BEEF BOURGUIGNON (French Beef Stew)

Hey, what's up? Today, I'm going to show you guys how to make what I think is the best tasting beef bourguignon available to the home cook. It does take two days and it's a decent amount of work, but most of that work is passive and the result is super worth it. Also, I hate saying this, but there's a few kitchen hacks in this video that I'm actually pretty excited to share with you guys that make this dish a lot easier and more approachable. To get started, I'm going to grab five to six pounds of beef chuck roast. That's from the shoulder of the cow and it's got plenty of intramuscular fat making it an ideal cut to cook slowly with wet heat like we do for beef bourguignon. Before I cut this though, I'm going to preheat my oven to as hot as it will go. In this case, that's 550F, 287C. Once that's rolling, I'm going to cut this chuck roast down into larger slabs, let's say two to three inches, five to eight centimeters across. Then I'm going to cut out any particularly large chunks of fat and then cut the meat in half like this. Don't worry about getting every bit of fat out of this meat either. As the roast cooks, that's going to soften up and get really rich and melty and a little bit of it in there is actually pretty delicious. Once that beef's all cubed up and chunky like this, I'm going to hit it with a nice long squiz of olive oil and then a strong pinch of salt. Don't be shy on the salt. This is pretty much going to be the only salt that this braise is going to get, so hit it hard. Once everything's tossed to coat now with this oil and salt, I'm going to flip it out onto an unlined sheet tray and then spread those chunks from edge to edge. Beef bourguignon is a braised meat dish, which means it's a two-step cooking process. The first of which is dry heat, usually high heat, and then step two is a wet cooking process, usually with low heat. For now, to do step one, the beef's going to go into the oven and roast under high dry heat for 15 to 20 minutes. In the meantime, let's get the second step or the wet heat part of this braise set up. For that, I'm going to very roughly chop some mirepoix. That's going to be one large onion that I've peeled and very roughly chopped. This stuff isn't going to be eaten, by the way, so it can be super ugly. One large carrot that I've also rough chopped. I didn't even bother peeling it because I feel like it's been adequately washed at least one point in its life. Then I'm going to rough chop two smaller stalks of celery as well. I'll cut a head of garlic in half across its equator. Then I'm going to grab a few sprigs of thyme and two bay leaves. Next, I'm going to preheat my six and a half quart Dutch oven over high heat and right away add in one whole bottle, 750 mils of dry red wine. If you're a real stickler for details, this should be Pinot Noir from the Burgundy region of France. This bottle is Pinot Noir, but it is not from Burgundy and it only cost me $8. Would I drink it? Hmm, do I have to? Next, I'm going to slide in all the rough chopped mirepoix, then bring this whole pot up to a simmer. Five minutes later, once it's boiling, I'm going to reduce the heat to medium and cook this wine down for 15 to 20 minutes to infuse it with the flavors of the mirepoix, concentrate its flavor, and to cook off any alcohol. Back at the beef, it's been roasting for about 15 to 20 minutes and it's taken on a great sear in the oven. Most braised beef recipes would have you sear the beef on the stovetop in a Dutch oven instead of roast it in the oven. I find that method to be quite dumb. It's cumbersome, slow, it's smoky, and the fond usually gets burnt on the bottom of the pot. The oven is way better. Speaking of which, I'm going to turn this oven down to 300F, 148C and then add 1.5 quarts or 1,500 grams of store-bought beef stock to my wine. Behind that comes 25 grams of tomato paste and 42 grams or an ounce and a half of demi-glace. Store-bought demi-glace to be specific. This stuff is available at most higher end grocery stores and it's a useful tool for the home cook in my opinion. As someone who has made a lot of real demi-glace at work many, many times, it sucks. It's a lot of work, it's expensive, and for all intents and purposes, this store-bought demi serves its purpose in bringing a meaty depth of flavor to the braise and it allows us to use sub-par kind of watery store-bought stock. That stuff's not flavorful. Once the tomato and demi are stirred into the reduced wine and mirepoix, it's time to add in the beef chunks. But first, we need to set up a cheesecloth barrier to keep that skank-ass rough-chop mirepoix off our nice braised meat. For that, I'm going to grab a 3 foot length of cheesecloth, unfurl it, kind of unsuccessfully, then eventually, I'm going to fold it in half twice. There we go. But before I lay this into the pot, I'm going to turn off my burner because I learned the hard way how flammable cheesecloth is. Then, when the cloth is spread across the pot like this, I'm going to lay in all of my beef. This cheesecloth