Beouf Bourguignon Vol au Vents Part DEUX

I promise to give you the play by play of this recipe once I get home and have a minute to sit down. Right now, I need to get the heck out of work!!!

Later- You know what? These pictures are a pretty good play by play on their own- So I'm leaving it as is. Kinda like magic!















Beouf Bourguignon
Adapted from Mastering the Art of French Cooking Vol I by Julia Child
For 6 People

• 6 oz bacon
• 1 bt olive oil
• 3 lbs. lean beef cut into 1 inch chunks
• 1 sliced onion
• 1 sliced carrot
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 2 tb flour
• 3 cups full bodied red wine
• 2 to 3 cups beef broth
• 1 tb tomato paste
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 1/2 tsp thyme
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 recipe of Braised Onions (recipe follows)
• 1 recipe of Buttered Mushrooms (recipe follows)
• obligatory parsley

Preheat oven to 450 degrees

Saute the bacon in the oil over moderate heat to render the fat. Remove and set aside. Heat fat until it is almost smoking. Making sure the beef is very dry, saute it in the fat in a few bacthes so that they can brown. Once nicely browned, set aside with bacon.

In the same fat, saute the sliced vegetables until brown. Pour out the fat.

Return the beef and bacon to the casserole and toss with salt and pepper. Then sprinkle on the flour and toss again to coat the beef lightly with the flour. Set casserole uncovered in preheated oven for 4 minutes. Toss the meat and return to oven for 4 minutes more. Remove casserole and turn oven down to 325 degrees.

Stir in the wine and enough broth to cover the meat. Add the tomato paste, garlic and herbs. Bring to a simmer then set the casserole into preheated oven. Regulate heat so liquid ssimmer very slowly for 2.5 to 3 hours. To meat is done with a fork pierces it easily.

Make the braised onions and buttered mushrooms (recipes to follow)

When the meat is tender, pour the contens of the casserole into a siee over a saucepan. Return the meat and bacon to the casserole and top off with the onions and mushrooms.

Skim the fat off the sauce. Simmer sauce for a minute or two skimming off additional fat as it rises. The sauce should be thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. If it is too thin, boil it down rapidly. If too thick, mix in a few tablespoons of broth. Tasted for seasoning and then pour over the meat and vegetables.

For immediate serving: Cover the casserole and simmer for 2 to 3 minutes, basting the meat and vegetables with the sauce. Garnish with parsley and serve.

For later serving: When cold, cover and refrigerate. About 15 to 20 minutes before serving, bring to a simmer, cover and simmer very slowly for 10 minutes occasionally basting the meat and vegetable with the sauce. Garnish with parsley and serve.

Buttered Mushrooms

(Champignons Sautes au Beurre)

• 2 tb butter
• 1tb oil
• 1/2 lb fresh mushrooms, washed, well dried, left whole if small or quartered if large
• 1 or 2 tb minced shallots or green onions

Place the skillet over high heat with the butter and oil. As soon as you see that the butter foam has begun to subside, indicating it is hot enough, add the mushrooms. Toss and shake the pan for 4 to 5 minues. During their saute the mushrooms will at first absorb the fat. In 2 to 3 minues the fat will reappear on the surface, and the mushrooms will bnegin to brown. As soon as they have browned lightly, remove from heat.

Toss the shallots or green onions with the mushrooms. Sauce over moderate heat for 2 minutes.

Braised Onions

(Ognions Glaces a Brun)

• 18 to 24 peeled white onions
• 1.5 tb butter
• 1.5 tb oil
• 1/2 beef broth
• 1 herb bouquet: 4 parsley sprigs, a bay leaf and 1/2tsp thyme tied in cheesecloth

To peel the onions, boil a large pot of water, drop the onions into the pot for about 30 seconds making sure not to overcrowed the pot. Drain and let cool. Barely cut off the bottom and top, enough to remove the outer layers. Poke a small hole in the root of the onions to ensure even cooking

When the butter and oil are bubbling in the skiller, add the onions and saute over moderate hear for about 10 minutes, rolling the onions about so they will brown as evenly as possible. You cannot expect to brown them uniformly.

Pour in the liquid, season to taste and add the herb bouquet. Cover and simmer slowly for 40 to 50 minutes until the onions are perfectly tender but retain their shape and the liquid has evaporated. Remove the herb bouquet.

