Thursday, December 12, 2002

So once I was able to straighten myself up to a standing position, I crabwalked to the closest grocery store about a dozen blocks away, in the rain.  There I bought another round of beef and another bottle of wine for Boeuf Bourguignon, attempt #2.  It wasn’t a fun trip, but then again, I wasn’t at work either.  I got to work first on the Bavarois aux Fruits, a raspberry Bavarian cream.  Began by pushing a pint of raspberries through my sieve – ooh, dirty – which was sort of a pain in the neck and took a long time.  At the end I had something less than ¾ cup raspberry puree.  Then I rubbed a couple of sugar cubes over the skins of a couple of oranges.  I think I got crappy oranges, though, because they just left the sugar cubes looking bedraggled and gray, and not smelling all that orange-y.  Ah well.  I mashed up the sugar cubes, which is not as easy as it sounds, and zested the orange peel in with them. God, I love my microplane.  I love it so much it’s almost unseemly. Then I squeezed my crappy oranges, which didn’t really produce very much juice at all, and sprinkled gelatin over them.  The gelatin is pretty cool – it turns the orange juice into rubbery orange slush, pretty much instantly. I beat five egg yolks in with a cup of sugar.  I can’t bring myself to wean off the handheld electric beater, but I really ought to do this with a wire whip; doing it this way, the egg yolks get too thick too quickly.  Anyway, then I beat in a cup and a half of boiling milk, poured in a thin stream.  Then I put this custard stuff back into the saucepan where I’m to let it heat slowly until it lightly coats the spoon, but not let it overheat.  It’s kind of tough to judge, because when I beat in the milk, it got all bubbly, and now the bubbles won’t go away, and it’s hard to see what going on below them.  I may have over heated it.  Anyway, I pour it into a bowl.  Then I beat the egg whites until they’re stiff, and fold them in to the custard.  I stick this in the fridge. I clean the house, in preparation for the nonogenarian editor.  I go back to the fridge and fold the custard. I check email. I fold the custard. I clean the house a little more. The custard’s getting almost set, so I start whipping the cream that goes in next.  It sort of takes awhile.  Julia says that you can whip cream by hand in 2 to 3 minutes, and it’s much better than using an electric mixer.  I would like to see that woman’s arms.  The idea appalls me.  Anyway, I whip the cream, and take out the custard to stir it in.  The custard’s gotten too set, though.  Crap.  I beat in the whipped cream, the raspberry puree, and a couple of tablespoons of Grand Marnier, but since the custard is a little too set – and perhaps because the texture’s a little off, because I overheated it on the stove – the elements don’t want to combine.  It takes some doing, and when I’m done, it still doesn’t really look smooth.  Oh well.  I stick it back in the fridge, covered in wax paper. Time to make the bourignon. Everything goes well, and swiftly this time.  I’m an efficient cooking machine.  I set water on to boil for the bacon, and another pot for the pearl onions.  I chop the bacon into lardons, then scrape and slice carrots, an onion.  By the time that’s done the bacon water is simmering, so I throw it in to simmer for 10 minutes.  Then I dry the bacon, throw it into a casserole with some olive oil, brown it lightly.  The onion water is boiling, so like the perfectly time piece of machinery I am, I dump the onions into the water, then immediately drain them, and run cold water over them.  This is to loosen their skins.  By this time the bacon is browned, so I removed the lardons and start browning the meat.  Four and a half pounds of it – enough to feed an army, but it would be a shame to not have enough food when the senior editor of Knopf comes to dinner.  Once the meat is all browned – this really does take a good while, I manage to get the onions peeled while the browning is happening – I take it all out, and brown the onions and carrots in a bit more oil that I pour in, because the bacon grease is gone.  Then I dump the beef and bacon back in, season it with salt and pepper, and sprinkle it with flour.  I stick the casserole in a very hot oven for 4 minutes, take it out, toss it, stick it back in for another 4.  Then take it out again, and pour in a bottle of Chianti, some beef stock to cover, tomato paste, garlic, thyme, bay leaf, and the blanched bacon rind I had set aside earlier.  Then I stick it all in the oven.  Now I’ve got three hours. I brown and braise the onions in beef stock. I clean and quarter a pound and a half of mushrooms, and sauté them in butter.  It turns that it’s more like steaming, for some reason these particular mushrooms exude an abnormal amount of butter.  But whatever. I prepare the peas.  I’m using the recipe Julia recommends for mature, end-of-the-season peas, because I figure you can’t get more end-of-the-season than December.  My blessed husband has already shelled them, thank God.  All I do is shred a couple of heads of Boston lettuce and mince quite a few green onions.  I put them in the pot with the peas, which JC has me “squeeze with [my] hands rather roughly to bruise them.”  I throw in a couple of tablespoons of sugar and some salt, and toss all the ingredients together with most of a stick of softened butter.  Then I leave it on the stove to await final preparation. The house is clean.  It smells of simmering meat.  My stomach cramps have passed.  I had to not go in to work to get it done, but it got done.  Everything, with the possible exception of the Bavarian, is going according to plan.  The time is 5:32 pm. The phone rings. Uh oh.  Guess who’s decided very late in the day that she’s not coming to dinner? Talk about a jinx.  I let the cat out of the bag, only now there’s no cat.  Judith isn’t coming. I’m crushed. The other guest for the evening, Paul, a journalist and a friend of Eric’s, is still coming, so at least there’ll be someone here to eat all the goddamned food. When the beef is done I strain the sauce, boil that down a bit, pour it back over the beef, over which I’ve spread the onions and mushrooms.  I put on a pot of water for potatoes, and a little later set the peas to simmering.  Once Paul is here and we’re ready to eat, I bring the bourguignon back to a simmer.  We have a very lovely time.  The bourguignon is fantastic, and the peas aren’t bad either.  The dinner conversation is great.  And the bavarian’s alright too, if a little lumpy. Senior editors from Knopf can eat their hearts out.  Next time, I promise, I'll get a mystery guest who comes. 7:58:12 AM    comment []