Well. Nowhere near as good as she no doubt made it, as this was my first attempt. I used the recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking. That makes it like hers, right?

Julia Child referred to a well made boeuf bourguignon as one of the most delicious beef dishes concocted by man. I think this might have been the tastiest thing I’ve ever made, and possibly ever eaten.

This is probably the most adventurous single dish I’ve attempted to date. Sure, I’ve made bigger meals, but no single dish this involved and time consuming.

Walk Through

First, I prepped the little, whole onions and sautéed the mushrooms (no pic of that). I did that Friday night to give me a bit of a jump on it. This could have been done while the dish was in the oven, but I had other things to do then.

Next: Bacon! No seriously good dish is complete without bacon That’s something I learned at Google… and they’re all smart people, right? So it’s gotta be true. In any case, the recipe really does call for some bacon. Blanched (no pic… it was boring) and browned:

“Where’s the beef?” (anyone remember that ad campaign?) Here’s the beef in all it’s organic, grass-fed glory, 3 pounds of it:

The beef got lovingly dried (so as to brown better), and browned a few pieces at a time, resulting in this bowl of awesomeness:

Next up was browning onions and carrots:

Note that each successive round of browning happens in the same pot. The flavors just keep layering & layering.

The bacon and beef go back into the pot:

And in goes a bottle of red wine and broth to just cover, along with the herbs. Then it goes into the oven and magic happens.

After 3 hours in the oven it’s reduced down into an incredible gravy, with the beef falling-apart-tender.

The whole time this was bubbling away merrily in the oven my apartment smelled unbelievable incredible. I was doing laundry during this, and each time I stepped back into my apartment I was assailed by this simply divine aroma.

Next you strain off the gravy, reduce it as necessary, add it back to the meat, along with the whole onions and mushrooms previously prepped. The result looks brilliant!

And here it is plated for a simple meal.

I will so be making this again. Since I’ve done it once successfully, I might build a small dinner party around it with a more complete and organized meal. I also have a few tweaks to make, now that I know how it works.