Beef Bourguignon

Now I know this doesn't sound manly at all but I saw that movie Julia and Julia about Julia Childs. This lady was a cooking star before they even phrased the term. She was like 6 feet tall but just had an amazing talent. So that basically sparked my interest in her and I started doing my research on her and the one recipe that pops up almost immediately when googling her is Beef Bourguignon. It's pretty much a fancy beef stew that has an entire bottle of wine in it. You heard me an entire bottle. So when I got my new Le Creuset French Oven I had to try this out.

The recipe I used is right here and can be found in here Art of French Cooking book that the movie was based around kind of. I pretty much followed it word for word with a few exceptions:

1. I didn't have any excess fat when I was done sauteing the veggies so there was nothing to drain out.
2. Instead of fresh garlic I used 2 tablespoons of roasted garlic (thanks Rachel).
3. I didn't use the herb bouquet when I made the pearl onions (I used fresh ones).
4. It only took mine 3 hours to be done. When it's done the recipe calls for you to remove all the contents of the reduced wine and stock and reduce the sauce even more. Mine was plenty thick already so I didn't have to do that. All I did was stir in my mushrooms and pearl onions and then return to the oven for another 20-30 minutes.
5. I served mine over potatoes but in retrospect I should have used mashed potatoes or even polenta cakes or something.

I can't begin to tell you how wonderful it was. The flavor was rich and deep and even my wife who doesn't eat beef went for seconds. You have to try this. Trust me it's worth the effort. Julia Child's was onto something back then and it's very fulfilling to me to take a recipe that's 40 years old from an icon and make it and completely nail it. You really want to eat this dish I am serious.

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