Boeuf Bourguignon.

This recipe from Julia Child is undoubtedly one of the tastiest dishes you can offer for dinner. While it's not difficult, it is intricate and requires some time to prepare. The stew is savory, rich, and layered with tender pieces of braised beef, caramelized pearl onions, and sautéed mushrooms, all enveloped in a wonderfully silky red wine sauce.

Tips

If you can find pre-peeled pearl onions, use them. If not, simmer your onions in boiling water for 20 seconds, then strain, cool, and peel.

Annotated Cooking Notes: To save time, I would use frozen pearl onions; just let them warm up to room temperature before you use them.

Ingredients

3-4 lb boneless beef chuck cut into 1 inch cubes

salt and pepper

oil

3 strips of bacon, diced

2 carrots, peeled and diced

2 leeks, white and pale green only, diced

1 onion, diced

8 garlic minced

2 tbsp tomato paste

2 bay leaf

1 tbsp dried thyme

1 bottle of burgundy or pinot noir

Beef stock as needed

30 pearl onions

1 box of mushroom caps

4 tbsp butter or ghee

Minced parsley

STEP 1.

2. Preheat the oven to 325F.

3. Cube and season beef, pat dry with a paper towel.In a large dutch oven, add oil over medium high heat and sear beef, working in batches to make sure not to overcrowd the pan. Remove the beef and set aside.

STEP 2.

5. Add bacon to the pot and saute until crispy. Add onions, carrots, and leeks and saute until translucent, salting as you go. Add garlic and saute another 2 minutes. Add the tomato paste and coat the vegetables all over and saute until a deep rusty color, around 4 minutes. Deglaze with red wine all over, scraping up the brown bits in the pan.

STEP 3.

7. Bring the pot up to a very low bubbling simmer, like a very low amount of bubbles, and place a lid on. Add all the meat back to the Dutch oven. Add bay leaf and thyme, and submerge with red wine and about a cup or two of stock, if you want it to be a little lighter you can use half stock half wine. Traditionally, it is all wine, but I like to throw some stock in there. Season with salt and pepper if needed, bring up to a simmer, cover with a lid and cook in the oven for 2 hours. After two hours check to see if the meat is fork tender, if it is pull it out of the oven and set aside. If it is still tough, keep in the oven for another 30 minutes or until it is no longer tough.

STEP 4.

9. Meanwhile, prepare your pearl onions and mushrooms. To peel pearl onions, place them in boiling water and turn off the heat and let them sit for 10 minutes, drain, cut off the root end, and the outer layer will easily peel off the outside of the onions. In a large pan over medium heat, add butter and saute the pearl onions and mushrooms until cooked through, salting as you go. I add the pearl onions first to make sure they are halfway cooked through before adding the mushrooms, because the onions tend to take longer. Once those are done, add them to the finished beef bourguignon.

STEP 5.

11. Mix everything together stovetop over medium heat, top with minced parsley, and serve.