in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, some come from my own addled mind. Ingredients
Equipment
Directions Organizing yourself Study the recipe first and mentally map out how you’re going to get it done. You’re actually cooking three things here: the beef stew, the pearl onions, and the mushrooms (in fact, if you use Mastering the Art of French Cooking, you’ll be flipping between three separate recipes in different parts of the book). You can blanch, peel, and sauté the pearl onions early and set them aside; likewise the mushrooms. You can prep the bacon and beef early. If you’re going to serve the beef bourguignon with potatoes and broccoli, as I did, you can cook those during the last half-hour, while the stew is still in the oven. With that, I’ll describe how I organized and prepared my cooking, and how it all came together. Preparing the bacon and beef Cut off the bacon rind and then cut the bacon into lardons: little French fry-like sticks about ¼ inch thick and 1½ inches long. Bring 1½ quarts of water to a boil in a pot and reduce heat to simmer. Throw the bacon rind and lardons into the water and simmer for 10 minutes. Drain, dry, set aside. Prepare your beef by cutting off excess fat, then slicing it into large chunks (2 to 2½ inches in size). Put the beef chunks on paper towels and pat them down with more paper towels until they’re dry. Peel and slice the carrot and onion, set aside. Heat some olive oil in the frying pan. Sauté the bacon lardons and rind over moderate heat for 2 to 3 minutes, browning lightly. Remove to a bowl with a slotted spoon. Heat the remaining oil until it’s almost smoking, then sauté the beef to brown it (it won’t really brown unless it’s dry). Don’t crowd the beef; brown just a few chunks at a time. Remove the browned beef to a bowl with a slotted spoon. In the same oil, sauté the carrot and onion slices, set aside. Preparing the stew Preheat oven to 450° F. Using tongs, place browned beef chunks in casserole or Dutch oven. Add bacon lardons and toss with the salt and pepper. Sprinkle on the flour and toss again. Put casserole on middle rack of oven, uncovered, for 4 minutes. Remove and toss the meat again, return to oven for another 4 minutes. Remove and turn oven down to 325° F. Stir the wine and about 2 cups of the beef broth into the casserole with the meat, enough so that the meat is barely covered. Add the tomato paste, garlic, bay leaf and thyme, and the sautéed carrot and onion slices from before. Stir it all together and bring to a simmer on top of the stove. Cover the casserole or Dutch oven and place on the bottom rack of the preheated 325° F oven. Cook for 2½ to 3 hours. Check it after about an hour to make sure the liquid isn’t boiling away like crazy; if it is, reduce the heat a little. The beef is done when you can pierce it easily with a fork. Preparing the pearl onions Boil the pearl onions for 1 to 2 minutes. Drain them and plunge them into a bowl of iced water to stop the cooking. On the cutting board, slice off the root end of each onion. Grasp the other end of the onion firmly with thumb and finger and squeeze it to pop the onion out of its skin. Throw the skins away. Pierce the cut end of each onion with a sharp knife twice crossways, going in just a little way. This will keep the inside parts of the onion from poking out when you cook them. Heat a little butter and olive oil in the frying pan. Add the pearl onions and sauté them over moderate heat for about 10 minutes to brown them, rolling them around. Add some beef stock, cover, and simmer for about 20 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside. Preparing the mushrooms Rinse, drain, and dry the mushrooms. I used baby portabellas, about 1½ to 2½ inches in diameter. Quarter the mushrooms lengthwise. Heat butter and olive oil in the frying pan and sauté the mushrooms for 4 to 5 minutes to brown them, shaking and tossing the pan to turn them. Just do a few pieces at a time so as not to crowd the mushrooms. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.
