In honor of the great and wonderful Julia Child’s 100th Birthday! I have done my take on her Boeuf Bourguignon recipe.
This is also in keeping with my easy Wednesday meal series so as you will see, although it takes a long time to cook you don’t have to do much, most of the work is done the night before and it is well worth the wait!
I went to a local farmers market with my mum and picked up most of the ingredients from there including these amazing organic short ribs. If you are in Vancouver you should check out the Green Market at the shipyards, they have some great stalls, live music and delicious food.
Julia explains that Bourguignon means burgundy which is how the dish got its name, from cooking it in red wine. She suggests using a full-bodied wine like a Chianti (I don’t know about you but after silence of the lambs that word always gives me chills).
Chris went to Chile recently for work and brought me back a lovely bottle which was perfect in this dish. It’s a good job he only brought one bottle or i would be a full-blown wino by now.
I love this dish because you can pop it in the slow cooker in the morning and when you get home from work it is perfect and ready to eat.
The sauce it is in is beautiful and rich and the beef is so soft and tender it just falls of the bone.
Serves 2:
Ingredients:
- 4 Short ribs
- Olive oil
- 3 Shallots
- 5 small carrots
- 1 1/2 cups of red wine
- 1 1/2 cups of beef stock
- 3 garlic cloves crushed
- 1/2 teaspoon of thyme
- 3 bay leaves
- 3 tablespoons of tomato paste
- 250 grams of crimini mushrooms halved
- Carrots
- New potatoes
- salt and pepper
Directions
Add oil to a pan on a medium high heat, you want it hot but do not let the oil darken. Pat your Short ribs dry with kitchen paper then add to the pan and brown on all sides, this will take about 5 mins. If you are making more than 4 ribs brown in batches do not over crowd the pan or it will steam it instead.
When the ribs are nice and brown place them in a dish to rest, now you want to get all of the flavour from the pan by deglazing it, you do this by adding your red wine to the pan and allow it to simmer, use a wooden spoon to scrape up the flavour at the bottom of your pan. Add in your chopped shallots, chopped carrots, crushed garlic, bay leaves and thyme then simmer for a few more mins.
Remove from heat and cover your ribs with the sauce, allow to cool then cover and refrigerate over night. The next morning place your ribs and sauce in a slow cooker, add your tomato paste, beef stock, mushrooms and leave to cook away on a low heat all day (5-8 hours)
When you get home from work skim the fat from the top of the dish and taste the sauce, add in some salt and pepper to taste and any more garlic or tomato paste if you think it needs it, i found it to be just right with the quantities above. Boil some new potatoes and carrots and serve! Hope you enjoy it!!
The Little Spoon Kitchen 