Julia Child's Beef Bourguignon

When winter strikes, I get lazy. I crave warm sticky puddings for dessert, and piping hot stews with mashed potatoes for dinner. And the less effort involved, the better... so I can go back to being snuggled up next to my heater.

One thing I particularly love is braised meat. I love how you can take tough, sinewy cuts of meat and chuck them in a pot - fast forward a few hours and you're rewarded with tender, gelatinous chunks of meat that fall apart with the poke of a fork. Since seeing Julie and Julia I've always wanted to try making the infamous Beef Bourguignon that Julie Powell burns in the oven since she falls asleep and doesn't hear the timer. It's not surprising that she did fall asleep because when I made it the first time it took nearly the whole day to make! I don't know if it was because I was slow or that it did actually require that much time but it was definitely time-consuming (but the flavour was fantastic!).

So when I decided to revisit Julia Child's Beef Bourguignon, I thought about what shortcuts I could take. Some of you are probably thinking that it is sacrilege to be changing Julia Child's original recipe, but seriously it saved me a lot of time and effort and the end result was just as tasty. The best thing about it is that it appeals to my lazy winter self - after the prep work all you have to do is leave it simmering away on the stove for a few hours, then reduce the liquid and skim off the fat and it's done! It's the lazy person's version of Julia Child's Beef Bourguignon.

Mussels poached in white wine, and how to keep your mussels alive!

Continuing our day of seafood-eating, we decided to buy some fresh mussels and cook them at home. We were at Sir D's place, and with his parents gone on holiday, we were at a bit of a loss what to do with said mussels. The friendly fishmongers at Claudio's Seafood at the Sydney Fish Markets had put them in a plastic bag for us - were we to store them in the bag? Store them in water? In the fridge or out?


As you can see, we were absolutely clueless, so after trawling the internet on what to do with them, Sir D compiled some points on how to prepare mussels for future reference. And so I present to you: Sir D's Guide to Keeping Those Babies Alive!

• Mussels and other shellfish such as oysters develop bacteria when they die, and you will get sick if you eat them! Sir D was quite taken aback by this news and thus made it his personal mission to keep his 'babies' alive - hence the name of this guide =P
• If you are not going to use them straight away, store your mussels in the bottom of your fridge, covered with a damp cloth. They're best eaten on the day you buy them, but will keep for a few days in the fridge if required.
• When preparing your mussels, look through them and chuck out any that have cracked or broken shells. If you see any that are slightly open, give them a squeeze and they should close if they're alive. If not, discard these as well.
• You probably want to get rid of the crap on the shells. To do this, grab a scrubbing brush and scrub the barnacles and other things off the surface of the shell under running water.
• You probably also want to get rid of the beards (those hairy looking things sticking out of the shell). To do this, grab hold of the beard and wiggle it from side to side, whilst pulling firmly. It should eventually break free from the mussel. If your mussel is being stubborn, you may have to cut it off with some scissors.
• Now that your mussels are clean on the outside, we have to get rid of any sand and other crap on the inside. To do this, soak the mussels in fresh water for about 10 minutes so that they can "breathe" and expel any sand. Remember to do this just before you cook them, otherwise they may die (and we don't want that happening!)
• Remove them from the water and check that the mussels with open shells are still alive by squeezing them again. Now you're ready to cook them!

Mussels poached in white wine

Admittedly our pot of white wine mussels didn't turn out to be the prettiest dish on the planet, but they sure tasted delicious with the briney taste of the mussels and the rich, creamy tomato sauce. And none of the sauce went to waste of course because we soaked it up with a fresh baguette ;)


We also had the 2nd dozen of oysters which we bought from the fish markets, which were still just as fresh and delicious as the dozen that we ate earlier in the day

Gratin Dauphinois

I have a friend who is obsessed with potatoes. I mean sure, I love potatoes but MB is on the brink of pathological obsession. And when I started this blog I promised I would post about some potato recipes in honour of that obsession - so here is yet another potato-based recipe for you, MB.


Potatoes are fantastic on their own - but combine them with cheese and cream and you've got a whole different story. I love potato gratin for the crunchy cheese layer on top and the creamy (and still cheesy!) layers hidden underneath. It gave me great satisfaction to pull this out of the oven to reveal a golden layer of cheese and potato... and suddenly all the pain from grating cheese and slicing potatoes with a knife disappeared.


I've tried a couple of different gratin recipes and this is the one that has been most consistently successful with just the right amount of cream and milk to be absorbed by the potatoes in the cooking process. This means that you don't get a puddle of liquid left at the bottom after you take the layers of potatoes out and instead you have nice creamy sauce to go with the potatoes. Delish!

Roast Chicken #1

The title of this post isn't implying that this roast chicken is the best or "number 1", but that it is my first ever roast chicken. I don't usually cook with meat (that's not to say I'm vegetarian - I'm just more of a dessert-cooking person!). If I do, it's usually something simple with bite-sized pieces of meat or minced meat. Never before have I cooked with a giant leg of lamb or a large piece of beef or even a whole chicken.


After watching so many MasterChef successes in the kitchen on TV, it's definitely inspired me to be more adventurous in the kitchen and explore outside the realm of desserts and other sweet things. So with the help of a few friends, I set out to roast my first ever chicken!

Queen Chu's sweet potato mash

We roasted two small chickens with some root vegetables and Queen Chu also made mashed sweet potato. The aroma of the roasting chicken was amazing, and the flavour of the lemon and herbs shone through. The chicken was quite moist and succulent, with only a few dry bits around the breast and the drumstick. Evidently I still need more practice but for the first time I thought it turned out pretty well!