This post is sponsored by Zoup! Good, Really Good® Broth, but all opinions are my own of course! Thanks for supporting the amazing brands that keep The Food Charlatan chugging along.
Best Beef Bourguignon Recipe substitutions
Facebook | Pinterest | Instagram Why thank you! I will take a bow now. Let me just add this to my resume. And please make sure this fact ends up on my tombstone. Karen, the Greatest Folder of Eric’s Underwear. Even Better Than His Mom. Another time recently Eric’s mom Kris was visiting. She was searching the fridge for the Worcestershire sauce and finally gave up and asked me where it was. I said, it’s in the pantry of course! Isn’t that where you store it? No, she said, her mom always put it in the fridge, so that’s what she does too. I said, well, my mom always put it in the pantry, so that’s what I do. Speaking of dyed in the wool traditions… There sure is a lot of hullabaloo about this recipe. Julia Child taught Americans how to make it 60 years ago, and we’ve all been tripped up on her version ever since. (Kind of like how your mom folds your underwear a certain way??) I recently read a book about an American mom raising her kids in France. Most French children eat on what she calls “the national feeding schedule:” 8am, noon, 4pm, and 8pm. Her French pediatrician didn’t tell her about the schedule (she found out when she enrolled her kid in preschool). She asked him why he hadn’t mentioned it, and he said that he knew she would take the schedule too literally instead of finding her baby’s rhythm. Sometimes we Americans get a little obsessed with rules. But simmer down you guys. It’s just a thick beef stew with some wine in it. If you want to make it a little different than Julia, I will still sit with you at lunch. She even says in the preface to the recipe in her book: “As is the case with most famous dishes, there are more ways than one to arrive at a good boeuf bourguignon.” Let’s go wild my friends. I tried it and felt like I was committing an actual crime. The resulting bacon (after draining and frying for a few minutes) is pale and flavorless. I kept trying to steal bites, like I do whenever there is bacon in my kitchen. I would eat it and think “why did I just put this flavorless fat into my mouth” and then spit it in the sink. I’m sure it’s fine in a stew. You will still get lots of fatty flavor. But I just couldn’t do it. Instead, I used salt pork in my stew. This was my first time buying salt pork; it is cut from the same part of the pig as bacon (the belly) but is not smoked. Instead it is cured with salt, hence the name. It will give you that crispy, fatty flavor you want, minus the smokiness, which is closer to the flavor you would get in France. It’s delicious when fried and I couldn’t stop stealing bites. Fair warning: it is indeed quite salty. I didn’t add any other salt to my beef bourguignon besides what I sprinkled on my beef before searing. Can you just fry regular bacon and skip the blanching step? Absolutely! Your stew will have a smokey notes which is not traditional, but it will still be delicious! Who’s going to say no to bacon?
Chuck roast Brisket Round. Either a rump roast or bottom round. Top round works too.
