Friday, March 13, 2015

French Fridays with Dorie - Veal Marengo


Today´s recipe for the French Fridays with Dorie group is Veal Marengo, a hearty veal stew from Provence with tomatoes, mushrooms, olive oil and herbs.




Oftentimes, French cuisine is full of myths and fables. Classic recipes frequently have disputed origins, as with this dish, named „Marengo“, after the June 14, 1800, Battle of Marengo in northern Italy between French forces under Napoleon Bonaparte and Austrian forces. Napoleon wanted a celebratory meal and legend has it that Napoleon’s cook, a Swiss chef named Dunand, the son of a chef for the Prince of Condé in France, assembled some meagre provisions available to him in his battlefield kitchen. Blessed with boundless talent, the cook created a dish of chicken, tomatoes, craw fish, eggs and water and presented it to the famous Commander after the decisive clash. Napoleon liked it so much that he demanded to eat the dish after each and every victory.




Some writers suggest that over the years, Chef Dunand replaced the chicken with veal, dropped the crayfish, fried eggs and toasted bread and added mushrooms and wine. Be that as it may, Dorie´s recipe which is based on a recipe from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, calls for veal shoulder, onions, tomatoes, white wine, bouquet garni, cipolline, mushrooms and baby potatoes to serve.




For today´s recipe you have to toss cubed boneless veal shoulder in well-seasoned flour to coat. Then in a lovely cocotte, heat oil over medium-high heat and brown the veal cubes. Transfer the browned veal to a plate. In the same cocotte, over medium-high heat, cook onion, tomato paste and tomatoes. Add white wine and a nice bouquet garni (fresh thyme, parsley, rosemary and and a bay leaf). Add the veal back to the cocotte, season with freshly ground black pepper and some sea salt, cover and cook on low for about 30 minutes. In the meantime you cook the pearl onions (since I could not find those, I used French shallots instead  and mushroms (I used baby portabellas) separately. Do not forget to boil some nice, small potatoes in the meantime. To serve, add all the cooked components to your plate and serve the boiled potatoes alongside.




Instead of adding the chopped Italian parsley to the veal stew, I tossed the small potaoes in parsley-chive butter – my grand-mother used to serve potatoes this way and I have a soft spot for serving spuds prepared the same way she did as these simple potatoes are a delicious accompaniment to hearty stews like this Veal Marengo.

For Parsley-Chive-Potatoes you simply put the unpeeled potatoes in a large pot and add water to cover the potatoes by 2 inches. Season the water with salt and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until the potatoes are tender when pierced, about 10 to 12 minutes, depending on their size and weight. Drain the potatoes well, peel and transfer to a serving bowl. Add the butter, chopped parsley as well as chives and carefully toss to coat. Serve immediately while still nice and hot.




We all loved, loved this stew and the kids could not get enough of it – absolutely delicious. Tender meat, very tasty sauce with lots of mushrooms and shallots, just the way we like it. A celebratory dish indeed, it is rich and tasty and would also be perfect for a dinner party.

And what better recipe than this one to show off my new, absolutely beautiful, show-stopper of a bright red cocotte from Staub Germany that I just received last week!!! Thanks so much to the kind folks at Staub!!!




To see whether the other members of the French Fridays with Dorie group enjoyed this week´s recipe, please go here.

For copyright reasons, we do not publish the recipes from the book. But you can find the recipe for “Veal Marengo “ on pages 264-66 in Dorie Greenspan´s cookbook "Around my French Table".


33 comments:

  1. So beautifully done, Andrea! I'm going to make a concerted effort to grow some herbs in my kitchen next winter so I can have some glorious garnishes like you :) Except that I have a black thumb! LOVE your new pot---my favorite color.

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    1. Liz, easy to grow the herbs this year - mild winter, my rosemary keeps thinking it is spring although we are not quuite there yet - but it is always more than nice to have fresh herbs growing in the garden, on the windowsill etc.Yes, I have noticed that red is your favorite color - you do such a wonderrful job with putting red accents in all the right places in your pictures and on your blog!

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  2. Your photos are lovely, everything is so sharp. This is a great dish no matter where it originated. I used beef but definitely want to try it with veal if I can locate a piece of shoulder next time. We loved it, and I like Dorie's method with the vegetables.

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    1. Rosemary, thank you so much - it is not always easy to get one´s hands on veal shoulder around here but for once I was organized enough to order it in advance at my favorite butcher - I have made this stew with pork tenderloin as well and it works like a charm. I agree with you on the vegetable part about Dorie´s recipe - for the kids I just blended the mushrooms and shallots into the sauce - sauce loving kids living in a sauce loving country....

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  3. Beautiful setup, as usual, but especially more this time with the beautiful red cocotte!

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    1. Emily, I was waiting for the sunshine to peek through the clouds and got lucky this week - we have had fabulous early spring weather as of lately - not so much today though. With this nice weather it was easy to take good pictures.

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  4. Love love love Staub! It's the perfect vessel to show off this beautiful stew!

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    1. Mardi, I could not agree with you more - this beautiful, cherry-red cocotte from Staub has stolen my foodie heart! What a perfect backdrop to Dorie´s lovely veal stew.

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  5. I also love your new Staub! Such a vibrant beautiful color!
    I agree with you on this stew…it was delectable! We loved it in my house!
    Andrea, I feel as if I ‘m always repeating myself, when I comment about your photos…but your photos and presentation are just beautiful!
    Have a great weekend!!

