Archive for the ‘bordeaux’ tag
The Pot Roast Experiment
Welcome to the Companion’s first, great big train wreck of a cooking post. I wanted to blog about cooking with wine and ended up in mortal combat with a pot roast. The pot roast won. Not because I’m a bad cook, not because it didn’t taste good, but because I was unprepared to document my interaction with said roast.
Cocktails are simpler. You need a handful of ingredients, ice, and at least one good picture, and then — cocktail time.
Food posts require a little more thought and, apparently, prep work and planning. They need set up shots, sautéing shots, notes, and endless explanation. Even for a humble freaking pot roast, a recipe I decided to try while watching Ina Garten’s Food Network show, The Barefoot Contessa.
It was in a segment called “Comfort food and Company.” In thirty minutes the Contessa whipped up a pot roast while while a supporting cast of fabulous (pronounced faaabulous) design friends ran around the Hamptons gathering flowers for her table.
“I hope the guys remember peonies are my favorite.”
“Oh (huge inhale) Ina’s going to love these.”
“I wish you could smell this as the juicy bits reduce. Now add 15 sticks of butter. Delicious.”
Visions of East Coast dinner parties danced in my head as I headed off to the farmer’s market. Unfortunately, wielding a camera in the meat department makes me feel less waspy and a little:
-Crazy
-Like a Spy
-Like a tourist who had never seen a steak.
(I also find responding to “May I help you?” with “I’m taking pictures for my blog.” Does nothing to ratchet down my “crazy in-public” feeling.)
Here is my picture of the meat counter at the Farmer’s Market on Third Street in Los Angeles, the best butcher in LA:
Once I started cooking, it was clear my roast was not living up to Ms. Garten’s televised effort and I, personally, was nowhere near as pleasant.
Stupid things threw me off my game. I couldn’t get the Cuisinart (that I’ve owned for 12 years) to shut properly, and when I did, pulverized the vegetables. I almost hacked a finger off crushing garlic, added too much chicken stock, and counteracted by adding more wine than the recipe called for. (Which was a bummer, because drinking the wine was the thing I was most looking forward too.) Overall, the TV personality I channeled was more Muppet Swedish Chef than Barefoot Contessa.
Exhibit A:
Here’s what I learned during my cooking-with-wine-TV-inspired-pot-roast-experiment:
-Cooking while very hungry is stupid. I got grouchy fast and had to make myself a peanut butter sandwich to keep from passing out while I cooked dinner.
-2005 is a great, possibly epic year for Bordeaux. A perfect wine for this dish. Full bodied, and rich, it definitely added depth to the meat as it slow cooked. You can find a quality Bordeaux for under $20. Get something nice. You should only cook with wine you would drink.
-Remembering to take pictures every five minutes is trickier than it sounds, so put the damn camera somewhere you can see it.
-Writing a cooking blog takes skill, or at the very least, organization.
The food blogs I read make it look so easy. Here are a couple of very good ones:
Married With Dinner: A husband a wife trying to eat locally in San Francisco. You get stories of their travels, great food, and an occasional cocktail recipe made with fresh ingredients. The photography is great on this site as well.
The Gluten Free Goddess: I do not have a problem with gluten, but once a year my boyfriend and I go on a health kick. I stumbled across this site looking for recipes that were a tad healthier than the pizza with extra cheese that had become a staple. The Goddess’ recipes are inspiring, and the photography is beautiful.
The French Laundry at Home: Carol Blymire cooked every recipe in the French Laundry Cookbook. I discovered this blog while white-knucking it through Thomas Keller’s recipe for Salad of Haricots Verts, Tomato Tartare, and Chive Oil. I needed help plating the salad (before destroying $200 worth of salad ingredients). Basically, I wanted a second opinion. Carol was there with tips, photos, and an entire entry dedicated to the recipe I was attempting. Besides being informative, her site was so damn serene. She even listed the music she cooked to. For the haricots verts recipe it was, perhaps ironically, Salt-N-Peppa.
Carol has now moved on to the Alinea cookbook, and that site is worth checking out as well.
While schlubbing my way through my “Contessa Company” pot roast I did not listen to music. I should have. It would have covered the sound of me swearing like a longshoreman.
Looking to repeat my zen experience? Follow this link for the Contessa’s Company Pot Roast recipe. I will admit that the final dish, even after the errors and misfires, was very, very tasty.
