Beef Bourguignon Image Used Under Creative Commons License From aberdeenskitchen.com
My GLORIOUS Citizens of TFD Nation – attend and pay heed, for a classical French recipe is making a rare appearance for your gastronomic pleasure! I speak of nothing less than the peasant dish that did good, making it all the way to the apex of old-school French cuisine! BEHOLD the Feu from Joyeux, the Stew with a Clue – Boeuf Bourguignon (or more properly, Bœuf Bourguignon in old-school French), aka Burgundy-style beef stew! This socially-mobile stew (voted as the top National dish by the French in 2017) will now make its way to you through the twin filters of both Julia Child AND TFD Himself to grace your table with the DEFINITIVE version of a classic recipe!
Beef bourguignon or bœuf bourguignon (also called beef Burgundy, and bœuf à la Bourguignonne) is a French stew of beef braised in red wine, often red Burgundy, and beef stock, typically flavored with carrots (but NOT in the original recipe!), onions, garlic, and a bouquet garni, and garnished with pearl onions and mushrooms. “Bourguignon” is, since the mid-nineteenth century, a culinary term applied to various dishes prepared with wine or with a mushroom and onion garnish.
Beef bourguignon is often “touted as traditional”, but it was first documented in 1867, and “does not appear to be very old”. Other recipes called “à la Bourguignonne” with similar garnishes were found in the mid-19th century for leg of lamb and for rabbit. In the 19th century, it “did not enjoy a great reputation”, perhaps because it was often made with leftover cooked meat. The dish has become a standard of French cuisine, notably in Parisian bistros; however, it only began to be considered a Burgundian specialty in the twentieth century. The co-authors of “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” – Simone Beck, Louisette Bertholle, and Julia Child – have described beef bourguignon as “certainly one of the most delicious beef dishes concocted by man”.
Beef bourguignon is generally accompanied by boiled potatoes, but often also with mashed potatoes or pasta. The dish may be called bourguignon or à la bourguignonne in both French and English. It is occasionally called beef/bœuf bourguignonne in American English, but in French and non-American English, by far the most common name is bœuf bourguignon.
As noted in this excerpted text from the previously-cited Nat Geo link:
Once maligned by the French, this beef and red wine stew has arguably become the national dish. Chefs the world over have embraced the Burgundian classic — even if they don’t always agree on the recipe. If the French have elevated cookery to an art form, boeuf bourguignon is perhaps the most prized of their national collection — beef cooked slowly in fruity red wine until so soft, sticky and deliciously savoury that to call it a mere stew feels almost insulting.
This classic of provincial French cooking was described by the great post-war British cookery writer and Francophile Elizabeth David as ‘the domain of French housewives and owner-cooks of modest restaurants rather than of professional chefs’. These days, however, the boundaries between home and haute cuisine are less strictly drawn, and you’re as likely to find it deconstructed in one of Burgundy’s many Michelin-starred restaurants as you are at the kitchen table.
Bourguignon, of course, means, ‘of Bourgogne’, or Burgundy, a region in eastern France between Lyon and Paris best known for its wine. Indeed, along with Champagne to the north, and its great rival Bordeaux to the south west, it can fairly claim to be one of the most famous production areas in the world. Burgundian food is often said to mirror its wine; lighter, more delicate cooking in the north, where flinty chablis reigns supreme; heavier, richer fare in the south, where buttery whites and fuller reds predominate.
Beef and wine are key ingredients in the Burgundian kitchen, making boeuf bourguignon a dish truly of its terroir. However, as ‘à la bourguignon’ simply means cooked in the Burgundy style, expect to find everything from eggs to eel served in a red wine sauce with mushrooms, baby onions and bacon lardons. Beef has long been the most famous version: Pierre Larousse’s Grand Dictionnaire Universel du XIXe Siècle (‘Great Universal Dictionary of the 19th Century’), first published in 1867, defines ‘bourguignon’ in culinary parlance as referring to ‘many things cooked in wine’, but gives beef as the sole example, making this the first recorded mention of one of France’s most famous dishes.
