Total Lack of Inspiration & Beef Stew

It's been raining, I've had a cold and spring is probably at least a week away. Bah.

Due to a total lack of inspiration to finish my post about Galanga Beef Stew (which is 75% done but the last 25% seems all uphill) I hereby present the notes I partially worked from while making the dish. They're from the Cordon Bleu course I took in Basic Cuisine last year.

When cooking stuff I typically reference about a half dozen different recipes and I actually read them (not just browsing the ingredients). Then I make up something just slightly different (or, one might say, slightly the same)

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#8 Estouffade de Bœuf Bourguignonne : Beef Burgandy Stew

Marinade was yesterday.
This is made with shoulder meat.

An interesting link about Boeuf Borg. at LES TECHNIQUES DE BASE EN CUISINE

Traditional garnishes are turned potatoes, glazed pearl onions, sautéed mushrooms, and lardon

A key here is - always strain everything whenever it's changing pans
Important points:

• Never ever ever let the meat boil, not before the oven, nor in the oven, nor afterwards
• makes it tough
• Use peanut oil to sear meat - very hot
• if it stops browning it's too wet; or gets liquidy in the pan; drain it and re-oil & continue searing
• brown it 'til really good and brown and maybe you think it's burnt
• remove to a bowl (you'll flour it later)
  
• do veggies in same pan (sweat - don't brown)
  
• deglaze (w/ fond) & put in sauce
• prepare sauce - e.g. tomato paste but not too much! makes it acidic later
  
• Boil wine/blood juice sauce to remove the blood effect - skim (straining later will finish skimming the last of the scum)
• Roast the flour (get rid of gluten / gluey taste)
• veggies into oven pan, meat into pan, sauce over meat; top up with fond to cover (at least 90%)
• rind of the lardon goes into the estouffade and any cartilage from trimming the lardon
  
• into oven to only simmer - never boil (200c / 1 hr)
  
• out of oven; pick out meat (put on standby); strain vegs (toss 'em); boil & skim sauce
• adjust seasoning

Note: Fats get/capture flavor first (e.g. in sauces); then gives it up to water later - and the fat can be skimmed off
this works real well in long cooked things like Beef B.

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And since I'm messing around and not providing anything particularly useful I'll toss in a picture somewhat at random. This one is about a meter (yard) on each side and hangs in the salon (living room)at my house.