Beef Bourguignon

The Recipe: Beef Bourguignon from Mastering the Art of French Cooking

The Substitutions: I used regular bacon instead of the kind with the rind.

The Verdict: Is there anything that one can say about Julia Child's Beef Bourguignon recipe? Really? No, there's not, especially on this medium where it hss so extensively been covered. But I got a new enamel casserole for Christmas, so I had to give it a shot. And since this meal took me ALL DAY to make, I feel the need to document it here.

Is this recipe as amazing as its reputation would suggest? Yes. It really is. Beef cooked for hours in a full bottle of wine and a load of beef stock -- how could you go wrong? The recipe itself wasn't really that hard to make -- there's not too much you can do to screw it up, save for falling asleep and letting it burn in the oven, but it is very time-consuming. But good things come to those who wait, right?

On the side I made Julia Child's Garlic Mashed Potatoes, which are more time-intensive than modern versions of garlic mash in that you have to simmer the garlic in butter and then basically make a garlic bechamel sauce that is stirred into the potatoes (rather than just roasting garlic and mashing it in). I also whipped up some of her buttered frozen peas, which is possibly the easiest recipe in Mastering The Art of French Cooking.