Iron Chef: New Year Eve

Inspired by the movie Julie & Julia (my verdict: Julia is awesome but Julie is annoying as hell), for New Years Eve dinner I made Julia Child's beef bourguignon recipe. To be honest with you, I am not at all familiar with french cooking, aside from a few trips to a local french restaruant and yummy dinner club meals cooked by friends. I couldn't name a signature French dish, and was generally uninterested in the cuisine (we have a ton of cookbooks from Afghan to Schezwan, but no French). But the movie piqued my interest, and we are awaiting our copy Julia's Mastering the Art of French Cooking from the library.

So I downloaded the recipe for the beef bourguignon recipe from Knopf's website (in convenient pdf form) and made a quick trip to the grocery store to get everything. I made just a few substitutions, but otherwise followed the recipe pretty closely.


Left: just about ready to braise the dish for 2.5 hours, and right: browing the mushrooms in plenty of butter

The whole process was very fun, as I got to spend an afternoon in the new kitchen cooking (which is still really pleasurable) and listening to podcasts while Connor, Ali, and the Grandparents lounged in the sun room. (note: the glasses of wine kept me good company). I expected a fussy French recipe that would be difficult to follow, but either due to Julia's excellent instruction or my adequate cooking chops, the meal was very straight forward and delicious! While certainly not a recipe for weekly rotation, it is a delicious meal perfect for this time of year!


Finished just before serving. The dish was fantastic.