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Julia Child’s Daube de Boeuf or Stew of Beef

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Adapted from Julia Child’s recipe for Daube de Boeuf featured on www.juliasrecipes.com

Ingredients:

*Ingredients currently available at the farmers’ market

  • Cinnamon: one 3-inch stick
  • Orange zest: 2 stripes (each stripe should be 1.5-inch wide and 2.5 inch long)
  • Spring fresh thyme*: 2
  • Bay leaf: 2 (dried)
  • Black peppercorns: 1 teaspoon
  • Sprigs fresh parsley*: 4
  • Whole cloves: 3
  • Stalk celery: 2 (medium sized, cut into half inch slices crosswise and reserve the top leaves)
  • Onions*: 3 (thinly sliced)
  • Garlic*: 3 cloves (crushed and chopped)
  • Carrots*: 3 medium-sized (peel them and cut them into half inch slices crosswise)
  • Beef*: 3 lbs (cut into one-and-half-inch cubes)
  • Lean bacon slices*: 8 ounces (chopped into one-inch lengths)
  • Red wine*: 1 bottle full-bodied
  • Cognac:  1/4 cup
  • Extra virgin olive oil: 1/4 cup
  • All-purpose flour: 1/3 cup
  • Beef stock: 3/4 cup
  • Nicoise olives: 3/4 cup
  • Tomato paste: 2 tablespoons
  • Salt: 1 teaspoon
  • Chopped fresh parsley*: 1/4 cup
  • Basmati rice: 1 1/2 cup

Directions:

Put the orange zest, cinnamon stick, thyme, bay leaf, peppercorns, cloves, celery leaves and parsley onto a layer of cheesecloth and tie it up in order to make a bouquet garni. Put it aside.

Get a big, non-reactive dish and put celery, garlic, beef, onions, carrots, bouquet garni, and bacon into it, all at once. Pour the cognac and wine over the mixture. Put the mixture in refrigerator for marinating for about 24 hours.

Preheat your oven accurately to 325 F. Get the beef out of vegetables, and put it on a kitchen towel for draining. Get a skillet and put oil into it. Heat the oil on medium heat. Put the beef into the pan along with some flour. Cook it until it turns brown. Remove the beef and deglaze the skillet with tomato paste and beef stock. Scrap all the browned bits of beef from the pan’s bottom.

Mix the pan sauce, salt, olives, beef, and vegetables-wine mixture together in an ovenproof dish. Cover it. Next, you need to braise the beef for 2 to 3 hours, until it is tender. If you want your stew to be thicker, check after 2 hours of cooking and remove the lid for the rest of the time.

Prepare the rice according to the direction given on package. Garnish your stew with cooked rice and parsley.

Serve and enjoy!

After Visiting the Saratoga Farmers’ Market, Curl Up with Cookbooks

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By Himanee Gupta-Carlson

 

Colder nights create excuses to make meals that warm the soul. If you’re looking for ideas, check out some of the cookbooks that farmers and volunteers with the Saratoga Farmers’ Market use. These books offer instructions and ideas for bringing out the finest flavors of our local foods and insights into the lives of those who grow and create these foods year-round:

For basics, start with The Joy of Cooking, which has been on volunteer Alexandra Morgan’s bookshelf since she received it as a graduation gift in 1993. Darina Allen’s Forgotten Skills of Cooking, which Leah Hennessy of Moxie Ridge Farm & Creamery describes as “what I’m all about,” similarly is more about the simplicity of such processes as dressing game, curing pork, making butter.

For meat, Christophe Robert of Longlesson Farm swears by two books. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s The River Cottage Meat Book has recipes for the beef and pork cuts he sells at the market “that are spot on.” Fergus Henderson’s The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating is Robert’s “book that lets me dream.” Its recipes are more challenging, but Robert says, they speak to an ethics of raising animals and eating meat in a way that uses the whole animal with love and care.

Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking remains market volunteer Chris Toole’s favorite cookbook in her collection of 100-plus for such recipes as daube de boeuf (a beef stew marinated in red wine), because the ingredients “almost all are available right here, at the market.”

Making the most of maple is Slate Valley Farm’s Gina Willis’s passion. She is writing her own cookbook, based on recipes from her grandmother and great-grandmother for using the maple products made at her family’s farm. She often turns to chef Martin Picard’s Au Pied de Cochoon Sugar Shack for inspiration.

And when in doubt the Internet offers quick answers. Mark Bocain of Freddy’s Rockin’ Hummus appreciates Rachael Ray’s cooking site for meal ideas “that fall somewhere between simple and elaborate.” Volunteer Jim Gupta-Carlson types his ingredients on hand into a search box. Scrolling through the results often determines what he makes for dinner on a given night.

The Saratoga Farmers’ Market is 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturdays at the Lincoln Baths Building in the Saratoga Spa State Park. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.