This recipe makes beautiful slow cooked stew to serve over noodles or potatoes or even better filling for beef pies. I’ve taken my classic slow cooked beef stew recipe and added a Julia Child twist to it. One thing that makes Julia’s recipes taste fantastic is the separate cooking of key elements that are then combined at the end for maximum flavour. The recipe has 3 key processes: cook the beef, cook the onions and cook the mushrooms. These 3 elements are combined to make either fab stew or even better pie filling. I used my slow cooker for the beef but you could easily put it in the oven on a low heat. I do it in this in order: beef, onions, mushrooms.

Let’s get straight to the cooking.

Recipe

Ingredients – Main recipe

• 1.25-1.5 kilos of stewing beef
• flour for dusting, ground black pepper to taste
• olive oil
• 125 grams of lardons or chopped bacon
• 1 large onion, halved and sliced
• 3 tablespoons (45 ml) of brandy or cognac (I do use VSOP)
• 2 bay leaves
• a dozen whole black peppercorns
• 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary or 1 tsp of dried rosemary
• 250 mls concentrated beef stock
• 750 mls good red wine

Instructions – main recipe

1. Put slow cooker on high.
2. Dust the beef with flour and black pepper (use a ziplock bag or a shallow plate) and place in the slow cooker.
3. Heat the olive oil in a large flat bottomed skillet over medium to high heat. Add the lardons and brown slightly.
4. Halve the onion and mandolin into thin slices directly into the skillet. Soften until translucent.
5. Pour in the brandy, turn the heat to high and cook off the alcohol. When you can’t smell the alcohol, add the red wine and the beef stock. Again burn off the alcohol.
6. Prepare a bouquet garni with the bay leaves, peppercorns and rosemary. Add to the sauce.
7. Pour the sauce over the beef in the slow cooker. Cook on low/medium for 6 hours.
8. The sauce should be quite thick by the end of the cooking time. If not, drain off the sauce and thicken on the stove top with a beurre manie (you know that thing that shouldn’t work but does).
9. Combine the sauce, beef, onions and mushrooms (including cooking juices from both). Serve up over mashed potatoes or noodles. Or top with puff pastry and cook as pie.

Brown braised onions

Brown braised miniature onions

18-24 miniature onions

30 – 50 grams of butter, a shot of olive oil

125 mls of beef stock and red wine

A bouquet garni

1. Peel the onions.  This is annoying so use this blog, it works great. https://www.finedininglovers.com/article/how-to-peel-pearl-onions
2. Bring the butter and oil up to temperate in a skillet, add the onions and brown. 
3. You will need to roll them around in the butter and keep them moving.  They won’t be perfectly even in colour.
4. Add the liquid, salt and pepper to taste and the bouquet garni.  Simmer for 40/50 minutes.
5. Put to one side with their cooking liquid ready to combine in your beef stew.

Sauteed mushrooms

250 grams of quality small mushrooms (double this recipe if you have mushrooms lovers in your house)

30-40 grams of butter

Splash of olive oil

2 tablespoons of finely chopped shallots (optional)

1. Prep the mushrooms to a nice eating size, if small just remove stems, otherwise half or quarter.
2. Heat the butter and oil.
3. Add the mushrooms and shallots if using,
4. Sauté for 2-3 minutes until browned but don’t overcook. 
5. Put to one side ready to include in your beef stew.

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