French Provincial Cooking - Elizabeth David [196]
A fine large piece of topside or top rump of beef is required for this dish, and it is not worth attempting with less than 4 to 5 lb. The other ingredients are a little pork or goose dripping or oil, carrots, onions, garlic, half a bottle of red wine, brandy if possible, a big faggot of aromatic herbs including bay leaves, thyme and parsley, about 1 lb. of streaky salt pork and 2 pigs’ trotters.
Have your beef rolled and tied in a good shape; melt the dripping in a heavy pot which has a well-fitting lid; put in the meat, surround it with 2 large sliced onions, 4 or 5 carrots, a couple of cloves of garlic. Start off over a gentle flame for 15 minutes, and when the fat is running and the onions beginning to colour, pour in 4 oz. (8 tablespoons) of brandy; let it bubble; add the wine; put in the salt pork, the trotters (split) and the bouquet, and a very little salt. Cover the pot, transfer to the lowest possible oven, and there leave it for about 7 or 8 hours.
The result of this lengthy, almost imperceptible cooking is a beautifully tender piece of meat and a rich, aromatic, but rather fat sauce; to counteract this, serve with it plenty of plain boiled or purée potatoes or rice if you prefer. The dish is also delicious cold, and resembles a bœuf mode, except that the meat is not larded, and the jellied sauce is thicker and darker. The vegetables must be strained off, and the fat removed when the sauce has set. The trotters, from which the bones will have almost fallen out, can be coated with melted butter and breadcrumbs, gently grilled and, with a sauce tartare, make a little hot hors-d’œuvre.
BŒUF À LA BOURGUIGNONNE
BEEF STEW WITH RED WINE, ONIONS AND MUSHROOMS
This is a favourite among those carefully composed, slowly cooked dishes which are the domain of French housewives and owner-cooks of modest restaurants rather than of professional chefs. Generally supposed to be of Burgundian origin (although Alfred Contour’s Cuisinier Bourguignon gives no recipe for it) bœuf à la bourguignonne has long been a nationally popular French dish, and is often referred to, or written down on menus, simply as ‘bourguignon.’ Such dishes do not, of course, have a rigid formula, each cook interpreting it according to her taste, and the following recipe is just one version. Incidentally, when I helped in a soup kitchen in France many years ago, this was the dish for feast-days and holidays.
2 lb. of topside of beef, 4 oz. of salt pork or streaky bacon (unsmoked for preference), a large onion, thyme, parsley and bayleaves, pint of red wine, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, pint of meat stock, preferably veal, a clove of garlic, 1 tablespoon flour, meat dripping. For the garnish, lb. of small mushrooms, a dozen or so small whole onions.
Cut the meat into slices about 2 inches square and inch thick. Put them into a china or earthenware dish, seasoned with salt and pepper, covered with the large sliced onion, herbs, olive oil and red wine. Leave to marinate from 3 to 6 hours.
Put a good tablespoon of beef dripping into a heavy stewing-pan of about 4 pints capacity. In this melt the salt pork or bacon, cut into inch thick match-length strips. Add the whole peeled small onions, and let them brown, turning them over frequently and keeping the heat low. Take out the bacon when its fat becomes transparent, and remove the onions when they are nicely coloured. Set them aside with the bacon. Now put into the fat the drained and dried pieces of meat and brown them quickly on each side. Sprinkle them with the flour, shaking the pan so that the flour amalgamates with the fat and absorbs it. Pour over the strained marinade. Let it bubble half a minute; add the stock. Put in a clove of garlic and a bouquet of thyme, parsley and bayleaf tied with a thread. Cover the pan with a close-fitting lid and let it barely simmer on top of the stove for about 2 hours.
Now add the bacon and onions, and the whole mushrooms washed but not peeled and already cooked in butter or dripping for a minute or so to rid them of some of their moisture. Cook the stew