beouf bourguignon

Since it looks like it's going to be another drizzly June in San Francisco, I thought it'd be the perfect time to make one of my favorite foods: beouf bourguignon from the December 2010 issue of Martha Stewart Living. I love this beefy and hearty soup, especially with the horseradish-chive bread! I wasn't lucky enough to be raised on this stew but I can imagine many a happy French child running in from the snow to warm up with a bowl of beefy goodness. It takes a while to make but the process is quite enjoyable since it produces some of the most intoxicating aromas I know. Plus, beouf bourguignon requires the use of my beautiful Le Creuset enameled cast-iron pot!

As with all recipes, I make slight alterations for taste or convenience. Let's start with the ingredients...

got your meats, veggies, liquids, and spices.
Missing from the picture: cornstarch (how exciting!) and fresh thyme and bay leaf.
Substituted dried thyme because I forgot to buy the fresh stuff

French food requires a lot of little ingredients... and lipids (see bacon.) Fat makes it taste good!

chop your veggies! That's right, here bacon is a vegetable.

Chop the celery, mince your onions, quarter your mushrooms, slice your bacon crosswise, and divvy up the carrots so that one-third is cubed and two-thirds is chopped as finely as you can. For me, that means little orange coins that look like rabbit money.

Boneless short ribs... Trader Joe's had stopped carrying this item for a few months and I was freaking out because I couldn't find anything remotely similar at Safeway... then lo and behold, while shopping for cheap wine I found that they had brought back boneless short ribs at the Stonestown location!

looks like cows can cross borders more easily than us humans...

Martha says to coat the short ribs with 2 teaspoons of cornstarch... I double this because I find that 2 teaspoons doesn't adequately cover all this meat and I don't use my cornstarch for anything else.

tossing the beef

Brown the short ribs in a little olive oil over medium heat...

this smells good but watch for angry olive oil coming at you!

... and set the beef aside on a plate. Brown the mushrooms for a few minutes... feel free to add a touch of olive oil to the creuset if it looks too dry.

this is starting to look like hobbit food

After four or so minutes, set the mushrooms aside and combine the cubed carrots... they get to rest until the last twenty minutes of cooking.

put this guy on the back burner. And turn off the burner!

Now my favorite part: add the celery, onions, bacon, and rabbit-money carrots to the pot. Put the olive oil away; the fat in the bacon will coat the pot... This part smells heavenly. Cook until the veggies caramelize... the sweet smell of onions browning and celery softening combined with the savory smell of bacon is pure euphoria!

my kind of spa

While the vegetables are cooking - don't forget to stir - cut the short ribs into smaller pieces. Martha instructs us to do this near the end, after stewing for 2 hours but I find that it's easier to cut them now than to fish out the beef strips later.

cut them now I say!

When the vegetables have caramelized to your liking (don't overcook these babies!) add some tomato paste. I double the amount to 2 tablespoons because I like the stuff.

perfection

Add the cut-up short ribs...

a waterfall of beef... 

Add the thyme, dried or fresh. I don't bother with bay leaf... I used it the first time I made beouf bourguignon because the first time around I always follow the recipe to a T. I omitted it the second time and found no difference. So that's one little bothersome herb I don't deal with.

shake it like a polaroid picture!

Now for the wine... As someone who doesn't know much about wine except that there's red, white, and pink, I look for any French red to go into this soup. I give myself bonus points because Martha recommends a Burgundy, and the bottle I picked also starts with a "B:" bordeaux!

as my friend says, the best way to open a bottle of wine is to put it between your legs and pull!

1 cup of wine goes into the pot. Turn up the heat to let it reduce and you'll get this lovely picture:

looks so tasty but we're not finished yet!

Add 8 cups of beef broth and 2 cups of water... this will fill the pot almost to the brim.

making a potent potion

Stir the pot just to incorporate the liquids, then let it boil. This will take a few minutes, which gave me time to recuperate...

according to the label, this is a mix of 60% merlot and 40% cab sauv...
So when you take wines I generally don't like (too dry) you get one that I can drink?

 Also snacky-time... chomping on some old graham-cracker and strawberry whoopie pies...

looks raggedy, still good

When the pot boils...

bubble, bubble, toil and trouble...

Turn down the heat and put a lid on it! But not all the way, leave the lid askew by an inch or two. We're going to let this bad boy simmer for 1.5 hours (I know Martha says 2 but frankly, I don't have the patience!)

my beautiful Le Creuset... the saleslady at Williams-Sonoma convinced me to get this chic shade.
Honestly, I went along with her because they didn't have the flame orange in stock.

So now you have plenty of time to prepare my favorite accompaniment: horseradish-chive bread! Take a loaf of bread - I used sourdough from Boudin's - and slice it up, leaving the loaf connected on the bottom. Mash a stick of butter with some horseradish and chopped chives to get a pleasantly spicy paste and slather it between the slices. Wrap in foil and bake in the oven at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes, letting the buttery horseradish melt into the loaf... yummy!

Dalí should've painted this loaf of bread!

Wait until the 1.5 hours are almost up before popping the bread in the oven. This way, the sourdough will be nice and hot when the soup's done.

After 1.5 hours of simmering, add the reserved mushrooms and carrots. The soup should look fatty right now, and the liquid level should have dropped a centimeter or so.

Don't eat this yet!

Bring the pot to a boil, then reduce the heat a little and let it cook for twenty more minutes. The mushrooms have to catch up with everything else!

Spend some time skimming the fat off of the top, et voila! You have created beouf bourguignon!

prêt-à-manger!

Now ladle that divine soup into your bowl, break off some of that glorious sourdough, and enjoy!

a dinner worth the work

I never get tired of making - or eating - this soup.