Beef rib bourguignon

Beef bourguignon (or beef Burgundy) is a classic French dish made famous by Julia Child's introduction of French-style home cooking in America, the original version typically getting it's flavour from red Burgundy wine. This version from Adam Liaw uses the same beef bourguignon flavour and techniques on beef short ribs, a cut of meat not typically used in this recipe, but brings a delightful rich and buttery beef flavour to this timeless stew.

Beef rib bourguignon Credit: Jiwon Kim

• serves

  6

• prep

  10 minutes

• cook

  45 minutes

• difficulty

  Easy

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Ingredients

• 20 g butter
• 200 g speck, cut into lardons
• 2.5 kg short-cut beef ribs (around 8-10 cm long), cut into individual ribs
• Salt and black pepper
• Olive oil, for drizzling
• 2 large onions, finely chopped
• 1 carrot, peeled, cut into ½ cm rounds
• 4 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
• ½ tsp dried thyme
• 3 bay leaves
• 2 tbsp plain flour
• 1 cup (250 ml) tomato passata
• 600 ml red wine
• 500 g Swiss brown mushrooms, thickly sliced
• 20 pickling onions, peeled
• Roughly chopped flat-leaf parsley, to serve

Cooling time: 6 hours

Instructions

1. Heat a large, heavy-based saucepan over medium heat and add the butter. Fry the speck for about 5 minutes, or until browned. Remove the speck from the pan with a slotted spoon and set aside. Season the ribs well with salt and pepper and fry the ribs in batches until well-browned, then set aside.
   
2. Add the onion, carrot and garlic to the pan with a generous drizzle of olive oil and fry for about 10 minutes, or until fragrant. Add the thyme, bay leaves and flour and stir well. Cook for about 5 more minutes until the flour starts to brown. Stir in the tomato passata and red wine and bring to a simmer. Return the beef ribs to the pan and bring to a simmer again.
   
3. Cover the saucepan with a lid and simmer for 5 minutes, then turn off the heat. Cover the whole saucepan with about 3 tea towels and allow to cool for 2 hours. Remove the tea towels and the lid and skim off as much of the fat rising to the surface as you can (reserve this to cook the mushrooms!)
   
4. Cover and bring to a simmer again for 5 minutes, then repeat the tea towel and cooling process. When two hours have almost elapsed, skim off the oil a second time, then microwave the mushrooms for 6 minutes, to soften. Heat a large frying pan over medium heat and fry the mushrooms and onions with a little of the rendered fat from the stew for 5 minutes, or until browned.
   
5. Stir through the browned mushrooms and onions through the stew and bring the whole saucepan to a simmer for 5 minutes, covered. Remove from the heat and cover with tea towels a third time, and allow to cool for a final 2 hours.
   
6. Reheat to serve, stir through the crisped speck, then taste and adjust seasoning. If you need to, you can strain out all the solids and reduce the sauce to concentrate its flavour before mixing the solids back in again. Serve, scattered with parsley.

Photography by Jiwon Kim.

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Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.

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