Putting it together Remove the beef stew from the oven and carefully drain it through a colander or strainer positioned atop a large pot. Wash out the casserole (or just use another if you have two) and return the beef and bacon to it. You can pick the beef and bacon lardons out of the colander with tongs, shaking each piece to get the bits of cooked onion and carrot off. Toss the beef and bacon to mix it, then layer the pearl onions and mushrooms on top. Skim the fat off the sauce you drained into the pot, then simmer it in the pot for 1 to 2 minutes, skimming off any addition fat that rises. There should be about 2½ cups of sauce, and it should be thick. If there’s not enough sauce, add more wine and stock. If the sauce is too thin, boil it down to thicken it. Pour the sauce over the meat, pearl onions, and mushrooms in the casserole. Baste the sauce over any uncovered parts if necessary. Sprinkle with fresh parsley as a garnish. Serve it as shown with potatoes and broccoli (you can also serve the stew over noodles). I boiled unskinned new potatoes in salted water for 20 minutes and sautéed the broccoli in butter for about 10 minutes). I also put crusty bread on the table (you’ll want something to mop up the sauce with). If you want to serve the stew later, you can refrigerate the casserole, covered, then bring it back to a simmer for 15 to 20 minutes before serving. This recipe serves 6. Even though there are only 3 of us, I didn’t even think about reducing the ingredients … leftover stew is just as good the next day! Notes Interestingly, there’s an error in the book version of Julia’s recipe. While she mentions peeling, slicing, and browning a carrot and onion, she never does tell you what to do with them. In the TV episode, she skips the onion and carrot altogether. I was certain the carrot and onion were meant to bake in the oven with the meat and sauce, so I went online and found a Food Channel beef bourguignon recipe “based on” Julia Child’s recipe. There, I finally found confirmation: the sliced carrot and onion go into the pot and get strained out later. I wonder if Julia was ever made aware of the oversight? I also wonder, based on the TV show, whether Julia ever used the carrot and onion at all? Though not complex, beef bourguignon the Julia Child way is a fair amount of work (but oh so worth it!), and you’ll be busy for a few hours. I posted an entry about my day with Julia on my other blog, Paul’s Thing, if you’re interested. Saturday night Poulet en Crote, a long-time friend of Crouton’s Kitchen and the deMenthes, threw a birthday party for me and our mutual friends Osso Bucco and Pomme Frites. I can’t resist posting a photo of the dinner she prepared for us (try not to slaver):  Pomme Frites & Osso Bucco at the groaning board Life is good with friends like these! Twice now, I’ve smoked beef briskets, describing the process here and here. Each time I used a slightly different approach: first with a dry-rubbed brisket, second with a combination of dry rub and mop. On the Friday after Thanksgiving at my son Baguette’s house, I went back to the first technique: dry-rubbing the brisket and smoking it slowly, leaving out the mop. Based on the results, this is now my method of choice. Thanksgiving morning, I made a cup of dry rub and spread it liberally to the brisket. The brisket, wrapped in aluminum foil, then went into the fridge. Friday morning, Baguette and I prepared the smoker. Baguette has a Weber bullet smoker like the one I use at home. We filled the water reservoir to keep the heat moist and were careful to keep the amount of charcoal on the burner grill to one layer, replenishing it with 12 to 16 briquettes every hour and a half. We used hickory for the smoke. Total cooking time, at about 220-230°F, was seven hours. At the end, Baguette added a few hot links. We served the brisket and hot links with beans, corn on the cob, potato salad, and our home-made barbecue sauce. It was the best!
Occasionally readers ask me about the names on this blog. Crouton. Ditalini. Escargot. A bit of explanation is in order. When I started this blog I decided to use a nom de plume. My wife, who contributes many of the recipes here and inspires almost everything I come up with on my own, got one too. I’m Crouton, she’s Ditalini. Pretty soon our kids, who help with the cooking when they visit, needed names too. And our grandkids. And our dog. And the friends who visit our table and appear on the blog. In Crouton’s Kitchen, everyone has a name. Why? Why not? So now there’s a list of family and friends for you to consult. There’s a link at the top of the page, under About; there’s another link on the right sidebar under my photo. I’d close by wishing you bon appétit, but we might need to repurpose it as a Crouton’s Kitchen name some day!
Ingredients
Directions In a large bowl, toss potatoes in oil, salt, and pepper. Cover a baking sheet with foil and spray with Pam. Arrange potatoes on baking sheet, place in preheated 400°F oven. Bake 50 minutes, turning potatoes with tongs after 20-25 minutes. Heat butter and garlic in small saucepan, let the garlic cook over low heat for 2-3 minutes. Add parsley and Parmesan cheese. Pour mixture over potatoes and toss. Serve.
