It's time to celebrate La Fête Nationale! Or for my English speaking lovelies, Bastille Day.
Not too long ago, I had a discussion with a foodie friend of mine about which chefs inspired us when we were growing up, and I suddenly realized just how many of the chefs that inspired me were French and/or lived in France. Jacques Pepin, Jacques Torres, and Julia Child were all instrumental in giving me the desire to cook and serve wonderful food to the people in my life. I remember being glued to the television as Julia showed me step-by-step how to get drunk on cooking wine de-bone a chicken. Many years later, I used those skills to help me make yummilicious dishes of my own. Like this one.
That being said, I'm not much of a French food connoisseur. I'm not fond of pate or escargot, and I am most DEFINITELY not into fois gras. Who in their sane frame of mind would want to eat engorged duck livers? Eww to the goo. and yuck to the duck. Heck, I'm not even much into the stinky cheeses that are all the rage in French cuisine. I AM, however, a lover of French comfort foods like puff pastry, pate-a-choux, casseoulets and today's dish... Boeuf Bourguignon.
The dish is basically a very rich, excessively drunk-on-red-wine beef stew, but I could eat a pot full of it even in the heat of summer. It's just that good. Oh, and I have Julia Child to thank for the recipe. She really knew how to make a dish special. *SIGH* I miss you, dear lady. BON APPETIT!
This recipe is adapted from "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck (Alfred A. Knopf, 1961)
WHAT YOU\'LL NEED
- One 6-ounce piece of chunk bacon
- 3 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
- 3 pounds lean stewing beef, cut into 2-inch cubes
- 1 large carrot, bias (diagonally) cut
- 1 medium yellow onion, sliced
- Salt and pepper
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 3 cups red wine, young and full-bodied (like Beaujolais, Cotes du Rhone or Burgundy)
- 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 cups brown beef stock
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- 2 cloves mashed garlic
- 1/2 teaspoon thyme
- One dried bay leaf, crumbled
- 18 to 24 white pearl onions
- 3 1/2 tablespoons butter
- Herb bouquet (4 parsley sprigs, one-half bay leaf, one-quarter teaspoon thyme, tied in cheesecloth)
- 1 pound mushrooms, fresh and quartered
HOW TO MAKE IT
Remove bacon rind and cut into lardons (sticks 1/4-inch thick and 1 1/2 inches long). Simmer rind and lardons for 10 minutes in 1 1/2 quarts water. Drain and dry.
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Sauté lardons in 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a flameproof casserole over moderate heat for 2 to 3 minutes to brown lightly. Remove to a side dish with a slotted spoon.
Dry beef in paper towels; it will not brown if it is damp. Heat fat in casserole until almost smoking. Add beef, a few pieces at a time, and sauté until nicely browned on all sides. Add it to the lardons.
In the same fat, brown the sliced vegetables. Pour out the excess fat.
Return the beef and bacon to the casserole and toss with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper.
Then sprinkle on the flour and toss again to coat the beef lightly. Set casserole uncovered in middle position of preheated oven for 4 minutes.
Toss the meat again and return to oven for 4 minutes (this browns the flour and coves the meat with a light crust).
Remove casserole and turn oven down to 325 degrees.
Stir in wine and 2 to 3 cups stock, just enough so that the meat is barely covered.
Add the tomato paste, garlic, herbs and bacon rind. Bring to a simmer on top of the stove.
Cover casserole and set in lower third of oven. Regulate heat so that liquid simmers very slowly for 3 to 4 hours. The meat is done when a fork pierces it easily.
While the beef is cooking, prepare the onions and mushrooms.
Heat 1 1/2 tablespoons butter with one and one-half tablespoons of the oil until bubbling in a skillet.
Add onions and sauté over moderate heat for about 10 minutes, rolling them so they will brown as evenly as possible. Be careful not to break their skins. You cannot expect them to brown uniformly.
Add 1/2 cup of the stock, salt and pepper to taste and the herb bouquet.
Cover and simmer slowly for 40 to 50 minutes until the onions are perfectly tender but hold their shape, and the liquid has evaporated. Remove herb bouquet and set onions aside.
Wipe out skillet and heat remaining oil and butter over high heat. As soon as you see butter has begun to subside, indicating it is hot enough, add mushrooms.
Toss and shake pan for 4 to 5 minutes. As soon as they have begun to brown lightly, remove from heat.
When the meat is tender, pour the contents of the casserole into a sieve set over a saucepan.
Wash out the casserole and return the beef and lardons to it. Distribute the cooked onions and mushrooms on top.
Skim fat off sauce in saucepan. Simmer sauce for a minute or 2, skimming off additional fat as it rises. You should have about 2 1/2 cups of sauce thick enough to coat a spoon lightly.
If too thin, boil it down rapidly. If too thick, mix in a few tablespoons stock. Taste carefully for seasoning.
Pour sauce over meat and vegetables. Cover and simmer 2 to 3 minutes, basting the meat and vegetables with the sauce several times.
Serve in casserole, or arrange stew on a platter surrounded with potatoes, noodles or rice, and decorated with parsley.
Bachelor Kitchen
I do not even know how I ended up here, but I thought this post was good. I don¡¯t know who you are but certainly you are going to a famous blogger if you are not already Cheers!