This is one of our family’s Holiday season classics, most often making it onto the menu for either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day dinner.
My lovely wife spent time in North Africa and Switzerland growing up, and became something of a Francophile along the way; in fact, those years inspired one of her careers as a linguist and educator.
Her interest in France and French history no doubt inspired our family tradition of enjoying Boeuf at the holiday. While Boeuf Bourguignon unquestionably had its origin as a peasants’ recipe, with food historians tracing its lineage to the Middle Ages, used then as a way to manage tough, less-desired cuts of meat using long, slow cooking and braising methods, through the 20th century it became a bistro favorite and developed an ‘up-town flair’.
Traditional recipes call for browning the beef after flouring; the flour serving both as a browning agent and a thickener for the rich broth that develops in cooking. Those who are gluten-intolerant should of course go without; we almost never use flour in any form, but this is one recipe where, in the big picture, we’re willing to overlook that 1/3 of a cup. You make the call; the same goes for the 2 teaspoons of sugar sprinkled over the onions and mushrooms…
This recipe is quite forgiving, and is probably even better the second or third day as the flavors meld and mature; it even freezes very well, though we never seem to have enough left over to put up for the long haul.
The recipe looks a bit long and complicated, though it’s not and flows very nicely in the kitchen.
4 lb beef chuck, trimmed, cut into 1 and 1/2-inch pieces
1/3 cup flour
2 tsp good salt
2 tsp fresh ground pepper
5 tbsp butter, divided
3 tbsp avocado or EVOO
1/2 lb thick-sliced bacon, diced
5 garlic cloves, peeled, thinly sliced
4 carrots, 1/2-inch diagonal slices
2 leeks, white and light green parts only, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped
3 bay leaves
3 sprigs fresh thyme
1 tbsp asian fish sauce
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 cups burgundy wine (maybe more)
Beef broth (one quart container should do, see below)
20-30 small white pearl onions, trimmed and skins removed
1 lb mushrooms, mixed, sliced thickly
3 tbsp butter
Juice of one lemon
2 tsp sugar
1/4 cup fresh parsley, optional
Preheat your trusty oven to 350.
Dredge the meat in the flour, salt, and pepper; heat 2 tbsp butter and one tbsp oil of choice in a large skillet. Sauté one-third of the meat until browned on all sides, remove to a dutch oven or large, heavy roasting pan and repeat two more times.
Now into the same skillet, add the bacon and sauté for several minutes until the fat begins to render; then add the garlic, carrots, leeks, and 1/2 cup parsley. Cook, stirring frequently, until the bacon is cooked through and there’s a bit of caramelization on the vegetables. Add the bay leaves and thyme, stir in, then dump the bacon mixture into the dutch oven/roasting pan with the beef.
Now add the wine and enough broth to just cover the meat, then the soy and fish sauces, adjust for salt, cover, and then into the oven for 90 minutes, checking halfway through to see if more broth/wine is needed.
Take a break for an hour, then sauté the prepped onions and mushrooms in 3 tbsp of butter until lightly browned, sprinkle with the lemon juice and sugar, cooking and stirring for another 3 minutes or so. Add the mushroom-onion mixture to the beef, stir it in, then cover again and cook for another hour (or more) until the beef is fall apart tender.
Remove from the oven, let rest 10 minutes, skim any visible fat and remove the bay and thyme leaves. Adjust for salt and pepper, and serve hot with more fresh chopped parsley.
Enjoy.
