Ina Garten-Inspired Beef Bourguignon

Compiled by Igor Kukolj, Editor. Nobody here has cooked this — how these are made.

The difference between beef bourguignon and a beef stew with wine in it is not the wine. It is what happens to the onions and mushrooms.

They are cooked separately, in butter, until glazed and browned, and folded in at the very end. Put them in the pot at the start and three hours of simmering turns them into soft grey shapes that taste of the braising liquid, like everything else in there. Cooked apart, they keep their own character and their own texture, and the finished dish has three distinct things in it instead of one uniform brown one.

It is an extra pan and twenty minutes, and it is the entire reason the dish has its own name.

Dry the beef and brown it in small batches

Wet meat steams, and a crowded pan drops below the temperature at which browning happens. Pat every piece dry, salt it, and work in batches of six or seven with space between them. The fond left in the pot after browning is the backbone of the sauce, and it can only be built one batch at a time.

Reduce the wine before the stock goes in

A full bottle simmered down by half concentrates it and drives off the raw alcohol edge that otherwise stays sharp through three hours of cooking. Added at full volume alongside the stock, it never quite loses that rawness.

Make it the day before

The fat sets on the surface overnight and lifts off in a sheet, which is impossible to achieve by skimming hot. The meat firms up in its liquid and reheats without shredding, and the flavours settle. Add the garnish when you reheat, not before.

Storing

Four days in the fridge, three months frozen. Freeze it without the garnish and cook fresh onions and mushrooms on the day — they are the part that suffers most.