Ben and I have always had a Sunday night tradition of making something a little more fancy than we would normally make during the week. Below are the recipes we made for this Sunday’s dinner.
I made the Barefoot Contessa’s Beef Bourguignon soup from her Barefoot in Paris cookbook. I think I was in the mood for beef as a break from all of the turkey and chicken from the past week. I was a little concerned after rendering the bacon at just how much bacon fat was included in the recipe; however, after following the rest of the instructions it seemed to me that the fat served as a “flavor accumulator” after cooking the beef and veg separately in the fat. There was at least a foot of flames coming out of the pot after setting the Brandy on fire. I wanted to get a picture of it, but the camera did not have a memory card in it. Also I think the Contessa was conservative in her time estimate of 30 min prep and 1 hour 15 min cooking time. It took me 1 hour 45 min prep and cooking along with 1 hour 15 min in the oven, for a total of 3 hours.
The soup smelled and tasted great. The flavors melded together wonderfully, and the soup was very rich and satisfying. My only complaint was the pearl onions. I thought there were too many and I did not care for the taste of them. If we make this again we will omit them. The flavors of the soup reminded me of my Mom’s rouladens–I think it’s flank steak with bacon and other yummy stuff rolled up inside it. Jonathan did not like this soup (which is not unexpected). He ate it only because he wanted to get to dessert (see below).
To go along with our Sunday dinner, Ben made some bread with Rosemary Garlic, based on the pizza dough recipe from the Tots in Toques class. And for desert he made some Hazelnut Gelato…
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