Lesson 5: Boeuf Bourguignon and Butter in Various Other Forms

No culinary-themed travel memoir would be complete without an ode to Julia Child.


Don't worry- I'm not going all Julie Powell on you (ugh). But I will confess that I got a little emotional when I realized I had executed (though definitely not mastered) one of the classics. Isn't that what every slightly chubby little girl dreams of?


So here's my ode, loud and proud. The mise en place (diced onion, quartered mushrooms, 4mm x 4mm carrots, minced garlic, celery, 2cm/2cm cubes of beef and nectar of the gods, or pancetta): 

We sautéed the pancetta until it was fragrant and brown:

After removing the pancetta, we cooked the vegetables just until the onion appeared translucent. And then things got super exciting- we dredged the cubes of beef in flour (doesn't that sound SO appetizing)!

Moving on, we deglazed the pan by adding cognac and red wine. I now know: to deglaze is to pour alcohol into a dish and use it to scrape up all those juicy brown bits on the bottom of the pan. So we put our bulging guns to use. Next: added rosemary and let it simmer until the wine sauce is thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon (adding a splash or two of beef broth along the way).

Et voilà!

It looks a little like dog food, I know. But trust me- it was amazingly delicious. Also, cutting potatoes into that little football shape there is probably the hardest thing we've had to do.

In addition to the lovely concoction above, we made chicken with butter sauce:

Chicken with cream sauce:

and...SWEETBREADS!!!

Here's a shoutout to Rachel, who valiantly grilled and sauced those things. But, as the 2008 presidential campaign showed us, you can't put lipstick on a pig- they tasted like butter-soaked sponge.

Off to Punta del Este for Semana Santa this weekend! Pics and perhaps some restaurant investigations to come! Happy Passover/Easter!

Lesson 4: Homemade Alfajores

Since moving to Buenos Aires, I've discovered a new food group that makes up a large portion of my nutritional pyramid: alfajores. Alfajores- dulce de leche-filled cornstarch cookies- come in lots of different shapes, sizes and flavors. You can't walk three blocks here without passing a bakery that sells them. And if, like a certain someone, you lack self-control in the face of anything with the formula fat + sugar + dairy, then you too will justify replacing the entire "grains" section of the pyramid with these delightfully gooey gems.


Unfortunately, there are a lot of crappy alfajores out there. Yesterday, I tried to make a batch that I hoped would avoid the common pitfalls (too sweet, stale cookies, etc.).


You know what's hard? Baking when you don't have a temperature gauge on your oven. My options range from "big flame" to "little flame."

So far, I've been eyeballing it to roast veggies, but "medium flame" didn't fly with these babies. Starting with dough that should have made 15 sandwich cookies, I ended up with...four. But what an addictive four they are.

The recipe:


Ingredients:

• 12 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 egg yolks
• 2 1/2 cups cornstarch (corn flour)
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• Zest of 1/2 lemon
• Dulce de Leche

To make cookie dough:
Cream the butter and sugar together, then mix in the remaining ingredients except the dulce de leche until well blended. Knead on a floured work surface until the dough is smooth and let rest for 15 minutes.

Make the cookies:
Roll the dough out to a thickness of about 1/4 inch and cut into 2-inch rounds. Place on a greased cookie sheet and bake in a preheated 300°F oven for 20 minutes. When cool, spread some dulce de leche on the bottom of half the cookies and press another cookie on top, allowing some of the dulce de leche to squeeze from the sides.

Notes: 

1) To make your own dulce de leche, buy a can of sweetened condensed milk; empty into a bain-marie OR a 9-inch pie plate covered with foil; if using the pie plate, place into a larger pan filled with hot water (without letting water into the pie plate); bake at 425 degrees F for an hour or until caramel colored.

2) You can also dip these in melted milk, dark or white chocolate or roll them in coconut!

And by the way...dulce de leche. They sell it by the spoonful here, but I highly recommend buying it by the jar (oh hey, iron!).

Lesson 3: ¡Más Pasta!

First, an admission: some of the stuff we're learning- though important- isn't blog-worthy. On Tuesday, for instance, we boiled vegetables, which evoked images of Oliver Twist slurping watery cabbage soup in Dickensian London.

Fortunately, yesterday's pasta class put the spice back in our spoonulas.

Entering into the "food fight" between Jessica Seinfeld and other "sneaky" moms has proven to be dangerous business. But this week, we learned a few techniques that could enhance Mrs. Seinfeld's repertoire of  cauliflower scrambled eggs and chocolate beet cake.

We made two more types of gnocchi delight, and this time we livened up the doughs with spinach and winter squash.

The technique, however, is essentially the same. In the case of the spinach, we dried it out by sautéing it in butter. And we roasted the squash in the oven before mixing in the egg yolk and flour.

We funkified the shapes, too. The spinach "gnocchi" were heaping, rounded tablespoons plopped into boiling water. The finished product, covered with cheese and baked in the oven briefly, looked like the one pictured below. And they were OVERWHELMINGLY delicious- puffy and not too spinachy- as evidenced by the fact that there were 15 more on the plate about 30 seconds before I took this picture:

The squash dough required to most fun technique we've learned to date...

...squirting droplets of dough from this pastry bag- which they call una manga- directly into the pot. They come out looking like mini Chik-Fil-A chicken nuggets and tasting slightly sweet and crunchy.

We made two tomato-based sauces to accompany our veggie-laden pasta. For the spinach gnocchi, we made a simple tomato sauce, with diced carrot, onion, garlic and basil.

Our other sauce called for a review of our knife skills- the ellipse!- and also had more complex flavors- white wine, anchovies, black olives and capers- thrown into the mix.

All in all, two more deceptively easy meals that, though veggie-laden, still feel like comfort food. Even the Soup Nazi would approve.

Between Meals: Feliz Día de la Memoria por la Verdad y la Justicia

Whatever you think of the Kirchners- mentioning the name here provokes the same responses as saying Haman in a synagogue- Nestor did do one cool thing while in office.

He gave Argentineans (and American culinary students) a day off to commemorate the victims of the last military junta, including an estimated 30,000 "disappeared" political dissidents.

Today, I'll be watching Las Madres: The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, researching recipes for this weekend's post (baking alfajores!) and giving thanks that Argentina is ruled by a corrupt democratically elected official rather than a corrupt dictatorship

Between Meals: Gemelos

Mondays and Fridays are lecture days- aka boring days- at culinary school. I meant to write something about the Chinatown here this weekend, but it was too rainy to make the trek.

And so, a couple quick notes to whet your appetite!

This is my Brazilian friend Alejandro from culinary school. Today, he put his GIANT Converse-clad foot next to mine and said, "Somos gemelos!"

Also, my landlords left this on the doorstep the other day.

Back with more on culinary school tomorrow, but a good reminder: What good is learning to cook if you don't have such lovely people to fatten up?