Stovetop Boeuf Bourguignon A Deux

I can't think of a meal that I remember preparing for the first time except Beef Bourguignon.  Amy and I had decided to spend some time cooking together in preparation for her leaving home to attend UConn, and we had decided to take on the signature recipe of Julia Child, Beef Bourguignon, most likely because it would allow us to use goofy impersonations of her voice while preparing the meal.

It took several weeks before we put our plan into action.  While grocery shopping at Ralph's, I came upon some lean, bright red stew beef on sale, and I called Amy to ask for the ingredients for Julia Child's recipe as I walked toward the produce area. 



Amy before graduating from high school in '09

When I was Amy's age, mobile phones were corded devices inside chauffeur-driven Rolls Royces owned exclusively by millionaires, and even then, having only seen them in movies, I doubted their real existence.  By 2009, iPhones had been around for two years, so I actually could have looked a recipe up on line myself if I had one, but I had an "old fashioned" cell phone that I only used in the most primitive way...to make phone calls...so I phoned Amy instead.
As she read the ingredients like onions, garlic, mushrooms, carrots and tomato paste, I put them in my shopping cart.  For some reason, Amy decided that a different recipe would be better for us to than Julia's, but the ingredients were essentially the same.

When I returned home, we started the projected three hour task that expanded to four hours of making Beef Bourguignon.  When Julie arrived home, she wondered what stank up the house, but we knew we had created a masterpiece.  From braising the beef to cooking down the chopped onions in olive oil into liquid form to peeling and cutting the carrots into rustic chunks to sampling Merlot from a goblet before pouring most of the bottle into the pot to crushing the garlic clove with the side of a carving knife to sauteeing the mushrooms in butter, it was a labor of love and joyful mess-making. 

When we tasted it, we confirmed we had truly created a masterpiece, though I don't believe anyone else actually confirmed that, despite the fact that we had prepared enough for Jay to sample the leftovers the next day when he stopped in for a visit.

With Amy and without her, I have made that dish several times since then, making various substitutions, including replacing the stew meet with chuck roast that I'd found on sale at Target on more than one occasion (making it more of an American pot roast dish than French gourmet fare).

I didn't plan to make Beef Bourguignon last week, but when drivers on Sepulveda wouldn't let me change lanes to get to the Hermosa Beach Ralph's where I planned to buy sale priced T-bone steaks I'd seen in their ad, I changed plans and turned left into Von's, where neither boneless, skinless chicken breasts nor steaks seemed to be good choices that day. There among the expensive or graying beef was lean, bright red stew meat very much like that which I bought a few summers ago. 

Even on our first effort at fine French cuisine, Amy and I had not put the Dutch oven into the stove to bake the Beef Bourguignon but rather cooked it all on the stovetop.  When Julie and I moved to Redondo Beach as empty nesters, the heavy, burnt-orange Dutch oven which had received heavy use and abuse for over 30 years was a casualty of downsizing, so the option of sticking my Teflon pot with insulated handles that may or may not be suitable for baking was no longer an option, if I wanted it to be.  Truth be told, I like fixing it all on the stovetop where I can see what's happening.

The evolved Boeuf Bourguignon A Deux recipe tastes better than the original to both Julie and me, and it certainly is much easier to perpare, though for best results it could probably simmer an extra hour beyond the two hours I used recently.

Coat the bottom of a pot in olive oil and heat on the stovetop set to medium, being sure to turn the vent fan on from the outset.

While it is still in the styrofoam tray, sprinkle the stew meat liberally with garlic salt, pepper and onion flakes, and then carfully pour the beef into the hot oil so that the seasoned side is down.  Yeah, that probably made some oil splatter on the stove, so wipe it up quickly with a paper towel.  You're going to need to clean the stove with spray cleaner when you finish cooking, but not yet.

Season the other side of the beef the same way and then use a cooking spoon to distribute the beef around the bottom of the pot.

Braise the beef for about six minutes on each side, then add a can (about 14 1/2 ounces) of beef broth.

Bring it to a boil, and then cover and reduce heat to simmer for an hour or two.

On a cutting board, cut baby carrots into smaller pieces, although you could actually just add baby carots whole instead.  If you want to have that extra aerobic workout and get a warm feeling from peeling carrots, which really doesn't take much time and is easy to clean up, you can peel one or two regular carrots and chop them into rustic sized chunks, but Julie prefers cut baby carrots, so that is how I make them these days.  After an hour or two, when the liquid should be considerably cooked down, you can add the carrots along with a third of a bottle of red wine, which in this case was cheap Pinot Noir, which I of course tasted from a goblet with a toast to French chefs everywhere.

Now you've already noticed that we eliminated cooking down the onions, and I also don't add small onions as recommended by Julia, so instead I cut a zucchini squash into half disks and add those for texture.  Do this after the carrots have cooked in for about ten minutes.



Cousin Bonnie, Wes, Mom and Uncle Bob in Santa Ana.

The mention of the zucchini makes me recall a stupid mistake I made as a teenager that upset Mom.  I had gone to John's Market to pick up fruit and vegetables, as I often did on Saturdays on my way home from going to the Orange Swap Meet with my Uncle Bob, who had recommended that store originally.  Mom had specifically asked me to buy zucchini that day, but I saw that cucumbers looked almost exactly like zucchini and were on sale for about a third the price, so I substituted cucumbers.  A quick phone call could have avoided this error, but these were primitive times before pocket cell phones when I would have had to find a pay phone, plus it would have cost me a dime at least.

Of course, Mom's Weight Watchers recipe did not call for cucumbers, and cucumbers can't substitute for zucchini in cooking, which is something that is obvious to me now.  At the time, I defended my decision as perfectly rational, which for some reason upset Mom.  It reminds me of discussions I now have with my own son (and yes, he is the one who would be saying cucumbers should be just as good as zucchinni because of blah blah blah).  It's one of those guilty pains I still carry around.

Then again, substituting does work in recipes, if you do it in a less idiotic way.  Rather than using a partial can of tomato paste, I just cut up a fresh Roma tomato into small pieces and cook that in with the zucchini. 

After another ten minutes or so, wash four large mushrooms and slice them on the cutting board.  Add those to the pot and simmer for another fifteen minutes or so.

Voilà!  Stovetop Boeuf Bourgignon A Deux!  French cuisine combined with American efficiency. I'm stayin'!