is one of those restaurant moves that's going to bring an extra level of finesse to the final product. Without it, the mushy overcooked vegetables that we used to flavor the braise would get stuck to the meat and that would make things frumpy. Also, you might have noticed that the beef sheet tray here has a lot of tasty brown stuff still stuck to it. That's called fond and it's another layer of beef flavor that we need to make sure that we're using in this braise. I'll use about a cup of water to help loosen that stuff up and then scrape it off with a wooden spoon. No need to get 100% of it, just scratch off what kind of comes off. That looks good. Now, into the pot it goes. I'll tuck up the cheesecloth behind it to make sure that it doesn't get burnt. Then, the heat goes to medium high. I'll bring the whole thing back up to a simmer and once it's bubbling, the lid goes on and I'm going to load the entire Dutch oven into the oven and cook at 300F, 148C for roughly three hours. Two hours later, I like to come back and do a little check-in to see how things are progressing and if this braise is cooking as I expect it to. When I pull up a chunk of beef, you can see those meat fibers are still holding things together pretty well, but you can also tell that they are slowly losing the battle to wet heat. My sense tells me that this needs another 45 minutes to an hour, so the pot goes back in, this time without the lid. That's going to allow for some much-needed caramelization and reduction. While the finish is up, I want to thank the sponsor of this video, Surfshark VPN. Hey Bri, what's a VPN? It's a Virtual Private Network, or something that will make your computer more secure and pretty much put it in any country in the world that you tell it to, metaphorically. For example, when Lauren and I were in France at nighttime, we decided to watch Friends again. I think it's like the third time we've watched it. The fifth? When we got back to the United States, guess what? There's no Friends on Netflix here, so I had to use Surfshark VPN to tell the internet that I'm actually in France and now I can watch all of the hilarious physical comedy of Matthew Perry that I want. More importantly though, while traveling, Lauren and I had to use sketchy public Wi-Fi all the time. When you have to check your bank statements or your credit cards, it's borderline reckless to do that without a VPN. Thankfully, we had Surfshark VPN's military-grade encryption to keep us safe, and I had a lot more peace of mind using airport Wi-Fi. To see if Ross ever figures out what Monica and Chandler are up to, try Surfshark by clicking the link in my description and using code LAGGERSTROM at checkout. You'll get 83% off your subscription and four extra free months. The link is in my description. Use code LAGGERSTROM. Thank you, Surfshark. 45 minutes later, or about two hours, 45 in total, I'm going to pull out my braise and check it one more time. In my opinion, a perfectly braised piece of meat is fully tender and very unctuous, but it does still have just a little bit of bite left to hold things together. That looks good. I'm going to let this braise cool down here on the counter, and then eventually put it in the fridge overnight to set up and develop some more depth of flavor. The next day, it's time to finish things up. The first step here is to remove as much of this coagulated beef fat off the top as possible. It's pretty solid from being in the fridge overnight, and that's going to make it a lot easier to harvest, if you will. Once I've got the beef fat cleared off, I'm going to move this Dutch oven back over to the stove and put it on medium heat for just a few minutes to get everything to melt. Reliquefying everything like this is going to ensure the highest possible yield of braising liquid. Once everything's melted, I'm going to move this back over to my cutting board and then pull the beef out of the braising liquid and get that set up on a little baby sheet tray while I finish everything else. Now I'm going to get this braising liquid strained off. To do that, I've got a tall-sided container here and a fine mesh strainer. The first thing in is going to be the cheesecloth. That stuff is totally saturated with beef liquid, and I need to make sure that I push on it with a ladle here to get as much of that liquid out of there as possible. Now I'm going to pour the rest of the liquid through the strainer, and yes, I spilled it because I'm a loser. Wipey wipey. Now the mirepoix is also going to get a squeeze. One last little bit of refinement here is to skim off any excessive fat still sitting on top. Again, you don't need to get it all, but whatever you do get is a bonus. That should do it. Now I'm going to pour this back into my Dutch oven. I spilled it again. It's on the floor now. The heat goes to medium-high. I'm going to bring this whole thing back up to a simmer and reduce it for about 45 minutes or until it's a full-bodied, sticky, meaty glaze, perfect for our beef. To help us get there, I'm going to recommend using powdered