Beef Bourguignon

Just before going into the oven.

Edit: I used my frozen dregs bag. It tasted like a fruit forward Spanish red. Can’t think why!

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I would suggest a something like the following

https://www.thewinesociety.com/product/the-societys-southern-spanish-red-jumilla-2021
https://www.thewinesociety.com/product/the-societys-portuguese-red-peninsula-de-setubal-2021

As it has been said elsewhere its bonkers to use anything expensive, when you boil the wine reduce it and remove alcohol most of the aroma disappears.

On another matter I always keep the chunks of beef relatively large, cubes of a least 2 x 2 x 2 inches which retains succulence.

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The two things that I’ve found that don’t work: anything particularly tannic or anything with prominent oak. Medium to full bodied, with good colour, acidic and low tannin seems to work.

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Does classic BB have no veg in …??I seem to remember Elizabeth David’s recipe the carrot onion celery was in a muslin bag

I have mushrooms, carrots and whole shallots browned off in the bacon fat to add during the last half hour of cooking.

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First of all I’m no cook but I do not subscribe to the notion that one should use top quality wine in a casserole for goodness sake!!

I don’t think there is anyone alive that would be able to pick out a DRC in a Bourguignon as opposed to a Passetoutgrains once fully cooked.

Just put anything gutsy in there!

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For a BB, I like a southern French wine with some Carignan in it. Nice and punchy, and the slight aniseed note seems to add something to the meal.

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This is very important! Same as for a Rendang curry.

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Time: plenty, and a very low heat. So after several hours your frozen dregs will be perfect. I typically throw in a bottle of tombola wine. It’s more important to choose a cut of meat with plenty of connective sinew and gristle (beef cheeks for example).

My apologies to the Vegetarians.

Oz Clarke (maybe?) suggests that after you have done all the reducing, thickening, enriching etc of your cooking sauce - add a splash of the ‘main wine’ (Gevry etc) just before serving.

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Not sure any vegetarians will have got this far

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Beef cheeks are great things, and pork cheeks too. The latter seem hard to get hold of these days though. I used to cook a long-slow dish of pork cheeks & borlotti / haricot beans in cider, and we miss it. Very good with Spatlese too FWIW [referring to the other thread on Spatlese].

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If you’re feeling up for a challenge then a good butcher could source you a whole pigs head for not much more than £10, that’s two cheeks and a lot of brawn.

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Yes. I agree. Beef cheeks are excellent for a slow cooked casserole. Very popular in France, I recall. CdeR is a good match, Gigondas even better.

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Beef cheeks is what I used (with a few pieces of ox tail for extra nom). In the oven for three hours at 150. Then taken out of the oven, cooled and left in the fridge until Sunday, when it’ll get another hour with the veg in as well. Plenty of mash and something burgundian to go with it.

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I remember my mother in law boiling whole pigs heads for brawn the smell was awful …

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One of my friends when I were young lived on a smallholding with pigs, and they were very particular about eating the whole lot. I remember very well a pig’s head sitting in the middle of the table one time for tea, from which we picked out various bits & bobs. The smell when they’re boiled up for brawn is though, as @Alabaster_cheeks says, pretty odiferous.

In Seoul, there was a night-market I used to go to a lot which had several stalls specialising in all sorts of curious bits of pig - the obvious ears, cheeks etc, but also lips & snouts among other things. A smiling pig’s head could be quite expensive for the good luck it could bring.

I used to do that sort of stuff with Korean friends, but I’m less inclined these days, I must confess; more of a fish-eater than meat these days.

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Leeds market - for all your pig head needs.

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I don’t mind pork when it’s crispy …. We don’t eat a lot of it really
I like watching exotic youtube videos from far flung places makes our diet look terrible really

I made one the other day with a half bottle of Azienda Agricola Contesa Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Vigna Corvino which was a fiver from TWS and it was superb. Any robust wine like that will do nicely.

We drank a Bin 28 Penfolds with it and that went down a treat as well.

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I ordered pig cheeks from a local butcher and they gave me quite literally the whole cheeks!!

Lots of crackling and buckets of lard, but not much meat (%-wise). Ended up very tasty but really should have extracted the nuggets of meat for easier eating.

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