Fork and Gobble It: Adapting Julia - Beef Bourguignonne, hurried up a bit!

Fridays on the BottleBlog will feature a food-related article, wine pairing, or travelogue. Today, Wine Manager Mark Ricca channels the ghost of Julia Child.

I see recipes in two categories: those that I read, and those that I actually cook. Some recipes just entertain better than they actually motivate me to prepare them. A lot of it has to do with how complicated something seems as I'm reading through it. I say to myself "yeah, this sounds great, but do I really want to attack that?" Once in a while though, the attraction is irresistible and I have to dive in. That was the case this Sunday as I was discussing what to make for that evening's dinner with my significant other. We both agreed something special was in order. Without knowing why, I went and got my copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume 1 by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck. The recent memory of the movie Julie and Julia, and a craving for beef stew pointed me to the recipe for Beouf Bourguignonne. With a serious cold front approaching and a bottle of Meo-Camuzet Chambolle-Musigny that I've been wanting to drink in the cellar, it was game on.

As we shopped, I began to take liberties with the recipe such as substituting Cippoline onions for Pearl onions.

Shopping/Ingredients List:
-6 oz. Slab bacon cut into lardon
-Olive oil
-3 lb. Beef chuck cubed 1”
-1 lb. Cippoline onions
-3 medium carrots (approx. 1 lb.) peeled and diced large
-2 stalks celery diced large
-Salt (fine sea salt or Kosher)
-Black pepper
-2 1/2 cups full bodied dry red wine
-2-3 cups beef stock
-1 Tablespoon tomato paste
-2 cloves garlic peeled and smashed
-1 Tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
-2 bay leaves
-1 lb. White mushrooms quartered

Cut the slab bacon into lardons or sticks and in an 8 qt. or larger dutch oven, saute them in a couple tablespoons of olive oil.

Cook them slowly, giving them a chance to render out all their fat and become crisp, then remove them from the pan with a slotted spoon and reserve them. While this is going on, heat your oven to 400F. Toss the Cippoline, skins on, in olive oil and Kosher salt. Spread the onions out on a baking sheet and put them into the oven for about 10 – 15 minutes. The onions should just be slightly roasted in order to caramelize them and make them easy to peel. Once they reach this stage remove them from the oven and allow them to cool. This is a definite departure from the recipe. I did this in order make the Cippoline onions easier to peel and start to develop their flavor. When cooled, remove the roasted skin and put the peeled onions aside.

Once the bacon is out of the pan, turn the heat up to medium high and just before it begins to smoke, add enough of the beef to sparsely cover the bottom of the pan. Do not crowd the pan or the meat will not brown, but instead throw its liquid and simply boil. When the meat is well browned on all sides, remove it to a bowl and repeat with the rest of the beef.

The next departure from the Mastering the Art of French Cooking recipe came here. Julia sautes her mushroom separately and near the end of the recipe. As I did with the onions, I push the mushrooms into the middle of the recipe to get the dish finished before midnight and not use every pan in my kitchen. I added the mushroom quarters to the pan after the beef came out. Saute the mushrooms briskly over medium heat until they color slightly and remove them. Add the carrots and celery and cook them in the same manner as the mushrooms.

Now I return to the pan the beef, bacon, mushrooms, along with the vegetables already in there, and saute everything a little more while dusting the contents of the pan with about a Tablespoon and a half of flour. Cook the flour onto the meat and vegetables for a minute and repeat with another 1 ½ Tablespoons of flour. Cook that in and repeat the procedure two more times. Season with salt and pepper. Add the tomato paste and continue to saute for a minute. Add the crushed garlic, thyme leaves, bay leaves and red wine. Bring the wine to a boil, and allow it to boil for about a minute. Add the stock. Add in the peeled onions. Bring the pot to a boil and lower it to a simmer. This is where it will remain for approximately the next two and a half hours.

By this point the sauce will have begun to thicken and the meat will have become very tender. I put up a small pot of water to boil some egg noodles and when they were cooked I tossed them with a little bit of butter and fresh parsley.

Red Burgundy was the obvious choice for wine here, and as I mentioned above I had a bottle of Meo-Camuzet Chambolle-Musigny 2004 all lined up to drink. Alas, it was not to be! The wine was corked and so badly that it was obvious upon opening it. We stuck with red Burgundy as the backup selecting a Frederick Magnien Bourgogne Rouge 2007. Similar flavors were the guidelines here. Earthiness, bright acidity, and subtle fruit in both the sauce and the wine played very well together. The “stew” itself was superb and well worth the effort. I believe the result would have even earned me a special dispensation from Julia herself for the corners that I cut.