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    1. Kathy, nice gift that Staub Cocotte - I am quite grateful for having received it, it will serve us well for cooking all kinds of stews and soups - just got lucky with the weather. lots of sunshine here lately with no snow in sight.
      Thank you for your kind comment - btw I love comments about my pictures, it always does take some planning and the pictures that I chose to post are always close to my heart.
      Andrea

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  6. That is a gorgeous color for your cocotte and I totally love Staub! That winter light in all of your photos is just beautiful--so crisp! Glad you all enjoyed it! Sounds like this one was a winner for all of us!

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    1. Katie, I think that all the Doristas agreed on this recipe .- it was a winner at our house, we loved, loved this and I made sure that there was enough sauce for all of us, that is always such an important issue for our kids. I was lucky last week, there was a lot of late winter sunshine - so important if you want to take reasonably decent pictures of stew which is notoriously un-photogenic.
      Have a nice weekend,
      Andrea

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  7. beautiful
    as always.
    fabulous presentation.
    May I come over? xx

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    1. Kim, you may certainly come over - would be my pleasure to share some of the food I always prepare.
      Thank you for your kind words,
      Andrea

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  8. What a fun history behind this dish - knowing the story makes it even more interesting. Love your new pot!

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    1. Chris, food history is always so much fun and full of surprises but I try not to indulge too much but who could pass up the opportunity to write about one of Napoleon Bonaparte´s favorite dishes?! Not me, that´s for sure.
      Thank you for the kind words!

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  9. I love your gorgeous outdoorsy photos and how you set up everything for an occasion. Just so enticing. I loved this dish, but like most things I cook, it gets finished late in the day and I just slap it on plate, go with the lighting and take the photo. Would love to have beautiful shots like these.

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    1. Gaye, that is so nice, thank you - we have been very lucky weatherwise, no complaints there at all, none. And outdoor pictures are just my thing - any meal is special when I have the time to arrange it properly and it is fun to use all those props that linger around our house!

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  10. This is a gorgeous post and a very special one with the addition of your Staub Cocotte. I don't own any Staub but do think it's very, very special. I would like to try this with veal (not to be found in California as Susan Lester reminded us) but would tweak it a bit. You seemed to have enough sauce but I certainly didn't. I actually halved my meat portion (I used beef) but kept the other ingredients the same and still didn't have enough sauce. I had to cook the beef longer (it still was a bit tough) so maybe the sauce evaporated too much even though I used Dorie's technique of parchment. The taste of this, you're right, is fantastic. I just know your little scamps ate this with relish.

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    1. Dear Mary, I did add some fresh tomatoes to the mix - I know that I have a whole lot of sauce lovers at the house, so I always, always make sure to have enough sauce - a few fresh, cubed and deseeded tomatoes did the trick and I also added the liquid from the canned tomatoes, maybe that made the difference - or I am just "heavy-handed" when it comes to adding liquids/stock to a dish.
      The beautiful Staub Cocotte just needed to be shown off - not often do I get a chance to do so (not that I want to show off or anything) but it is just too pretty to hide it in the cupboards.
      Thank you so much for your wonderful comment - btw this dish works beautifully with pork tenderloin as well (I tried it),
      Andrea

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  11. Beautiful photos, great presentation and a tasty dish. Congratulations

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    1. Gerlinde, lieben Dank - freut mich, dass dir meine Fotos gefallen - thank you kindly for your comment!

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  12. It seems like you're enjoying a sunny and warm Spring! Staub is such a great brand, so nice that you received that beautiful cocotte. Your version of the stew is beautiful and I especially love the idea of the parsley-chive butter. That sounds wonderful.

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    1. Teresa, we are indeed enjoying a very sunny and warm spring - and we are quite grateful for it too. And the Staub folks certainly made me happy with that incredibly beautiful cocotte - I just had to show it off because the Veal Marengo was the perfect dish to prepare in a cocotte like this one!

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  13. Your Marengo is beautiful! So far the only one in the group that I have seen that used veal! I think I had my first veal stew when I was in Heidelberg, in fact! I love that you also gave us the fable. Hugs from Tucson! David

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    1. David, ah, to enjoy the occasional veal - once in a while we will go for it and this stew recipe sounded just too wonderful to pass up the opportunity to cook with some lovely veal yet again.
      Andrea

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  14. I wish my kiddo would eat stews. He prefers his vegetables raw and I don't think he likes sauces. I hope he grows out of this phase. My husband and I liked it well enough but I will do a one pot meal next time.

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    1. Diane, all kids have different tastes but as we live in a country of serious sauce and stew lovers, I did not really have to convince them to go ahead and taste the Veal Marengo - they loved it and so did we. But, again, we all have different tastes and preferences and they also seem to change over time.
      Thank you for stopping by,
      Andrea

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  15. I could eat stews everyday especially if they are as good as this one. Such a cute pot too! (I used veal too... I don't all that often so this was extra special!)

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  16. That pot is beautiful - I am sure many amazing meals will come out of it.

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  17. Oh Andrea, this is such a heart and delicious looking stew...I yet have to cook veal...but this would be the way to go.

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  18. Your new red pot is absolutely gorgeous. I know you will put it to good use! I found your description of the history of this dish very interesting. I would kind of like to try the original version...I hope you're all having a wonderful weekend!

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  19. I can't believe how green it is in Germany! I'm so jealous. Your new pot is the perfect vessel for this stew. And so much more. I know you'll serve many beautiful meals from it. I'm interested to try this with chicken.

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