Beef chuck, half a bottle of red, three hours of nothing to do but check on it twice. The dish that justifies winter.
Why you should cook this
The first time I made boeuf bourguignon I followed a Julia Child recipe with the focused intensity of a man who has decided this is the night he becomes interesting at dinner parties. Three hours later I had something that tasted like the deep end of a wine cellar that had been pushed through a beef. My wife, who had spent the whole day expecting an actual dinner at an actual time, looked at the pot, looked at me, and said the words every cook fears: “is this it?” It was. It was magnificent. It was also two hours late, and I had used a bottle of Penfolds Bin 28 that we had been saving for an anniversary I had since forgotten the date of.
That is the dish we are cooking. Beef chuck, cubed and browned hard, deglazed with half a bottle of cheap red wine, then submerged in stock and herbs and aromatics and left in a low oven for three hours until the meat surrenders entirely.* Pearl onions and chestnut mushrooms get added near the end so they retain their shape instead of dissolving into the sauce like tiny vegetable hostages. The bacon lardons go in at the start and provide the fat that makes the whole thing taste like a French farmhouse instead of a beef stew.
(*Three hours is the floor. Four is better. If you go five, I will not stop you, but you have entered the territory where the meat starts to apologise for ever being beef in the first place.)
Use chuck. Not blade, not gravy beef, not whatever was on special. Chuck has the connective tissue that breaks down into gelatin and gives the sauce the kind of body you cannot fake with cornflour. Brown it in batches, dry, in a hot Dutch oven, and resist the urge to crowd the pan. Crowded meat steams. Steamed meat is grey. Grey meat is sad meat. The browning is the dish.
What to drink with it
The wine in the pot becomes the wine on the table. Use a cheap red to braise (Coles Finest Cabernet at $12 will do), drink something better with it. A medium-bodied Australian shiraz or a McLaren Vale GSM is the move. Hentley Farm The Beauty at around $45 is the upgrade pour. If you want to stay closer to French tradition, a Côtes du Rhône for $25 from Dan Murphy’s does the work without pretending to be Burgundy.
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Notes from the kitchen
Two non-negotiables. First, dry the beef cubes with paper towel before they hit the pan. Wet meat will not brown, full stop. Second, deglaze with the wine before any liquid goes in, and let it reduce by half. This burns off the raw alcohol and concentrates the wine flavour into something that tastes like a sauce instead of a hangover. Add the stock after the wine has reduced. Simmer at the lowest possible flame, lid on, in a 150°C fan-forced oven. Check at the two-hour mark. The meat should give to the back of a fork. If it bounces back, give it another thirty minutes and a quiet word.
The pearl onions are a project in themselves. Peel them by blanching in boiling water for thirty seconds and then pinching the root ends. The skins will slip off. Brown them separately in butter until caramelised, then add to the pot in the final forty-five minutes. The mushrooms get the same treatment. Both want a hot pan and a good amount of butter. This is not the diet stew.
Two things that go wrong
Sauce is thin and watery
You skipped the wine reduction or you used too much stock. Pull the meat out, set aside, and reduce the sauce on the stove for fifteen minutes until it coats the back of a spoon. Add the meat back. Do not thicken with cornflour. We are not making a pie filling.
Meat is tough and chewy
Not cooked long enough. Cover, return to the oven, and give it another forty-five minutes. Tough chuck is just chuck that has not been beaten into submission yet. Time fixes everything in this dish except a bad cut of meat.
Variations worth knowing
Lamb bourguignon
Same method, lamb shoulder cubed, swap the beef stock for chicken or lamb stock. Use a Pinot Noir to braise instead of a heavier red. Lighter, more elegant, slightly faster (two and a half hours).
Vegetarian (mushroom)
Skip the beef. Use a kilo of mixed mushrooms, big chunks of swede and parsnip, a tin of butter beans. Mushroom stock and red wine. Three hours still. The umami does the heavy lifting.
Slow-cooker version
Brown the meat and onions on the stove first, then everything into a 6L slow cooker on low for 8 hours. Reduce the sauce on the stove at the end if it is too loose. Less elegant, equally good. Set it before work, eat it when you get home.
Leftovers and make ahead
Better the next day. The sauce gets deeper, the meat gets softer, and you remember why you spent a Sunday afternoon doing this. Reheats gently on the stove with a splash of stock. Freezes well for three months. Do not microwave the leftovers in a hurry. The beef will turn rubbery and you will have done a disservice to a Tuesday lunch you were really looking forward to.
The leftover sauce, if you somehow have any without meat in it, makes the best pasta sauce of your life. Toss with pappardelle, finish with parmesan. Tell nobody what it used to be.
The recipe
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Ingredients
Method
- Preheat oven to 150°C fan-forced. Pat the beef cubes dry with paper towel and season generously with salt and pepper.
- Heat the olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Brown the bacon lardons until crisp, then remove with a slotted spoon.
- Brown the beef in three batches, four minutes per side, until deeply caramelised. Do not crowd the pan. Set aside with the bacon.
- Reduce heat to medium. Add the onion and carrots, cook 6 minutes until softened. Add the garlic and tomato paste, cook 1 minute.
- Sprinkle in the flour, stir for 1 minute. Pour in the red wine, scraping the bottom of the pot. Reduce by half over high heat (about 8 minutes).
- Return the beef and bacon to the pot. Add the stock and bouquet garni. Bring to a simmer, cover, and transfer to the oven.
- Cook for 2.5 hours, undisturbed. Meanwhile, melt half the butter in a frying pan and brown the pearl onions until caramelised. Set aside.
- Brown the mushrooms in the remaining butter until golden. Set aside.
- After 2.5 hours, add the onions and mushrooms to the pot. Cook uncovered for the final 30 minutes.
- Discard the bouquet garni. Taste for salt. Scatter with parsley and serve with mashed potato or crusty bread.