Had dinner at a French restaurant last night near Chapel St. Food wasn’t the best, but definitely something different on the menu as opposed to what you normally get when you dine out. Had escargots as part of the entree. They were cooked in garlic butter, but other than being slightly chewy, didn’t have much else in terms of flavour.

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Went to the market today and brought ingredients back to make a beef stew. I’ve been enchanted by the idea for a while now, as stews are warm and comfort kind of foods. Just never got round to it as I didn’t know what kind of beef to get to put into stews. Then today I saw beef chuck on the bone and at $5 a kilogram, I just got a kg of it and was set and intent on making it.

I’ve cooked varieties of stews before so the recipe for this is my generic assessment of how it’s done. Cut up an onion, some carrots, and a couple of sticks of celery. Chucked those in a pan and fried them in butter. Took my beef chuck and started cutting it down into large cubes (they shrink after cooking so it has to be slightly larger), removing large chunks of fat as I prepped it. One thing I learned after cooking so much is that for stews, you need crappy (well, not prime cuts) and fatty meat so that the meat softens after slow cooking it, and the fattiness keeps the meat from becoming dried out. Covered the meat cubes in seasoned flour (with pepper and salt) and browned them in the pan, before transferring it along with the vegetables into a pot. Added beef stock and some liquid to it. Also added a little bit of white wine, a satchet of tomato paste, a can of peeled tomatoes and a can of button mushrooms. Dumped a couple tablespoons of sugar to cancel out the sourness of the tomatoes. Boiled it for a couple of hours to get the meat nice and tender.

Vyanne decided to put the stew into a deep dish/pot and cover the top with puff pastry. Put that in the oven for another 15 minutes, and you have a not terribly good looking, but quite tasty beef pie.

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Watched a few parts of Masterchef Australia streamed over the website and it’s interesting to watch Gary and George (the shows two chefs and judges) prepare some dishes to give some ideas/techniques and tips to the contestants. I like that they use ingredients that I find more common in Australia, and the way they show how ingredients are cooked and how they match together is pretty informative. Heh, food is an interesting topic to discuss/watch anyday.