Slow Cooker Beef Bourguignonne

Beef Bourguignonne is a classic French dish perfect for Father's Day or a winter weekend. Tender chunks of beef are slow cooked in red wine with bacon, mushroom, onion and carrot. This is a gloriously rich and flavoursome dish that can be made ahead of time so that you can easily serve it for lunch or dinner with low stress. I made it into a delicious Beef Bourguignonne pie. This is a pushy recipe Dear Reader!

Bœuf à la Bourguignonne is a popular bistro dish and is a relatively "new" dish in French cooking first appearing in the 1860's. It is ideal for making in the slow cooker as the red wine, beef stock and vegetables benefit from this low and slow cooking process although it could certainly be made in the oven or pressure cooker too. I made the Beef Bourguignonne a couple of days before and kept it in the fridge to develop the flavours and then served it as a pot pie with just a top layer of buttery puff pastry.

Tips For Making Beef Bourguignonne

1 - Which red wine to use in Beef Bourguignonne? Traditionally you would use a Burgundy red wine aka a Pinot Noir. You can also use Cabernet Sauvignon. Don't go overboard with an expensive wine though, just something inexpensive that you would still drink will do.

2 - Which beef cut is best to use for Beef Bourguignonne? I recommend using chuck beef for this. Chuck cooks beautifully in a slow cooker and is also one of the more economical beef cuts so it's an extra win.

3 - In a lot of beef bourguignonne recipes they use pearl onions but these aren't easy to find here. You can omit these.

4 - I served this as a pie with a salad but it is traditionally served with mashed potatoes or boiled potatoes. Creamed semolina is also delicious with beef bourguignonne to soak up all of that delicious sauce.

This recipe is a bit of a mix between Julia Child's and Ina Garten's version. Ina uses cognac in her beef bourguignonne which I think adds a delicious depth of flavour and intensity. I also do this in the pressure cooker but I like using the slow cooker on days when I am not at home and I want something delicious waiting for me when I get home.

If you love Beef Bourguignonne you may also like these other rich beef stews: Daube Beef Cheeks in the Slow Cooker, Dark Chocolate and Red Wine Beef Stew or Beef Pot Roast!

I brought this beef bourguignonne over to Monica and Marco's house for dinner last week. We were all going to a VR escape room near her house so we were just having a quick dinner at her house. She had made a vegetable soup and risoni that we ate along with this. The beef in the pie was super tender and Marco loves meat so we polished off most of the pie that evening between the three of us with just enough for his lunch the next day. Mr NQN was in the office that day so he was meeting us at the escape room as he finished up late at work.

We arrived at 7:30pm and it was busy. The arcade looked like it was straight from the set of Stranger Things with neon blue lights. There was one teenage girl in charge and she was clearly overwhelmed with customers that all needed help. It took her a while to get us set up and she gave us the basic instructions and then hurried off to attend to everyone else. We all donned our VR headsets and controllers and I could hear Mr NQN, Monica and Marco talking in my headset. The aim of this Medusa themed game was to retrieve a boat. We started by grabbing a torch and by we I mean they were able to do it but I wasn't able to. They sped on ahead but I was still stuck trying to grab the torch as my controllers and headsets kept giving me error signals. For 10 minutes I heard ooohs and aahhhs in the background. I had asked for help and the girl was calling her boss asking what to do and it required a lot of back and forth.

After a while I heard Monica say, "I feel a bit sick," and then Mr NQN and Marco agreed that they too were feeling seasick. They weren't able to progress very far because they needed me to do something in the game so they were patiently waiting but also getting progressively more seasick. After 45 minutes (the game is 1 hour) I had still not progressed beyond the first room because of the buggy headset and controllers and they were stuck waiting for me.

At this point we had to give up. Monica gave me her headset so that I could give it a try and finally I could see everything and do actions with the controllers. But by then nobody else was really playing, all three of them felt seasick and all I can say is that our first VR escape room will probably be our last. We felt sorry for the young girl that was clearly just thrown in there without training and she tried her best. And I was lucky in a way because I ended up not seasick after it because I had hardly spent any time with a working equipment!

So tell me Dear Reader, have you delved much into VR? Are you making anything special to eat this Father's Day?

Beef Bourguignonne

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Cooking time: 6 hours 15 minutes in slow cooker and stovetop

• 1.2 kgs/2.6lbs chuck beef, cut into 1 inch chunks
• 200g/7ozs rashers bacon, cut into small pieces (or lardons)
• 2 onions, peeled and sliced
• 2 carrots (around 400g/14ozs) cut on the diagonal in 1 inch pieces
• 500g/1.1lb button mushrooms
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
• 2.5 cups/625ml/1.3pints red wine
• 2 cups/500ml/1pint beef stock
• 1/2 cup/125ml/4flozs Cognac or brandy
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 sprigs thyme
• 3 tablespoons plain all purpose flour
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• 1-2 teaspoons sugar to taste
• 1 sheet butter puff pastry
• 1 egg yolk mixed with 1 teaspoon water (if making it a pie)

Step 1 - Season the beef with salt and pepper and mix to season all over. Fry the bacon in a saucepan over medium heat until the fat renders out and the bacon starts to get crispy at the edges. Place bacon in slow cooker. Then brown the beef in 2 or 3 lots avoiding over crowding the pan. Place the beef in the slow cooker and then fry the onions until softened and place in the slow cooker. Then take 1/2 cup of the wine and deglaze the pan with it scraping off any caramelised bits at the bottom. Place the deglazed red wine in a jug with the rest of the wine, Cognac or brandy and tomato paste and whisk to combine well.

Step 2 -Add the mushrooms, garlic, red wine, beef stock, Cognac or Brandy, tomato paste, bay leaves and thyme to the slow cooker. Set to 6 hours on high or 8 hours on low. In the last hour, skim the fat from the top and whisk in the flour. Season with salt, pepper and sugar to taste. I actually make this a couple of days before and place the meat in one container and then sauce in another container and chill it. Once the fat solidifies on top of the sauce, I scoop this off and then reheat everything up together on the stovetop thickening it with flour and then seasoning it.

Note: if using a pressure cooker set it to 35 minutes on high and then skim the fat off the top and stir in the flour (there should be a lot of residual heat left to thicken it up) and then season. If making this in the oven bake at 120C/250F in a cast iron pot or Dutch oven with a tight fitting lid on for 1.5 hours. Then move to the stovetop, skim the fat off the top and stir in the flour and allow to thicken on low heat and season.

Step 3 -Preheat oven to 180C/350 fan forced. To make this into a pie, cool the mixture and place in a round, deep pie dish (around 23cm/9inches) smoothing the surface. Cut out a round of puff pastry to fit the top, you can also score a pattern on top if you like. Place on top of the pie and brush with egg wash. Keep the pie in the fridge until ready to bake it (trying to keep the pastry as cold as possible until baking time). Bake for 30-35 minutes until golden.