Last night, our good friends Mark and Katie came over for dinner. Dinner, however, wasn't the focal point of evening. Earlier in the day Josh and Mark had decided that it was high time they subject the women in their lives to a manly movie - no more art-house features for them. That's where "Live Free or Die Hard" came in. I was tasked with coming up with something to eat. When I asked for some direction, I was told: "something with red meat."
Since it was rainy outside, though not particularly cold, I was looking for something warm, but not too heavy. That perfect transitional season dish, with the requisite red meat. For some reason, I kept coming back to this beef daube with mustard, herbs & white wine, from Patricia Wells' "At Home in Provence" cookbook. A Daube, which is much like a pot-au-feu, or a thick stew, is, in my mind, usually a winter dish, so I wasn't sure why I kept coming back to it. But because I couldn't get it out of my mind (much like moules frites today - which is why we're going to Dr. Granville Moore's tonight, for dinner) I decided to look it up anyway. Lo and behold, I read this in Patricia's introduction: "I think of this as a springtime daube, for days when you want the heartiness of beef and a warm bowl of stew but nothing overwhelming." Well, that settled it.
I had taken a mental health day, so I had the necessary 2-3 hours of simmering time to make the dish (but for that, this could be the easiest weeknight meal). Simply brown 2 pounds of meat in olive oil, add a bottle of white wine (which always throws me off, as I'd expect red, but this keeps it light) to deglaze, 2 tablespoons dijon mustard, about a pound of thinly sliced onions, some garlic cloves, a can of whole tomatoes in their juices, a bouquet garni (I used rosemary, lavendar and tarragon, because that's what I have growing downstairs) and simmer for 3 hours. Mark and Katie brought over a loaf of crusty French bread for mopping up the sauce.
We served it with a light salad to start and fresh fruit in a simple syrup of lemon verbena steeped in reduced riesling (the lemon verbena also grown downstairs). Sadly, the syrup was a little heavy on the lemon verbena for our tastes.
The best thing about this dish is that it's even better the next day, which I remembered today, as we polished off the remainders for lunch.
