How to Cook Beef Bourguignon
Serves: 6
Preparation time: 15 mins
Cooking time: 4 hours
Ingredients needed to make Beef Bourguignon:
- 3 lb chuck pot roast, chopped into 1 1/4” chunks and patted dry with paper towels
- 6 oz bacons, sliced into ¼’’ thick strips
- 4 tbsp all purpose flour
- 2 garlics, mashed
- 1 yellow onion, peeled and quartered
- 1 carrot, peeled and quartered
- 6 carrots, peeled and sliced diagonally into 1 ½’’ pieces
- 2 cups beef broth
- 3 cups full bodied sherry
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 large fresh thyme sprig
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature
Cooking instructions for Beef Bourguignon:
- Warm up your oven to 450 degrees F.
- Pour 1 ½ quarts of water in a medium saucepan and bring it to a simmer.
- Drop in the bacon slices and cook for about 8-10 minutes; drain them out and blot dry with paper towels.
- Heat oil in a large Dutch oven at moderate heat and throw in the cooked bacon.
- Sauté them for a couple of minutes or until they brown slightly.
- Drain them out with a slotted spoon into a bowl and set aside.
- Dump the beef chunks, few at a time, into the bacon fat and cook until they brown slightly on every side.
- Transfer them to the bowl with bacon and set aside.
- Throw in the onions and quartered carrot into the same pan and stir fry for about 5-7 minutes until they soften and brown slightly.
- Drain them out into the bowl with meat and skim the cooking fat out of the Dutch oven.
- Return the contents of the bowl back to the Dutch oven and season with a tsp of sea salt and ¼ tsp of black pepper.
- Dust a couple of tbsp of flour into the cooking mixture and toss well to coat the meat with the flour.
- Place the pot in the preheated oven to cook for about 5 minutes.
- Take it out of the oven and toss the meat again before cooking it further for another 4-5 minutes until the browned flour forms a thin crust around the meat.
- Remove from oven and lower the oven temperature to 325 degrees F with the rack positioned at the lower third of it.
- Stir in a splash of sherry and stock into the mixture until the meat remains immersed in the liquid and whisk in the garlic, herbs and tomato paste.
- Cook the mixture until it begins to simmer and continue to do so at slow flame for about 3 hours or until the meat is cooked through.
- Pass the mixture through a colander to separate the bacon and meat from the liquid; do away with the onion and carrot.
- Dump the bacon and beef back to the pan and pour the strained liquid into the pot after skimming off the fat from it.
- Stir in the sliced carrots and cook for about half an hour or until it soften.
- Drain the meat and carrots out onto a serving platter.
- Whisk rest of the flour and butter together into a crumbly paste and stir it into the simmering mixture.
- Cook until the sauce thickens and spoon it over the meat and carrot.
- Serve hot.
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
