A Near Disaster Meat Course

I wouldn’t want to give the impression that these dinners are easy and without any hassles whatsoever. Quite the opposite, they are lots of effort and many things go terribly wrong. It is just that by the time the dinner is on no one knows about the disaster.

For the Downton dinner we planned, and did serve, Boeuf Bourguignon based on Julia Child, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” Vol 1.

I will give you the recipe as I made it and then tell the story of what really happened.

Boeuf Bourguignon

3-4 slices of pre-cooked bacon, cooked thru

3# lean stewing beef cut into 1” cubes, or smaller

Olive Oil

2 sliced carrots

1 sliced onion

Salt and pepper

4 C wine, we used French Bordeaux  then threw in some Navarro Pinot later.

2 C beef stock

1 TB tomato paste

4 cloves garlic chopped fine

½ tsp Thyme

1# sliced mushrooms.

Cook bacon in a stew pot. Add some olive oil.

Put beef into pot in small portions and brown on all sides.  Remove beef cubes when browned. Add carrots, onions and at the last minute Thyme, to the pot and brown. Add beef back, then wine, stock, tomato paste and chopped garlic.

Heat oven to 325.

Put the pot into the oven and bake for 3-4 hours.

Now here is where the real story begins:

So I get the pot out of the oven and open it, YIKES!!! Beef pieces on the top were way too dry and too chewy. The pot was black inside but fortunately the food wasn’t burned.

I was beside myself. We had gone to a really great meat market and bought the best there. It was cut up to our exact dimensions. I sat the pot on the stove to cool and left it alone over night.

On Sunday I really didn’t have a new plan for the meat course, and while this dish was fairly tasty there wasn’t anything special about it. I knew that it needed something more. I’d opened a bottle of really great Pinot the night before so I poured in enough to cover the meat then put the fire on under the pot. This was on the stove top. I cooked it on low and hoped for the best.

By the time we were ready for the meat it was a rich, flavorful, soft dish. Lucked out this time!

The Downton Dinner

At 6pm our guests starting arriving. Since this was a theme party everyone was in some sort of Downton Abbey dress. Dale played the part of Mr. Carson and I was Mrs. Hughes. Our friends Ross and Janice had pre-arranged with us to be Lord and Lady Grantham. Tom just came in from hunting so was in his hunting garb complete with a chicken (rubber that squeaked when touched). Lots of laughs from that one!

Dale announced that dinner was served. Our friend Dolly was the guest of honor and walked into the dining room on Ross’ arm. Everyone was seated appropriately, husbands and wives separated and in their proper place according to rank.

We sat down just a few minutes late for our soup course which did make everything run a little late. It was about 8:45 when we really needed to get our dessert course on as Downton started at 9pm. We would have to give up the cheese course.

We encouraged 2 of our friends to stop talking and eat quickly so we could have our desert. We put Downton on Pause for the few minutes we took to finish our dessert.

We were all so stuffed that skipping the cheese course was not all bad. All in all it was a good party.