Classic Beef Bourguignon
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 4 hours 35 minutes
- Yield: 8 1x
- Category: Main Dish
- Cuisine: French
Ingredients
Scale
- 6 ounces bacon
- 3 lbs stewing beef like chuck roast (cut into 1 in. cubes. wipe dry with paper towel)
- 2 carrots (chopped)
- 1 medium Onion (sliced)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp Pepper
- 2 Tbsp flour
- 3 cups full bodied red wine (i used pinot noir)
- 3 cups beef stock (i used better than bouillon)
- 1 Tbsp tomato paste
- 4 cloves crushed garlic
- 1/2 tsp thyme
- 2 bay leaves
- 30–40 pearl onions (braised in beef stock; i used frozen)
- 1 lb fresh mushrooms (sliced and sauteed in butter)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees and prepare all of your ingredients.
- Using a large cast iron or oven safe pot, saute bacon for 3 minutes until slightly browned and remove from pot. Place on paper towel lined dish to soak fat.
- Next brown your meat, add it in batches so the meat browns correctly on all sides. Once meat is browned add to plate with bacon.
- Once you’re done with browning the meat, add in carrot and onions and cook until slightly browned.
- Once vegetables have browned a bit, add back the beef and bacon. Add salt, pepper and flour. Toss ingredients to evenly coat.
- Put in middle of oven for 10 minutes uncovered, mix once half way through
- Turn oven down to 325
- add the remaining ingredients -wine, beef stock, tomato paste, garlic, thyme and bay leaves.
- ensure the beef is just barely covered, if not add additional beef stock.
- bring the pot to a simmer on the stove. Once simmering cover and place in the lower third of the oven.
- simmer covered in the oven for 3 hours
- while the stew is in the oven, prepare the pearl onions and mushrooms.
- for the pearl onions – use 1 tablespoon unsalted butter or olive oil and saute the onions until slightly browned. then add enough beef broth to cover the onions and simmer for about 20-30 minutes until the liquid has evaporated.
- for the mushrooms, use 2 tablespoons butter and a dash of salt and pepper. saute over medium heat until all the liquid is gone and the mushrooms are cooked.
- at the 3 hour mark, you can remove the pot from the oven. set a large sieve over a saucepan and pour the pot contents into it, separating the liquid from the solids.
- simmer the sauce for a few minutes and skim the fat off as it rises to the top.
- you should have roughly 2.5 cups of sauce which is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.
- if it’s watery, reduce until you get the desired consistency. if too thick, add some stock to thin.
- wash out the pot and return the solid stew ingredients and then the sauce to the pot.
- Add the cooked pearl onions and mushrooms and mix. Serve with parsely sprigs and potatoes, buttered noodles or rice!
Notes
if you use fresh pearl onions, i might cut the quantity down to 20 fresh. fresh pearl onions are roughly twice the size of frozen from what i have seen. also note that the cooking time may be 15-20 minutes longer as well.
if you are sensitive to salt, you might be able to get away with skipping the 1/2 teaspoon completely. the better than bouillon i used was not reduced sodium so the dish had plenty of seasoning from that alone.
Find it online: https://www.alldayieat.com/recipe/classic-beef-bourguignon/