#beef-bourguignon

#beef-bourguignon

STEP 1: I start by preheating the oven to 450ºF. Next, I chop six ounces of pre-sliced bacon into what Julia calls lardons - small sticks about ¼-inch thick. Then I start working with the beef, which is where the dish can potentially get expensive. Thankfully, this is not the time for a New York strip! At my grocery store, I was on the lookout for three pounds of chuck roast, a fattier cut of meat, and often the cheapest at the butcher counter. If you can't find the chuck roast cut into two-inch squares, you can always ask your butcher to do it for you - a great way to cut back on time.

By the time mushrooms enter the conversation in a beef bourguignon recipe, the heavy lifting of layering the dish's flavors is mostly done. The beef has browned and braised, the veg has caramelized and come together, the wine has reduced, and the meat's collagen has melted into the sauce. It's a long, gentle cook, in which mushrooms are lost if they're added too early.

Smearing a tomato-pasted finger across the page of the cookbook, trying to follow the instructions as the hot oil shimmers in the pan, ready for the onion you don't have brunoised. Quick! Turn off the heat, grab a (hopefully) sharp knife, (carefully) rush through the prep, turn the burner's flame back on, and hope nothing scorched or became soggy in the interim.