Far from being an ancient local favourite, however, ‘boeuf bourguignon’ doesn’t appear on lists of Burgundian fare until well into the 20th century. As late as 1928, Marie Ébrard writes in her classic cookbook, La Bonne Cuisine de Madame E Saint-Ange, that ‘despite the name, this is not a regional speciality’.
The first mention of anyone actually eating the dish comes in an 1878 Paris travel guide, Baedeker’s Paris and its Environs. It claims only the plump waitresses at a Bouillon Duval chain restaurant make the boeuf bourguignon acceptable, which, as French food historian Jim Chevallier observes, makes it apparent the dish ‘did not enjoy a great reputation’. One clue as to why this might be comes from a contemporary recipe recommending bourguignon as a good way to use up roast meat; possibly diners were tired of being served up stringy, dry leftovers ineptly disguised by a heavy, wine-soaked sauce.
‘True’ boeuf bourguignon, according to the legendary French cookery writer Mapie de Toulouse-Lautrec, is made ‘housewife-style’, by layering the meat and vegetables (classically baby onions and mushrooms, although carrots are now also common) in a pot, pouring over the wine and stock.
By the 20th century, though, recipes began to appear using fresh beef — often a whole joint, rather than the smaller pieces commonly used today — making the dish less like a stew and more akin to the classic pot au feu or an American pot roast. The meat was often marinated for a day in red wine before cooking — a practice perfected by the late Lyonnaise chef Paul Bocuse that persists in some quarters. Michel Roux Jr, however, isn’t a fan, arguing that ‘this makes for a gamey flavour that’s not entirely true to the original’. Also, he insists, the longer meat spends in an acidic liquid such as wine, the drier it becomes.
A young red burgundy, naturellement, is the traditional choice, whether you’re marinating or not. The region’s lucrative wine business is centred around four main grape varieties: pinot noir, chardonnay, gamay (the one used to make beaujolais) and aligoté, although in practice, the first two so-called ‘noble’ varieties account for about 80% of plantings. Red burgundy will thus be pinot noir, unless otherwise stated, while white will be chardonnay.
The cut of beef needs to be suited to long, slow cooking; this is no place for fillet or sirloin, but equally, what’s commonly sold simply as stewing or braising steak has a tendency to be too lean for the purpose. Unappetising as it might sound, a certain amount of fat and connective tissue is vital; given enough time and gentle heat it will break down to enrich and thicken the sauce with deliciously sticky gelatine, while the meat itself will become beautifully tender.
English food writer Simon Hopkinson suggests ‘well-hung, sinewy beef — chuck, shoulder or shin, perhaps’; Gordon Ramsay prefers shin; featherblade was Anthony Bourdain’s choice, while Michel Roux Jr opts for cheek. In her meat-focused tome Carneval, British chef and cookbook author Harry Eastwood argues cheeks are ‘perfect vehicles for a bourguignon since they absorb all the flavours in the pan and the meat surrenders completely’.
‘True’ boeuf bourguignon, according to the legendary French cookery writer Mapie de Toulouse-Lautrec, is made ‘housewife-style’, by layering the meat and vegetables (classically baby onions and mushrooms, although carrots are now also common) in a pot, pouring over the wine and stock and leaving it to bubble away while you get on with feeding the chickens or darning the socks.
More modern versions of beef bourguignon tend to brown the meat and vegetables separately first, giving the dish yet another layer of flavour, and some particularly cheffy recipes finish the dish by reducing the gravy to a rich, thick sauce, helped on its way with a generous dollop of butter. Some even suggest adding a glug of cognac — although, as a product of Burgundy’s great rival, Bordeaux, this probably wouldn’t go down well with a home crowd.
Of course, these aren’t the only ways beef bourguignon has evolved over the years; even Elizabeth David allows that a dish of this nature doesn’t have a ‘rigid formula, each cook interpreting it according to her taste’. And mon dieu, they do: Anne-Sophie Pic, the French chef-owner of three-Michelin-star Maison Pic, adds tandoori spices; French chef Yves Camdeborde chocolate and orange zest; and at Miznon in Paris, boeuf bourguignon has in the past been served in pitta bread. The French edition of Grazia has recommended making boeuf bourguignon sushi rolls as a clever mix of French and Japanese cuisine, while Jamie Oliver’s website has featured a vegetarian version using mushrooms in place of beef.
