Stew On This!Good Food
Stew On This!
BY LARRY KANE
Winter is a great time for a really good beef stew. These days there are too many “easy” recipes for slow-cooker stews that require the cook to throw ground beef and canned vegetables into a pot, set it on “low” and come back nine hours later to something that only resembles a stew. Why not just open a can of Dinty Moore? The reason is that good homemade stew is rich, healthy and satisfying in a way that no canned or easy-fix recipe can approach. The techniques are not difficult, and the ingredients are not expensive. All that is required is about an hour to assemble the pot, and then a few hours of passive cooking. The wise stew cook makes a large batch, and enjoys the fruits of labor over the next week or two, as stew not only lasts a long time in the fridge, but actually improves with age. You may come home to a cold house, but stew can be quickly reheated turning your house into a warm home.
Stew is a ubiquitous dish. Every culture has their specific version. Every family has their “grandma” way. Even more confusing, every culture and family has variations within their own circle. It is for this reason that I have eschewed these personal bests, and gone back to the classic preparations. My logic is this: if you start with proven recipes, your own variations of these dishes cannot stray too far from the truth, leaving you with a great stew bearing your own influence. Let’s roll with that.
When it comes to stew, you cannot get any closer to the truth than Julia Child’s Boeuf Bourguignon. If any of you have read the book or seen the movie Julie and Julia, then you are familiar with the near-religious devotion to this preparation, as it well deserves. Of course, Julie and Julia is based on the earlier book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961), a seminal tome essential to any good foodie library. In that cookbook, Julia exposes the French secrets of a really good stew: frying the meat in bacon fat in small batches so that the meat browns nicely, then simmering the meat with vegetables in a good broth for 3-4 hours in a slow oven. Sounds simple? It is, if you have patience. The initial frying requires that the meat is patted dry with paper towels and seared in an uncrowded pan where the meat chunks are not touching each other. This is necessary in order to provide the Mailliard reaction, a process where proteins, like meat, are seared in oil hot enough to caramelize (brown) the proteins in a good way. This browning step is crucial to a good stew. The rest is simple: add broth, red wine and vegetables and simmer for hours. In Mastering Julia marches you through several Byzantine steps including draining, straining, skimming and de-fatting. These steps are typical of French cooking and are best avoided. Thankfully, I attained the DVD of Julia’s very first TV episode of PBS’s The French Chef, circa 1964. Episode subject: Boeuf Bourguignon. At this stage in her career Julia has seemed to have shed some of her French regimentality, and presents a simpler procedure for finishing the stew, but the strict method for frying the meat remains constant, as it should. |
Essentially, Boeuf Bourguignon is beef stew with red wine, bacon, onions and mushrooms. The beef can be simple: chuck or round chunks cut about one-inch square. Regular bacon is cut into quarter-inch strips. The mushrooms should be fresh and quartered. Pearl onions can be purchased fresh, then blanched and peeled (not difficult), or bought frozen, ready to use (too easy). The red wine should be good enough to drink. Cheap wine lessens the dish and expensive wine is a waste of money. The broth should be homemade, but recognizing that most cooks do not have this resource, a good low-sodium beef broth will do. With these items on the table we are ready to go!
Begin by rendering the bacon in an ovenproof pan until the bacon is fully cooked. Set the bacon aside and begin cooking the beef, a few pieces at a time, until nicely browned. As they cook, remove them from the pan and add new pieces of meat until all are browned. Next add some flavor by frying some aromatics, finely chopped carrot, onion and garlic in the remaining oil. When that has browned return the beef and bacon to the pan and toss in some flour. This ugly mess goes into a pre-heated 450F oven for about 10 minutes. This step finishes the browning process and gives the meat mixture a wonderful crust that aids in thickening the stew. The entire process just described takes about 20 minutes, so do not be intimidated.
Remove the pan from the oven and reduce the heat to 325F. Add the wine, broth and seasonings to the pan and return to the oven to simmer, uncovered for at least three hours. Now you can relax while the stew simmers. The only thing left to do is to process your pearl onions and sauté the mushrooms. Hold these ingredients aside until the stew has finished simmering, and is tender to a fork. The purist Julia removes the stew from the oven and strains it, reserving the fluid. She then picks out the beef and bacon which are returned to the pot, along with the strained fluid. Discarded are the aromatics, which the French view as having given their all and should no longer, be along for the ride. (If you skip this step, who will know?) The pearl onions and mushrooms are now introduced into the mix, and the stew is tasted for seasoning. It may be served immediately, or chilled for several days which help to marry the flavors. The stew should be gently reheated on the stove top, and served surrounded by potatoes, noodles or rice.
For the small effort extended toward this preparation, the result is well worth it. A simple dish with an elegant finish, and is a snap to reheat. Just like this meal, Julia always ended her show with a flourish: “That’s all for today! Bon appetit!”
Boeuf Bourguignon
(Serves 6)
Ingredients
4 ea. strips bacon
1 tbsp. olive oil
3 lb. stew meat, 1-inch chunks
½ c. carrot, finely chopped
½ c. onion, finely chopped
2 ea. garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tsp. sea salt
1 tsp. ground black pepper
3 tbsp. flour
3 c. good red wine
2-3 c. low sodium beef broth
1 tbsp. tomato paste
1 tsp. dried thyme
1 ea. bay leaf
20 ea. white pearl onions
1 lb. fresh mushrooms, quartered
2 tbsp. butter
Procedure:
Preheat the oven 450F.
Lay down several sheets of clean paper towels. Arrange the beef chunks on the towels and pat dry the meat.
In an ovenproof saucepan over medium heat cook the bacon in the oil until fully cooked, about five minutes or so. Remove bacon with a slotted spoon and reserve. Add meat to the pan so that the chunks are not touching each other. Brown nicely on all sides and remove the browned chunks to the plate with the bacon. Continue batch cooking the meat until all is browned. Add the carrot, onion and garlic to the pan and cook for about five minutes.
Return the meat to the pan and add the salt, pepper and flour. Stir to combine. Place pan in oven. After five minutes stir the meat, then let heat another five minutes. Remove the pan and reduce the oven to 325F. To the pan, add the wine, broth, tomato and seasonings. Stir well and place in oven, uncovered, for three hours. Meanwhile, prepare the onions by simmering them in salted water for 10 minutes, and remove the skins. Sauté the quartered mushrooms in butter for about five minutes. Reserve.
Check the meat for tenderness. It should easily pierce with a fork. If not, let simmer for another 30-45 minutes. When ready you may strain the mixture as described above (or not) then add the onions and mushrooms. If the mixture has thickened too much, add some broth. Check the seasoning for salt and pepper. You may serve immediately, or chill for several days. Properly chilled, this dish will keep for at least 10 days in the fridge. Reheat in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring often.
Larry Kane received his chef training in Boston, Massachusetts. A 2001 Wine Spectator Award of Excellence winner, Kane can be found at the Maryland Farms Publix in Brentwood.