gelatin. In the restaurant, we would spend a lot of time and money making stock with enough natural gelatin in it to thicken this braising liquid on its own. It turns out that 4 packets of powdered gelatin and 2 cups of lame, store-bought beef stock will do us a huge salad and bring us an almost identical result. I'll let that bloom out for about 5 minutes or so, then into the braising liquid it goes. This sauce needs to keep reducing for another 30 minutes, so in the meantime, I'm going to get my starchy base sorted out. For that, we're going to make a simple, straightforward Yukon Gold smashed potato. For that, I've got 6 peeled, medium Yukon Golds here and I'm going to give those a dice. One inch roughly, 5 centimeters. From there, I'm going to top them with water, then throw that on the stove. I'll bring the potatoes to a simmer and then reduce the heat to low and cook them for about 25 minutes. While those potatoes cook and the sauce is still reducing, we're going to get the garnishes ready for the bourguignon. The first and most classic of which is just a chunky, overcooked carrot. I've got 4 large ones here, that's roughly one per person, and I prefer them to be at least 1 inch across like this and will go way out of my way to a second store if I cannot find properly thick carrots at the first one. Once I've got 4-5 large carrots roughly chopped like this, I'm going to set them over by the braise but not add them in yet. They're going to take about 15 minutes to get tender and this braising liquid still has a ways more to reduce. The second garnish is going to be mushrooms and I've got about 1 pound or a half kilo of cremini mushrooms here and I'm going to cut them chunky just like the carrots. For the bigger ones, I go 6-7 pieces and the smaller ones, 3-4 pieces. Once I've got a full quart here, I'm going to grab a medium nonstick pan and preheat it over medium-high heat. While that pan heats up, I am going to add the carrots to the braising liquid because this sauce looks like it's reduced by about 2 thirds at this point and it should take about another 15-20 minutes to become a glaze. Let's check in on the potatoes as well. As you can see, when I put my cake tester in, they are fully tender but not falling apart so I'm going to strain off the water real quick and then pop a lid on these to keep them hot while I finish bringing everything together. When the mushroom pan is hot, in goes a generous squiz of olive oil, 25 grams roughly. Then in goes my mushrooms and a generous pinch of salt. Stir to combine then let cook over medium heat for about 12 minutes or so. After about 12 minutes, these mushrooms are looking lightly golden brown and are no longer swollen up with water so into the reducing liquid they go alongside the carrots. And for me, that's it for the garnishes. Traditionally, in Burgundy, you might see pearl onions and bacon as well but I find that bacon makes this dish way too heavy, especially when you're going for the glossy reduced restaurant style sauce. The pearl onions are also pretty hard to find and the frozen ones aren't very good so mushrooms and carrots it is. When the braising liquid is reduced to about 20% of its original volume and the bubbles are starting to get big like this, it's time to add the beef. Once the beef is in, I'm going to reduce this sauce another 5-10% as the beef warms up. The pro level move here too is to spoon that sauce over the meat as you go. That's going to get the meat all glossed up. Ten minutes later. Oh my gosh. The braising liquid has fully reduced into a syrupy, glossy, velvety meat sauce that clings to everything it touches. We're just about ready to plate up. The last move is to finish up my smashed potatoes. These have been staying hot over the back burner on my range and now I'm going to add in about 1 large pad of butter per potato. That's 4 tablespoons in total or about a half stick for 6 medium yukon gold potatoes. Then a big pinch of salt and now using a wooden spoon I'm going to stir these to incorporate the butter. I want things to get smashed up and broken down and whipped a little bit for sure but I also want to maintain some chunky tender bits of potato. I'll link in the description to a full on restaurant style potato puree if that's the route you want to go and you're feeling kinda crazy but for me it's just too rich for this dish. Lastly, I'll give it a quick taste for seasoning and then also the bourguignon to make sure that's ready to go. Ooh boy. Time to plate this up. First goes down a big dallop of buttery smashed potatoes. Then a few pieces of perfectly glazed braised beef bourguignon. I'll follow that with some carrots and mushrooms as garnish and then of course 3 or 4 spoonfuls of that dark, glossy sauce. You guys, in my opinion, this is the best tasting beef bourguignon one can reasonably make in the home. It's savory, it's dark, fatty, soft, beefy and it has a bit of fruity tannins from the red wine. It's comforting, it's refined and it's just so much more than beef stew. I hope that's obvious. Let's eat this thing.