Beouf Bourguignon Vol au Vent

I mentioned in my last post (almost a month ago....) that my French grandmother is one of the only people who has been able to make me eat fish- largely due to the incredibly buttery sauce that always came along side it- but every once and a while she'd try to get us to eat shrimp and Coquille Saint Jacques (scallops) too which was a whole other level of gross to my 11 year old self. In comes the puff pastry to dull the pain:


It's pretty hard to turn down puff pastry and a buttery white sauce even if it laced with seafood.

The September 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan. So I was pretty psyched to create my own (meat) version for this month's Daring Baker's Challenge. I spent a very long but industrious Sunday making Julia Child's Beouf Bourguignon to eat in puff pastry vessels but as both recipes are very long, I've separated them into two posts. Here is how we do the puff pastry:


I made half a recipe of Puff Pastry and I have a tiny little food processor so I did the dough in two batches- no biggie! Once you've made your dough in the food processor you want to put it in the fridge for a bit- meanwhile

Pull out your sticks of butter- place them between two sheets of cling sheet and whack them until they smoosh together and flatten to about 1/4 inch. Then you roll out your chilled dough into a largish rectangle and place the butter in the middle. Use the dough flaps to cover the butter and roll the dough out.

You're going to do 6 turns, where you roll the down out really long, then fold it in thirds like a business letter and then roll it out again the other way.


See? Rolled out nice and long- then you would fold it again and roll it again- 6 times in total. Then I should have some picture of me cutting out the rounds for the vessels. I went with a 4 inch round and stacked two layers of rings to make higher walls.

I'd say it turned out pretty well- And it was truly delicious. Didn't matter that we didn't eat until 10pm- it was awesome then too.

Obligatory parsley sprig

Beouf Bourguignon Vols-au-Vent
puff pastry from Michel Richard in Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan

• 1/3 puff pastry recipe (see below), well-chilled
  
• 1 recipe Beouf Bourguignon (to be posted soon)
• egg wash (1 egg or yolk beaten with a small amount of water)
  

Assemble the vols-au-vent: 1/3 of the puff pastry recipe below will yield about 8-10 1.5” vols-au-vent or 4 4” vols-au-vent. Line a baking sheet with parchment and set aside. Using a knife or metal bench scraper, divided your chilled puff pastry dough into three equal pieces. Work with one piece of the dough, and leave the rest wrapped and chilled. On a lightly floured surface, roll the piece of dough into a rectangle about 1/8 to 1/4-inch (3-6 mm) thick. Transfer it to the baking sheet and refrigerate for about 10 minutes before proceeding with the cutting. (This assumes you will be using round cutters, but if you do not have them, it is possible to cut square vols-au-vents using a sharp chef’s knife.) For smaller, hors d’oeuvre sized vols-au-vent, use a 1.5” round cutter to cut out 8-10 circles. For larger sized vols-au-vent, fit for a main course or dessert, use a 4” cutter to cut out about 4 circles. Make clean, sharp cuts and try not to twist your cutters back and forth or drag your knife through the dough. Half of these rounds will be for the bases, and the other half will be for the sides. (Save any scrap by stacking—not wadding up—the pieces…they can be re-rolled and used if you need extra dough. If you do need to re-roll scrap to get enough disks, be sure to use any rounds cut from it for the bases, not the ring-shaped sides.) Using a ¾-inch cutter for small vols-au-vent, or a 2- to 2.5-inch round cutter for large, cut centers from half of the rounds to make rings. These rings will become the sides of the vols-au-vent, while the solid disks will be the bottoms. You can either save the center cut-outs to bake off as little “caps” for you vols-au-vent, or put them in the scrap pile.

Dock the solid bottom rounds with a fork (prick them lightly, making sure not to go all the way through the pastry) and lightly brush them with egg wash. Place the rings directly on top of the bottom rounds and very lightly press them to adhere. Brush the top rings lightly with egg wash, trying not to drip any down the sides (which may inhibit rise). If you are using the little “caps,” dock and egg wash them as well. Refrigerate the assembled vols-au-vent on the lined baking sheet while you pre-heat the oven to 400ºF (200ºC). (You could also cover and refrigerate them for a few hours at this point.) Once the oven is heated, remove the sheet from the refrigerator and place a silicon baking mat (preferred because of its weight) or another sheet of parchment over top of the shells. This will help them rise evenly. Bake the shells until they have risen and begin to brown, about 10-15 minutes depending on their size. Reduce the oven temperature to 350ºF (180ºC), and remove the silicon mat or parchment sheet from the top of the vols-au-vent. If the centers have risen up inside the vols-au-vent, you can gently press them down. Continue baking (with no sheet on top) until the layers are golden, about 15-20 minutes more. (If you are baking the center “caps” they will likely be finished well ahead of the shells, so keep an eye on them and remove them from the oven when browned.) Remove to a rack to cool. Cool to room temperature for cold fillings or to warm for hot fillings.

