Slow Cooked Beef Bourguignon

~ based on Simplified Boeuf Bourguignon. Originally from Julia Child.

Serves 4.

Preparation Time: 30 minutes (45 if you need to peel the small onions).
Cooking Time: 8 hours, plus 20 minutes to reheat (or 10 minutes to thicken the sauce).
Cooking Temperature: Low.

• 4 slices of bacon, in strips. Cut the rind off but use in the cooking process
• 500 grams of cubed beef, suitable for a casserole. I used rump steak.
• 1 sliced carrot
• 1 onion, sliced
• 1 tsp of flour, plus another 2 tablespoons for sauce thickening
• 1 and 1/2 cups of Red Wine, conveniently I had a bottle of French Red Wine for Burgundy
• 1 and 1/2 cups of Beef Stock, I used a bouillon cube
• 1 tablespoon of Tomato Paste / Puree
• 2 cloves of garlic, pureed.
• Few sprigs of fresh Thyme
• 2 Bay Leaves. The recipe I used suggested crumbling them, I would advise against this. I did this the first time and I got left with crumbled bay leaf in my mouth – which was not great.
• 10 – 18 small white onions. These small onions are hard to get hold of in the UK, they are the ones used for pickling onions. I used shallots instead which are much bigger, and I used two per person, after choosing the smallest I could find.
• 4 large quartered mushrooms, although whole button mushrooms may look better presentationally

If you know Julia Childs recipe you will see that I have cut out some of the ingredients, the extra butter and cognac, you can add them back in if you wish.

If your slow cooker needs it pre-heat it, I turn mine on to max heat, while preparing the contents.

Heat a frying pan under a medium heat and add the bacon and the rind fat with around 30 ml of water.

Cook for 5 minutes until the bacon is starting to brown and the water mostly evaporated. Add the bacon, not the rinds, to the slow cooker.

With the bacon fat still left in the frying pan place back on heat and add the cubed beef, start to brown.

Once the beef is browned all over, add the teaspoon of flour and coat the beef in it. Again add the beef to the slow cooker, leaving the bacon rinds in the frying pan.

Removing the worst of the leftover flour from the pan, again put it back on the heat, this time adding the sliced, onion and carrots. Cook them stirring to ensure they don’t burn for around 5 minutes. (You can add more oil if you think it is necessary).

Once the vegetables are beginning to soften, remove the bacon rinds, add the red wine, beef stock, bay leaf, thyme sprigs, small onions, mushrooms and tomato paste.

Heat until the liquid is starting to bubble, making sure all your ingredients are hot when entering the slow cooker is the key to using it correctly – especially if cooking at a low temperature.

Add the mixture to your slow cooker, turn the heat down to low and place on the lid.

Leave for 8 hours. The first time I made this I put it on in the morning before work and left it till I came home, after which I immediately followed with the last section. The second I finally put the lid on at midnight and turned it off at 8 o’clock in the morning. I then left it for several hours before continuing.

Once you are ready to eat this dish add the entire contents of the slow cooker to a pan under a medium heat. In a slow cooker it is hard to create a thick sauce because no water evaporates (this is why the recipe uses less beef stock and wine than the non-slow cooked version). Twenty minutes in a pan if from cold, and 10 if from heated should be enough to evaporate some of the extra water out of the sauce, if you wish to thicken further remove some of the liquid maybe around 4 tablespoons and add to a bowl, then add the 2 tablespoons of flour mix until smooth and then add back in.

Stir the sauce occasionally to keep all the meat and vegetables covered with sauce, so they don’t dry out. Once your sauce is suitably thick and warm, serve, either with new potatoes and veg, or with noodles.