I had no concept of the origins of this popular 60’s beef recipe. Recently made my way thru the film “Julia & Julia”, sort of a parallel story of Julia Child’s , “JC”,(Meryl Streep) cooking experiences culminating in her TV show and cookbook and Julia Powell’s , “JP”(Amy Adams) retracing JC’s recipes in the book “My Year of Cooking Dangerously”. Recalled attempting to watch it before but was turned off by something annoying: maybe Amy Adams wide-eyed, naive approach but more likely husband’s (Chris Messina) aggressive enveloping of her recreations with Blue Planet marine invertebrate extensile lips – along with much non-verbal noise. Meryl – as always – amazing.
The revelation of JC’s greatness is made to JP in her recreation of “Boeuf Bourguignon” Much is made of this in the film and I was intrigued enough to find the recipe and try it out. I was sure of having made it before, prob’ly from Joy of Cooking , but didn’t recall any greatness.
Pretty much followed the recipe using 45 oz of deboned Hay Creek chuck roast, subbing chunked white onions for pearl, and skipping the sauce sieving.
Resulting tender-crisp, still earthy flavored mushrooms are quite distinct from other interpretations of this recipe and make all the difference. It’s worth a try!