Friday, October 25, 2019

Bœuf à la bourguignonne

Or bœuf bourguignon, if you prefer. After eating chicken for more than a week (I finally finished it!), I wanted something different, and something that I could make ahead to have when Ken got back from his trip on Thursday. I was to pick him up from the train station around 13h00, so lunch would be late. Having something ready to heat up would be good. I decided to make beef Burgundy.

Ingredients for the marinade.

I started on Wednesday morning by marinating the beef in red Burgundy wine, of course, along with flavoring ingredients: onion, carrots, garlic, bay leaves, cloves, and black peppercorns. After about nine hours, I sauteed some lardons (smoky bacon), then browned the drained beef pieces (lightly floured). It all went into the slow cooker with a little fond de veau (concentrated veal stock) and a bouquet garni of leek tops and fresh thyme from the garden. I poured in the marinade and let it simmer over night.

The recipes I have for this classic dish say to strain all the aromatic vegetables out of the marinade and discard them. But I leave them in. Well, the leek greens, thyme, and bay leaves come out at serving time, but the carrots, onion, and garlic stay in. Ken thickened the sauce with a little beurre manié (flour and butter kneaded together). We served it over pasta. Yum!

6 comments:

  1. I love this dish and I’m sure I’ve never had as good as yours.

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  2. I have a recipe for blanquette de poulet that says the same thing, discard onion, carrot, garlic, etc. I do not, but take them out and serve them separately, as a side dish, with another meal, and they're delicious.

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  3. We would certainly never discard good veg, especially if they had been cooked long and slow - just too delicious!
    You can't beat beef bourguignon for a welcome home dish. Your method reminds me of some of the recipes in our favourite book on French cooking which always begin....."three days before"...….!

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  4. It sounds so delicious. Makes my mouth water.
    Lorraine

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  5. mitch, it was pretty good, if I do say so myself.

    chm, no reason to waste it!

    jean, it's nice to have the time to do slow recipes.

    judy, it was!

    lorraine, I wish I could send some!

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