Boeuf Bourguignon

I have not been able to post lately because I have been too busy teaching French!! so this blog will be sporadic at best!

I just got back from France where I spent some quality time with Mamie Gisele. My mouth has been watering for some good Boeuf bourguignon while in Burgundy. So off we went to cook it one day. Superb!

One of the reasons I have wanted to try it, is that my daughter Natacha has given me a Le Creuset Cocotte ( read: Dutch oven) for my birthday and she has made a boeuf bourguignon herself following Julia Child's recipe. But this recipe is the one we use in Burgundy and is simplified.

Ingredients for 4 persons

2 pounds of stew meat

3 medium onions

3/4 liter of red wine

1/2 lb of bacon chopped up

1/2 lb of mushrooms

1 head of garlic

1 carrot

1 bouquet garni

1 Tbsp flour

1 Tbsp tomato paste

3 Tbsp butter

2 Tbsp oil

1- Cut the meat in cubes, slice the bacon and slice the onions

2-Saute the bacon pieces in the dutch oven ( Le Creuset enamel cast iron works best). When golden and browned remove from the pot and save.

3-In the same pot saute the meat and onions with the oil and butter and fat from the bacon. Add salt and pepper.

4-Once the meat and onions are browned add flour and mix.

5-Add the red wine

6-Slice the carrot, chop the cloves of garlic and prepare the bouquet garni.

7-Add all these to the pot with the tomato paste. Mix and let simmer for 1hour and 15 minutes

8-Slice the mushrooms and saute them in a frying pan with a little butter.

9-Before serving add the bacon and the mushrooms and sprinkle with chopped parsley.

10-Serve with steamed potatoes and baguette slices toasted with garlic.

Although it is often served in winter, Boeuf bourguignon can be eaten year round. Delicious!

Bon appetit!

In the winter, mamie Gisele makes a lot of soups. They are not chunky like most American soups but more like a "potage" or soup pureed in a blender. Mamie is famous for her mixed vegetable soup. With the cold weather around it is warming you up!

Soupe de legumes/vegetable soup

Ingredients:

1 leek chopped up

1 turnip

2 rutabagas

5 carrots

4 medium potatoes

1 stick of celery

1 quart of broth

salt and pepper

Saute the chopped up leek in butter. When soft, saute the chopped up vegetables for a while and add 1 quart of water or chicken or vegetable broth. Cook until tender. When tender, use a blender to puree all vegetables and salt and pepper the soup. If you want a thinner soup you can add more broth, thicker add less. Bon appetit!

Fruits Deguises

Christmas is approaching and I am remembering the sweets we had in France while growing up! Oodles of chocolate truffles, rochers with almonds, chocolates filled with liqueur and marzipan delicacies. My dad used to bring all these goodies home after his suppliers gave him Christmas presents of food and sweets. What a delight !! One year we even had duck "foie gras" from Perigord. Ah!! the holidays in France!! We eat well!

Now, the following is a home made recipe of dried fruit and marzipan that the whole family can make!

Ingredients:

2 8oz of marzipan

25 mini baking cups

prunes

dates

walnut halves

food coloring

Knead the marzipan and divide in 3 piles. Color each pile with a different food coloring for example pink for prunes, green for dates and yellow for walnuts.

Cut the dates and prunes in half and remove the pit. Stuff them with the colored marzipan.

Take 2 walnut halves and make a little ball of marzipan. Press the walnut halves on each side of the ball.

Place the "fruits deguises" in mini baking cups and save in a metal box for Christmas.

Makes 25 or more!!

Fall apples are delicious!

Fall is the full season for apples. I have been enjoying all the varieties fresh and now that the cooler days are in, I feel like making an apple tart. It is an appropriate dessert for a fall dinner and a perfect end to a Thanksgiving dinner too : light, not too sweet and delicious.

Tarte aux pommes

Pie dough is something between a cookie dough and a bread dough!! I like to use ingredients that are very cold (butter, water). If you do so, the flour will cook before the butter melts completely.
Pate brisee:

1 cup flour

6 Tbsp unsalted butter

1/8 tsp salt

4 Tbsp cold water

1/4 cup sugar to sprinkle on the fruit

3 Tbsp butter cut in small pieces and placed on the fruit

With a pastry blender mix flour, salt and cut up butter in a bowl. Gradually add water and mix with your hands until it forms a ball. Pieces of butter will show but that does not matter since you do not want to overwork the dough. On a floured board, roll the dough with a rolling pin and place in a buttered 10 inch tart pan. Refrigerate at this point.

Turn on the oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit and peel about 4 Golden Delicious apples. Slice them and place them in circles in the tart shell. Sprinkle the sugar and butter cubes on the apples and bake for 50 minutes or until golden.

Sign up for a cooking class and find out the secret on how not to make the dough too tough and how to make a glaze with a professional look.

This should serve up to 8 persons.

