For Julia Childs and Julie Powell

It’s a little crazy that I’m about to be writing on this blog for the last time that I actually have to. Past this, I’m on my own. I figure I’ll continue, after all, I really do enjoy this cooking stuff. It isn’t just some nanny-hoot B.S. that I’ve been preaching for almost four months; this is fun. And delicious. Don’t forget delicious. And expensive. How could I forget that part?

If I think about all things I could’ve done with my time and money, instead of cooking, none of it really adds up. I want to become a good chef. I have so much pride in being able to cook. And I’m not saying I have any intuition, but I am saying that I could make you any one of the dishes I’ve made during the past 4 months again, and probably better. That is fine by me. I’ll have a wife one day, and hopefully a family, and I want to be able to cook for them.

In honor of the reason I truly decided to get into cooking, the movie Julie & Julia, I’ll be making its penultimate dish: beef bourguignon. I can only imagine how many people saw this film and decided to make it. Because it was a special occasion for me, being the final necessary cooked meal of the year, I decided to make enough for about 10 people. The only way to know if your cooking is good is to give it to a bunch of different people, right? And not just people who you know will like it; people who come from different backgrounds and cultures and who like and dislike different things. My roommate Eric, he is a very simple eater. He’ll take the usual steak and mashed potatoes, corn, or some pizza, maybe some Chinese food here and there; you know, the usual American dining. I normally consider something good if I can get him to like it. As you can imagine, he disliked many of the things I’ve made so far. But I have a feeling about this dish.

Beef bourguignon; that’s a mouthful. Here are the ingredients I used to make it: salt, pepper, butter, carrot, yellow onion, garlic, mushroom, thyme, parsley, olive oil, cognac, dry red wine, beef broth, tomato paste, all-purpose flour, rye bread, Applewood smoked bacon, and chuck beef.

Before getting into it, I’d like to thank one of my good friend’s mothers for letting me borrow her large pot. Your generosity is greatly appreciated, Laura. Dylan Reddick has also been an amazing sous chef throughout this entire learning experience, and I’d like to thank him for that (even when he put steak seasoning on the steak when I specifically told him to just put salt & pepper, I still love you).

First, prepare. Cut up about a pound of carrots into 1-inch diagonals, two onions into strips and two cloves of garlic. Also, slice a good amount of uncooked bacon (you can never get enough bacon) into small squares or strips; a little unevenness is fine.

Start by taking your large pot and placing it atop a stove. Drizzle some olive oil in and set to high heat. When it’s sizzling, dump in the bacon. Let that cook until it is lightly browned; mix it occasionally to make sure nothing burns. When it’s done, take the bacon out with a slotted spoon, to take away any connected liquids, and set it aside in a plate. Leave about one tbsp. of bacon fat in the pot.

Next, dry your beef with paper towels, and then season them with salt and pepper. In groups of single layers, place the cuts into the hot oil so that it sears each side to a nice brown. Don’t let it cook the inside of the beef. When you’re done with each batch, place them onto the plate with bacon. Leave the fat renderings inside the pot.

Then, grab your onions and carrots and place them in the pot. Add some salt and pepper and stir frequently as you let that cook for about 15 minutes. Don’t cheat yourself; 15 minutes. Grab your chopped garlic and mix it into the veggies. One minute later, pour one cup of Cognac into the pot. Then, (be careful and stand back) get a match or lighter and light the concoction on fire. You’ll see you don’t have to literally put your hand in there, just have the flame get within 10 inches or so and it will catch fire with a bang. When the alcohol is burned off, place the meat and bacon back into the pot. Then, add an entire bottle of Pinot Noir and enough beef broth to fully cover all the solids. Add in a tbsp. or two of tomato paste, and a couple stems-worth of thyme. Then, cover your pot with a tight fitting lid and place it into a preheated oven at 250 degrees. Let that sit for an hour and 15 minutes and then take it out.

While you’re waiting, take out 2 separate pans. On one pan, you’re going to be making garlic rye bread and the other, you’ll be cooking mushrooms. Have your mushrooms cut without stems (leaving only the heads), and sauté them in 2 tbsp. of butter for 10 minutes. For the bread, drizzle some olive oil into the pan and throw a little chopped garlic in as well. Then, put as many pieces of bread as you can fit into the pan, and simply press down gently to get a nice grilling on one side.

After you’ve taken your pot out of the oven, add in 2 tbsp. of butter and a couple shakes of flour and stir the stew around. Bring the stew to a boil on top of the stove, and then let it sit for 15 minutes to collect itself. Dump your mushrooms in, and parsley as well.

To serve, place one side of bread onto a plate and then scoop out a healthy dollop of stew and put it atop the bread. This essentially makes bread that is too moist to hold, so make sure to give a fork and knife and napkin to each of your guests.

And that is all! What I hope you have is a delicious beef bourguignon filled with flavors that nobody could resist; my guests went for seconds.

Until next time; enjoy your meal!

P.S. Somehow, I forgot to take a picture. Take my word for it, I made it. And it was great

Did these sprouts come from Brussels?

