The movie Julie and Julia can’t possibly resonate with local audiences in the same way it did in the US, where cookbook author and cooking show presenter Julia Child graced TV screens for over four decades. The movie has grossed over 117 million dollars already and Child’s recipe book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, shot to No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list for the first time since it was released back in 1961. The film’s plot interweaves Child’s life and the first on-screen adaptation of a blog, in which cubicle worker Julie Powell recounts her endeavor to cook all 524 dishes from the aforementioned cookbook. One of the more catastrophic episodes of Julie’s blog is when she attempts the most emblematic of French dishes, the boeuf bourguignon, falls asleep as it simmers in the oven and burns it to a crisp. As homage to both Julie and Julia, we thought we’d try it ourselves. If after reading our account you feel inspired to follow in Child’s footsteps, you can find the recipe at http://bit.ly/3phD or get Mastering the Art of French Cooking from Asia Books (Peninsula and Bang Na branches, vol. 1 B1,350, vol. 2 by order only, B1,120).
Shopping
Getting the ingredients was surprisingly easy. You could almost complete it at your neighborhood Tesco if it weren’t for a few ingredients like the big chunk of unsliced bacon. We got lean Australian beef, but we figure whatever fatty Thai beef those kuaytaew neua guys use would have worked even better (and been cheaper). At Paragon, we couldn’t find white onions of the right size (one-inch diameter) so we got small red ones instead, which are perhaps a bit more flavorful but still did the trick. Some people say boeuf bourguignon is only as good as your wine and beef. We think that’s silly. The whole point of a homely stew is to make do with what you’ve got and bring it to new heights. If you can afford Kobe, go for it. If not, don’t fret. Total bill: B1,030, not including the bottle of very cheap Australian red wine that’s not even fit to drink (B350, but do get a good bottle of full-bodied red to drink with the stew). As for ustensils, you need an oven, a slotted spoon and a pot that can go on a stove and in the oven.
Cooking
We expected the recipe to be: throw in pot, bring to a simmer, wait 2 hours, serve. In fact, this dish requires the bacon to be blanched in simmering water before you saute all the ingredients separately. Then everything gets tossed in salt, pepper and flour, thrown into the oven, tossed and baked some more and finally, you add the stock and wine and simmer in the oven for three hours. Meanwhile, the mushrooms and small onions get cooked separately. Yes, it’s a lengthy and involved process. But it was all pretty easy, except for the mushrooms, which instantly absorbed all the butter we could throw at them, causing the skillet to smoke (the mushrooms are supposed to slowly release the fat and brown but we panicked and just took them off the stove).
Waiting
In Child’s recipe, you sieve the stew, add your mushrooms and onions, separately simmer the stock down to a fairly thick sauce (it should coat a spoon) and then pour that sauce back on. Except we were getting seriously lazy at this point and skipped the sieving by bringing the whole thing to boil until we got the consistency we wanted. It probably caused things (like the onions and carrots) to start falling apart a bit (see Chef Thibault’s comment) but doesn’t change the taste. As for timing, we started cooking this thing at 4pm, stopped around 10pm, then combined everything the following day and cooked it for another hour or so. That’s seven hours over two days (plus shopping). Hello, slow life.
Serving
We love steamed potatoes with boeuf bourguignon, because unlike pasta or even rice (Child’s other suggestions) they really soak up the sauce, almost like bread. One last note: it was heavenly.
Get This
• 200-gram chunk of bacon
• olive or cooking oil
• salt, pepper and butter
• 2 tablespoons of flour
• 1.4kg beef
• 1 carrot and 1 onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 bay leaf, 1 tablespoon
of thyme
• 20 small onions
• 400 grams of mushrooms
• 1/2 bottle of wine
• 3 cups of beef stock
The Expert’s opinion
"Boeuf bourguignon really reminds me of my grandma. It’s one of those dishes you cook for hours and that’s full of flavor. It’s the dish of family reunions and cold winters. People don’t really like this kind of dish anymore. They like lighter things. But it’s great comfort food. I don’t serve it but I do cook a ragout with beef cheeks. These dishes are not that easy. Cook them too long and everything falls apart, too much heat and they burn. You need to give it time."
Thibault Chiumenti
chef de cuisine, Plaza Athenee Bangkok
"Julia Child was really important to me, once I began to discover the world of food and wine. She was incredibly generous. She came to my new culinary program in Napa Valley. She allowed me to use her name to raise money and wrote me a really nice note that I still have. She was extremely entertaining. I loved it when she got upset about vegetarians, the fact that she was so outspoken. Yeah, her style of cooking is out of fashion. But you have to learn the right way to do things before you go off and change it. And you can—you don’t have to use so much butter."
Sue Farley
food consultant, Gaysorn
Check out our review of Julie & Julia