Whether such reinterpretations fill you with hope or horror, beef bourguignon isn’t about to go out of fashion anytime soon — in fact, in a 2017 survey, the French overwhelmingly voted it their top national dish, seeing off the likes of snails and frog’s legs. In a 2017 survey, the French overwhelmingly voted it their top national dish, seeing off the likes of snails and frog’s legs.
Timeline:
1847 Antonin Carême’s L’Art de la Cuisine Française au XIXe Siècle has a recipe for eel in a sauce ‘a la bourguinotte’.
1867 The first mention of ‘boeuf bourguignon’ appears in Pierre Larousse’s Grand Dictionnaire Universel du XIXe Siècle.
1878 The first evidence of boeuf bourguignon being served in a restaurant appears in Baedeker’s Paris and its Environs.
1885 The first printed recipe for the dish, in M Butler’s La Bonne Cuisine pour Tous, recommends using leftover meat.
1894 Swiss chef Joseph Favre’s Dictionnaire Universel de Cuisine Pratique has a recipe similar to the dish we know today.
1907 A translation of Escoffier’s Le Guide Culinaire features the first recipe for a bourguignonne sauce in English.
1961 Mastering the Art of French Cooking (Julia Child, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle) popularises the dish in the US.
2017 Boeuf bourguignon is the winner in a Toluna Institute survey to find France’s top national dish.
IMHO, Julia Child brought TRUE French cooking to the United States and made it accessible to the home chef – she first broadcast her beef Bourguignon recipe in season one of Her show in black and white all the way back in *1963* – she rebroadcast this seminal recipe in color in 1970, and that is the episode I first watched as a young child! Here it is for your viewing pleasure!
IMHO, Julia truly nailed the recipe – but even HER culinary might can be improved upon through Mine own unmatched GENIUS! As such, the backbone of My recipe is indeed Hers – but fear not, I have documented ALL of My changes should you wish to use the recipe as Julia first canonized it! Long-time readers of TFD are well aware that one area I am especially gifted in is sauce making as well as adding umami to recipes – and I have indeed seen fit to DARE to improve Julia’s recipe to create the DEFINITIVE version that respects tradition but improves the recipe with even more umami and gustatory savor!
To document My changes for you – instead of using just beef chuck, I have chosen to also add boneless short rib (cut small) to increase the gelatin content of the stew for a silkier mouth feel and with even beefier richness. I have replaced Kosher salt with My preferred Knorr Aromat, which adds both umami and salinity in equal measure – grab it from here. I prefer to use not black pepper, but the preferred French pepper used during the Middle Ages, known as Long Pepper! It has a superior flavor profile to black pepper IMHO and you can easily get a quality product from here. In addition to Burgundy wine, I also add Bual semi-dry Madeira – it adds a nuttiness and backbone that complements the Burgundy perfectly! Grab some from here.
To amp the savor, I also add in some beef demi-glace (get it here), hatcho (barley) miso for a really good back note of umami and a subtle bitterness (get it here), dried morel powder (get it here), roasted garlic, Kitchen Bouquet to deepen both color and flavor (get it here) and European Maggi sauce for the same reasons (get it here). I also replace half the white mushrooms with brown cremini mushrooms and garnish with the lightly anise flavor of fresh chervil as well as more roasted garlic. Be sure and purchase slab bacon for this recipe that you can cut into proper lardons (baton-shaped pieces), please!
Citizens, beef bourguignon is not a complex recipe despite the number of ingredients, but it does take two days to make as the stew MUST rest overnight in the fridge to allow the flavors to meld and the fat to solidify and be removed (save it to sauté vegetables or use in cooking your breakfast eggs, it is crazy delicious!). There is no need to hunt for other beef bourguignon recipes, you have found the DEFINITIVE version – even ChatGPT agrees with Me on this one (read it here, this is a slightly older version of the recipe missing the miso I added at the last moment before publishing)! 😀
2 cloves roasted garlic, mashed (keep the rest to serve alongside the stew) (TFD optional change, omit for original)
5-6 sprigs thyme tied in kitchen string
1 Tbsp. Kitchen Bouquet (TFD optional change, omit for original)
2 dashes European Maggi sauce (TFD optional change, omit for original)
2 fresh bay leaves
***
For the Onions:
6-7ounces frozen pearlonions (thawed) If you use fresh, blanch the onions in the skins, cool and peel them, and then proceed with the recipe. Fresh pearl onions may need to braise longer than frozen.
