Large Hunks of Meat are Delicious

Last night I made the single best dish I have ever cooked. "Yabba Dabba Do" out of the French Laundry Cookbook. It's deceptively simple - a large hunk of meat (double cut rib roast) with a bunch of potatoes (pommes Anna using clarified butter and stock-simmered prunes) and some wet stuff (sauce Bordelaise made with homemade veal stock). Okay, maybe not that simple - but not frankly difficult like so many other of these French Laundry recipes.

On Carol Blymire's blog (here) she writes about cooking this dish and falling into deep wet love with the Bordelaise Sauce. She talks about running off to Vegas with it. After making it I think I'm going to try and steal this sauce out from under her. I might have to sweep it off for a quickie before she finds out. Yes that makes me the other man. Or the other person. Or something like that.

The whole dish was fantastic. All the parts worked together. I had to take large bites in order to get a little taste of everything at the same time. Yes, not much to look at (thanks to my thoroughly inadequate phood photography skills) but I guarantee it was wonderful.

What would I recommend to the enthusiastic amateur who wishes to try this?
1) Be careful not to overcook the meat - mine was a little past medium-rare and it only cooked for 15 minutes (vs the anticipated 20-25 minutes).

2) Cut those potato slices very thin - I think I left my mandoline on "Naomi Campbell" whereas I needed to have it set to "Kate Moss." This resulted in me having to cook it for much longer than the prescribed amount. Also a lot of fluid left the slices, which probably wasn't supposed to happen. Still tasty.










3) Use the right wine in the Sauce Bordelaise. I used a Sangiovese and it had a little too much, er, character for the sauce. Use a cheap Chilean cabernet or something a little less ballsy.

I would recommend this dish as a must-make for all fumbling chefs. What, you don't have the French Laundry Cookbook? What's wrong with you? Buy it here. Right now!

Honestly, the thing that had stopped me from doing this previously had been a conspicuous lack of veal stock at home. That was remedied last weekend after a few hours with some veal bones and a big pot. If you ask nicely I can write about that too.