Posted by Laura on February 26th, 2010
Julia Child’s Boeuf Bourguignon
Filed under: Cooking, Uncategorized
Overall: 
(4/5)
Preparation Difficulty: (3/5)
I have come to cooking slowly and roughly. From being mocked in college for my queer dishes (kielbasa with sauerkraut, plus mustard and BBQ sauce mixed throughout, anyone?) to my more adventurous attempts (inedible Chinese stir-fry; inedible due to the 4 hot peppers I put in), I have experimented, invented, and copied, learning from my mistakes the whole way.
I’ve never seen a Julia Child TV show, nor had any desire to. I never read her book, and, in fact, don’t think I had ever even heard of it. I watched the movie “Julie and Julia” on a whim - my husband and I couldn’t agree on anything else that was in the On Demand list that night.
I have not been able to stop thinking about that movie ever since! So much so, that I used a Barnes and Noble gift card that I received for my birthday to buy “The Art of French Cooking,” Volumes I AND II.
Of course, over-achiever Type-A that I am, I chose to start with Julia’s two arguably most popular and involved recipes: the Boeuf Bourguignon and the Crepes Suzette.
I tackled them both on a snow day - when you’re housebound with two feet of snow accumulating outside, you cook, right?
It took me ALL DAY. Yes; you heard me - ALL DAY!
The recipe for Boeuf Bourguignon is involved, with a few other recipes incorporated within. It took a while to prepare, and then it had to cook for 2 1/2 hours.
The result? It was good. If it was the first beef stew I had ever tasted, I’d probably be raving about it, saying how delicious it was. If it hadn’t been hyped up so much, I’d probably be saying it was the best beef stew I’d ever tasted.
As it turns out, it’s not that much different from any other beef stew I’ve made, let alone any I’ve made with red wine. In fact, I’d say it was a little too salty (I NEVER add salt to anything, even if a recipe calls for it; I did in this case, though, because I didn’t want to wonder, “What if?”).
Yes, it was good. Great. Delicious. But worth all the hype? I’m not so sure. In the end, it’s just beef stew!
