What am I doing?!

Hello reader(s)!

So i'm not really sure what i'm doing here. I think it start Super Bowl Sunday when I found out that I didn't have any work the next day so I decided we should all start drinking! After a few drinks and a couple games of beer pong (haha) my friend Brett and I start talking about pictures of food then blogs for pictures of food then finally he said "dude, you should start a blog about food." Then I said, "Only if you take the pictures for me." If you haven't clicked on his link Brett's an awesome photographer. It wasn't really a spur of the moment thing, i've been wanting to start a blog because I LOVE food. That's what I do. I cook for a living. I've worked at a lot of places; restaurants, catering halls, hotels, embassies, even for the government! I think i've done a lot for my age but that does NOT mean I know everything. Eventually one day I want to become a teacher/professor. I love to teach therefore I can talk about food for days!

So how is this blog going to stand out from the zillion other food blogs out there?? I don't know and I don't care. I'm doing this for self-satisfaction. That means if I spell word incorrectly or use an article or punctuation mark wrong, I DON'T CARE. But i'm hoping to educate people on food. I want to be your GOOGLE. hahaha. Any questions, any fuck-ups, anything you want ask me I will definitely try to answer at the best of my knowledge without googling it.

Enough with introduction let's get down to business. What do you eat on a day when you're snowed in?? First thing that came to mind when I went shopping for food was BEEF STEW. Making beef stew is SOOO easy, there are only a few key ingredients you need for beef stew. Beef chuck, carrots, celery, onions, garlic, red wine, butter, flour, and beef stock (broth). That's it but if you want to add any other stuff in there go ahead and experiment a little bit. 

Unfortunately in Virginia when it snows everybody starts to freak out! So when I got to the store there was no more milk, bread, eggs, onions, and carrots! So what do chefs best?...IMPROVISE! Luckily the average person doesn't know how to use leeks or what they even are. So I grabbed 3 bunches of the leeks and ripped off the top of the leeks because when you buy produce, you usually pay by weight not by quantity and since I wasn't going to use the green leafy part of the leek I ripped it off to reduce the weight and the price. Next...grab some beef chuck or beef shoulder. Chuck is the best to use for stew because it has just the right amount of meat and fat. Too much meat and no fat equals dry meat as soon as it leaves the liquid. Too much fat equals...well that's just a lot of fat. But since it's the shoulder of the cow it's going to be pretty tough if you try to eat it like steak that means no Rare or Medium rare. When you have tough meat you want to cook for a long period of time at a low temperature in some type of liquid to make the meat tender. In this case we're using beef stock. This method of cooking can be achieved by Braising or Stewing. Also when you're purchasing chuck some butchers will take the bone out or leave it in. If the bone is left in remember to look for the piece that has the smallest bone in it because you won't be using it when you cube up your meat. 

Now for carrots...beef stew is not complete without carrots! i looked EVERYWHERE for carrots, I even looked for canned carrots...yuck! I gave up my search and got my other ingredients such as herbs, tomatoes, etc. As I declared my food shopping finished I decided to look one more time in the produce section for carrot and look what i found! Shoved all the way in the back behind bananas and strawberries were these 3 little 2oz bags of carrot sticks (ones you use for dipping). SUCCESS!!

Now when I tell you that beef stew is so easy to make...it's soooo easy to make. First have everything set and cut up before cooking. Cube your beef, chop your vegetables, tie up your herbs (i'll talk more about that later) and anything else that has nothing to do with cooking in the pot. You want to choose a pot that has high sides and when you put your meat in it should only come up about 1/4 up the sides. I took some butter and melted it over medium high heat. As the butter melts I took my flour and dusted my beef with it, not too much flour just enough to coat all the meat. When the pot is nice and hot toss your meat in. When the meat is in there stir around so that the entire bottom of the pot is covered and then LEAVE IT ALONE! The more stirring you do the less cooking you will do. You'll probably want to stir every 90 seconds or so. Don't worry if you start to see stuff sticking to the bottom of the pot you'll be ok just make sure it's not BLACK. Cook till all the meat is brown (it's ok if the meat isn't fully cooked it'll finish in the liquid TRUST ME). Once the meat is brown, turn off your heat and scoop the meat out into a bowl or something to leave on the side. At the bottom you will still see grease and the brown stuff that stuck to the bottom...PERFECT. 

Put the pot back on high heat and toss your vegetables (carrots, celery, onions, and garlic) in and saute until the onions become soft. Now this is optional, I then add a little tomato paste in for a little flavor. Remember the brown stuff on the bottom? That's all going to come up when you add your red wine. Wine preference? Never cook with something you wouldn't drink. Pour just enough red wine in to cover the bottom of the pot. Take your wooden spoon, oh yeh...you are using a wooden spoon right? Of course you are. Use your wooden spoon to scrape up all that deliciousness. That's ALL flavor right there. After the bottom of the pot is smooth again and the alcohol has cooked off. Add your beef back in along with your beef broth (just enough to cover the beef about 1/2 inch) and your tied up herbs. I normally use parsley, thyme, and rosemary. The reason you want to tie them up is because the leafy part is edible but the stems aren't. So if you want to sit there for an hour picking out wet stems, tie them up. You can also throw a bay leaf in there too...JUST 1. A bay leaf can go a long way. Give it a final stir, bring it up to a boil, and then lower it down to a low simmer and your done!! Now this is when you just let time do it's thing. Want to leave the pot partially covered cooking for about 2-3 hours. The longer you let it cook the more tender the beef will be.

As i've been writing this blog I was actually eating my delectable stew. Beef and vegetables so tender. Thick, velvety liquid coating my mouth...so good. Normally I would grab a nice french bread, lightly toasted so that the outside is nice and crunchy while the inside is still soft. But like I said the store was out of bread so what does every Asian house have?? RICE!! What better way to end a snowy night then with a bowl of hot rice and homemade beef stew...YUM!

bien manger
-cwis