Enjoying the Ugly Bits

Himself has been talking food (specifically potatoes) to his colleagues it would appear.  He sent an email to me asking me to cook aligot a few weeks ago.  For those of you not in the know, aligot is essentially French for garlicky cheesy mashed potato (what’s not to love about that?) Only the French would give it a fancy name though…  I had my first attempt a couple of weeks ago – I found a recipe on the SBS website but the cheese was some uber-rare French farmhouse cheese.  Apparently to make aligot with any other cheese is unthinkable to that particular French chef.  So of course we couldn’t find the cheese.  Himself scoured the CBD for a substitute and finally came home with some super-stinky Munster cheese.  I followed the recipe but it was waaaay to strong (even after halving the cheese).  Upon further discussion between Himself and Colleague a recipe was forthcoming from Colleague’s French wife for Beef Daube and Aligot.

So I added an urgent extra 1kg of chuck steak to my F&B order (lucky they love me, it was my second ‘urgent’ addition for the week).  I already had some Flying Pig Bacon off-cuts on my order and as the Boeuf en Daube* had pancetta in the recipe I thought this would be an excellent substitute.

The Flying Pig Maple and Sea Salt Cured Bacon is an English style, unsmoked bacon sold exclusively by Feather and Bone.  I’ve been meaning to try it, but is it possible to enjoy unsmoked bacon I wondered?  Surely not‽**

So I prepped the dish (brown beef which has been marinated in wine, stock and spices and remove from pan, add mirepoix and when soft add back in beef and reduced wine mixture then cook for several hours in a low oven).  Some of the interesting parts of the dish were the quatre épices, which is a mixture of nutmeg, pepper, ginger and cloves; very medieval… I think next time I’ll substitute the nutmeg for mace to really up the ante.  The recipe also called for dried orange peel which I found in the friendly local Asian store.

Once this was in the oven simmering I had to prepare all the additions (bacon, eshallots & mushrooms).  I made the mistake, after frying up the bacony ‘ugly bits only a mother (or FBJ) would love’, of sampling a few pieces 'just to make sure it was okay…’

WOW!! SO DELICIOUS!! Himself wanted to take his piece off to a private place so he could have a quiet moment with it I think…  He was in raptures and as he should have been – what a revelation! How can unsmoked bacon be so fine??? Actually, it's lucky any of it made it into the Daube as I had a very hard time keeping my fingers out of it. 

I suspect as an especial treat this bacon will be purchased.  It’s expensive, granted, but there’s a good reason for that and besides, I think it’s the kind of bacon you cook and savour slowly in the privacy of your own home***, akin to an all out chocolate binge for a sweet tooth I’d say.  I’ll continue to buy my free-range smoky bacon for my cheap and cheerful dishes, but this was in a whole other league.

The aligot recipe included used good old gruyere cheese which was much easier to find.  I think a nice raclette cheese would also work well here.

So once the Daube was cooked I added all the additions and served with the aligot.  I actually think I may have overdone it on with orange peel as it was quite hard to decided how much dried peel = 1 orange worth, but I don’t think it detrimentally affected the flavour of the dish.  I will also admit to not marinating the beef beforehand, so next time I will do that and add less orange too, just to see if there really is any difference.  You definitely should use chuck or shin or maybe oxtail for this dish, the sinew and fat once rendered down gave it a really unctuous texture.  Probably throwing a couple of marrow bones in for good measure would also add to the experience.

*Let’s really French it up!

**For those of you wondering, it’s an interrobang…

***Cut to Ben Stiller Dodge-Ball Pizza scene