Readers' Questions 3

Q. Why is my beef bourguignon too dry? (From Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA)

A. That's a very complicated question. You don't say what cut you used, how you cooked it and for how long. All those have a direct effect on the result. Please write again, and be more specific.

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Q. My homemade noodles are very heavy.  (From White Plains, NY, USA)

A. If you're using an all-semolina recipe, try my recipe, it's 50% semolina and 50% flour, which makes it lighter. Pasta made with semolina has more body, and you may not be used to that. In that case, switch to an all-flour recipe.

First, check the thickness of your pasta. If you're using a pasta maker, switching to a higher number may solve your problem. I use No. 5 for fettucine and lasagna and No. 6 for ravioli and won ton.

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Q. My beef bourguignon didn't thicken. Why? (From Williams Lake, British Columbia, Canada)

A. You don't say what you used as a thickener. If you rolled the beef in flour before browning it, chances are you'll have to use a thickener at the end. Beurre manié is the traditional one (I use it in my own recipe).

Have you ever tried thickening a sauce with corn starch? You dilute a few spoonfuls of corn starch in some water and add it bit by bit to the sauce, stirring all the time, until you get the thickness you want. Simmer for one minute to cook the starch and that's it.

This new slow cooker recipe recommends minute tapioca, but you have to add it at the beginning. It worked beautifully when I cooked that boeuf bourguignon in the crock pot, and I'm sure it would work equally well in the classic oven-baked version.

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Boeuf Bourguignon Slow Cooker Recipe: This Is It!

In an earlier post, I promised you that I would keep looking for a good recipe for preparing beef bourguignon in the slow cooker.

Well, hang on to your hats, because I have found it! And I have tested it, and it's fabulous! It's as good as the Julia Child recipe, and that's saying a lot.

So I gave it its own section on my Beef Bourguignon blog.

http://beef-bourguignon.blogspot.com/p/beef-bourguignon-slow-cooker-recipe.html

Questions From Our Readers

Q. How much water must you add on a cube of beef stock? (From Bahrain)

A. Have you tried reading the label? I checked at the store and every single brand of beef, chicken and vegetable bouillon had very precise directions. I happen to have a package of Knorr chicken cubes at home. Each cube weighs 12 grams and the directions read: “HOW TO PREPARE: Dissolve 1 cube in 2 cups (550 mL) boiling water.” There’s also a phone number and a website URL. So, if your cubes weigh 12 grams, you should dissolve them in 2 cups or 550 mL of boiling water.

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Q. What is the best cut of beef for beef bourguignon? (From New York, NY, USA)

A. The chuck, from the shoulder, has the ideal texture and marbling. I sometimes use cross-rib because my butcher often has it at a discount; it has a texture that I like but you have to watch it because it can dry out. Avoid any cut that is too lean. You need some fat and gristle for the long, slow cooking.

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I Test Boeuf Bourguignon In The Slow Cooker And With Noodles

*** SEE UPDATE HERE ***

GOOGLE HAS MORE THAN 50 PAGES on the subject of boeuf bourguignon and 40-plus on "beef bourguignon", prepared in the slow cooker (a.k.a. crockpot/crock pot), so I concluded there must be some demand out there for simplifying the preparation of that dish.

I don't know about you, but I don't find it easier to cook with a slow cooker, and that's why I  hardly ever use it even though I've had one for years. My experience with it is limited to the cooking of dried beans, chick peas, whole yellow peas, and chicken stock. I like the way the beans and peas get really soft without falling apart.

So I went hunting for a beef bourguignon slow cooker recipe, limiting my search to a couple of reliable websites. Actually, all I wanted was a cooking time. I already had a very good beef bourguignon recipe for conventional cooking methods.

I used pretty well the same ingredients and recipe as the first one I gave here, with these differences:

• I used my own salt pork for the lardoons, instead of bacon like the last time;
• I added a few chopped tomatoes, which I had omitted last time (adds depth to the flavour);
  
• The wine I used was Beaujolais Nouveau, instead of Pinot Noir (not a great idea);
  
• There was more sauce, so I had to double the amount of beurre manié to thicken the sauce;
• I served it with buttered noodles, instead of herbed potatoes. Next day I had it with rice – the noodles are definitely a better fit.
  

Both recipes gave the cooking time as 8 to 10 hours, so I figured that was the correct time.

How did it turn out?

So-so. I didn't like the texture of the meat; I guess it was overcooked because it was too dry. I didn't like the taste of the sauce either. It wasn't "my" boeuf bourguignon.

I'm not giving up though. I know folks are wanting to use their slow cooker for this dish, and rightfully so – so I'm going to start hunting for a way of making a perfect beef bourguignon in the slow cooker.

UPDATE: I kept my promise! Click here to see the excellent recipe I found.

Hmm.. a bit blurry... next time I'll use a tripod!

What did turn out great, though, was Julia Child's suggestion of serving boeuf bourguignon with buttered noodles instead of potatoes.

That rather complicated the recipe for me, because there's no place around here to buy fresh pasta, so I had to make the noodles from scratch.

I wasn't going to give you the recipe, I was just going to say, "Buy or make some fresh pasta", but then I remembered trying a new recipe once, from a website that I thought I could trust, and it was just awful.

Come back tomorrow for the recipe, or sign up for the email updates and you'll get it right in your inbox.

