Slow Cooker Boeuf Bourguignon (French Cooking Academy)

Source video by French Cooking Academy on YouTube. This recipe was adapted with strict source-fidelity rules and is marked for human review.

A traditional French boeuf bourguignon adapted from French Cooking Academy's oven recipe for the slow cooker. Chuck steak is seared, onion and carrot sweated in the pan, flour added and toasted briefly on the hob, then deglazed with reduced Pinot Noir and beef stock before going into the slow cooker with garlic and a supermarket bouquet garni. Eight hours on Low gives the same dark, glossy sauce as the original two-hour oven braise. The classic garnish (lardons, pan-fried mushrooms, glazed pearl onions) is cooked separately and assembled at the table, French-stacking style.

Ingredients

• 1 kgbeef chuck (casserole steak), cut into 50 g chunks
• 1onion, diced small
• 1carrot, diced small
• 30 gplain flour, sprinkled over the meat once seared
• 500 mlPinot Noir (or Burgundy-style red), reduced in a separate pan first
• 400 mlbeef stock, reduced in a separate pan first
• 2garlic cloves, peeled, lightly squashed
• 1bouquet garni
• to tastesalt and pepper, to taste
• olive or vegetable oil, for searing the meat

• 200 gsmoked streaky bacon (lardons), cubed (add late)
• 250 gchestnut mushrooms, halved or quartered (add late)
• 250 gpearl (pickling) onions, peeled (add late)
• butter, two knobs for the onion glaze, plus more for the parsley butter
• caster sugar, a couple of good pinches for the onion glaze

• boiled potatoes, from cold salted water, ~40 minutes until tender
• parsley-garlic butter, parsley and garlic blitzed in a food processor and folded into melted butter

Method

1. Pour the wine into one small saucepan and the stock into another. Reduce both gently by about a quarter over medium heat. (Optionally flambé the wine to burn off some alcohol.)

   ~10 min

2. Pat the beef dry. Heat oil in a heavy pan over medium-high heat. Sear the beef chunks in batches until a deep brown crust forms on all sides, turning only when each side has set.

   ~12 min

3. Lift the beef onto a plate. Drop the heat slightly, add the diced onion and carrot to the same pan, and sweat for 4 to 5 minutes, scraping up the brown bits.

   ~5 min

4. Return the beef to the pan. Sprinkle over the flour and toast for 2 minutes, stirring, until the flour smells nutty and coats the meat.

   ~2 min

5. Tip everything into the slow cooker. Pour over the reduced wine and stock, liquid should sit just at the level of the meat, not above. Add the garlic and bouquet garni. Season with salt and pepper.

   ~3 min

6. Lid on. Cook on Low for 8 hours (or High 5 hours), until a fork pulls the beef apart easily.

   ~480 min

7. While the stew cooks, boil the potatoes from cold salted water for about 40 minutes until tender. Pan-fry the lardons in a tiny splash of oil until golden; remove. In the same pan, fry the mushrooms in the bacon fat until golden; remove. In a separate small pan, sit the pearl onions with butter, a couple of pinches of sugar and just enough water to cover; lid on (a paper cartouche works) and simmer until the water evaporates and the onions caramelise in the butter.

   ~40 min

8. Blitz parsley and garlic in a food processor and stir into melted butter for the potato dressing.

   ~3 min

9. Lift the beef out of the slow cooker, then strain the sauce into a clean jug; discard the spent carrot, onion and bouquet.

   ~5 min

10. Plate French-style: stack beef in the centre, ladle over sauce (not too much), scatter mushrooms, lardons and glazed onions, finish with parsley-butter potatoes alongside.

    ~4 min

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