After watching Julie and Julia I decided sheep-like that I'd track down a copy of Julia Child's book: "Mastering the Art of French Cookery" and have a go at something. For those of you out there not familiar with the film, it follows the twin timelines of Julia Child (Meryl Streep) labouring over her masterpiece on French cooking, which in turn supplied the inspiration for frustrated office worker and fledgling writer Julie Powell (Amy Adams). Her mission is to cook every one of the 524 recipes in the book in just one year - and write about her experiences on her blog. One of the most quintessential recipes from the film and the book - and one that I'd always wanted to make properly - is for Boeuf Bourginon - rich sauce, tender tasty meat - it just sounds and looks so gorgeous!
So, feeling inspired, I looked up the Boeuf Bourginon recipe and set off to the shops. Standing at the meat counter in Waitrose (I don't have a local butcher) knowing I wanted some beef - I was suddenly hit by a wave of nostalgia. My folks had a butchers shop while I was growing up, which means a constant supply of the less saleable cuts of meat. I'm on a budget and the recipe simply called for "lean stewing beef" - ughh VAGUE. I looked at the anonymous chucks in the braising steak section: it looked nice enough, but i wanted to know exactly what was in it so that if it worked well I could replicate the recipe. Plus i needed to find the best cut for the recipe, for my bank balance and for fullfilling my nostalgia quota.
My eye roamed to two cheap cuts lurking at in the middle of the display between and two eye wateringly expensive ones - anobscenely large piece of fillet and some calves liver. Now, these two aren't strictly lean, but definitely affordable at £4.99/kg I had found Oxtail and Ox cheek. Stirring up some very tasty and comforting memories of unctuous stews and melt in the mouth meat - my mind was made up. Then it was just a quick scuttle around to pick up the other ingredients, and try and spot any marauding celebs (Helena Bonham Carter last week) and back home to start!
Now this is not a quick dish to prepare! My advice is to take all day so that you can approach it a leisurely pace, and enjoy the experience - make it an event - even make it the day before you intend to eat it. These quantities should feed 6, but I'm FAR too greedy to make it stretch that far - Have fun!
Here;s my take on a classic Boeuf Bourginon - Ingredients:
- Two whole Ox cheeks, or large slices of shin (or approx half a kilo of other stewing steak in large pieces if you have to)
- 4 large chunks of oxtail
- 250g smoked bacon lardons (can use streaky bacon, or if you can find it - a whole chunk of bacon as Julia calls for in her recipe)
- Olive Oil
- 2tbs (approx) Flour
- 1tsp Paprika
- 2 small carrots
- 2 white onions
- 2 sticks celery
- 1 tbs Tomato Puree
- 2 cloves of Garlic - crushed or minced
- Large sprig of fresh Thyme
- 1 tin beef consommee
- 1 bottle full bodied red wine
- 20 shallots
- about 20 small mushrooms
- Butter
- Heavy based, oven proof dish with a lid - pretty much all the action happens in here, so make sure it can both on the hob and in the oven. I use a large heavy based saucepan, but a Le Creuset dish would be ideal.
- Frying pan
How to...
- Preheat the oven to 230C
- Start by frying the bacon lardons in the pan that you will use for the whole dish. Just cook them over a moderate heat long enough that they start to brown and the fat begins to run. Then lift them out and set aside.
- Pat dry your oxtail and cheek pieces with kitchen towel - this is Julia Child's big tip to help ensure the meat browns. You don't need to do anything else to them as you will be cooking them whole.
- Add a little oil to the pan - its just to help stop the meat from sticking when you brown it, and turn up the heat to medium/high. Now brown your ox cheeks and oxtail pieces in the oil, one or two pieces at a time put them to one side with the bacon. Don't over crowd the pan as you will cool it too much and not get the desired effect - you aren't trying to cook it at this point, just colour the meat.
- Once all of the meat is browned and removed from the pan, quickly fry the vegetables to colour them slightly. Remove any excess oil from the pan.
- On a plate measure out a couple of tablespoons of flour, season with salt and pepper and a teaspoon of Paprika (optional - I used because i like its mellow earthiness with the beef, but its not in the original recipe)
- Lightly coat the beef in the flour and add it back in to the pan with the bacon pieces and sautéed vegetables
- Now - i found this bit slightly odd, but go with it, its definitely worth it. With the lid off, put the pan with the dusted meat pieces into the pre-heated oven for 4 minutes. Remove and stir, then put back for a further 4 minutes. This browns the flour and forms a light crust over the meat.
- Remove the pan from the oven once more and turn it down to around 160C
- Add the tin of consommé, and enough of the wine to give you enough liquid to just cover the meat (and a small glass of wine left for the cook). If its not, then you can top it up with a little extra stock or water, or wine if you don't mind not drinking it. Add the crushed garlic, tomato puree and thyme - and stir it all up together and bring back to the boil on the hob.
- Now it will look odd, as you have five or 6 large lumps of meat swimming around in a big pond of liquid! But have faith - put the lid on and put it back in the oven.
- Read a book. Walk the dog. Take a bath. Definitely open another bottle of red... because you've not got a 2 and half to three hour wait!
- At around 2 hours you can take a peek. The meat should be starting to get tender now, give it a stir and put it back in.
- If you are planning to eat it the same day, then you can add the shallots for the last half hour of cooking, and fry the mushrooms in some butter until coloured and starting to soften, and set aside ready to add at the last minute. If you are having it the next day, then do the shallots and mushrooms then.
- Because both the cheek and oxtail are quite sizeable pieces of cow, you will probably find that it takes the full 3 hours to get the required level of melting tenderness. After the three hours you should find that the meat falls off the bones of the oxtail and the that the meat from the cheek or shin can be pushed apart with a fork - the membrane in the middle which usually have to be removed to prevent it being a chewy monstrosity has magically transformed into a ribbon of unctuous goodness running through the meat.
- Now, the original recipe calls for you to remove the meat and onions, and strain the remaining sauce to remove the other vegetables. But I actually think they are fine to be left in, especially as this is a rustic version of Julia's original refined dish. I would recommend removing the meat from the pot so that you can pull it from the bones and carve up the cheek meat. At this point, try to skim off any additional fat from the sauce, and reduce on the hob if it is not thick enough.
- Now you can either mix it all back together like a big stew or serve the meat with the onions and mushrooms, and the sauce separately. This is a very rich dish, so keep accompaniments simple. I'd serve with a fresh green vegetable, like green beans or broccoli and boiled spuds, noodles or my personal favourite - some crusty French bread.