1 Tbsp. salted butter
1 Tbsp. olive oil
4 sprigs Italian parsley
3-4 sprigs thyme
1/2 bay leaf
1/2cupbeef broth or stock
***
For the Mushrooms:
1/2lb. white mushrooms - stems removed, quartered
1/2lb. cremini mushrooms - stems removed and quartered (TFD optional change, original was white mushrooms)
2 Tbsp. salted butter
1 Tbsp. olive oil
***
Garnishes:
chopped chervil (TFD optional change) or fresh parsley
FOR THE BEEF BOURGUIGNON: Preheat the oven to 450°. In a large Dutch oven, heat olive oil until glistening over medium-high heat. Add bacon and cook for several minutes until lightly browned and fragrant. Scoop the bacon with a spoon, tilt against the side of the pan to drain excess grease back into the Dutch oven and transfer bacon to a large, shallow bowl.
Use several paper towels to dry the beef (if they’re not thoroughly dry, they won’t brown) and add in batches to the Dutch oven to brown. Brown the beef on all sides and then transfer the pieces to the bowl with the bacon. Continue until all the meat has been browned.
Add 1 carrot and 1 small onion to the Dutch oven and sauté them, stirring occasionally until lightly browned and crisp-tender.
Return the beef, bacon and any drippings to the dutch oven. Add Aromat and long pepper and stir to combine. Sprinkle in flour and stir until the meat and vegetables are well coated.
Put the Dutch oven uncovered into the hot oven and cook for 4 minutes. Stir the contents of the pot and continue to cook for an additional 4 minutes. (this will give the meat a nice light crust).
Reduce the oven temperature to 325°. Add red wine and madeira to the pot and beef stock – use enough to barely cover the meat. Stir in tomato paste, miso, garlic, roasted garlic, demi glace, thyme, morel powder, Kitchen Bouquet, Maggi and 2 bay leaves.
Cover the pot tightly with a lid and place back in the oven. Braise for 2-3 hours or until the beef is tender. While the beef is cooking, prepare the onions and mushrooms.
FOR PEARL ONIONS: Tie parsley and thyme into a bundle with kitchen string. In a large enameled pan, heat butter and olive oil over medium high heat until the foam has subsided from the pan.
Add frozen pearl onions and cook until lightly browned. Add the herbs, bay leaf and beef broth and bring to a simmer.
Reduce heat to medium-low, cover and cook for 20 minutes – until most of the liquid has evaporated. Transfer the onions to a bowl and set aside.
FOR THE MUSHROOMS: In a large skillet, heat half the olive oil and butter until the foam from the butter begins to subside. Add half the white and cremini mushrooms to the pan and cook until browned. They will first absorb the oil, and then begin to brown…do NOT crowd the mushrooms in the pan. Transfer cooked mushrooms to the same bowl as the onions.
Continue with the remaining mushrooms, by heating the remaining oil and butter until the foam subsides, adding the remaining mushrooms and then browning them evenly. Transfer mushrooms to the bowl and set aside.
When the meat is tender, use a slotted spoon to transfer it to a bowl. Set a strainer over a medium bowl and strain the vegetables and broth through the strainer. Press lightly on the vegetables to get as much sauce from them as possible without pushing through the solids. Discard the vegetables (although many modern recipes slice the carrot and return it sliced to the stew. Traditionalists would not do this).
Transfer the beef back to the pot and pour the sauce over the beef. Add the mushrooms and onions. Cool the beef bourguignon to room temperature and transfer to the refrigerator to chill for several hours or overnight.
The next day, heat the oven to 325° F. Skim the excess fat off the top of the stew and discard or save, as you prefer. Place the pot back into the oven and braise for 1 – 1 ½ hours.
Garnish with fresh thyme and chopped chervil, with the remaining roasted garlic squeezed into a small bowl – serve with crusty bread and a good red wine as well as boiled or mashed potatoes.
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