This is easy, and always good. It’s a dinner a husband can cook and a wife will love. Ingredients
Directions
You’ll want to boil the potatoes in salted water for about 20 minutes. You can prepare the rest of the meal while the potatoes are boiling. Don’t forget to preheat your charcoal or gas grill. The salmon: melt the butter in a small saucepot over low heat, stir in honey and add plenty of fresh dill. Place the salmon in the fish basket, skin side down, brush butter/honey/dill sauce over the top. We’ll come back to the salmon. The potatoes: melt the butter over low heat in a small saucepot, stir in fresh dill. Drain the cooked potatoes, return to the pot, pour in butter/dill mix and toss. You can cover the pot to keep the potatoes warm while you grill the salmon and sauté the green beans. The green beans: melt butter in a medium sauté pan over medium heat, add olive oil and chopped garlic, let cook a little. Add beans and sauté over low to medium heat, turning every few minutes. Back to the salmon: put the fish basket with the salmon on the preheated grill, then cook for three minutes with the grill cover closed. Open the cover, turn the basket over, re-cover and cook another three minutes. While this is going on, run inside a couple of times to turn the green beans. When the salmon is done bring it in. Carefully remove the salmon from the fish basket with a small spatula, place on a plate skin side up. Lift up a small corner of the skin, peel it off and throw away. Now brush both sides of the salmon with the leftover butter/honey/dill mix. Serve with crusty French bread.  Escargot's Gordon Bleeping Ramsey Chicken Every now and then, from the other end of the house, I hear my daughter watching something on TV that sounds like this: “Murmur murmur bleep murmur bleep bleep murmur.” I thought maybe it was Spongebob Squarepants with a bad case of hiccups, but it turns out she’s been watching … and learning from … TV chef Gordon Ramsey. The other night she put some of that learning to good use with her interpretation of a Gordon Ramsey recipe. Ingredients
Directions Butterfly the chicken breasts. Dip in flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs; fry in vegetable oil until golden brown and crispy. Remove breasts and place them in a baking dish lightly brushed with oil. Set aside. Preheat oven to 350°F. In a smaller pan, heat small amount of vegetable oil and add salsa ingredients: tomatoes, basil, pinch of sugar, salt & pepper to taste, lemon zest and a squirt of juice, crushed garlic. Toss over high heat until tomatoes are tender. Spoon salsa mixture over chicken breasts, cover each breast with 2-3 slices of mozzarella. Sprinkle with Parmesan, bake in oven 8-10 minutes. Escargot served her chicken with sautéed kale. It was pretty bleeping good. Ingredients
Directions Put a large pot of water on to boil. Melt butter in frying pan over low temperature. Add sliced garlic and sauté lightly. Add half & half, parsley flakes for color, white pepper to taste, whisk all together. Add about 1/2 cup of grated Parmesan, keep whisking until mixture thickens. Add shrimp and continue to cook over low heat, stirring occasionally. By now the water should have come to a boil and you can cook the pasta. When done, drain the pasta and mix with the alfredo sauce. Serve. What made this dish special was Ditalini’s home-made chicken stock, so I’ll include both recipes here.  Ditalini's Chicken & Dumplings Chicken Stock Ingredients
Chicken Stock Directions Freeze and save about a year’s worth of chicken carcasses and giblets. Place all ingredients in 2 1/2 gallons water in a very large pot, bring to a boil and reduce heat to maintain a low boil for 2-3 hours. Add salt & pepper to taste. When done, remove everything solid with a large slotted spoon or strainer and throw away. Place the pot of stock in the refrigerator overnight. The next morning remove the grease that has floated to the top. Strain the remaining stock through cheesecloth and save. Ditalina got almost 2 gallons of stock out of this batch. One gallon went into the freezer. The other gallon went into the chicken & dumplings. Chicken & Dumplings Ingredients
Chicken & Dumplings Directions Place chicken, carrots, onions, and celery in stock. Bring to a boil, reduce to low boil. Mix Bisquick and water to make a soft dough. When the onions and celery in the broth are cooked, about an hour, drop spoonfuls of dumpling dough onto the boiling broth. Reduce heat and cook uncovered for 10 minutes. Cover and cook another 10 minutes. Serve.  Ready to serve |
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To prepare, rinse salmon filets and place on paper towels. Spray the inside of a grilling fish basket (see inset) with Pam; set aside. Rinse the potatoes and cut them in half. Rinse and trim the green beans.
