Bœuf Bourgignon

This Frenchified beef stew makes a perfect meal on a cold winter's day. Serve over noodles or with French bread, rice, or potatoes and whatever vegetable is handy. Serves eight. Or maybe six because it's extremely good!

• 3# round steak
• 1/2# bacon
• Beef stock
• Red wine
• Pearl onions
• 1# mushroom buttons
• Carrots (optional)
• Bay leaf
• Marjoram
• Thyme

Cut the bacon into squares and cook in a skillet to render the fat. Remove and reserve the bacon and, separately, about half the fat. Cut the round steak into cubes and sauté with a little flour in the bacon fat, adding more fat as necessary.

Put the beef and bacon in an enameled cast iron pot (I have a Le Creuset Dutch oven bought expressly for this purpose) and cover with beef stock and red wine. Use about one cup of wine for every two cups of stock. Season with salt, pepper, marjoram, thyme, and bay leaf. Cook, covered, in the oven at 350° for an hour or more, until the beef can be pierced easily with a fork.

Peel the pearl onions and saute them in a little olive oil until they just begin to brown; set aside. Clean the mushrooms and peel and slice the carrots. Sauté the carrot slices a bit until they just begin to brown.

About 45 minutes before you want to eat, remove pot of beef from the oven and bring to a simmer on a stove-top burner. Add beef stock as necessary to have enough liquid to cover the vegetables. Adjust the thickness of the liquid by adding flour shaken thoroughly with cold water a little at a time until the liquid coats a spoon. Taste and adjust seasonings. Add the onions, mushrooms, and carrots and stir to cover them with liquid. Return the pot to the oven and cook until the onions and carrots are tender, perhaps 30 minutes.

Last updated: 2013-03-04 4:17
Orignially posted: 2009-09-20

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