Boeuf bourguignon: beef braised in red wine for three hours
Burgundy's one-pot braised beef: cubes of meat blotted dry and seared in batches to a dark crust, cooked down with bacon, vegetables and tomato paste, covered with half a litre of red wine and stock and left in the oven for three hours. Mushrooms and small onions are fried separately and added at the end so they stay firm and glossy. The second day is better than the first.
Your own work in that: 1 h 20 min.
- Cutting 20 min
- Searing and sauce base 40 min
- Braising in the oven 165 min
- Garnish and serving 20 min
Step by step
0 / 8 doneCut and dry the meat
Cut the beef into 4 cm cubes — smaller ones shred to threads over three hours of braising. Spread the cubes on a board and blot them thoroughly dry with paper towel on every side. Salt and pepper them. Dice the onions, cut the carrots into thick half-moons, chop the garlic.
Ingredients: 1200 g beef chuck or brisket · 150 g smoked bacon · 2 tbsp oil · 2 pcs onions · 3 pcs carrots · 3 cloves garlic · 2 tbsp tomato paste · 2 tbsp plain flour · 2 tsp salt · 1 tsp black pepper
TipWet meat has to boil its surface water off first, and while that happens its surface cannot go above 100 °C. The Maillard reaction that gives the brown crust and much of the flavour of the sauce only picks up speed above about 140 °C. Paper towel is the cheapest route to a darker sauce.
4 cm cubes, a matte surface, not wetRender the bacon and sear in batches
In a large cast-iron pot render the bacon in a spoon of oil 6 minutes, until browned; lift it out with a slotted spoon. Sear the beef in that fat in batches of 6–8 cubes, 2 minutes a side, until deep brown. Move each batch to a plate. With the bacon this takes about 25 minutes.
TipIn batches, because cold meat added all at once drops the pan temperature and releases its juices: instead of frying it stews in its own water and stays grey. There must be visible space between the cubes.
6–8 cubes at a time, gaps between, deep brownCook the vegetables and tomato paste
In the same fat fry the onion and carrot 8 minutes, until softened. Add the garlic and tomato paste and fry 2 minutes, stirring, until the paste turns brick red and stops smelling of the tin. Dust with the flour and fry another 2 minutes.
Paste to brick red, then the flourDeglaze with the wine
Pour in the wine and scrape every browned scrap off the base with a wooden spoon — that is where the flavour of the sauce lives. Boil hard 5 minutes, so the wine reduces a little and loses its sharp, boozy smell. Return the meat and bacon with any juices from the plate, add stock until the liquid barely covers the meat, then the bay leaves, thyme (or marjoram) and allspice.
Ingredients: 500 ml dry red wine · 500 ml beef stock · 2 pcs bay leaves · 1 tsp thyme or marjoram · 4 pcs allspice berries
Wine, fond scraped up, five minutes at a boilBraise in the oven
Cover and put into an oven heated to 160 °C for about 2 hours 45 minutes. Then check: a fork should come out of a cube with no resistance and the meat should fall apart under pressure. If it resists, give it another 20–30 minutes — collagen needs time, not more heat. The liquid should only lazily blip; if it is bubbling hard, turn the oven down to 150 °C.
TipThe hob works just as well, but the pot must sit on the smallest burner with the liquid only lazily blipping. An oven heats from every side and holds that pace by itself.
Three hours covered, a fork with no resistanceFry the garnish separately
Twenty minutes before the end, heat half the butter in a pan and fry the mushrooms over high heat for 6 minutes, until golden. In a second pan melt the rest of the butter, add the peeled onions and sugar with 3 spoons of water and cook covered 12 minutes, shaking the pan, until tender and coated in a shiny glaze.
Ingredients: 300 g button mushrooms · 250 g pearl onions or shallots · 40 g butter · 1 tsp sugar · ½ bunch flat-leaf parsley
TipThrown into the pot three hours earlier, the mushrooms would give up their water and turn grey and rubbery, and the onions would collapse into the sauce. A separate pan is the only way the finished dish has three textures instead of one.
Mushrooms golden, onions glossyCombine and season
Add the mushrooms and onions to the pot and keep over low heat 10 minutes. The sauce should coat a spoon; if it is thin, boil uncovered for another 10 minutes. Taste and adjust the salt and pepper — after three hours the seasoning always needs correcting.
Serve
Scatter with parsley and serve with boiled potatoes, spoon dumplings or bread for the sauce. It keeps 4 days in the fridge and the second day is clearly better: overnight the sauce thickens and the flavours knit together. It freezes for 3 months.
Ingredients: 1000 g potatoes
Parsley, potatoes, bread for the sauce
Before you start
Which wine
Dry and medium-bodied: pinot noir as in Burgundy, but ordinary merlot or cabernet do the job. There is one rule: a wine you wouldn't drink from a glass will ruin the sauce, because over three hours of braising and reducing every fault concentrates.
Without alcohol
500 ml strong beef stock, 2 spoons of balsamic vinegar and one extra spoon of tomato paste. The sauce is lighter and less layered, but the acid and sweetness play a similar part.
The meat is still tough after three hours
Either the cut was too lean (topside, silverside — with little collagen there is nothing to turn into gelatine), or the liquid was boiling rather than blipping. Choose chuck, brisket or neck with visible marbling and keep the pot just below a simmer.
