Monday, January 31, 2011

Disaster

Are you ready for this? I am going to post my first failed dish from this past Saturday. It was supposed to be a simple beef stew, something you think I would be able to accomplish easily after having tackled Julia Child's Boeuf Bourguignon successfully, but it turned out to be an inedible, charred mess. We had just come back from the doctor, who confirmed my fractured toe and unfractured foot (phew), so maybe I was a bit distracted. I would like to further remove more of the blame from myself by saying that the recipe was also a bit flawed. I noticed that one of the steps resulted in some burned bits at the bottom of my pot, and not of the tasty-once-deglazed variety. Everything seemed to be going as planned, until I detected an acrid-smelling smoke, at which point I freaked out, jumped up, took the pot off the heat and lifted the lid to view what had gone wrong. In the five minutes I left it, the liquid had evaporated (too high heat), which makes no sense for a stew, leaving a thick, blackened crust at the bottom of my beautiful enameled cast iron! I have to confess that I threw a little tantrum because I was so upset at my first ruined dinner, but as my husband so kindly reminded me, in order to become really good at something, you have to have the courage to sometimes fail.

No! Look at the blackened bottom of my poor stew. Gross.
For the first time ever, we had to go out and get some Japanese take-out. I was so dejected, but at least it makes for a kind of funny newlywed story. But I still don't really find it funny yet.

1 comment:

  1. one imperfect dish in a hundred is not bad spaducc...do you find it funny yet? hehe

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