“But all these cuts of meat are cheap and lean and tough! Isn’t Beef Bourguignon supposed to be special??” Here’s why tough cuts of beef are best for slow cooking and braising: all these cuts come from well-exercised muscles of the cow. They are lower in fat. But they are higher in connective muscle tissue called collagen. Collagen, when cooked low and slow, turns into gelatin, which tenderizes the meat and gives it that melt-in-your-mouth texture. I like chuck roast best, because it has plenty of connective tissue but also a decent amount of fat. Best of both worlds! My next choice would be brisket. Be careful with the packages marked “stew beef” at your store. I have used them successfully in the past, but just be aware that sometimes butchers throw in random scraps from other cuts. What cuts of meat end up in your pre-chopped stew beef really depends on your butcher. Ask them! MOST of the time, if cooked slow, stew beef will turn out fine. But if you have big plans for your beef bourguignon, just buy the cut of meat you know you want and chop it yourself. (Or ask your butcher to chop it!) Zoup! Good, Really Good® Beef Bone Broth is the perfect ingredient for this beef bourguignon. It is kettle cooked in small batches and you can tell, because the flavor is way more complex than what you get from mass-produced beef broth. It really is good enough to drink. It’s also low calorie, paleo-friendly, and free of artificial ingredients, preservatives, hormones, gluten, GMO’s, fat, trans fat, and saturated fat. In addition to Beef Bone Broth, they now offer new seafood broth, new spicy chicken bone broth, plus all the usual suspects like chicken broth, low-sodium chicken broth, veggie broth, and chicken bone broth, plus organic chicken and veggie broth. Head over to ZoupBroth.com to learn more, and follow @ZoupGoodReallyGood on Facebook and Instagram, and @ZoupGoodReallyGoodBroth on Pinterest. I know because I went to the wine aisle in the store. Found the section for Pinot Noir. On the top shelf there was a bottle marked for $30. I thought to myself, H to the no. The next shelf had one for $18. Then I looked allll the way down on the bottom shelf where I saw this “Best Pinot Noir” for a whopping 5 dollars. I will take that one thankyouverymuch! Only the BEST for me! Now listen. If you are a wine person, then buy your fancy wine and put it in your stew. Drop $30 on the top shelf. The rest of us will buy the cheap or moderate wine and still get a really amazing beef bourguignon. Usually I just use cooking wine, because hello cheap. But I felt like Beef Bourguignon deserved at least a little step up. (plus cooking wine has salt in it and I was worried about the salt level from the salt pork.) Full disclosure: I do not drink alcohol. Obviously I’m not qualified to talk about wine selections. Use your best judgment! Here’s what Julia Child says: “Use a full-bodied, young red wine such as one of those suggested for serving.” Any red wine that you enjoy will be great in this recipe. What if you want to skip the wine entirely? Now that’s when you start messing with the recipe in a real way. It’s a key ingredient. Can you replace the wine with beef broth? Absolutely! It will just be a regular beef stew though. The wine is crucial to the flavor of beef bourguignon. The reason that this recipe gets fussy with extra steps is because of these darn vegetables. We want to give them as much flavor as possible (this means sautéing) but not cook them to death. Nobody wants mushy veggies. The beef needs to cook for 2-3 hours, and if you cook mushrooms and carrots that long, you will have a sad result indeed. So this recipe calls for sauteing most of the vegetables individually, then setting aside on a plate to add back into the stew later. I know, I know, so annoying! It’s part of the reason beef bourguignon has a reputation for being fussy. But the result is worth it. You end up with a stew that has the most amazingly rich creamy sauce (that is able to thicken much more because of a lack of vegetables, which release tons of liquid). And of course, the carrots are perfectly tender and not mushy. The pearl onions are soft, but firm enough to give you these amazing bursts of flavor when you bite into them. The mushrooms are not reduced to a slimy mess, but instead are perfectly plump and textured; they rival the meat itself. As for side dishes, I love to serve it with a nice big green salad! It’s nice to have something light to go with such a heavy dish. Try this Apple Gorgonzola Salad, or this Fancy No Chop Salad. You could also serve buttered peas (Julia’s suggestion) or anything else green. Brussels Sprouts, green beans, broccoli, etc. It’s also nice to serve beef bourguignon with some crusty bread to mop up all the sauce. Try this One Hour French Bread! One of my favorite things about Zoup! Broth is reusing the recyclable jars they come in. Every time I use Zoup, I immediately store some of whatever I’m making in the very convenient quart-size jars that the broth comes in. I either give some away to a friend or toss it in the freezer for a rainy day. Beef bourguignon is such a labor of love, it would be a shame not to share it with someone! Even if it’s just sharing it with your future self! To freeze beef bourguignon, scoop it into a freezer bag, flatten it out, and freeze it flat so it’s easier to reheat. You can do this in smaller, quart-size bags if you’d like individual portions for the ultimate leftover lunch, or larger bags to serve multiple people. When it’s time to eat, pull out the frozen beef bourguignon and put it in the fridge overnight. Then reheat it in the microwave or on the stove top.
