My Madison Bistro

My mom once said that a perfect honeydew melon is better than chocolate. Honeydew really is one of the great joys of summer. When it’s in season, it tastes like candy, only better. It needs no adornment, but when you do decide to dress it up a bit, be prepared – it will knock your socks off.

In this particular dish, the mint, lime, honey, and tequila all work together to further enhance the flavor of the honeydew, without overpowering it. As always, with so few ingredients, quality really matters here, especially with the tequila. You really do want to use a good quality tequila here – no Cuervo!

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Tags: fruit, Gordon Ramsay, melon, mint

This weekend, I decided to make a nice dinner. I saw Mastering the Art of French Cooking sitting on my bookshelf and realized that I don’t utilize this book often enough. I decided see if any of the dishes jumped out at me, and that’s when I found the recipe for Beef Braised in Red Wine, with accompaniments of Brown Braised Onions and Carrots Braised in Butter. Now that sounded like one amazing dinner!

I’m not going to lie. It took some advanced planning and some creativity on my part, as there is no bowl in my kitchen large enough to hold a 4.5 pound roast, a bottle of wine, 3 cups of chopped vegetables, brandy, and olive oil. As luck would have it, I happened to have a rather empty refrigerator, so I had plenty of room for my 7.25 quart dutch oven, the only vessel large enough to hold all of the ingredients, the vessel that would ultimately end up cooking the roast, as well.

It also took me an hour to do all of the prep work the night before, because I followed Julia’s instructions to “lard the meat.” Yes, a chunk of beef marinating overnight, and braising the next day was not enough to ensure a tasty main course. Julia also suggests that you, or your butcher, shove chunks of pig fat throughout the roast to “baste the interior of the meat as it cooks, and make an attractive design when the meat is sliced.” The thought of pig fat marbled throughout my roast didn’t sound very appealing to me – I am the type who cuts away every little portion of fat that she can find in a piece of meat – but the thought of a nice, juicy roast was rather tempting. So I bowed to the master herself, and spent 30 minutes cutting strips of pig fat, cutting slits throughout my roast, and stuffing those slits with the fat.

Continue reading “Beef Braised in Red Wine”

Tags: beef, comfort food, Julia Child, pot roast, wine

Oh. My. God.

Those were the words going through my mind as I took my first bite of these onions. Unable to speak, I let out a long “Mmmmmmm.” And perhaps a little moan. Yes, these are really that good.

Actually, they’re better. If you’re familiar with the term Food Porn, well, these qualify. If I were to pick my final meal, brown braised onions would be a part of it. Instead, I will eat them now, and eat them often. Even if you don’t usually like onions, I would be large sums of money that you’ll like these.

I’ve wanted to make these for awhile, but the thought of peeling all of those onions put me off. But since Julia recommended this particular dish as a side to Beef Braised in Red Wine, I decided to go ahead and peel all of those little suckers. It was completely worth it, and I will be making these again…and again…and again.

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Tags: Butter, Onions

I hadn’t originally planned on making carrots as part of my Weekend with Julia, but they were a suggested side dish to Beef Braised in Wine, and I had all of these extra carrots lying around from making the beef, so I thought, why not?

This is a really basic carrot recipe with the flavor reminiscent of glazed carrots, but without the heavy glaze. I will definitely be making these again, as this simple recipe turned some sub-par carrots into a very tasty side dish.

Continue reading “Carrots Braised in Butter”

Tags: Carrots, Julia Child