Bœuf Bourguignon for two

After trying Julia Child's coq au vin recipe, I was looking forward to trying her Bœuf Bourguignon. We've made "Beef Burgundy" a couple times before, using the recipe from America's Test Kitchen's "The Best Recipe" book. We've had that cookbook for years, and has never failed to give us the best recipes for all sorts of dishes from Thanksgiving turkey to chocolate chip cookies. However, for French cooking, Julia Child is still the queen! Both her Coq au Vin and Bœuf Bourguignon are a bit more complicated than the America's Test Kitchen version, but the flavors are so much better and more complex. Maybe it's all the extra butter. =)

When we made the previous version, we made it for large parties, so we used a whole brisket roast. This time, we used lean stewing meat which was recommended by the recipe, and it was much cheaper and had less fat. I guess it didn't matter that it was cheapo stewing meat since it got tender anyway after cooking for over two hours. Since it was just me and Uly eating, we cut the recipe in half and there was more than enough to even have a third portion for Uly to eat the next day. It was a good time for us to finally try the Le Creuset 2-quart dutch oven that we got on sale months ago but was backordered at the store. It's the perfect size for two!



For sides, we kept them pretty simple, since we had such a flavorful sauce. Like our coq au vin, we stuck to the boiled potatoes, which soaked up the sauce really well. We also had some baguette on the side to have with some butter and also to sop up the remaining sauce. I've had baguette from Safeway, TJ's, Acme, and I still think that Lee's (of the Vietnamese sandwiches) has the best baguette!



Our usual standby wine for braising is the Réserve Perrin Côtes du Rhône ($6.99 at Trader Joe's), which is actually drinkable and has produced some great sauces for us. However, this time we wanted to use a real Burgundy, so we got a similarly priced real French Burgundy from Trader Joe's. When I tried out a sip of it, it was pretty horrible, and I was worried that it would produce a weak sauce, but it actually wound up working pretty well. Unlike the Côtes du Rhône however, we just couldn't bring ourselves to drink the leftovers, so I just froze the rest in an ice-cube tray to make pan sauces and such.

For our drinking wine, we didn't have any French Burgundy in our cellar, but we had quite a bunch of California Pinot Noirs. When we visited Merry Edwards in Sonoma last December, I remember their wines being extremely full-bodied for a Pinot, and since our bottle was pretty young too, I figured they could stand up to the beef. We had a couple of single-vineyard bottles from them, and wound up opening the Merry Edwards "Meredith Estate" Russian River Valley Pinot Noir 2007. As we expected, it was full-bodied enough to stand up to the beef and sauce, and went perfectly with our meal.

Since my diet started, I haven't really been able to indulge in one of my favorite foods, cheese! I've convinced myself to not buy any until my first shipment from the cheese club that Uly got me for Christmas. However, my shipment kept getting delayed and I actually have hardly had any cheese in 2010. When I saw the notification from Milk Pail that they had French soft cheeses on sale, I couldn't resist picking up the one cheese I haven't tried before, Fougerus. It was nice and ripe, more similar to Pont-l'Évêque than Brillat Savarin in texture, so it's not as creamy but it has a nice flavor. The parts near the rind have a nice musky aroma to them (or as Uly would say..."feet smell", but I actually quite like stinky cheeses so I enjoyed this one a lot. At least I don't feel so bad since I only had one cheese. Hopefully I can have more again once the diet is over!