Julia Child Beef Bourguignon with Mushrooms and Onions

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Dani

After watching a video of Julia Child making Beef Bourguignon for about 5 times in a row last week, I couldn’t help but making it!

http://youtu.be/zA2ys8C-lNk
Have I ever told you how much I love that woman? She is just amazing, I just adore how she explains everything so well and detailed, all hr videos and recipes give such an overall amount of information that goes way behind the food she is cooking.

I’ve also ordered her books “Mastering the Art of French Cooking V1-2” , should be receiving them in a couple of days 😀

Back to the beef bourguignon, this was, with no doubts, the best beef stew I’ve ever had! It is worth every seconds of the 4 hours you need to make it. Also, you can plan and make a few things ahead of time or even make the whole thing up to a day in advanced, like I did).

Happy Monday

Ingredients (serves 2-3):

for the beef stew

300 g beef (from the shoulder)
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cups red wine
2 cups beef stock
1/4 tsp salt
1 bay leave
1/2 tsp theme
1 clove garlic
1 tbsp tomato paste

for the sauce

2 tbsp flour
1 tbsp butter
1/4 tsp pepper

for the onions

2 cups baby onions
1 tbsp butter
1/4 tsp salt

for the mushrooms

2 cups white mushrooms
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
1/2 tsp salt

Cut the beef into 1″ cubes and dry it with paper towel. To properly brown the meat it needs to be as dry as possible

In a French oven casserole heat up the olive oil

and add the beef, brown it on high moving it around

then remove it from the casserole and set aside

Now you have all the glaze sticking on the bottom of the pan, thats’ the treasure of your cooking (Julia said)

Pour in the red wine and deglaze the pan by scraping the bottom of the casserole with a wooden spoon

Re-move the beef into the casserole and add the beef stock, just enough so that the meat is barely covered

Next up add the tomato paste

and herbs and pressed garlic

Bring it to a simmer and taste to make sure you don’t need to add salt. Then cover with the lid and move it to the oven where you will leave cooking for about 3 hours at 150 C (325F)

To make the onions, peel them and put them into a sauce pan with butter, salt and enough water to half cover them

Bring them just to the simmer and cook them for about 20-25 min until they are tender

Next let’s do the mushrooms.

Wash your mushrooms. As Julia said, to know if the mushrooms are fresh, the cup will be completely connected to the steam

cut the mushrooms into pieces and dry them off with a clean towel

In a skillet heat up olive oil and butter

when hot add the mushrooms, adjust with salt and sautee’ them for about 5-7 minutes. Keep them on medium-high heat so the mushrooms will properly saute’, otherwise they will start realizing water which is something that it’s not supposed to happened

Once the beef is cooked, remove it from the oven and let it cool down. I left min on my kitchen counter overnight. Once the sauce it’s cold, the fat will come up on the surface and it will be easier for you to remove it

Remove the beef from the casserole. In a bowl combine flour (1 tbsp for cup of sauce) with 1 tbsp of butter

stir to have a butter paste

add that to the casserole, heat up and stir energetically letting it simmering for a min or two until the sauce starts getting creamy. Adjust with salt (if necessary) and black pepper