Cooking Live with Slashfood: it's time to start cooking

by Sarah Gilbert, Posted Jan 13th 2006 @ 6:56PM

We're cooking Gardiane La Camargue, French beef stew in the style of the cowboys Francais in the Camargue, south of Arles. The dish is from Patricia Wells' Bistro Cooking. Yesterday we cut the meat into 3- or 4-ounce pieces and prepped the carrots, onions and garlic before mixing it all together for an overnight marinade.

I opened my fridge and there it was! My well-marinated beef. All that I have to do now is throw it in a pot and cook it. Right? Whoops. There's a bunch to do today.

First, I need to let it come to room temperature. Given the fact that my three-year-old had to visit the doctor (ear infection), I really don't have time. So I'm going to skip that step and just give the meat as much "rest" as the time it takes to drain.

oil in my favorite cast-iron
skillet I set my beef chunks in a colander to drain, reserving the marinade ingredients in their big bowl, while I heated up my very favorite pan: a 12-inch cast-iron skillet. The instructions say to use two tablespoons of olive oil, and I just let the bottle do a few glugs until it seems as if my saucepan bottom is well-covered.