Beef bourguignon blanc
This version may not look particularly "blanc" (white), but the classic beef bourguignon is usually made with red wine from Bourgogne (Burgundy) which is usually a pinor noir grape. This version uses white wine instead and I find it a lighter-flavoured alternative to the original. If you want to keep it in the Bourgogne family you could use a chardonnay, as that's the most well-known white varietal from the region but honestly I think people fuss too much about the wine they're cooking with. I'll often use wine for cooking that has even soured or oxidised and it is entirely fine.
I prefer to fry the bacon and mushrooms separately and add them at the end of cooking rather than stewing everything together, because I find that stewing cured meats like bacon makes them unpleasantly rubbery.
Cooking time
1-4h
Serves
4-6
Ingredients
- 1.5 kg chuck steak, cut into 5cm pieces
- ½ cup plain flour
- salt and pepper, to season
- 1 tbsp canola oil
- 2 medium carrots, diced
- 2 stalks celery, diced
- 1 brown onion, diced
- 4 cloves garlic, bruised
- 500 ml white wine
- 500 ml chicken stock
- 8 sprigs thyme
- 2 bay leaves
- a handful of parsley, leaves and stalks separated
- 8 pearl onions, peeled
- 200 g thick bacon, cut into lardons
- 400 g button mushrooms, sliced
Method
- Heat your oven to 140C conventional. Combine the steak and flour in a large bowl and season well with salt and pepper. Toss to coat. Heat a large, lidded dutch oven over medium heat and add the oil. Fry the beef in batches until well-browned. When the beef is all browned, remove the last batch from the pot and add the carrots, celery, onion and garlic and cook for about 10 minutes, at first stirring and scraping any fond from frying the meat and then continuing to cook until the vegetables start to leave a fond on the base of the pan. Add the wine and bring to a simmer. Simmer for 5 minutes, then return the meat to the pot. Tie the thyme, bay leaves and parsley stalks together as a bouqet garni and add to the pot. Add the chicken stock and bring to a simmer. Cover with the lid and place into the oven for 90 minutes or until the beef is tender. Add the onions when there is 30 minutes remaining.
- While the beef is cooking, microwave the mushrooms for 5 minutes on high power. Heat a large frying pan over medium heat and fry the bacon until browned. Remove the bacon from the pan and add the mushrooms. Fry for about 5 minutes in the rendered bacon fat until well-browned.
- Remove the beef from the oven and stir through the mushrooms and bacon. Finely shred the parsley leaves and stir through the stew before serving.
