Boeuf Bourguignon

Or as one of my friends so aptly renamed it after my adventures yesterday, beef burnignon.

I had originally thought it would be fun to make this while our friends were visiting last month as we all rather enjoy cooking adventures.  However, as I'm sure none of us particularly enjoy repeated burns and being covered in grease, I think we made the right choice in making pizza instead.  BUT I still wanted to try the recipe, so yesterday morning I dived in.

Having previously thawed out the three pounds of stew meat (for a recipe to feed SIX people, mind you), I also scrounged out the bacon I'd purchased

but had not bothered to open before freezing it.  Julia calls for a 6-ounce chunk of bacon, so I figured something less than half of a 16-ounce package would work.  If I had any doubts about my general refusal to eat bacon

opening the package did nothing to convince me otherwise.  The ONLY meat on any of the bacon was on one edge--the visible one obviously.  Everything you can't see is 100% pure fat.

YUMMY!  And if you think it can't get more revolting......

step two was to cut the bacon in smallish sticks and to simmer for 10 minutes--presumably to remove all the artificial flavor because no American bacon I could find wasn't flavored with something.

The bacon seems to serve two functions in the recipe--one was to provide the fat to fry the beef in (not that the little fried fat blobs aren't added in to the final stew, of course.  They are.) and the other was to cook in the stew itself without being fried first.  Since I had 90% fat, I divided the now-clean bacon into piles of "fat" and "actual meat"

 such as it is, then tossed the fat blobs into a casserole pan TO BE SAUTEED IN OIL!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, because lack of fat was one serious problem here.

Meticulously following the instructions, I removed the lightly browned bacon fat with a slotted spoon ('cause, you know, you don't want any of the grease to escape), then heated the remaining fat until it was almost smoking before adding the beef which had been thoroughly patted dry with paper towels.....

.....and which still repeatedly gave me grease burns & the first big burn of the day--on my right forearm, which is sort of convenient because now I can ice it at the same time as I'm icing my elbow.  By this point, the only thing keeping me going was the knowledge that the whiny Julie Powell person (the Julie & Julia project/book/movie) had managed to do this, and I am NOT going to be one-upped by a person who has "meltdowns" over a chicken dish. 

NOTE:  This is not a recipe to attempt while wearing glasses.  I hadn't put my contacts in yet, and by the time the 3 pounds of beef were sauteed (because it must be done in small batches), I had to get a de-greaser to even be able to SEE out of my glasses, and fled to put my contacts in at the first break I had.  My skin, however, is REALLY soft today.....except, of course, where it is burned

I finally got everything--meat, sliced onions, and carrots--cooked in fat, the stock & wine were added (and it is SUCH a shame that it uses the entire bottle because I REALLY could have used a glass of wine by this point), and the stew was in the oven for 3 hours.  I settled for

which is against our normal rules, but having 2-3 burns, being covered in bacon fat, and having to change shoes because the hardwood floor had become so insanely slippery with the layer of grease that is now coating EVERY surface downstairs......rules become a lot less important than one's sanity.  It was this or a shot (or bottle) of scotch, and I thought this might be safer.

The 3 hours, incidentally, is NOT rest time.  That is the time you prepare the TWO accompanying recipes that go WITH this one.  Time to get out the butter....

which you knew was coming in a Julia Child recipe.  I think she might have single-handedly supported about 4 dairies during her lifetime.  So, the FIRST round of butter is for the pearl onions

 which--aside from being a heart attack waiting to happen--are SERIOUSLY fabulous.  You saute them in olive oil & butter (of course), then add beef stock & herbs and let them cook for 50 minutes.  While those are cooking,

you brown mushrooms in........olive oil & butter!  Seriously, this is like a death wish for anyone with heart disease.

Finally, finally, FINALLY....5 hours & three burns later:

Hot, frustrated, greasy, and cranky, I put it in the fridge until I was feeling charitable enough to try it, and went out into the sunshine for a little R & R

A rather frightened Theo joined me--or maybe he was hiding from the grease vapors......

We did finally try the stew several hours later, and the flavors are complex and interesting, and I'm glad I did it...............but I don't think it will ever happen again.  We served VERY small portions because even the idea of 1/2 pound of meat and all that fat as an actual serving makes my little arteries just quiver in fear.

This morning, just out of morbid curiosity, I typed the recipe into a Mastercook program that I have, which computes calorie count & nutrition.  Are you ready?

IF you were to really make this into 6 servings, per serving it would have:

1029 calories

95% of the daily allowance for fat

116% of the daily allowance for saturated fat

which is easy to be horrified at--except that it's probably about even with an average order at a restaurant here in America (or even lighter than MANY).  Still, that's an insane amount for the diet here at Chateau Sutton-Goar.  I'm thinking we'll be making this into about 18 servings...........