My earliest memories of beef bourguignon weren’t fond, as it was full of mushrooms and onions, which my younger self couldn’t get on board with. You’ll be pleased to know my palate has matured and it’s now a dish I crave every winter.
Beef bourguignon is a hearty beef stew that features red wine from the burgundy region as one of its key ingredients. The beef should be meltingly tender, the sauce rich and thick and it should be laced with succulent onions. While each recipe differs slightly, this is one of those classics where if it’s fiddled with too much, it’s no longer a beef bourguignon.
In the early 1900s, Auguste Escoffier published his beef bourguignon recipe and it soon became a staple on many menus in France, London and New York. Julia Child helped secure this as one of the most iconic French dishes, recognised worldwide.
A typical beef bourguignon recipe would see beef (and sometimes bacon) being browned in a pan, followed by a mix of carrot and onion. The beef (and bacon) is then added back in, coated in flour and browned for a few minutes before a bottle of red wine, stock, tomato paste, garlic and herbs are added in. It’s then slow cooked for a few hours until tender. During this time, pickling onions are cooked in one way or another and button mushrooms are sautéed to be added at the end.
Julia Child
Was there even a question as to whether I would test this recipe out? Julia Child’s recipe would be one of, if not the most famous beef bourguignon recipe on the planet. Bizarrely, it starts by simmering bacon lardons for 10 minutes, before frying them in a casserole dish. Since most recipes would be based off hers, the rest of the method is as explained above. Julia’s onions are browned in a pan, then covered in beef stock and simmered until meltingly tender.
The onions in this stew were the hero for me. They carried an intense beefy flavour that encapsulated what a beef bourguignon should taste like. I do wonder though, why can’t they be browned in a pan and then cooked in with the beef for the last 40 minutes of cooking time? Simmering the bacon stripped it of its flavour, so I wouldn’t do this in my own recipe. I used chuck steak that was cut into relatively large chunks. It wasn’t a very fatty piece of meat, so I found it on the dry side which is always heart-breaking after the effort that goes in.
Alice Storey, The Gourmet Traveller
Gourmet Traveller contributor Alice Storey’s beef bourguignon sparked my interest as the cooking time was only 1 hour, 45 minutes, which seemed far too quick for the beef to fall apart. She uses a 300g piece of speck in lieu of bacon. The speck fat rendered out beautifully, which I then browned the flour-coated beef in. Unlike Julia’s recipe, there are no carrots or sliced onion that gets cooked in with the beef, so the ingredient list is minimal. Alice’s pickling onions are browned off in the speck fat, then set aside until the last 40 minutes of cooking, where they’re added in along with the speck.
After the 1 hour, 45 minute mark the beef was nowhere near tender and it took two hours longer to cook than the recipe suggested. I used beef rump, which dried out slightly like the chuck steak, but it was falling apart by the end. The onions were only meant to cook for 40 minutes but instead spent 2 hours, 45 minutes cooking while I waited for the beef to tenderise. In this time, the onion flavour was lost. The sauce was thin and there wasn’t any instruction to thicken it, so the recipe felt a bit unfinished.
Barney Desmazery, BBC Good Food
Good Food contributor Barney’s recipe marinades the beef in red wine that has been torched to burn the alcohol off, along with garlic, star anise, thyme and bay leaves. He didn’t specify a cut of beef in this recipe, so I used beef cheek. After two days of marinading, the beef is browned off and braised in the marinading liquid, along with sauteed onion, carrot and celery. The bacon and pickling onions are fried off together and added in the end, followed by sautéed mushrooms.
This recipe started off strong with the intense marinading process, but I feel like it finished weak. The lack of effort put into the pickling onions let the dish down and it was missing depth of flavour from the bacon and mushrooms. The sauce itself, however, was surprisingly light and sweet for what’s usually a heavy stew and it had a strong red wine flavour which is key to a good beef bourguignon. The beef cheek was succulent, the marinading process being worth it.
Diane Holuigue, The Recipe
Diane Holuigue’s beef bourguignon recipe was published in The Recipe by Josh Emmet. The recipe itself was quite vague, and if you hadn’t been on a beef bourguignon spree like me, mistakes would be made. For example, it didn’t specify to brown the beef in batches, but this is a crucial step to ensure the beef gets the caramelised edges, otherwise it turns grey and watery. It also says to braise the beef for two hours, but just like Alice’s recipe, this time frame is nowhere near long enough. The pickling onions were boiled in salted water until softened, then fried in a pan to caramelise, and the bacon was added in at the end of the cooking process, with the mushrooms and onion.
