Beef Bourguignon

As a Professional Italian Chef I've cooked lots of Beef Stews and Italian Style Pot Roasts. The steps in the recipe are simple and easy to understand. Unfortunately, the most important step in the recipe is the temperature of the oven and the cook time. Doing everything according to Melissa Clark's directions your meat will be tough as shoe leather! You have to seriously turn your oven down to 260°F for the entire time. And cook the meat for at least 3-4 hours. Good Luck.

Wonderful recipe! I used 4lbs of beef chuck & pinot noir wine. After Step 5 I put the Dutch oven into the oven at 300 for 3hrs...meat was very tender with lots of liquid. Transferred everything into a large ceramic casserole dish, covered it with foil and refrigerated overnight. Next day scraped off some of the fat on the top. Made the onions and mushrooms. Pulled the casserole dish out of the fridge one hour before reheating it (covered) at 325 degrees in the oven for about 45 minutes.

Love love love this recipe! Made as directed and it turned out so well. Could I make it in the slow cooker? And what about doubling the recipe? Does the wine get doubled as well?

This is utterly spectacular. Having made many bourguinon over the years, we thought think this one the most delicious of them all. Deeply flavorful, dark and rich, our relatives in France would say that this recipe is the most direct representation of what a true French bourguinon is. We also served it with large Israeli-style couscous (lightly browned in olive oil) and small side salads.We added homemade beef stock to deglaze all the flavor at the very end. Fantastic recipe...

Just a thought on wine: I'm a certified sommelier, so of course the wine is really important to me! I want to steal a glass to drink while the bourguignon is cooking. Realistically any red will do, but if I'm allowed to be picky, I'd probably go with basic red Bordeaux Supérieur. It's great value but is also an excellent quality table wine; I don't feel bad about using it to cook with and I also don't feel bad about drinking it. Pinot is expensive and less extracted, so I'd avoid cooking with it

For the pearl onions cut the root end and drop in boiling water 20 seconds. Dump in iced water and pull the skin from the pointy end. They pop right out

Made this according to the recipe (less salt however) right up until the over part. Instead of the oven, I put browned beef in the crock pot, cooked onion and carrots exactly as stated, along with garlic, tomato paste and flour — with a splash of the wine. Deglazed the pan and added everything to the crock pot along with the wine, thyme and bay leaf. Cooked for 6-8 hours on low and it was AMAZING. Cooke mushrooms and pearl onions as directed and added in last 30 mins.

The heat was too high. In most ovens, temp of 350 can bring on dry, tough meat. Try it with an oven temp of 325 or 300. Better yet, and easier to control, if you have a stove with a good simmer burner and a really heavy pot, cook it on stove top. You want the dish to just barely simmer, with hardly any sign of bubbles rising at all. Tender meat happens at around 180 degrees (so if the dish has just an occasional bubble, most of the braising liquid is below 212 degrees)

Fabulous recipe, rich and delicious. I made a few changes based on helpful reviews. I added some of the mushrooms as it was cooking, to deepen the flavor in the sauce, then added onions and mushrooms at the end as directed in the recipe. I cooked everything in a Creuset pot, but never put it in the oven, since, like some others, I found the meat dried out too much. Instead I simmered the whole thing on the stove for 4-5 hours, for a heavenly aroma in the house, and served over fresh fettucini.

Three hours at 275 degrees. I've never braised anything at 350.

Manifique. Made as directed to half way through step 5 then put in slow cooker instead of oven. 5 hours on low. Served over roasted fingerling potatoes. Lovely with a hearty Cotes de Rhone, a crusty French bread, and snow gently falling outside.

Even for a dunce of the culinary arts such as myself this recipe proved easy to follow and I actually produced something quasi-edible.

As ever, being non-US based, I would prefer something a little more "international" in terms of the way the recipe is presented. I can handle imperial to metric conversions (although how hard would it be to include both?) but what on earth is a "lardon" (horrible Trumpian images flash through my mind) or a "cremini" mushroom?

Mostly right.. I would just add that oven while faster, dries up the meat -- it loses its inside moist. You get better results with a pressure cooker if you're time sensitive. Or wait 5-6 hours on the regular stove top. Also... you don't really need a good wine. Something drinkable would do. Important Hint: it tastes even better the next day.

I really love doing shallots with this so sauteed 10 large ones before frying the meat and cooked the entire time with the meet. Omitted the pearl onions.

Yes, just did and it worked great! I followed steps 1-3 and 5 as written. I then added the browned beef, raw carrot and onion and poured the sauce mixture (garlic, tomato paste, flour, wine, bay leaf and thyme) from the pan into the slow cooker. I added 2 cup of chicken broth to ensure there was enough liquid, and then slow cooked on high for 6-7 hours. I then did steps 6-7 as written and added everything back to the slow cooker for a bit before serving. The beef was perfectly tender.