Notes: For additional rise on the larger-sized vols-au-vents, you can stack one or two additional ring layers on top of each other (using egg wash to “glue”). This will give higher sides to larger vols-au-vents, but is not advisable for the smaller ones, whose bases may not be large enough to support the extra weight. Although they are at their best filled and eaten soon after baking, baked vols-au-vent shells can be stored airtight for a day. Shaped, unbaked vols-au-vent can be wrapped and frozen for up to a month (bake from frozen, egg-washing them first).

puff pastry dough

I made a half recipe of the dough and was able to assemble two large vessels with some leftovers which are now in the freezer.

• 2 1/2 cups (12.2 oz/354g) unbleached all-purpose flour
  
• 1 1/4 cups (5.0 oz/142g) cake flour
• 1 tbsp salt (you can cut this by half for a less salty dough or for sweet preparations)
• 1 1/4 cups (10 fl oz/300 ml) ice water
• 1 pound (16 oz/454g) very cold unsalted butter
• extra flour for dusting work surface

Mixing the Dough: Check the capacity of your food processor before you start. If it cannot hold the full quantity of ingredients, make the dough into two batches and combine them. Put the all-purpose flour, cake flour, and salt in the work bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade and pulse a couple of times just to mix. Add the water all at once, pulsing until the dough forms a ball on the blade. The dough will be very moist and pliable and will hold together when squeezed between your fingers. Actually, it will feel like Play-Doh. Remove the dough from the machine, form it into a ball, with a small sharp knife, slash the top in a tic-tac-toe pattern. Wrap the dough in a damp towel and refrigerate for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, place the butter between 2 sheets of plastic wrap and beat it with a rolling pin until it flattens into a square that’s about 1″ thick. Take care that the butter remains cool and firm: if it has softened or become oily, chill it before continuing.

Incorporating the Butter: Unwrap the dough and place it on a work surface dusted with all-purpose flour (A cool piece of marble is the ideal surface for puff pastry) with your rolling pin (preferably a French rolling pin without handles), press on the dough to flatten it and then roll it into a 10″ square. Keep the top and bottom of the dough well floured to prevent sticking and lift the dough and move it around frequently. Starting from the center of the square, roll out over each corner to create a thick center pad with “ears,” or flaps. Place the cold butter in the middle of the dough and fold the ears over the butter, stretching them as needed so that they overlap slightly and encase the butter completely. (If you have to stretch the dough, stretch it from all over; don’t just pull the ends) you should now have a package that is 8″ square. To make great puff pastry, it is important to keep the dough cold at all times. There are specified times for chilling the dough, but if your room is warm, or you work slowly, or you find that for no particular reason the butter starts to ooze out of the pastry, cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate it . You can stop at any point in the process and continue at your convenience or when the dough is properly chilled.

Making the Turns: Gently but firmly press the rolling pin against the top and bottom edges of the square (this will help keep it square). Then, keeping the work surface and the top of the dough well floured to prevent sticking, roll the dough into a rectangle that is three times as long as the square you started with, about 24″ (don’t worry about the width of the rectangle: if you get the 24″, everything else will work itself out.) With this first roll, it is particularly important that the butter be rolled evenly along the length and width of the rectangle; check when you start rolling that the butter is moving along well, and roll a bit harder or more evenly, if necessary, to get a smooth, even dough-butter sandwich (use your arm-strength!). With a pastry brush, brush off the excess flour from the top of the dough, and fold the rectangle up from the bottom and down from the top in thirds, like a business letter, brushing off the excess flour. You have completed one turn. Rotate the dough so that the closed fold is to your left, like the spine of a book. Repeat the rolling and folding process, rolling the dough to a length of 24″ and then folding it in thirds. This is the second turn.

Chilling the Dough: If the dough is still cool and no butter is oozing out, you can give the dough another two turns now. If the condition of the dough is iffy, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes. Each time you refrigerate the dough, mark the number of turns you’ve completed by indenting the dough with your fingertips. It is best to refrigerate the dough for 30 to 60 minutes between each set of two turns. The total number of turns needed is six. If you prefer, you can give the dough just four turns now, chill it overnight, and do the last two turns the next day. Puff pastry is extremely flexible in this regard. However, no matter how you arrange your schedule, you should plan to chill the dough for at least an hour before cutting or shaping it. Makes 2.5 pounds of dough.

