Julie & Julia - A movie worth watching...for the fun of cooking!

I did not know much about this movie when I decided to watch it. I wanted to watch a light-hearted comedy so I was deciding between this one and Funny People. In the end, I thought that the name of the movie was interesting so I just decided on this one.

There were a lot of scenes that I still remember after the movie. Particularly because I am a food lover and I do cook from time to time. One scene was about the description that the actress - Amy Adams (who also acted as the princess in Enchanted), she talked about butter and how one can never live without it and she would spend the last day of her life just simply sitting down and eating butter (yucks)...but I think she meant butter-related food, butter rolls, butter cake, butter lobster...

In this story, Julie (acted by Amy Adams) decided to put herself through an uncommon ordeal. Trying to re-live what Julia Child cooked 40 years back by following every single recipe in her cook book. It's really french cooking ... but for the modern American woman. And everything was done from scratch. Beef Bourguignon was the dish that was repeatedly shown during the movie - and it looks fantabulous...I am going to try this dish out next weekend and cook it on Sunday evening to surprise Edwin when he is back from his Genting trip...hehe.

Here's the recipe that I knicked off the net:

Beef Bourguignon(recipe adapted from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking)

Ingredients
One 6-ounce piece of chunk bacon
3 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
3 pounds lean stewing beef, cut into 2-inch cubes
1 carrot, sliced
1 onion, sliced
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons flour
3 cups red wine, young and full-bodied (like Beaujolais, Cotes du Rhone or Burgundy)
2 1/2 to 3 1/2 cups brown beef stock
1-tablespoon tomato paste
2 cloves mashed garlic
1/2-teaspoon thyme
1 crumbled bay leaf
18 to 24 white onions, small
3 1/2 tablespoons butter
Herb bouquet (4 parsley sprigs, one-half bay leaf, one-quarter teaspoon thyme, tied in cheesecloth)
1 pound mushrooms, fresh and quartered

Directions
1. Remove bacon rind and cut into lardons (sticks 1/4-inch thick and 1 1/2 inches long). Simmer rind and lardons for 10 minutes in 1 1/2 quarts water. Drain and dry.
2. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
3. Sauté lardons in 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a flameproof casserole over moderate heat for 2 to 3 minutes to brown lightly. Remove to a side dish with a slotted spoon.
4. Dry beef in paper towels; it will not brown if it is damp. Heat fat in casserole until almost smoking. Add beef, a few pieces at a time, and sauté until nicely browned on all sides. Add it to the lardons.
5. In the same fat, brown the sliced vegetables. Pour out the excess fat.
6. Return the beef and bacon to the casserole and toss with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Then sprinkle on the flour and toss again to coat the beef lightly. Set casserole uncovered in middle position of preheated oven for 4 minutes.
7. Toss the meat again and return to oven for 4 minutes (this browns the flour and coves the meat with a light crust).
8. Remove casserole and turn oven down to 325 degrees.
9. Stir in wine and 2 to 3 cups stock, just enough so that the meat is barely covered. Add the tomato paste, garlic, herbs and sautéed vegetables. Bring to a simmer on top of the stove.
10. Cover casserole and set in lower third of oven. Regulate heat so that liquid simmers very slowly for 3 to 4 hours. The meat is done when a fork pierces it easily.
11. While the beef is cooking, prepare the onions and mushrooms.
12. Heat 1 1/2 tablespoons butter with one and one-half tablespoons of the oil until bubbling in a skillet. Add onions and sauté over moderate heat for about 10 minutes, rolling them so they will brown as evenly as possible. Be careful not to break their skins. You cannot expect them to brown uniformly.
13. Add 1/2 cup of the stock, salt and pepper to taste and the herb bouquet.
14. Cover and simmer slowly for 40 to 50 minutes until the onions are perfectly tender but hold their shape, and the liquid has evaporated. Remove herb bouquet and set onions aside.
15. Wipe out skillet and heat remaining oil and butter over high heat. As soon as you see butter has begun to subside, indicating it is hot enough, add mushrooms.
16. Toss and shake pan for 4 to 5 minutes. As soon as they have begun to brown lightly, remove from heat.
17. When the meat is tender, pour the contents of the casserole into a sieve set over a saucepan.
18. Wash out the casserole and return the beef and lardons to it. Distribute the cooked onions and mushrooms on top.
19. Skim fat off sauce in saucepan. Simmer sauce for a minute or 2, skimming off additional fat as it rises. You should have about 2 1/2 cups of sauce thick enough to coat a spoon lightly.
20. If too thin, boil it down rapidly. If too thick, mix in a few tablespoons stock. Taste carefully for seasoning.
21. Pour sauce over meat and vegetables. Cover and simmer 2 to 3 minutes, basting the meat and vegetables with the sauce several times.
22. Serve in casserole, or arrange stew on a platter surrounded with potatoes, noodles or rice, and decorated with parsley.

And the result:

Woah 22 steps that is a whole lot man. Casserole...I will have to buy one. But anyways unlike Julie who had to cook 574 dishes in 365 days, I will just cook one with 7 days of preparation. Lucky, I bought and oven lately.

Show you the picture of the dish once its done.

CC....cheerfully!