I said before that my Beef Burgundy recipe is based on Delia Smith’s Boeuf Bourguignon recipe, with some modifications. Well, rather than try to recreate my version every time, I decided to document it, so here it is.
Boeuf Bourguignon
Makes four servings.
- 4 strips Bacon
- 1 pound lean Beef, cut into cubes
- 1 medium Onion, diced
- 1 cup Burgundy
- 2 tablespoons All Purpose Flour
- 2 tablespoons Unsalted Butter
- 1 clove Garlic, pressed
- ¼ teaspoon dried Thyme
- 1 Bay Leaf
- Salt
- freshly milled Black Pepper
- 2 carrots, cut into chunks
- 3 medium onions, cut into wedges
- ¼ pound Mushrooms, sliced
In a French oven, over medium heat, fry four strips of bacon until crisp. You can cut then up first, or leave them whole and crumble them later. At this point, you are just trying to render the fat. When the bacon is done, remove it to a piece of paper towel, reserving the fat.
Sear the beef on all sides in the bacon fat in batches, reserving the seared beef to a plate.
Once all of the beef is seared, sauté the diced onions in the remaining fat. Then add the Burgundy.
Whenever I add flour to anything I always end up with little disgusting clumps of dough, in order to avoid that I make a Beurre Manie. Take two tablespoons of butter and mash it into two tablespoons of flour with the back of a spoon. Continue mashing until all of the butter is incorporated. Add this to the Burgundy and onion mixture a little at a time. The idea here is that the flour is suspended uniformly in the butter and as the butter melts it acts as a time release mechanism preventing the flour from clumping.
Add the meat back into the mixture, along with the bay leaf, thyme, garlic, salt, and pepper.
Reduce the temperature to low and let it simmer for two hours.
Fry the onion wedges and carrot chunks in a little olive oil to brown and soften them, then add them to the mixture along with the sliced mushrooms. Crumble the bacon into the mixture.
Allow the mixture to simmer for another hour. Serve.
