Already put up a WoW post, so now it’s time for a cooking post! (Yes, I actually cook.)
As the title of the post suggests, the meal of the day is Beef Bourguignon. Recipe, pics, and such are all after the cut.
It should be noted that this recipe easily feeds four with one or two portions of leftovers. Things can be halved if you’re cooking for less. Or keep it the same if you like leftovers. 
First and foremost, your food mats:
- 900 g (2 lbs) of stewing beef. Pre-cubed if you’re lazy like me. Trim excess fat as desired.
- 250 g (1/2 lbs) of bacon. Or 500 g (1 lb) if you discard a lot of bacon fat.
- 4 small onions (I used one large onion). White, yellow, or red onions – whichever you’d prefer.
- 2 – 3 cloves of fresh garlic.
- 4 peppercorns. Yup. 4 peppercorns. Add one or two if you so desire.
- 1 1/2 Tablespoons of all-purpose flour.
- 1 teaspoon of salt.
- 10-ish small mushrooms (or none if you dislike them, as I do).
- 1 bottle of RED wine. Whichever kind you like most. If you don’t know, Merlot is pretty decent. I know the wine’s for cooking, but slightly more expensive wines tend to taste better IMHO. Your call, of course.
Now your cooking tools:
- Frying pan
- Oven-safe Pot/roasting dish or slow cooker (I use the latter. ”Just set it and forget it!”)
- Medium size bowl or spare plate
- Spatula
- Sieve or strainer
Now, the actual cooking part:
If you want to capture more of the wine “bouquet”, put the beef in your pot or slow cooker and put enough wine to cover the meat. Cover and let it marinate over night. This gives it a stronger taste and as far as I’m concerned, it is also better.
Beef after marinating overnight.
** Should you be using a pot and the oven, you’ll need to pre-heat the oven to 300F (adjust to any finicky nuances of your oven). **
Chop the bacon into small pieces and fry.
Peel and chop the onions and add to the frying bacon. Sautee until the onion is soft.
Bacon + Onion = Delicious!
Remove the bacon and onions from the frying pan into the medium sized bowl/spare plate. Cover and put in the fridge for later.
Remove the beef from the pot with the sieve OR drain and reserve the wine marinade. (Using a crockpot, the former is easier and uses less dishes!)
Brown the beef in the hot bacon/onion remains in the frying pan. When brown, sprinkle with the all-pupose flour.
Bacon/Onions aside, beef browning, and reserved wine marinade.
Add to the oven-safe pot/slow cooker – salt, peppercorns, garlic (minced), wine marinade, and beef. If the beef isn’t fully covered, use any remaining wine to cover the beef.
I think next time I'll use a couple more. Tad more salt, too.
Cover and cook for two hours at medium-high heat in the crockpot (or 300F in the oven). Stir occasionally (once or twice is fine in that two hour stint.)
Add bacon/onion that you set aside earlier and cook for an additional two hours. Stir occasionally (once or twice is fine in that two hour stint.)
After the 4 hours, sautee the mushrooms in a bit of butter and stir into the pot. Cook for an additional 10 minutes.
Serve with whatever side dishes you like. Potatoes or rice are my personal favourites. Steamed carrots also go nicely with this dish.
End result! (We didn't have carrots...d'oh!)
DarthRegis
Brokentree
Chawa
Rather than devoting an entire blog post to my version of the recipe, I’ll just gloss over the differences.
For the wine, I exclusively use Burgundy. I don’t pay too much attention to the year or vineyard it’s from beyond that it’s in the Niagara region [personal bias since that's where I grew up]
I don’t use salt or pepper when I cook – at all, not just for this.. Everybody has their preferred level of saltiness and pepper-ocity in their dishes, and the meal should be enjoyable for all.
I do use mushrooms, though I halve them, and I sautee them with some shallots in a garlic butter. Sometimes I add a potato or two that I’ve cubed.
And I either serve it over linguine noodles or pilaf rice.
This is also a dish that I only make when I know I’m going to have an extremely busy day at work tomorrow. I’ll do all the prep work the night before, and then throw it in a slow cooker on the lowest setting, so that when I get home after a ten or twelve hour shift, I don’t have to do any more cooking. I can just sit down and tuck in to a nice meal.
I don’t think I’ve had a Burgundy wine, to be honest. No particular reason. Maybe I’ll give it a whirl next time.
This recipe is still good without salt and pepper (that’s how my Mom cooks it). My palette doesn’t really notice a huge difference in taste (if any) if the salt/pepper is added after cooking, so it’s easily “customizable” that way.
Garlic butter for the mushrooms also sounds like a fine idea, even if I’m not the one eating the mushrooms. I’ll leave that up to Chawa.
I also like the idea of this over the pasta. One thing I noticed about having it over rice is that the rice “diluted” the taste a little. Not that it was bad, just not quite as bold. That may be preferable for some.
Good point about the slow cooker. Putting this recipe on “low” for a bit over twice as long would be fine. You’d have to add the bacon/onions at the start, but it would still be delicious. Rice or linguine make for an easy re-heatable base if you do all the prep work the night before.
Yumm! I love Beef Bourguignon! I prefer to skip the rice or noodles or potatoes and just use a big piece of crust french bread (and a glass of wine of course)!
Slow cookers FTW!
They make some things so damn easy.
Now, only if I could use slow cookers in raids…
Slow cooked raids…what is that, an enrage timer of 8 hours?