Author: Thomas Sixt is a chef, food photographer, cookbook author and blogger. Here he shares recipes, answers cooking questions and helps with cooking.
I serve you my boeuf bourguignon recipe in this post. The beef stew in French style is a classic of fine cuisine.
I ate the stew for the first time many years ago in an original version in Paris. Now show you my variant with step by step instructions and cooking video.
My preparation method is influenced by some great chefs and I have summarized the familiar tips for optimal preparation here.
Please read on and enjoy! Let me show you a wonderful dish, the cooking time is a good 35 minutes, then your stove does the work.
The video I have cut together to 8 minutes to give you a quick overview. Wish you good luck!
Cut a shallot in half and lard with bay leaf and cloves.
Cut carrots into pieces and tourned (give shape).
Put the carrots in a separate dish. Cut bacon into strips and make ready as well.
Preparation step 6 Fry the meat with oil
Sear meat
Brown the meat in a pan over high heat with the sunflower oil.
Preparation step 7 Caramelize meat by searing it deeply without sugar.
Caramelize meat
Turn meat over and brown vigorously, we cooks also refer to this as caramelizing, although no sugar is added here.
Preparation step 8 Add the garlic and shallots
Add Shallots
Add shallots and garlic.
Preparation step 9 Toast the ragout with tomato paste.
Deglaze
Add tomato paste and roast until dark brown. Deglaze with red wine and broth.
Boil roasting substances from the bottom of the pan.
Put the ragout in a pot, add the bones, add the bouquet garni and simmer gently with a lid on the stove or in the oven at 175°C for one hour.
Preparation step 10 Fry and roast the bacon cubes and small mushrooms.
Prepare additions
Fry bacon strips and mushrooms in the pan.
Preparation step 11 Let the bacon and mushrooms cool down.
Cool down
Cool the bacon and mushrooms in the pan.
Preparation step 12 Tour the carrots and prepare them separately.
Prepare carrots
Toss carrots in foamed butter, season with salt, pepper, sugar and nutmeg.
Add water and cook with lid until well done.
Place next to the stove ready to serve.
Preparation step 13 Prepare the side dishes: Cook the potatoes and spring onions.
Prepare vegetables
Peel the potatoes, cut them into quarters and shape them.
Then boil in salted water until soft. Cut the light green of the young onions into 3 cm pieces and cook briefly with the potatoes until al dente.
Preparation step 14 The sauce binding with cornstarch
Thicken sauce
In the cooled pan, mix cornstarch with cold water.
Preparation step 15 Pour the sauce over the bacon, mushrooms and starch.
Finalize ragout
Check the degree of cooking of the meat and continue cooking as needed.
Then strain the sauce into the pan through a fine sieve (stainless steel hair sieve).
Cut out the meat (technical term, remove from the pot without herbs and additions) and add to the sauce.
Bring ragout to a boil in the pan and final taste with butter, salt, pepper and sugar.
Preparation step 16 Serve the ragout with vegetables and herbs.
Serve
Heat side dishes in butter, arrange ragout with sauce in the middle of warm plates.
Add vegetables and decorate with thyme leaves and thyme sprigs.
Enjoy your meal!
Video
In the cooking video I show you the preparation in about 8 minutes summarized. You can gently flavor the ragout with gingerbread spice and dark chocolate during the Christmas season!
The dish is prepared with beef, classically with stew meat, it is goulash meat.
Suitable pieces of meat are:
English
Französisch
Beef shovel
Macreuse a pot au feu
Parts from the shoulder
Jumeau a pot au feu
Thick rib
Paleron
Thick flank
Gite a la noix
Leg slice
Gite et jarret
In Germany, unfortunately, the goulash meat is usually cut too small. Therefore, it would be better to buy the meat in one piece. So you can cut your meat yourself into cubes of about 5 cm.
Beef sausage is my first choice for this stew!
Meat recommendation from chef Thomas Sixt
Beef leg on the bone, this meat is particularly suitable for braising.
4. Typical Ingredients for Original Boeuf bourguignon
While in Germany we “only” add onions, broth and paprika seasoning to the meat stew, in France red wine is added to the preparation.
In the original, of course, a Burgundy.
How can you recognize Burgundy wine in the supermarket? Burgundy is round, this applies to the bottle and the matching glasses.
The Burgundy wine bottle has a longer neck and the transition to the bottle belly is rounder than the Bordeaux bottle.
The typical ingredients in the overview:
Braised beef, optimal is the –> beef leg
Small pearl onions as well as garlic I like to use —> shallots
For the familiar flavor –> bacon and preferably small mushrooms
For vegetables yellow beets I use —> carrots
Sauce –> tomato paste, Burgundy red wine, optional veal stock
To thicken the sauce –> cornstarch
Spices like –> bay leaf, cloves, allspice, salt, pepper and sugar
Must not be missing in French cuisine –> butter
As a garnish —> boiled potatoes and blanched green onions.
This is not a Julia Child recipe 🙂
Says chef Thomas Sixt
I got carried away with food styling to dark hues and a farmhouse style plate.
5. Helpful Preparation Tips for Boeuf Bourguignon
–> In contrast to the goulash, the meat in the ragout has big pieces. –> I do not add onion cubes, the gentle aroma comes from whole onions. –> Instead of adding veal stock, I cook the bone with it. –> I cook the carrots separately because they become too soft during braising. –> Roast with tomato paste, which optimizes flavor and color. –> Bacon and mushrooms I add later, finer taste tuning. –> The binding of the sauce is done precisely with cornstarch instead of roux. –> Christmas cooking: add gingerbread spice and dark chocolate.
The close-up shows the details of this beautiful braised beef dish.
6. Cooking Time Beef bourguignon
My ragout was ready in less than 50 minutes.
In fact, most of the information about the braising time of meat does not correspond to reality.
The better and more mature the meat, the faster it can be prepared.
Meat from young cattle generally cooks faster than meat from older cattle.
Therefore, please ask when purchasing, additionally when preparing the meat rather try several times and then adjust the cooking time if necessary.
7. Fast Version of Beef Burgundy with Fillet
Please do not braise beef fillet cubes! Prepare the sauce without meat.
The basis can be a roasting stock with soup vegetables, tomato paste, veal stock and red wine.
Refine the sauce as shown here with mushrooms and bacon and thicken with cornstarch.
Later, sear the beef tenderloin cubes vigorously and let them infuse in the sauce to the desired degree of doneness, for example medium, and serve immediately.
A variant of this preparation I show you here at the beef ragout.
Cooking times are always only guidelines, the meat always cooks differently, depending on the breed of cattle, origin and age. Trying is the secret tip!
When is the ragout meat ready tip from Chef Thomas Sixt
Beef ragout with short roast meat such as fillet and I show you step by step in another post.
Great recipe – I am impressed