Beef Sessions: Beef Bourguignon – A Texas Sized Taste of France

Beef Bourguignon is one of those dishes I’ve always had a romantic notion about. Thoughts of the hearty stew make me long for rustic loaves of bread served on sunny wooden tables amidst a field of wildflowers. Bench seating where guests have to brush carelessly against their neighbors while rolling up their sleeves to dig in to a steaming bowl. You eat this dish with both hands and in the company of good friends.

This week for my Beef Sessions dinner, I decided to tackle this very French dish and add some Texas twist to it. First, I made enough to feed an army. And, second, I skipped the fussy sauce straining and whipping b/c the Facebook event wouldn’t allow me to set the time correctly and I had guests showing up 1-2 hours early! No problem though, in Texas, you roll with the punches and honestly, the sauce still turned out really great without all the extra fussiness. :-) I found the recipe on Simply Recipes, but tweaked it some to accommodate cooking while entertaining my lovely  guests, drinking wine, and managing a handful of volunteer sous-chefs to execute the whole meal. The menu this time, was:

• Mini onion quiches
• Beef Bourguignon on extra wide egg noodles
• Sauteed mustard greens (back by popular demand by my bf)
• Lots of french bread
• Phyllo dough bites filled with lemon, honey marscapone (So not french, but as I said, I was rolling with the punches!)

The meal was a success, thanks to lots of help from my lovely friends/sous-chefs/photographers. We didn’t have a french countryside to sit in, but we definitely got to rub elbows and dig into this dish with lots of love and laughter!

 

Servings: 12-14

Ingredients:

• 16 oz salt pork
• 8 lbs beef chuck
• 1 large yellow onion
• 4-5 carrots
• 8 cloves garlic
• 3/4 of a large size bottle of pinot noir or french burgandy wine
• 1 6 oz can tomato paste (no salt added if possible)
• 1 cup brandy
• 26 oz container of low sodium beef stock
• 1 bunch fresh parsley
• 4 bay leaves
• 10 stems fresh thyme
• 1 tsp ground cloves or 6-8 whole cloves
• 2 lbs mushrooms – I used baby bella, shiitake, and button mushrooms
• 15-20 oz pearl onions
• Butter
• Salt
• Sugar

Steps:

1. Pour 1/8 of inch of water in a large saute pan and heat it up.

2. Take the salt pork and slice it into1/4 inch strips. Add to the sautee pan and cook until the water is evaporated.

3. Add 1 TB butter to the pan & continue cooking pork til it gets golden crispy edges. Remove from pan with a slotted spoon and place into a large dutch oven.

4. While the pork is cooking, cut your chuck into 2 inch cubes and build a meat mountain.

5. Once the pork is done. In the same pan, drizzle some olive oil and place the beef in the pan to brown in batches so that the meat is not overcrowded. Brown the meat on all sides and when each batch is done, throw the meat in the dutch oven with the pork. Repeat until all your beef is browned.

6. While browning the meat, chop up the onion, carrots,  parsley, garlic, mushrooms. I saved time by buying the pre-slice mushrooms and having my friend play sous-chef and chop for me. :-D

7. Once you are done browning the meat and it’s all in the dutch oven, turn on the heat and add 3/4 of a large bottle of wine and one 26 oz container of beef stock. Add enough wine/stock to cover pretty much all the meat. Add half the parsley, bay leaves, thyme, ground cloves and cover to bring to a simmer.

8. As the dutch oven is coming up to heat, add the onions and half the carrots into the meat browning pan, and stir cook, making sure to grab any of those delicious browned bits stuck to the pan. Cook for 2-3 minutes and add garlic and tomato paste. Stir and cook another 2-3 minutes.

9. Add the brandy (1 CUP!) into the pan and stir. Boil down by about half and remember to scrape up any remaining brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Pour everything into the dutch oven and stir to combine.

10. Cook the dutch oven contents at low with the cover on for 1 hour.

11. While you are cooking the meat, boil the pearl onions in a new pot for about 5-7 minutes. Drain and submerge in ice water to cool quickly. Cut off both tips of the onion and slide the outer skin off. Set aside in a bowl.

12. Back in the saute pan, add 1 TB butter and sautee the mushrooms about 5 min, stirring frequently. Add the pearl onions and a sprinkle of salt and cook another minute until the onions get a little bit browned. Remove from heat and set aside.

13. After 1 hour of cooking, check your dutch oven and give it a taste. I added 1 TB of sugar at this point. And then cook another hour until the meat is super tender.

14. About 15 minutes before serving, add the sauteed mushrooms and onions into the dutch oven and let it cook until serving time.

15. At the very end, toss in the rest of the chopped fresh parsley, and serve over some extra wide egg noodles with some crusty french bread!

 

*Note - Over the next few weeks, expect to see a lot of delicious BEEF recipes here at Cookie Loves Eating, sponsored by the Texas Beef Council! There will be 4 sessions total, so get ready to get BEEFY with me!! Check the other recipes below:

• Cajun Tenderloin w/ Bourbon Sauce
• Guinness Braised Beef Short Ribs
• Bun Bo Hue - Spicy Vietnamese  Beef & Pork Soup