Erica Lovelace

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Beef Bourguignon

Erica Lovelace

When you look up the definition of “soulful” in the dictionary, there will be a picture of this dish — slow simmered beef in a rich wine sauce.

Julia Child perfected beef bourguignon in her luminary classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking. This recipe has taken her dish and applied some thoughtful additions including demi-glace and more red wine! Demi-glace is a concentration of sauce espangole and a rich brown beef stock. Of course, this takes literally days to make so I highly recommend purchasing from a reputable vendor to cut down on your cooking time. D’artagnan makes veal demi-glace that comes frozen and can be shipped anywhere in the United States.

Second, if you have the ability to purchase whole chuck roast, you will get the beef at a better price. Just make sure to get a little more than three pounds so you can account for some of the trim and sinew that you will lose when cutting the beef into small cubes. Julia cut her beef into larger, two-inch chunks but I like cutting them into smaller pieces for my guests. It’s all about the details!

Finally, when serving this amazing dish, it’s best to pair with another bottle of young red wine. I absolutely adore Beaujolais wines from Côte de Brouilly. Use Wine Folly as a resource for buying your wines. To serve, I really don’t think you need any type of starch but if you really want to make this sit on your stomach I would recommend pairing with a potato puree or polenta. I recently served with heaps of crusty roasted garlic bread to help mop up all of the delicious sauce at the bottom of the bowl.

Ingredients

  • 6 oz of guanciale

  • 3 tablespoons vegetable oil

  • 3 lbs chuck roast, cut into 1-inch cubes

  • 1 cup diced carrots (about 2-3 carrots)

  • 1 cup diced onions (about 1 large onion)

  • Salt and pepper

  • 1/4 cup all-purpose flour, divided

  • 7 oz demi-glace, D’artagnan brand

  • One 750 ml bottle of red wine, young and full-bodied (like Beaujolais, Cotes du Rhone or Burgundy)

  • 3 cups low sodium beef stock

  • 1 tablespoon tomato paste

  • 6 garlic cloves, minced

  • 1 bay leaf

  • 3 springs thyme

  • 18 to 24 pearl onions

  • 1 pound button mushrooms, cleaned and halved

  • 6 tablespoons of unsalted butter, room temperature

  • 1/2 bunch of fresh parsley, chopped

Serves 8

Directions

  1. Heat a Dutch oven over medium high heat. Sauté the guanciale pieces without any oil until some of the fat has rendered and they turn golden brown. Remove and set aside.

  2. Trim and cut your beef chuck into chunks. Dab with paper towels. Set aside and allow to come to room temperature before browning. Meanwhile, mix three tablespoons of all-purpose flour with salt and pepper. If your pan is dry, add a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil. Brown the chunks of beef in batches so that each side can achieve a nice golden-brown crust. If there are too many pieces of beef in the pan, they won’t brown. Remove from the pan.

  3. Prepare an ice bath to blanch your pearl onions.

  4. At this point, if your pan is too dry, add another tablespoon of vegetable oil. Sauté the carrots and onions in the oil until the onions are soft and translucent, about five minutes. Then, add in the minced garlic, tomato paste, guanciale, and brown beef chunks. Deglaze the pan with the red wine. Allow to cook for a few minutes to cook the alcohol out of the wine. Add in the beef stock, herbs, and demi-glace before dropping the heat to medium low. Do not cover as you will need to cook out a lot of moisture. Simmer for one hour.

  5. While your stew is cooking, bring a small sauce pot of water to a boil. Blanch the pearl onions in the boiling water for one minute. Drop into the ice bath. Using a pairing knife, slip the small onions out of their skins. Sauté the pearl onions in a couple of tablespoons of unsalted butter until they have achieved some color. Repeat with the halved button mushrooms. Add both to the stew as they are ready.

  6. Fifteen minutes before the stew is ready, take three tablespoons of the softened butter and mix with one tablespoon of all-purpose flour to make a beurre manié. This mixture will help thicken up your stew in the last stretch of cooking.

  7. Remove the thyme branches and bay leaves before serving. Top the plated stew with chopped parsley and enjoy with your starch of choice!