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TIPS AND TECHNIQUES

Lardons. This is what lardons (or "lardoons") look like. You start with salt pork belly, which you slice then cut into little sticks. Simmer in water for a few minutes to get rid of the excess salt, then fry in their own fat till golden and crisp.

They're better than potato chips – and just as hard to resist!

Beurre manié. I mentioned in another post that beurre manié was easier to mix on a plate. Well, it is. 

This is what it should look like after you have mixed the butter and flour into a paste with a fork.

Brown Beef Stock in Six Simple Steps

DID YOU NOTICE that all the beef bourguignon recipes call for beef stock? You just can't get that rich beef flavour without it.

I know, you can now buy both chicken and beef stock in that awful Tetrapak packaging (do you know it's not recyclable?), and it looks real enough. I mean, Rachael Ray uses it, and so do all the celebrity chefs on the food channel, so it must be good, right?

It's okay, but in their own restaurant kitchens, real-life chefs have a helper who makes all the stocks, and there's a reason for it: it's much, much better than anything you can buy. Not to mention a lot cheaper, because it's made with scraps, leftovers and vegetables that are no longer fresh enough to serve, like limp carrots. In my own restaurants, we always made all our own stocks.

AFTER my cross-rib roast shopping spree (the one that propulsed this whole blog), once I had the freezer stocked with 20 lbs of ground meat and 8 nice little pot roasts for four, I had all those lovely trimmings of fat, gristle and meat, so of course I made brown beef stock, (also known as beef broth, bouillon and consommé).

You will see from these pictures how easy it is!

Step 1. You need beef scraps, fat, gristle, (bones if you have any), a couple of unpeeled onions, halved, a couple of stalks of celery, halved, two cloves of garlic, unpeeled.

Had I had some carrots around I would have added some (unpeeled, cut in two lengthwise and in two crosswise).

Are you thinking, "Oh my, so much fat!"? Don't worry. It's only there for the flavour. Once the stock is done, all of it will be removed.

I love using my big non-stick turkey roasting pan for this, because it's big enough to have everything in one layer, which is essential for proper browning.

Step 2. Place the roasting pan in a 450-degree (220°C) oven and roast until brown on top – check frequently.

Stir and return to oven until everything is a deep brown but not burned.

Push the ingredients aside: this is what the bottom should look like. This means that all the juices have caramelized enough.

Take the pan out of the oven and turn the temperature down to 325 degrees (160°C).

Step 3. Now, pour in COLD water gradually, scraping the brown bits until they're completely incorporated. Pour more cold water until everything is covered, and a bit more.

Add a sprinkling of thyme, two bay leaves, three peppercorns and two allspice berries (the latter is a secret I learned in Mexico).

Step 4. Bring to a boil on top of the stove, then place in 325-degree (160°C) for at least two hours. You could use the extra oven shelf for making a stew, roasting a chicken or baking potatoes.

ALTERNATIVELY, you could transfer all the ingredients to a stock pot, scrape the brown bits from the bottom with water, pour those juices into the stock pot, add water to the stock pot to cover, and simmer the stock on top of the stove for at least two hours.

Step 5. The stock is done. Note how much it has reduced: this is normal. Strain it through a fine sieve. Transfer it to a clean container and refrigerate overnight.

Step 6. See how the fat has congealed? Remove it with a slotted spoon. (If this were chicken fat, you could save it for making cookies.)

You now have a completely fat-free, slightly jellified brown beef bouillon. (With bones it would have jellified much more.)

By the way, it's important to remove the fat; otherwise, the stock will not keep well.

If you want a really clear stock, bring it to the boil and strain it again through a coffee filter or several layers of cheesecloth.

At this point you have a beautiful, dark, fairly clear, but quite tasteless product.

Heat up a small quantity, add salt, and taste it. If it tastes like you could use it as is – with a  deep, beefy flavour – then it needs no further input.

If it's tasteless even after adding enough salt, you may have added too much water. Put it back on the stove and reduce it somewhat.

If what you want is a glace de viande, put it back on the stove and reduce it in half. (At that point you could freeze it in ice cube trays, then transfer it to a zippered bag, from where you could extract a cube or two when you want to use the real thing instead of a bouillon cube.)

Whatever you do, do not season it before storing it. If you're used to bouillon cubes, you'll find yourself adding more salt to your dishes than usual, but when you don't want the extra salt, it won't be there.

Don't you think it was worth the fifteen minutes or so of active preparation time? (The rest happened all by itself.)

So, apart from Beef Bourguignon, what would you make with your own home-made stock?

Boeuf Bourguignon (Beef Burgundy Style)

I got this sudden urge to make Boeuf Bourguignon.

Nothing to do with Julie and Julia, which I haven't seen yet. It was the boneless cross-rib roast on special at the local SaveEasy: I was buying some to grind into hamburger meat, and then I thought I should buy an extra package and make a stew.

The only beef stew that came to mind was Boeuf Bourguignon, which is really funny since I hadn't made it since 1979, the year I sold my first restaurant and moved to Mexico.

I made it from memory and it was so fabulously good that I thought it should be my first recipe here.

Afterwards, I checked online recipes, and that's when I discovered that everybody who saw Julie and Julia wanted Julia Child's Boeuf Bourguignon recipe.

I didn't need the recipe (I own Mastering the Art of French Cooking and I confess that my bourguignon recipe is hugely inspired by it) – but I did order Julie and Julia .
 
WHAT ABOUT YOU ? Do you have a favourite beef bourguignon recipe?