Clafoutis avec Mémé

When my parents flew back to the US for the summer, they stopped off in Paris to visit my French grandmother Suzanne. We call her Mémé and she is known- above all else- for her cooking. She is the only woman who could get my 12 year old self to eat fish. How? By whipping up one of those famously French, sinfully delicious white butter-laden sauces .

But I'm here to talk about her clafoutis which is a sort of cake made with black cherries. If you haven't already tried one, you should. As I've mentioned before, I don't really even like cherries, but this takes the cake. (ha!)


It's not even that difficult to make- Mémé doesn't even have a set recipe. So if cherries are still in season near you, I'd suggest giving this a try before it's too late.

My mom had the ingenious idea of taking pictures of the process while she was visiting and so whitout her permission, I have posted them here for our mutual enjoyment. See how much I care?

Et voila ma Mémé Suzanne:

Step one- Butter a baking dish. All good French recipe require butter. fact of life.

Now here we have some pitted cherries. Some say that you MUST keep the pits in as they infuse the cake with their nutty almost almond like flavour- but others are more practical. My Mémé falls into the later category.

Mixing up the batter. Do I spot some yogurt or creme fraiche on the lip of the bowl?

Adding the obligatory milk.

And a bit of flour tooNext are the cherries. And try not to lose any, ok?

Mix it all up
And pour into your buttered pan

Into the oven for 34-40 minutes.

Et voila! Un delicieux clafoutis aux cerises!

Clafoutis
From the Larousse Gastronomique
A desert from the Limousin region of France , clafoutis consists of black cherries arranged in a buttered dish, covered with fairly thick batter and baked. It is served lukewarm, dusted with sugar. As a rule, the cherries are not stoned (pitted) but simply washed and stalked (stemmed), since the kernel add their flavor to the batter during cooking.

• 500g black cherries
• 100g caster sugar, seperated
  
• butter for greasing
• 125g flour
• pinch of salt
• 3 eggs
• 300ml milk
• icing sugar, for dusting

Remove the stalks from 500g (18 oz) washed black cherries, dust them with 50g (2oz) caster sugar and leave for at least 30 minutes. Butter a baking tin and fill it with cherries. Put 125g (4 1/2 oz) plain flour in a mixing bowl and add a pinch of salt, 50g (2oz) caster sugar and 3 well-beaten eggs; mix well; then add 300ml (1/2 pint) milk and mix thoroughly again. Pour the mixture over the cherries and bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees C (350 degrees F) for 35-40 minutes. When it is lukewarm dust with icing sugar.

miam!

The Roadhouse

A couple weeks ago my brother and my boyfriend became a little obsessed with a website called Cheese & Burger which seems to have been set up by the Wisconsin Cheese Company. It's a very flashy website which proudly promotes 30 different cheeseburgers, most of which one person cannot eat alone. A very manly-man's voice announces each burger as you click through the pages and drool over the completely over-the-top creations.

Boyfriend and brother spent most of a work day deciding which one they wanted and would ultimately make that very night. I did manage to get a word in and we ended up going for Number 13: The Roadhouse.


Featuring Gruyere, garlic mayonnaise, bacon, caramelized onions AND onion rings, this is a monster burger you better be eating alone or with friends who won't soon smell your breath.

I think we did a pretty god job re-creating it. Kris could barely wait for me to take a picture of the darn thing, practically shouting: "OHMYGOD ITS GETTING COLD!" Yes. Kris takes his burgers very seriously- as would anyone who would attempt to make such an overloaded but tasty burger.

The Roadhouse
The Toppings & Fixings

• Gruyere cheese
• Beef patty
• Caramelized onions
• Bacon
• Onion rings
• Garlic mayonnaise
• Toasted onion roll

Preheat oven to 375

Start out making your onion rings. Just dredge your slices onions into some flour which you've seasoned with powdered mustard, salt and pepper. Fry in oil until golden and crispy. Drain on paper towel.

Meanwhile you can caramelize your sliced onions in another pan by slowly sauteing them with some butter.

Throw your buns in the oven to toast them for a bit

Cook up your beef patty in the same pan you used to saute the onions.

Assemble from bottom to top: onion roll bottom, caramalized onions, onion rings, beef patty, Gruyere, bacon, garlic mayonnaise, onion roll top

Try not to devour it in one bite. It's no joke.

Breakfast Burritos or Not

Again inspired by the Pioneer Woman, last weekend we actually made an effort for breakfast. As much as I love the super-easy Egg in the Hole from last week, this is a great breakfast when you're starving and need your stomach to be appeased for the next several hours. Plus, the effort involved is indirectly proportional to the tastiness yielded. I hope we're all on the same page because we're getting started now!

