Beef Bourguignon and Gateau aux prunes

The other day I bought the new Feast magazine and it has this fantastic little section called "Dinner & A Movie" that teams up food with some movies running on the SBS - the theme this month... French. So last night Nathan and I made a delicious French meal and watched "Amelie". On the menu was Beef Bourguignon (adapted from a Women's Weekly recipe), left over dauphinoise and Gateau aux prunes aka plum cake. Magnifique! Here are the recipes:

Beef Bourguignon ~
This is the greens and dauphinoise that
we forgot to photograph the other
night

    Beef close up - so shiny, so tasty!
  • 500g gravy beef, roughly chopped into 3cmish pieces
  • 3 eschalots, peeled
  • 400g field mushrooms, quartered
  • 1 clove garlic, crushed
  • 1 1/4 cup red wine
  • 3/4 cup beef stock
  • 1 rasher bacon, coarsely chopped
  • 15g butter
  • bay leaf
  • 1tsp dried thyme
  • 1/4 cup parsley, stalks removed
  • 1/8 cup plain flour
  • olive oil
  • heat oil in an electric frypan and brown the beef. Remove the beef from the pan
  • Add the eschalots, bacon, mushrooms, garlic and butter to the some pan and cook over low heat until eschalots are lightly browned. Sprinkle the flour over the mixture and cook for another minute.
  • Add the wine and beef stock and bring the mixture to the boil. Return the beef to the pan, add the bay leaf and thyme and stir well.
  • Put the lid on and let it simmer away for about 1.5hrs. Stir every half hour so the flavour is even and the meat doesn't stick. 
  • The cooking time will depend on how tough the meat is that you used. It could take up to 2hrs. If the liquid gets to low add another splash of wine and stock. 
  • When the meat is cooked nicely turn off the heat and stir through the parsley. 
  • Serve with some kind of potato :) 
  • (You can also cook this in a casserole dish over a hot plate or in the oven - but I am in love with the electric frypan at the moment).
Gateau aux Prunes ~
This recipe is  adapted from the Feast magazine and it absolutely scrumptious!
  • 3/4 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • 1/2 cup greek yoghurt
  • 2 eggs
  • 1tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/3 cup orange juice (freshly squeezed tastes best)
  • 1 orange, zested
  • 1 cup self raising flour, sifted
  • 1 cup almond meal
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 800g tin plums, pits removed and cut in half
  • 1/3 cup plum jam
  • Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and grease and line a cake tin (square 22cm works well)
  • Place sugar, oil, yoghurt, eggs, vanilla, orange juice and zest in a bowl and whisk to combine. 
  • Add in almond meal, flour and salt and whisk to combine. 
  • Pour mixture into tin and then put plums onto with the cut side up (you can arrange these in pretty patterns like Nathan did)
  • Put about 1/2 tsp of jam in the centre of each plum and then put in oven.
  • Bake for about 50mins or until a skewer comes out clean. Keep an eye on this cake as it is easy to burn!
  • When cooked and still hot spread the top of the cake with remaining jam.
  • Serve with ice cream if you want (I definitely wanted!)
It looked like a fleur de lis before it went in the oven.
 After baking it is more of a pretty abstract design.





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