This is almost the end of summer and produce abound in the garden : Peppers, zucchini, tomatoes. It is a good time to make a vegetable stew as they make it in the South of France using all the fresh vegetables that are plentiful right now. Ratatouille is a specialty from Nice but you can find it all over the French "Provence" region and the "Cote d'Azur". It spells summer and smells so good with the garlic and the olive oil from that region!

Ratatouille Nicoise

2 or 3 cloves of garlic minced

2 onions sliced

2 green or red peppers sliced

1 or 2 eggplants depending on the size cut in chunks

2 zucchini cut in chunks

1 lb of tomatoes

1 bouquet garni

1/2 c olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

On medium heat put olive oil in a big pot and throw in garlic, onions and peppers. When limp put the other vegetables with tomatoes last and then the bouquet garni and salt and pepper. Cover and cook for an hour. If too much juice, uncover half way through. Mix while cooking on simmer.

Ratatouille is usually eaten warm or hot, in an omelette, with veal stew or pork chops and rice or stuffed in crepes. You can add a jalapeno pepper if you want more spice.

Serves 4 to 6 people depending if it is served as a main dish or a side dish.

Summer is for salads!!

When school is out, I am ready to cook and become more creative in the kitchen. Goodbye to the days of the school year when we rush home from work and cook whatever because we run out of time!! In the summer I also like to cook dishes from the warm regions of France like Provence or any place in the sunny South. It is time for a salade nicoise! There are a lot of variations on this recipe but as long as you have the olives, the tuna, the vegetables and the olive oil dressing you are good to go!! With good crispy French or Italian bread this is a full meal!

This recipe brings back a lot of memories of my childhood when my parents used to pack the car in July/August and drive to the Cote d'Azur to vacation on the French Riviera. Good times!!

This is a specialty of Nice but is served all over the South East coast of France. It is very healthy too!

Salade Nicoise

Ingredients:

1 head butter lettuce

2 boiled potatoes

1/2 lb cooked green beans

1 can well drained tuna

1/2 cucumber thinly sliced

2 peeled tomatoes cut in wedges

2 hard boiled eggs quartered

1 green pepper cut into strips

1 Walla Walla or red onion sliced

1 can flat anchovy fillets

10 nicoise black olives

Line an oval platter with lettuce leaves. Arrange potatoes in the middle. Arrange green beans around. Sprinkle the tuna over the potatoes. Put cucumbers slices around. Place tomato and egg quarters in a spoke fashion. Put slices of onions and strips of pepper here and there. Place the anchovy fillets in a star fashion or in a lattice fashion and place olives in-between. Pour vinaigrette over just before serving.

A vinaigrette with olive oil and balsamic or red wine vinegar is the best. Enjoy!

Serves 6 persons.

The local strawberries are coming!!

End of May -beginning of June around here, the local strawberries are coming!! We also have rhubarb so why not make a rhubarb/strawberry tart? It is a staple at our house and I hope you enjoy it.

Tarte aux fraises a la rhubarbe.

Pastry (recipe follows)

Creme patissiere (recipe follows)

1lb rhubarb cut up about 4 cups

1 1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup lemon juice

2 pints strawberries hulled

Pastry:

1/2 cup unsalted butter

6 Tbsp ground almonds

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp almond extract

1 cup all purpose flour

Beat butter in a mixer until white and fluffy. Add the ground almonds, sugar and salt. Continue beating. Stir in almond extract. Work flour into mixture with wooden spoon until dough is soft and smooth. Refrigerate wrapped in waxed paper for 30 minutes.

Heat oven to 350 F. Roll dough between two sheets of waxed paper into 10 inch circle. Fold pastry into quarters. Ease and unfold pastry into a 9 inch tart pan with a removable bottom. Press pastry against the sides and bottom of the pan. Refrigerate 30 minutes. Bake 20 minutes or until golden. Cool completely on a wire rack.

Creme patissiere:

Makes 1 1/3 cup

3 egg yolks

1/2 cup sugar

2 Tbsp flour

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup milk scalded

1/8 tsp vanilla

Beat egg yolks and sugar in medium size saucepan until mixture is thick and forms ribbons. Stir flour and salt into eggs. Stir in hot scalded milk. Heat the mixture to boiling stirring constantly. Boil for 2 minutes. Take off the heat and whisk until cool for 2 or 3 minutes. Stir in vanilla. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.

Make the pastry first then the creme patissiere.

Combine rhubarb, sugar and lemon juice in a medium saucepan. Heat to boiling covered. Reduce the heat to low and simmer uncovered until rhubarb is tender about 20 minutes. Drain and reserve the rhubarb juice. Pass rhubarb through the food mill using fine blade.

Mash 1/3 cup strawberries in a medium saucepan. Stir in reserved rhubarb juice. Heat the mixture to boiling. Reduce heat to medium and simmer uncovered until reduced to 2/3 cup. Strain and reserve.

When pastry is cooled fill it with cooled creme patissiere. Spread with pureed rhubarb. Arrange whole strawberries on top of the tart. Brush the strawberries with strawberry-rhubarb mixture for glaze.

Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Makes 8 to 10 servings.