I had used gravy beef, as specified in the recipe, but by the time it was tender the meat itself was quite dry. The flavour had been sucked out of the onions when they were boiled in water. I think if they were boiled in beef stock this would have been a good method to use. This recipe only had 400ml of red wine in it where the other recipes had an entire bottle, but the wine flavour still shone through.
I went into this experiment expecting each recipe to taste noticeably different, but they all tasted relatively similar. Understandable given they all have the same core ingredients! My favourite meat cut/method was from the BBC Good Food recipe, the most flavoursome onions came from Julia Child’s recipe and the best bacon flavour came through in the Gourmet Traveller’s. I preferred the recipes that had carrot in them as it added that extra element of sweetness.
Before finalising my recipe, I jumped on the phone to Nourish contributor and meat expert Kathy Paterson. Kathy advised me that its always best to buy a whole piece of meat, rather than pre-diced or steaks that you cut further. If meat is much thinner than 3cm cubed, it’ll be more likely to dry out. She loves using cross-cut blade steak, so use that if you can’t find beef cheek like I’ve used in my final recipe. Kathy’s other main advice is to use wine that you would drink yourself. Don’t cheap out, as you can’t hide bad wine!
Beef Bourguignon Harriet’s Way
Beef bourguignon is not something that should be rushed. It’s for slow winter weekends, dinner with friends or make a big batch and freeze portions for weeks to come.
1.2–1.5kg beef cheek, each cheek cut into 4–5 pieces
1 garlic bulb, halved
3 sprigs of thyme
2 sprigs of rosemary
2 bay leaves
salt & pepper
1 bottle of pinot noir (Vetro recommend a Mathieu Paquet pinot noir from Burgundy)
1 tbsp neutral oil
250g piece of speck (or use streaky bacon), cut into lardons (available at Vetro)
15 pickling onions, trimmed, peeled and left whole
2 carrots, cut into 2cm chunks
1 onion, roughly chopped
2 celery sticks, roughly chopped
3 tbsp flour
1 tbsp tomato paste
1–2 cups beef stock
30–40g butter
250–300g button mushrooms
Place the beef cheek in a large bowl along with the garlic, herbs, wine and a good grinding of salt and pepper. Allow to marinate for up to 48 hours (overnight will be fine).
Preheat the oven to 150°C.
Place the speck lardons in a heavy bottom casserole dish, turn the heat to medium-high and allow the fat to render out and start to crisp up. Once crisp, remove the speck from the pan, leaving as much of the fat in there as possible.
Add the pickling onions into the speck fat and cook for 10–15 minutes or until browned all over. Remove from the pan and pop in the fridge for later.
Remove the beef from the wine (don’t throw it out!), and pat dry with paper towels. Brown the beef off in batches in the speck fat, adding a drizzle of neutral oil if needed. This step is important as its where a lot of flavour develops, so ensure the beef is browned on all sides and don’t overcrowd the pan.
Add a splash of oil if needed, then add the carrot, onion and celery to the pot and allow to soften and start to colour, stirring occasionally. Add the beef and speck back into the pot, then sprinkle over the flour. Stir to coat and cook for 1–2 minutes to cook the flour out.
Add the wine, garlic and herbs back into the pot along with the tomato paste and enough beef stock so the meat is just covered. Bring this to a simmer, then place a lid on and pop it in the oven for 2 hours, stirring occasionally. After the two hour mark, place the browned pickling onions in the pot and cook for a further 60–80 minutes. You want the beef to be meltingly tender and the onions soft but holding their shape.
When the beef is nearly finished, sauté the mushrooms in the butter until browned and softened, then stir into the beef.
Once the beef is cooked, check the consistency of the sauce. If it’s quite thin, remove as much sauce as possible into a separate pot and reduce this down until it coats the back of a spoon. Pour the thickened sauce back over the beef.
Serve the beef bourguignon with crusty bread, soft polenta, mashed potato or pasta and steamed greens.
Wine Recommendations
Victor Berard Bourgogne 2020
Ruby red colour. Aromas of red fruits like blackcurrant and gooseberry. The palate is ripe with rich tannins and aromas of spices.
Available at La Cave
Labrune et Fils Pinot Noir
Ruby red colour. Aromas of red fruits, vanilla and spices. An elegant and complex palate
Available at La Cave
Mathieu Paquet Pinot Noir 2020
Pleasant and delicate with aromas of raspberry and cherry. The palate is fruity, round, with delicious full Pinot Noir flavour.
Available at Vetro Hamilton, Tauranga and Rotorua
Words Harriet Boucher, Images Ashlee DeCaires
