Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Beef Burgundy

Last night, I was a cooking machine: beef burgundy (what I do isn't worthy of the name "beef bourguignon"), stuffed peppers, and banana bread. The banana bread was the only thing I used a recipe for, although I used butter instead of shortening and whole wheat flour instead of white all-purpose. I also used mini chocolate chips because that is the only size acceptable in bread. And the bread's good, so I declare that a winner.

But I have to say that the beef burgundy turned out well. I took a tip from Anne Burrell and marinated the beef (not as long as she suggests though; I am also sure her recipe results in a WAY better dish) and winged it from there:

Beef Burgundy

Step 1: Put a pound-ish (no clue how much was there) of stew meat into a bowl, add garlic, steak seasoning, extra black pepper, and cover with red wine (I used a shiraz that I opened recently to make pasta sauce). Let that hang out while you do other stuff around the house.

Step 2: Chop up some bacon and throw into a pot with black pepper. Cook until brown. Move to towel for draining.

Step 3: Take beef out of wine, reserve wine. Dry off beef with paper towels.

Step 4: Season about a cup of whole wheat flour with steak seasoning. Add beef.

Step 5: Heat up olive oil in the pot you cooked the bacon in. Brown beef in batches. This takes FOREVER, but is worth it to properly brown - and not steam by over-crowding the pot - the meat.

Step 6: Deglaze pan with reserved wine. Boil wine for a few minutes. Add more wine. Add a couple of glasses of water.

Step 7: Season wine/water mixture with a pinch of dried thyme, pinch of dried rosemary, a sprinkle of mesquite seasoning, more black pepper. Taste - it should be good. If it's a little too alcohol-y, add some more water.

Step 8: Add meat back to pan. Lower heat and allow it to thicken up.

Step 9: After it's pretty thick, remove meat and then strain the sauce. This is important - lots of flour ends up in the sauce and it's kind of icky. Put the beef, bacon and sauce back in the pot, along with a sprinkle of dried mustard (add some parsley while you're at it; I used the frozen cubes because that's what I had).

Step 10: Let beef burgundy (shiraz?) simmer while you boil up some egg noodles (al dente).

Serve beef over noods on a pretty plate if you're feeling fancy. I serve the sauce on the side. A sprinkle of fresh parsley would be great here, but I didn't have any. I served the dish with a size of roasted green beans tossed with olive oil and steak seasoning.

I should have taken a picture because it was actually picture-worthy. There weren't any leftovers because Aaron and I are piggies.

No comments: