It was my goal over this year's Christmas vacation to cook her boeuf bourgignon. It's fun to say, it's what was highlighted in the movie (which I loved), and I wanted a challenge.
So I picked up the cookbook ... and started reading the directions ... and started panicking. Needless to say, I ended up making poulets grilles a la diable. For those of you who aren't fancy and can't speak French, I made broiled chicken.
Do you know how exciting broiled chicken is? It's not. Because it was in French, I felt like I was sophisticated and was going to be making the world's best broiled chicken.
And really, it didn't start -- or end -- too badly. It only called for a handful of ingredients:
I mean, pretty simple, right? It only called for the ingredients you can see in the picture, with the addition of some green onions and subtraction of those bananas in the back.
I'll admit that I cut corners. I did not make my own dijon mustard, nor did I make my own bread crumbs. I wasn't willing to go that far.
I only set off the smoke alarm four times -- not because I was burning the house down, but because I can never work a broiler properly. I did end up slightly burning the chicken in the end (trying to cook it faster by switching it to high wasn't my most brilliant idea), but it actually didn't taste burnt.
See:
Most importantly, I learned an important lesson:
I can waste more than an hour and a half making broiled chicken that tastes good, just so I can feel fancy and to say I made a Julia Child recipe.
Or, I can just make some regular baked chicken that takes half the time to cook and tastes just as good.
1 comment:
you should try the barefoot contessa's filet of beef bourguinon - YUM-O. It's a litte less time intensive than the standard J.Child recipe.
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