Recipe Source: Everyday Food on PBS/Create
I'm lazy. I admit it. I've wanted to explore French cooking more, and I've taken a look at a bunch of classic Julia Child recipes. But all of the prep involved, the lengthy ingredient lists, and the sheer amount of butter involved were a bit of a deterrent. So when I found a stripped-down version of Boeuf Bourguignon on TV, I was eager to try it out. Besides, I've been on a braising kick since I got my enameled cast-iron dutch oven.
One of this recipe's ingredients is, plainly stated, "bacon." So I picked up the first kind that I saw at the market, thick-cut applewood-smoked. Following the recipe through, the end result was some really tender beef, but the wine/beef/herb flavors completely overwhelmed by the bacon. In other words, beef and carrots in bacon-smoke sauce, not as tasty as it sounds. But trying the recipe again with the non-smoked variety of bacon made a world of difference. You could really appreciate the wine in the sauce, get the sweetness of the carrots and pearl onions, and the bacon doesn't distract from anything else.
My initial failure with the recipe brought up an interesting philosophical question. Is there such a thing as bacon-overkill? Or is bacon capable of making a dish worse?
I mean, it's a fact that is ingrained into everyone's mind (every non-vegetarian or non-kosher/halal eater's mind, anyway), that Bacon Equals Better. To improve a salad, use bacon bits. For extra flavor in your chicken marsala, use pancetta. How can something as perfect as bacon possibly decrease enjoyment of food?
It's such a universally accepted fact that people are now buying bacon-flavored chocolate. I've actually tried it, at Whole Foods in a bacon-chocolate gelato. And it tasted like savory/sweet angels dancing upon my taste-buds. Umm... I mean it was kind of good. The lady next to me in line said "Oh, I've had bacon-chocolate before. My girlfriends and I had a bacon-chocolate tasting party last weekend." The first thing in my mind was "why the hell was I not informed of this baco-choco sub-culture?"
But I digress
Ingredients:
- olive oil
- salt & pepper
- 1 lb of beef, stew cut
- 8 oz. of white button mushrooms; cleaned and quartered
- 2 slices of non-smoked, thick-cut bacon; cut into 1 inch pieces
- 1 Tbsp of tomato paste
- 1 Tbsp of all-purpose flour
- 1.5 cups of red wine (traditional recipe uses Burgundy/Bourgogne red, I used Côtes du Rhône)
- 1 cup of beef (or chicken) broth
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 clove garlic; peeled and smashed
- 10-12 yellow pearl onions; peeled and stems removed
- 2 large carrots; peeled and sliced into 1/2- or 1-inch pieces
Procedure:
1. In a Dutch oven over medium heat, saute the mushrooms in 1 or 1.5 Tbsp of olive oil. While the mushrooms cook down, season the beef with salt and pepper. When the mushrooms are nice and done, remove them from the pot and set them aside.
2. Add some more oil to the pot, bring the heat to medium-high, and add half of the beef*. Get a good brown and sear on the beef, take it out and set it aside, and repeat with the other half of the beef.
* I say to add half of the beef at a time because if you try to add all of the beef, the temperature of the pot/pan surface will drop too much, juices will come out of the meat, and you won't be able to get a good brown at all. Smaller batches is the way to go.
3. Add the bacon to the pan. No need to add more oil, the bacon fat will render out nicely. After it's browned, maybe 5-6 minutes, add the tomato paste and let it saute until fragrant, maybe 30 seconds. Then add the flour and mix it well, and let it saute for another 30 seconds.
4. Add the wine, broth, bay leaf, and smashed garlic to the pot, and raise the heat to high. Turn on your oven and preheat it to 350˚F. As it's heating up, return the mushrooms and beef to the pot, as well as the onions and carrots. There should be enough liquid to just about cover the meat; if not, add some more wine and broth (equal parts).
5. Bring the pot to a boil. Once it's there, put a lid on it, and put the pot in the oven for 90 minutes or more. The longer you let it sit in the oven, the more tender the beef will get, but 90 minutes works for me.
Yields about 3 or 4 servings.
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