It’s taken me some time to jump back on the cooking train- senior year of college is hectic. Plus, when your kitchen doesn’t have a dishwasher, it sure is hard to cook knowing you have cleaning ahead of you. So, as a suggestion, if you’re interested in cooking often, have a dishwasher in your home. I might be the only home this side of the Mississippi without one.

Anyway, the meal we’ll be exploring tonight is a mixture of a suggestion from a friend, and, conventional college eating. It delves into what vegetarians consider normal: filling, tasty, and healthy meals that do not involve meat. I have to involve meat though; I’m cooking for 4 of my friends who aren’t satisfied without protein.

The long overdue meal suggested by a friend was a concoction of Brussel sprouts. It is to be doused in an Asian sauce that tingles the palate’s senses. I learned how to make it righttt… here.

The ingredients to be used in making the Brussel sprouts are: salt, pepper, sugar, water, vegetable oil, fish sauce, garlic, shallot, lime, chili pepper, and, of course, Brussel sprout.

Prepare your kitchen area with a cutting board and knives, and, a garbage of sorts to keep organized (there will be many scraps). Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Crush and chop 2 cloves of garlic. Slice about 1 ½ chili pepper (depending on how much heat you want) evenly. Then throw that and about 1 tbsp. of sugar into a mortar. If you don’t have a mortar, no big deal, just use a bowl and the back of a sturdy spoon. Crush that together until it looks like you’ve done something right. Combine that mixture with ½ cup of water; add the juice of about half a lime and a tbsp. of fish sauce. Place it in the fridge to gather flavor.

Grab about 1 ½ pound of your sprouts and begin to cut the butts off of them, and then slice them once through the middle. Also, chop up 2 shallots. When you’re finished doing that, throw them into a pan and add salt, pepper and oil. Toss it around and that’s it. Throw it in the oven for about 1 hour, and, occasionally drizzle a few drops oil water into the pan to make sure nothing gets burnt.

In the meantime, you can get started on the protein of the meal. I’ve decided to make a guaranteed dish of chicken and bacon. It’s as simple as simple gets, but, it always keeps eaters happy. However, I added some of the same ingredients into this part of the dish so that there was similarity- not just two contrasting flavors.

To make this part of the meal, I used: salt, pepper, vegetable oil, fish sauce, lime juice, chicken breast and bacon.

Heat up a pan and pour a healthy amount of oil in. Then throw in your chicken. Quickly season the chicken with salt and pepper, if you have not already, so that the flavor blends in. Next: bacon. Fit in as much as you can and make sure to add pepper again. Let the meats cook together and, whenever you’re ready, add in small amounts of fish sauce and lime juice. Gently score the chicken so that it cooks evenly. I cut but meats into small, bite size pieces so that there was consistency in size between the meats and Brussel sprouts.

Hopefully, when you’ve finished cooking the meat, the sprouts will just be finishing in the oven as well. Make sure that the Brussel sprouts are not hard as soon as you take them out of the oven. If they are, throw them back in- your diners can wait.

Pour the sauce that’s been chilling in your fridge atop the sprouts and serve it as soon as possible.

Plate the two parts of your meal onto plates and see your diners enjoy a wonderfully delicious collection of flavors from smoky to zingy. Goodnight!

A seasonal sandwich

The weather during the fall is peculiar. Sometimes it’s hot, sometimes it’s cold; sometimes it hails bricks and is sunny 10 minutes later. It’s like all the seasons are fighting for attention in a time of change.

But, as always, it gets cold and stays cold through the winter. 

And that’s what happened to the chicken salad I made today. It got cold, and stayed cold.

And, just like the weather which doesn’t have a constant state, the cold chicken salad was introduced to a warm and easy-to-make sandwich where each flavor fought for my attention.

I’d never eaten such a thing before, but after doing a Google search I saw that I had made a common BLT chicken salad sandwich. The ingredients I used were:  olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic, scallion, celery, dried cranberry (Craisin), lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise, mustard, bread, bacon and chicken.

The chicken should be prepared before anything else. I must say cooking chicken is becoming second-nature; drizzle olive oil into a pan and once it gets hot add 4 cloves of chopped garlic. Then, place slices of chicken breast into the pan (I had 6). Add salt and pepper and flip it over a few times. When the chicken is getting crisp on the outside yet is still juicy inside, start to cut each piece into bite-size squares with a large fork and a sharp knife. When you’re finished, dump all of your chicken into a Ziploc bag, place it in a fridge and let it sit for a few hours. 

After the wait is over, go ahead and cut about 3 stalks of celery and 5 shoots of scallion. You can put all your chicken, celery, scallion and a small handful of Craisins into a large bowl. Then add 1 ½ cup of mayonnaise and 3 tsp. of mustard and mix it all around. That’s how simple chicken salad is. 

Set that aside and heat up a pan with olive oil. When it’s hot enough, place your strips of bacon in. You can add salt or pepper if you’d like, too. When there’s a nice crisp to your bacon strips, take them out.

Next, place 2 slices of bread into that same pan so it can absorb all those juices while it also gets toasted.

Make sure to have your finely cut tomato slices and lettuce ready, and that’s all for cooking; now you just have to construct your sandwich.

Whatever order you put it, a BLT chicken sandwich is a wonderful culmination of hot-and-cold ingredients worthy of any food lover’s palate.