Beef Bourguignon

I was up early yesterday morning and was able to get a early start on Nan's 65th birthday dinner!  Since I had a lot of time in the morning, but a tight schedule in the afternoon, I decided a great winter dinner to serve to company would be a slow cooked Beef Bourguignon.  A bit of a fancier version of a standard beef stew, Beef Bourguignon (or Beef Burgundy) is a long slow braise of beef in red wine with carrots, mushrooms and onions. 

I prefer to purchase a whole cut of meat and portioning it into the desired size in my kitchen, as opposed to buying the precubed stew beef found in most grocery stores.  Most times I prefer larger pieces of meat than is available in the supermarket.  I also like to see and be in control of the ingredients I use rather trust a package of cubed mystery meat.  For this particular occassion, I bought a 1.25 lb beef shoulder roast which I cut into about 2 inch cubes and tossed in a light coating of flour.  Heat about 1/4 cup of olive oil in a large dutch oven over medium high heat.  Add the floured cubes of meat to the pot and brown on all sides (be sure not to overcrowed the pot to encourage browning and avoid steaming the meat).  Remove the beef from the pot and set aside. 

To the dutch oven, add 2 minced cloves of garlic, 1 package of sliced cremini mushrooms (white buttom mushrooms can be sustituted), about 5 or 6 carrots cut into 2 inch pieces (if you have small baby carrots, they can certainly be used instead), 1 bag of frozen cippolini or pearl onions and 1 small can of tomato paste.  Saute for about 5 to 10 minutes.  Next, add about 1/2 bottom of Burgundy wine (hence, the name Beef Bourguignon), or any other red wine you have on hand, and 1 box of beef stock.  At this point, I recommend you make a slurry of 1/4 cup of water to 1 heeping tablespoon of cornstarch, mix well and add to the stew in order to thicken the gravy as it cooks in the oven.  (Note: I did not add the slurry at this point yesterday, but when the stew came out of the oven, I noticed the gravy was a bit thin.  I did add some cornstarch when I was reheating it on the stove just before it was time to eat and it worked perfectly, thickening the gravy just enough.)  Return the beef to the pot, season liberally with salt and pepper and about 2 tablespoons of fresh rosemary, if available.  Bring it to a boil, cover and finish cooking in a 275 degree oven for about 2 1/2 hours.

You can certainly add potatoes to the stew, which will also add to the thickening of the gravy and simply serve with some good bread.  However, I decided to leave the potatoes out of the stew in favor of serving it over fluffy buttermilk mashed potatoes.  To make the potatoes, I washed and peeled 6 Yukon gold potatoes, placed them in a saucepan and covered them with cold water.  Bring up to a light boil and cook for about 15 minutes or until the potatoes are fork tender.  Drain the potatoes, add them back to the hot sauce pan and add about 3/4 cup of milk and 2 tablespoons of butter.  Mash the potatoes and incorporate well with the milk and butter.  Add about 1/2 cup of buttermilk anda liberal seasoning of salt and pepper.  Stir to combine and serve hot with the beef bourguignon.