Crock Pot Beef Bourguignon with updated review of Chateau Maine D’Arman 2010 wine

Crock Pot Beef Bourginoun

One very energetic winter day I looked up Julia Child’s recipe for beef bourguignon. It was a very labor intensive meal taking a long period of time to complete. It was also out of this world delicious! I couldn’t see doing it often though, a shame since it is so tasty. I decided to attempt to modify the recipe. I’ve done so twice, both worked very well. The first was simply taking out some of the prep steps, using only a single pan; the second was using my previous modified version and doing the cooking in the crock pot.

Crock Pot Beef Bourguignon

Ingredients:

  • 1 beef roast of desired size and cut (I prefer tri-tip)
  • 4 slices bacon- cut into 1” pieces
  • 1 medium onion- sliced, or 1 lb broiler onions
  • 2 cloves garlic- minced
  • 8 oz bella crimini mushrooms- sliced
  • 2 large carrots- cut into large pieces
  • 6 potatoes- halved
  • 1 cup red wine (I like to use Chateau Maine D’Arman 2010)
  • 3 cups beef broth
  • 2 sticks butter
  • 3 bay leaves
  • Flour for dusting

Seasoning mix:

  • 1 tsp sea salt
  • ¼ tsp black pepper
  • ¼ tsp white pepper
  • ¼ tsp ground coriander
  • ¼ tsp caraway
  • 1 tsp rosemary
  • 1 tsp thyme

Directions:

  1. In a medium skillet heat 1 stick of butter over low heat. Add the onion and garlic and saute until the onion is caramelized, about 40 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook until golden brown.
  1. While the onion is cooking add the potatoes to the bottom of your crock pot, then add the carrots.
  1. Add the caramelized onion and mushroom mixture to the crock pot. Do not mix up. You want the potatoes to remain on the bottom.
  1. Slice the beef roast into large chunks, pat each chunk dry with a towel. Coat the beef in a mixture of flour and the seasoning mix, set aside.
  1. In the same skillet you caramelized the onions in, brown the bacon. Remove the bacon pieces to the crock pot but leave the fat in the bottom of the pan. Add the beef and brown on each side. If needed add more butter to the pan.
  1. When the beef is browned move it to the crock pot and de-glaze the skillet with ½ a cup of wine and add to the crock pot with the rest of the wine and the broth. At this time also add the bay leaves and any remaining butter.
  1. Cook on low 8 hours.
  1. To serve remove the potatoes and mash them with some garlic, onion powder and sour cream. If you prefer you do not have to mash the potatoes. You can also take some of the liquid from the crock pot and make a thicker gravy with it at this time. I do this by adding butter and flour to a saucepan and then adding the liquid, whisking until the proper thickness.

If you do not want to do the cooking in a crock pot I would advise getting a pan like This. Then you can do all the steps in the same pan and cook it in the oven for 5 hours at 325 degrees.

caracmelized onions and mushrooms

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I get a lot of hits for This wine review. It seems a lot of people want to know if this is a good wine and I do not know if my previous review covered it all. So I am going to give a few more thoughts after having tried this wine a few more times.

The wine does have good flavor. We had a glass while eating this dinner and it went very well, quite enjoyable. What I did not like, and I’m not sure it was like this last time, was that it was grainy. You could see little bits of red stuff floating around in the wine and they had an awful texture in our mouths. It was really bad at the bottom of the bottle and I actually just threw that out. I don’t want to have to try to chew my wine. If our previous bottle had been like that I am not sure we would have purchased a second. I am unsure if we will give this wine another try after this experience or not. It’s still amazing in this recipe but, that graininess…..yuck!

This post contains affiliate links

Chateau Maine D’Arman 2010 wine and Fontina Mauri cheese

 

This review has been updated HERE.

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Wine:

           2010 Chateau Maine D’Arman, Cotes De Bourg         $12.99

[From the winery notes] A bourduaex blend. “70% Merlot / 20% Cabernet Sauvignon / 10% Malbec
This wine shows a dark ruby-red colour and develops a powerful and intense bouquet of candied fruits. The palate is warm and fleshy with elegant and pleasantly oaky tannins.”

Cheese:

         Fontina Mauri      $4.89

[From cheese makers website] An every day table cheese produced in Lombardy and adapted from the methods in Fontina Italy.

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Wine Review- This wine was fine. Just fine. Not something that would make you put down your glass in disgust but not a wine that would make you lift your glass with glee. I had one glass and felt no need to get another. None of the things we set out to pair it with paired well.

However, We did see that red meat was suggested, so I decided to use the remaining wine in an abbreviated version of Beef Bourginoun. I browned the meat, carmelized the onions, chopped the carrots and simmered it all in the wine. I could not believe how heavenly dinner was. I used the meat juices to make gravy and it was the best gravy I’d ever had in my life. We really need to look at suggested pairings in the future because they were right on with this one. Fantastic!

Cheese Review- Like the wine we were not overly impressed with the cheese. I was putting a slice on bread and eating it with pepperoni. It was perfectly fine. Certainly a cheese you can use in your every day life. This cheese simply didn’t have the WOW factor our last selection had. On that I was disappointed.

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