Friday, October 22, 2010

Hachis Parmentier

This was delicious! But the journey that got this thing to the table was a little bumpy due to my chronic miscalculations about how much people actually eat. Here is story of that journey.

Day 1/Thursday:
I bought 1 pound of chuck roast as instructed by the recipe. The butcher handed me the package and I immediately thought wow, this is tiny and not going to be nearly enough. I rationalized, "but, maybe with the addition of the sausage it will be enough, the recipe said it would serve 4, I always make too much food, damnit, be reasonable!" I walked out of the store and drove home trying to decide just how much meat each person would eat, what I would feed them as a back up plan when there was not enough Hachis and they were starving to death in my home. I planned to serve this meal the next day to my brother and his wife who were visiting from out of town (and who are totally normal eaters of normal weight and size).

So, I go home and got started by cooking the beef and making the stock as described in the recipe. And when it was done, the meat shrunk! (of course, the meat shrunk, that is what it does when cooked). It was looking piddly to me so, cue stress. I hate the idea of not having enough food- it haunts me whenever I am feeding people. I headed back to the grocery store and bought another 1.5 pounds of meat. I decided since I had a second go at this, I would make more of a stew with the next batch of meat. It seems like that is the real nature of this dish anyways, stretching leftover stew to make something delicious the next day. I cut the chuck into chunks (ha) and browned it and added carrots, onions, a bouquet garni and some wine. I let this cook in the oven for about 2 hours. This was stored alongside attempt number one in the fridge overnight. I now had an appropriately huge amount of meat and was able to sleep easy knowing no one would in fact starve the next day.

Day 2/Friday
Onward into the recipe I went. I chopped the two meats by hand and mixed them together. I added this to the browned pork sausage and tomato paste mixture. I ended up adding probably a cup of the broth to moisten the mixture. I piled this into my casserole, covered it with those delicious mashed potatoes and a healthy sprinkle of comte.

It browned up gorgeously but I have no photo of it in all of it's glory because we dove in before I could remember the camera. Next time I must remember the camera! Guess what? I made way too much. About half of the casserole dish was left when we finished. So, exactly the amount called for in the recipe pretty much. Why do I do this to myself??






We started the meal off with some cheese:














Then had the Hachis Parmentier with Dorie's Pancetta Green Beans and finished the meal with Marie Helene's Apple Cake (which I almost totally ruined, story to follow next week). It was a fabulous all Around My French Table meal.

Day 3/Saturday (I cheated and made this last week)
Leftovers were fabulous!

1 comment:

  1. You were subconsciously thinking ahead to the leftovers. I bet your version was delicious!

    ReplyDelete