Recipe: Boeuf Bourguignon

The Beef About Boeuf

Boeuf Bourguignon. Boeuf a la Bourguignonne. It’s surprising how much loose talk and free-form spelling there is surrounding this classic French dish. It is one of my husband’s favorite dining accessories to accompany a good burgundy. He does go backward on his meal requests, especially for his December birthday. He picks out a wine and then wants something appropriate to go with it. And this year, the winning accessory was, indeed, Boeuf Bourguignon. 

My first encounter was a one-paragraph recipe in one of my Desert Island Cookbooks – one that I would make sure to grab  if my house were on fire or my ship were sinking – The Flavors Of France In Recipes And Pictures. The second was through a dinner party a friend gave, when she told me she had spent the weekend making Julia Child’s version from Volume I of Mastering The Art Of French Cooking.  The third encounter came with Mary Bond, a remarkable and self-effacing  woman who taught me the version she learned at the Cordon Bleu Cooking School in Paris. She was one of a very few Americans who earned Le Grand Diplôme, which at that time required three years plus a hefty exam and practique (her certificate was signed by the chef with the additional and hard-won encomium très bien).  Something very close to her recipe can be found in Henri Paul Pellaprat’s The Great Book Of French Cuisine. Pellaprat co-founded the Cordon Bleu Cooking School in Paris with Marthe Distel.

Besides the birthday boy’s request, food writer and editor Nancy McKeon recently told me her favorite version is from Deborah Cavendish, the Duchess of Devonshire, the youngest of the famous Mitford sisters who died at the age of 94. A quite remarkable woman who oversaw the success of Chatsworth as a restored commercial enterprise and tourist venue, “Debo” also wrote several books about the famed estate and a most intriguing memoir titled Wait For Me!. 

Treading Dangerous Waters

I am now going to add my version to the BB pile, which is loosely based on what I learned from Mary Bond  and looking at some “trucs” or hacks I learned from some French videos and friends. Some things I have learned along the way: you can use shallots instead of those hard-to-find fresh pearl onions – never use the frozn ones. Or use half-moon slices of white onion – or yellow (white onion is a bit sweeter than the yellow one). Some versions add a bit of tomato paste, which I like, but even better for me is adding a a small chunk of bittersweet chocolate to the sauce, something I learned from Julia Cuvy,

I now marinate the meat, onions and carrots along with the herbs at least two hours or overnight in the wine, which will be saved for cooking the dish. The birthday boy likes bacon, but I prefer pancetta. Beef chuck, shoulder, cheeks are all good – you do want fat and sinew in the meat. For getting the perfect sear, I think a good heat-conducting metal pan is better than enameled cast iron. But the latter is excellent for the long slow cooking of the final dish.  Copper has spoiled me, but there are many other options in good metal heat conduction. For me, Champignons de Paris or Cremini mushrooms are de rigueur, but I do sauté them in butter and then add them in for the remaining 30 minutes. You will need some sort of beef stock to add to the Boeuf if the liquid gets too low. I also found that simmering it on the top of the stove is a lot easier than in the oven. Your sauce somehow seems more unctuous. It is drop-dead delicious the next day. Nancy McKeon even freezes portions when she makes the D of D version. So in spite of all the hand-wringing over the right way to prepare B A La B, it is quite a homey dish and can easily be part of your December recipe stash.