Joël Robuchon’s beef bourguignon

I love trying out new (as well as tried and tested) restaurants and eating out when I don’t need to think about cooking but I also love cooking and trying out recipes and making stuff from scratch. There’s something about knowing exactly what went into a dish that I find immensely appealing. I like the hands on experience and I just love doing, whether that’s paper craft, developing a photo from RAW or making stuff to eat. Sewing and knitting is a totally different kettle of fish altogether and I’m not embarrassed to say that when I was 14 and had to sew a pair of shorts for home economics, my mother took the fabric to a seamstress and told her, “please make some mistakes so that it looks like my daughter sewed this.”

My parents were away a couple of weeks ago and I trooped to the supermarket and bought a heap of groceries to tide me through the studying (I think the longest stretch I was holed up without stepping foot outside the main door was 3 days, which is really long for me who has cabin fever daily). Initially I’d wanted to make lamb stew (also from Robuchon) but the two supermarkets near home hadn’t any lamb other than a French cut rack of lamb. So I bought stewing beef and decided to make beef bourguignon.

I’d made beef bourguignon from a Julia Child recipe before so after the huge success with the Robuchon lamb, I decided to go to him for a how to. I was not disappointed. The beef was slow cooked to tender perfection and the bacon added at the end was the finishing touch, breaking up the taste of the beef.

Here’s the recipe. It may seem lengthy but it’s really easy to make. Adapted from The Complete Robuchon.

Ingredients:

• 1 bottle of red Burgundy or pinot noir
• Oil 
• 60g butter
• 900g rump roast, cut into cubes
• 2 medium carrots, peeled and sliced into 0.5cm thick rounds
• 2 medium onions, peeled and sliced into 0.5cm thick rounds
• 2 tbsp flour
• Crushed pepper
• 750ml beef broth
• 1 bouquet garni (1 sprig fresh thyme, 2 celery stalks, 1/2 bay leaf, 3 stems flat leaf parsley, wrapped and tied in a green leek leaf)
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and degermed
• 16 small white or cippoline onions, peeled
• 1 tsp coarse salt
• 125g lardons (or chopped bacon)
• 150g small or cup mushrooms, cleaned and with stems trimmed
• 1 tbsp finely chopped parsley
• Salt and pepper

Directions:

Put the wine in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Lower heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, put 1 tbsp of oil into a pan or casserole. Add 45g of butter. When the butter foams, add the meat and brown evenly (about 5 minutes). Remove the browned beef and set aside. You might need to do this in batches.

Put the carrots and onions into the pan in which the meat was browned and cook for 5 minutes, stirring to prevent them from caramelising.

Dust the meat with flour evenly and put it back into the pan. Add 1 tsp of crushed pepper. Turn the heat to medium and cook, stirring constantly for 5 minutes to cook the flour to remove its raw taste.

Pour half the broth into the pan and stir.The pour in the wine and the rest of the broth. The liquid should just cover the meat and vegetables. Add the bouquet garni and garlic. Cover and simmer gently for 2 hours. Every 30 minutes, skim the foam from the surface and stir gently. Add water to the broth if it becomes too thick.

As the meat cooks, put the small onions into a saucepan with 1 litre of water and 1tsp of coarse salt. Bring the liquid to a boil and simmer for 2 minutes. Drain.

Melt 15g butter in a saucepan or small saute pan. Add the onions, season with salt & pepper. Cover and cook over a gentle heat for 20 minutes until tender and golden. Drain on a paper towel and set aside.

Heat 1tbsp of oil in a frying pan and fry the lardons until crisp and cooked. Remove and add to the cooked onions. In the same pan, cook the mushrooms, seasoning to taste. Add the mushrooms to the onion & lardon mixture.

When the beef is tender, remove the meat and place in a serving dish. Add the onion, lardon & mushroom mixture to the meat. Strain the meat sauce into another saucepan and simmer of 5 minutes. Taste for salt and pepper; the dish should be quite peppery. Pour the sauce over the meat and vegetables and sprinkle with parsley.