Maybe I’ve given the wrong impression here. Looking back over my first few posts, I may have implied that Iris spends her days leafing through cookbooks, selecting the most challenging and intriguing recipes, saying things like, “Dada, make tournedos Rossini,” and then chewing thoughtfully and asking for seconds.
In real life, Iris is a toddler. That means she spends most of the day making demands, and not tournedos-style demands. It also means that often she doesn’t eat anything before 4pm, and while she is easily impressed, it’s not usually by the same things that impress me.
That’s the foreshadowing.
When you have a person of few teeth in your house, you make a lot of stew. Luckily, Laurie and I love stew, and I’ve been perfecting my techniques. One thing I’ve learned, for example, is that one of the best and easiest ways to take a stew from ordinary to ass-kicking is to strain out the vegetables, reduce the sauce, then cook some more vegetables and add them as a garnish.
That’s what I did last night. I braised a chuck roast in barolo (an intense Italian red wine) with some vegetables, thyme, parsley, and pancetta. I strained the braising liquid and boiled it down until it was an insanely rich and savory sauce. Then I turned to a method I learned from All About Braising. I peeled a bunch of baby carrots and browned them in butter and olive oil. I added some of the sauce from the meat, a bit of red wine vinegar, and some minced sage and parsley. I covered the pan and let the carrots cook until tender, then uncovered and cooked until glazed. At this point, you can throw the vegetables back in with the stew if you want. In this case, since it was more of a pot roast, I served them on the side.
While all this was happening, I had some polenta cooking in the oven. Each place got some slices of beef, glazed carrots, a dollop of polenta, and sauce over all of it. Iris took a look at this and said, “Father, what a marvelously hearty meal! A votre santé!”
Actually, she cried because she didn’t want to stop reading her Blue’s Clues book.
She did end up eating a bunch of polenta, once she noticed that it looked a lot like cornmeal pancakes.
>When you have a person of few teeth in your house, you make a lot of stew.
Man, that’s hilarious.
> I braised a chuck roast in barolo
I would never forgive myself for failing to drink perfectly good wine. On the other hand, mmm, tasty food, yum yum.
Yeah, it hurt to pour all the wine into the stew, but I had to try it once. Well, and I saved myself half a glass.
Last night I set out to make “barley and root vegetable stew,” where the root vegetables were celeriac, parsnips and Jerusalem artichokes. Unfortunately I went to a big name supermarket that appears to be in its death throes and had no barley, celeriac, parsnips or Jerusalem artichokes.
So instead I grabbed all the root vegetables I could find — red potatoes, sweet potatoes and carrots — and roasted them instead. (In this recipe, the vegetables are roasted separately while stew base is sauteed and then boiled on the stove.)
Dan wasn’t too thrilled that a cup of the Gruner Veltliner went into the base but admitted the finished stew was pretty good. Also I taught him the word mirepoix. I bet Iris already knows it.
Oh yeah, and instead of the barley I used some French lentils I had sitting around. I apologize for omitting this important detail.
That sounds like “barely” root vegetable stew. Har har!