I can’t stop saying “BOEUF BOURGUIGNON” as if I were Julia Child. Over and over again on Saturday, I announced to Mr. Meat and Potatoes, and anyone else who would listen, what we were having for dinner. I wished I was wearing pearls and sensible heels and a L’école Des Trois Gourmandes badge on my blouse.

Boeuf Bourguignon is not a difficult dish to make, despite Julia Child’s reputation, and the reputation of French cooking altogether. Actually, it’s quite pedestrian, and requires basic ingredients that we all can easily get our hands on. And, there’s red wine involved. And the beauty of that is, it only takes 2 cups, so the rest of the wine is for the cook to enjoy during the long period the dish spends in the oven.

Of course, I cannot do anything according to the letter, and of course, I failed to plan well and didn’t have all of Julia’s ingredients on hand, and sometimes I just know what we’ll like better, so I had to do it “my way”. This is, then, in no way, shape, or form, to be considered Julia’s Boeuf Bourguignon. Only I can take credit for this one.

Boeuf Bourguignon (otherwise known as burgandy beef), like coq au vin, is actually French peasant food that has somehow risen in our imaginations, probably thanks a lot to Julia Child and The Cordon Bleu, to the status of fancy cuisine. Mr. Meat and Potatoes, upon learning this fact as he ate, said “Well French peasants have it pretty good, then.” Touche, they do. Ah, to be a peasant in France.

Be sure that you start this dish sufficiently early. I didn’t start anything until after 5:00 on Saturday, and we didn’t sit down to eat until after 9:00, which is about four hours later than our usual dining hour. I felt that the late dinnertime added to our “fancy cooking night” and we did feel a little more cosmopolitan than usual, sitting in front of our television and consuming our stew.

Start by assembling your ingredients:

1 3 lb roast (chuck is best)
2 C red wine (preferably chianti or some other full-bodied red – but all I had was the remains of a Bota Box)
2 C beef broth or stock (I used the stuff I pour off of crock pot roasts and freeze)
5 strips of bacon, cut into 1″ pieces
2 T tomato paste
splash of balsamic vinegar
2 C carrot pieces
1 red onion
1 C mushrooms
2 bay leaves
2 tsp marjoram
2 tsp basil
salt
pepper
olive oil

Begin by heating your oven to 450 degrees and cutting your roast into hunks about 3″ x 3″. Make sure your meat is at room temperature before you start cooking. Once your meat is cut up, set it aside, uncovered, to dry.

Then, cook the bacon pieces. When the fat is rendered and the pieces are almost crispy, remove them to a bowl and leave the fat in the skillet. You’ll use this fat to brown the meat.

Sprinkle the meat liberally with kosher salt and cracked pepper, and then give it a good sear on each side. It is important here that you let the meat get really brown, not gray. This means that not only should your grease be quite hot, but you should not crowd the meat (I did mine in three shifts) and you should be patient during this process. It takes longer than you’ll want it to. Add more bacon grease or supplement with olive oil as you go if your pan gets dry.

Remove the beef and set it aside. Chop half a red onion into large hunks and add it to the fat in the pan, along with carrots in two inch pieces (I cut baby carrots in half on the bias). Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and saute until both are beginning to be soft. Then transfer the meat and the vegetables to a deep dish casserole with a lid, or an oven-ready stock pot. This is where the Le Creuset satin blue casserole of my dreams would have come in handy. Hint.

Add the herbs and the wine and the beef stock until the meat is just covered, stir everything together, Sprinkle the whole thing with flour and pop it in the oven for five or six minutes.

Then remove the casserole, reduce the heat to 325, and while you wait for the heat to reduce, saute your mushrooms. I quartered mine, tossed them in a couple tablespoons of olive oil and a splash of balsamic vinegar, and pushed them around a skillet until they had very dark edges, almost crispy. Then set them aside for later use.

When your oven temp is at 325, put the lid on the casserole, and put it in the oven for 2.5 hours – longer if you have the time.

When the meat is sufficiently tender, remove the casserole from the oven and (using a pot holder!) remove the lid. In a large skillet, place a collander, and dump the contents into the collander, thus draining the liquid off into the skillet and leaving the vegetables and beef in the collander. Remove the collander and set it aside for later – and go ahead and throw your mushrooms in the pot at this point.

Now you’re ready to reduce the sauce. Turn the heat up under the skillet to medium, or higher if necessary. You want to bring the sauce to a very bubbly boil, and just let it sit there and cook. Stir it with a whisk now and then and watch as it miraculously turns into a thick, rich gravy that will coat the back of a spoon.

While your sauce thickens, bring a pot of water to a boil and cook a bag of wide egg noodles. Egg noodles cook quickly, so you should be able to do this in about the same amount of time.

Serve the beef and vegetables atop the hot noodles and ladle the gravy over the top. It’s important that you have a couple of pieces of crusty baguette to go alongside this, as the best part of the meal, if you ask me, is the gravy sopped up into a sturdy piece of bread.

http://www.lawrence.com/users/meganstuke/photos/2011/jan/17/206065/

Since there were only two of us, we have some leftovers, which tonight I am going to turn into a more traditional vegetable-beef soup. Just chop the beef cubes up a little smaller and throw the vegetables, beef, and noodles into a stock pot. Cover everything with beef stock and a cup or two of water, and add in some peas, corn, beans, whatever else suits you, and can of diced tomatoes. The gravy from the original dish will add a lot of flavor to your broth. Voila! Meal number two, fit for a French chef. Which, of course, I’ll serve up with a grilled cheese sandwich made with that finest of cheese, the American slice sitting next to it. We’re so refined.