Start by washing and scrubbing a few potatoes- we went with some red potatoes.

Once they are soft when poked with a fork, drain them, let them cool and then chop them up.

Meanwhile start sauteing some chopped onions and peppers. You could even throw in a jalapeno if you felt like it (or have some leftover).

Then add in your chopped potatoes.

Let it all cook together for a while until the potatoes develop a nice golden crunch.

Next we add some shopped spicy sausage which was already cooked (if starting with raw sausage, I would probably throw them into your pan first.)

Next add in your egg mixture. Here we have 4 eggs mixed with about 1 cup of pepperjack cheese and chopped chives.

Slowly fold the mixture over so that you don't end with scrambled eggs or an omelet but something in between. Once the egg has settled, we're reading to plate it!

Just plop some of the mixture into a burrito and fold! OR if you're like us and got "brown rice tortilla" which tasted funky, just put it in a bowl and top it with sour cream and salsa

Tasty!

Breakfast Burritos or Not
Adapted from this recipe on The Pioneer Woman Cooks!

• 1 pound red potatoes, washed and scrubbed
• 2 tbls butter (or if you're a fatty like me, bacon fat)
  
• 1 bell pepper or a couple sweet peppers chopped
• 1 half onion chopped
• 2 pre-cooked spicy sausages
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup pepperjack cheese
• 2 tbls chopped chives
• salt and pepper
• Tortillas and/or sour cream and salsa
  

Put your potatoes in a saucepan of cold water and bring to a boil. Cook until potatoes are tender when poked with a fork. Drain and when cool coarsely chop.

A large skillet melt butter and saute onions and peppers until soft. Add chopped potatoes and let cook together for a couple minutes, letting the potatoes develop a nice crust.

Add in chopped sausage and let cook for another few minutes. Let the ingredients get to know each other.

In a small bowl whisk up your eggs and add shredded cheese, chopped chives and salt & vinegar. Add mixture to skillet and gently fold everything together. When eggs are settled, you are ready for deliciousness! Either plop some into a tortilla for a burrito or eat out of bowl topped with sour cream and salsa. Can't really go wrong here, folks.

And How to Stay Hot

I've seen the Pioneer Woman make these jalapeno poppers for just about every big even she's hosted- Christmas, people visiting the ranch, maybe even Easter but most importantly 4th of July. I can see how these would become a 4th of July tradition. You can cook them up on the grill, they're easy to make, don't fall apart once they're cooked and are nice on a burger. I wasn't head over heals for them, but the boyfriend and brother looooooved them.

So if you wanna impress a bunch of 20 something guys with a taste for spicy foods, this is your recipe.

To start, why don't we just wash those peppers. Next, I would advise putting on some gloves- no seriously. I did not listen to this advice and for the rest of the evening my fingers were... tingly? felt like they had ants running through them maybe? or even a slight burning sensation- particularly around the cuticles and any scratches I already had. but all of this to say- it's no joke! These peppers will burn you- so be warned.

Next, cut each pepper in half (look at my glove-less poor hands not realizing what they will be going through soon!)

And scoop out the membranes- see? Peppers on one side- membranes on the other

Then you wanna fill each half with cream cheese.

Wrap a slice of bacon around each pepper and secure with a toothpick.

See? Lots of peppers, filled with cream cheese, wrapped in bacon and ready for the GRILL!

And voila! A couple minutes on the grill under the watchful eye of my father yielded some rather burnt looking but apparently delicious poppers. Which I would say means the recipe is pretty forgiving.

Not bad at all

Bacon Wrapped Jalapeno Thingies

From the PioneerWomanCooks.com

Ingredients

• Fresh Jalapenos 2-3 inches in size
• Cream cheese, softened
• Thin, regular bacon, sliced into thirds

Cut jalapenos in half, length-wise. With a spoon, remove the seeds and white membrane (the source of the heat; leave a little if you like things HOT). Smear softened cream cheese into each jalapeno half. Wrap jalapeno with bacon piece (1/3 slice). Secure by sticking toothpick through the middle (at this point you can freeze them, uncooked in a ziploc bag for later use.)

Bake on a pan with a rack in a 375 degree oven for 20-25 minutes. You don't want the bacon to shrink so much it starts to squeeze the jalapeno. If, after 20 minutes the bacon doesn't look brown enough, just turn on the broiler for a couple of minutes to finish it off. These are best when the jalapeno still has a bit of bite to it.

Serve immediately if you want 'em hot, or they're great at room temperature.