Oh, how I love mushrooms. And anything cooked in wine.
This burgundy beef stew is from a book called Cast Iron Cooking, but I never had a big cast iron pot till this Christmas (thanks Laura!). I’ve always made it in my regular pot, but I bet it would be even better in cast iron.
Cooking with wine
I don’t drink wine, I just cook with it, which would explain why I always wander down the alcoholic beverages aisle in Walmart a few times before I can find what I’m looking for. That being said, I’m pretty sure I scoured that aisle in search of “burgundy” and found none. There’s probably some key piece of wine wisdom out there that would have solved my problems, but I ended up using merlot because it was also the color of red. I think the previous time I used pinot noir. The recipe says any dry red wine will work. It’s probably amazing with burgundy, but I may never know. Nor will I know until a truly dry red wine hits the $3.95 bin at Walmart. Oh, the places my taste buds could go…
Don’t be like me.
(Unless you’re poor cheap frugal, in which case, draw up a folding chair and we can share some tap water and have a nice little chat.)
Ingredients
How about I write the official ingredients, and then I write what I actually used next to it? I’m pretty sure there is not a single morel mushroom to be found in Fort Worth.
- 5 slices bacon, chopped (I used thick-cut)
- 4 Tbs unsalted butter, divided (I always use unsalted, but if you have salted, it’s perfectly fine to use)
- 8 oz. small button mushrooms (see below)
- 4 oz. morel mushrooms, chopped (Instead of using button and morel mushrooms, I just used “regular” mushrooms and cut them into chunks. And then I added some more, because mushrooms and I have a special relationship like that.)
- 16 small white onions, peeled, or 1 cup frozen pearl onions, thawed and drained (I used 1 large onion, roughly chopped)
- 1 carrot, chopped
- 2 lbs beef chuck, cut into 1 1/2″ cubes (I used “stew beef” and cut it into approximately 1-inch chunks)
- 2 Tbs flour
- 3 cups dry red wine
- 2 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 cup beef broth
- 2 sprigs fresh thyme (or a good shake of dried thyme… maybe 1/4 tsp?)
- 2 sprigs fresh sage (same as with the thyme)
- 2 bay leaves
- salt and pepper to taste
- 2 Tbs chopped fresh parsley (or a few good shakes of dried parsley… maybe 1/2 tsp?)
Directions
It takes a little while to cook, but it’s worth it.
- Cook bacon over medium-high heat until crisp. Remove the bacon pieces to a plate and set aside.
- Add 2 Tbs of butter to the bacon fat. When melted and stirred, add mushrooms and cook for about 3 minutes until just tender. Season with salt and pepper. Add the onion and carrot and sauté until vegetables are tender (maybe another 7 minutes). Transfer vegetables to the bacon plate with a slotted spoon and set aside.
- Melt the remaining 2 Tbs butter in the pan and add the beef, stirring and cooking until browned on all sides. Add the flour, stir, and cook about 3 more minutes so the flour can brown.
- Pour the red wine slowly into the pan and stir, scraping up the
nectar of heavendrippings from the bottom of the pan. Bring to a boil and add garlic, broth, thyme, sage and bay leaves. When the mixture is boiling, reduce to a low simmer, cover and cook for 1 hour. Your kitchen will smell wonderful. - Dump the bacon and vegetables back into the pot and season with salt and pepper. Cover and cook for another 30 minutes. Stir in parsley a few minutes before serving.
We had this with a side dish of boiled potatoes. I had never made boiled potatoes before, as they seemed too boring, but OH. Not these. I’ll post the recipe for that later.
Sauté the bacon:
While it cooks, you can cut up the beef:
And the mushrooms:
And the onions (I don’t have a picture of the carrots… sorry):
Cook the veggies until tender:
Then remove them to the bacon plate and try desperately not to eat them:
Mmmmmm drippings….:
Add the beef:
Stir to brown on all sides:
Add the red wine and seasonings and other stuff:
And after a loooong time of self-restraint, you have this:
Which tastes like this:
Do you have any red wine wisdom you’d like to pass along? Is “burgundy” simply a code name for something else?
bonjourhan 
Looks good. Merlot is my favoutie :D. I did beef bourguignon myself a few days ago, you should check it out. I’m frugal, but it was still amazing 😀
Thanks, yours looks delicious too. 🙂
I totally understand the special relationship with mushrooms 🙂 Your recipe makes me wish I had some red wine.
Mushrooms are the best! 🙂
[…] Comments « Burgundy Beef Stew […]
The recipe looks great! FYI – Burgundy wines are wines made from the Burgundy region in France. All the areas have cultivated their own special grapes over the centuries. The most well known as “Burgundy” wines are red wines made from their Pinot Nior grapes and the white wines white wines from their Chardonnay grapes.